Chain of Evidence

turned to return to his waiting car.

As he stepped down onto the second step, he heard and felt something crunch beneath his shoe, and the alarm inside his policeman’s brain sounded. He wanted to label it glass, but it didn’t fit. Almost like glass, his senses told him. Don’t stop! the same internal voice warned. But he did. The steps proved too dark and he withdrew his small penlight, condemning himself for being such a Boy Scout, and shined the light onto the step. The cone of light caught tiny white stones, like stars in the night sky. But stones did not pulverize as these had, and so Dart looked closer, still checking over his shoulder for a mugger or a kid with a semiautomatic. Cautiously, he knelt, reached out and carefully pinched some of the material between his fingers. That same alarm sounded with this tactile contact: rock salt!

Bragg had connected rock salt to the Payne suicide-to Payne’s possible visitor-and although Dart might have been elated with such a discovery, in this neighborhood, on this street at this time of night, he half wished that his foot had missed that step.

Mac tried to bark from the back of the Volvo, sounding like a vacuum cleaner with its belt out of adjustment. Dart glanced up to see if it was a warning, but decided it was only old Mac longing for company, wanting to go home. Me too, boy.

Dart placed the dust into his palm and shined the light on it. A watery-blue hue-just as Teddy had described it.

In theory, because 11 Hamilton Court was listed as a location of a bald cypress tree, with this discovery Dart had two of the three elements identified by Bragg. The detective in Dart could not ignore this. Like it or not the wretched old house seemed inexorably linked to Harold Payne. He deposited the pinch of rock salt in his top pocket, gathered his courage, and decided to look around back.

A narrow dirt driveway ran alongside the building and accessed a rickety wooden slat fence that had once been painted green. Having no legal right to enter, and keeping in mind that 11 Hamilton Court might prove valuable, Dart elected to stay out, but he found a space in the rundown fence to peer through. Inside this back area, it was dark, and his eyes took a nervous moment to adjust. Along with his anxiety, he felt excitement.

Unable to see, he lifted the penlight and shined it inside, and what he saw caused him to gasp. Once an enclosed garden it was now a place of ruin and neglect. Lying on the ground, the printing wet and faded, the paper burst open like a rotting corpse, a bag of potting soil had spilled its contents across the path to the back stoop. The third element that Bragg had described! To the left of the area stood a scraggly tree, its limbs barren for winter, at the base of which-and, in fact, littered across the entire area including where Dart stood-was a carpet of small needles, some a dull green, others brown and amber. A bald cypress tree, Dart knew, without knowing. He collected some of the fallen needles into his pocket.

He quickly turned off his penlight and glanced up the sheer wall of the worn house, his heart racing, his skin prickling. It seemed so gloomy and desolate, like a haunted house from a film or a nightmare. But this place was real, and the effect on Dart, palpable.

Whoever lived here had been inside Harold Payne’s on the night of the killing-not suicide, but killing. And the cop’s instinct welling up inside of him said that this person had been more than just a visitor.

Dart made for the car, unlocked it, and climbed inside. Mac greeted him with a slobbery kiss. “We’re not going home, boy,” he informed the dog, intending to keep 11 Hamilton Court under surveillance.

Abby reached Dart on his cell phone at eight-fifteen, reminding him that he was forty-five minutes late for dinner. He told her briefly about his find and that he and Mac were keeping an eye on 11 Hamilton Court from up on Zion. Without a bit of annoyance, she announced that two dinners to go were on their way.

Twenty minutes later Abby Lang, in blue jeans and a deerskin jacket, was sitting in the front seat of his Volvo, working on a chicken salad. For Dart, the most difficult part of police work was sitting around waiting for something to happen, which was one reason he had eschewed Narcotics.

“Lewellan’s mother has given her consent for the girl to participate in a lineup,” Abby announced proudly. “If we ever get a suspect.”

“And how did you pull that off?” Dart asked, thrilled that they might have a viable witness but still confused by the face that the girl and Tommy Templeton had created-not Zeller, not Kowalski. He was toying with the idea that Zeller had hired these hits-but kept his own distance in case something went wrong, which, when attempting to stage suicides, seemed inevitable.

“Magic.”

“I’d say so,” Dart replied.

A while later, with two paper coffee cups riding the dashboard, Dart said, “I have a confession to make.”

She rocked her head on the car seat and looked at him. “Okay,” she said.

“It’s not okay.” He hoped that she might pick up on what he meant, but she waited him out. “I’m getting used to this. Comfortable with it. You and me, I’m talking about.”

“I know what you’re talking about.”

“And yet, at the same time, I still think about Ginny.”

“I still think about my marriage.”

“I know you do,” he said.

She took a deep breath and said, “There are times when I’m madly in love with you, Joe. Others, when I’m not so sure.”

“I feel that.”

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I wish it were different. I really do.”

“I’d like to see more of the kids. They’re always going off somewhere just as I arrive.”

“I don’t want to hurt them,” she said. “They’re too young to understand all this.”

The seat cushion crackled as she adjusted herself. He could hear the drone of city life-traffic, mostly. A disturbing silence hung over them.

She added, “Charles and I have planned all along to get together for a week and see if we can’t put it back together. I told you about that,” she said defensively. “I … we … it’s for the kids’ sake.”

“I thought maybe that had changed, given the last month.”

“No,” she said, crushing him, “that hasn’t changed.”

“That’s not fair,” he complained.

She popped open her door and scrambled out of the car. She jumped across an icy puddle and up onto the sidewalk and started away from him at a brisk pace. She was risking both the surveillance and her own safety. He, too, broke the rules. He left the car and chased after her. She heard him coming and increased her stride.

“Abby,” he called after her.

“Don’t!” she objected.

“Come back to the car. It’s my mistake.”

She stopped and turned, and he bumped into her. She pushed him away forcibly and hollered loudly, “You’re damn right it’s your mistake. And a big one. These are my children we’re talking about.”

“I’m sorry,” Dart apologized. He approached her tentatively. She eyed him skeptically, and then the two of them wound together, arm in arm, and she whispered into his ear, “Asshole.”

“Jerk. Let’s drop it, okay?” he asked. “Whatever happens, happens.”

She nodded. Halfway back to the car, she took his hand. Joe Dart laced his fingers with hers and squeezed.

At eleven-thirty the downstairs light at 11 Hamilton Court went dark, followed several minutes later by an upstairs light going on. Dart explained, “An automatic timer.”

“Agreed. Either that or someone has been walking around in the dark for the last five minutes.”

Together, they watched the building until one in the morning, when the upstairs light went off. Dart repositioned the car on Park Terrace, where Abby could keep an eye on him as he crossed and once again knocked on the front door. No answer. He returned to the back of his car, moved a sleeping Mac out of the way, and got into his first-aid kit. Using a piece of white athletic tape, he bridged the hinged side of the house’s front door, placing it at ankle height. If the door were opened, the tape would tear loose from the hinge.

Around back, again with Abby watching, Dart wedged a thin stick into the crack of the only gate in the