Chain of Evidence

Then, across the street, appeared a group of youths like a pack of hungry dogs. Where they had come from, he did not know. But there they were.

He had spent much of the last four years interrogating cold-blooded killers no older than these kids-killers who showed absolutely no remorse, proud to kill for a pair of basketball shoes or a leather jacket or the imagined love of a sweetheart. Blank eyes. Dialogue borrowed from movies. Human shells, void of love, filled with unspeakable hate.

They spotted him and they catcalled. They liked the shotgun, they yelled and taunted. Dart cut across the street at a run, not looking back. Appear in control, the frightened voice inside of him encouraged. When he heard their footsteps at a run, he knew that he had problems. He turned up the steam, broke into an all-out sprint. A cop running from a bunch of punks. … He couldn’t let go of this thought, and yet he couldn’t run fast enough.

Halfway down Funk, he violated his own rule and glanced over his shoulder. They were coming for him. They too were running.

He felt the desperate fear of the hunted. Never mind that he was armed equally, he was outnumbered. He faced armed children who would kill out of boredom, who would kill because of the color of a man’s skin. He faced the very real possibility of firing his weapon at a minor. Could he bring himself to do such a thing? He had no idea if and when self-defense could or would overcome reason.

They were fast runners. They were gaining on him.

He often had dreams in which his legs grew impossibly heavy. He would run as hard as he could and yet be caught in a slow-motion crawl. And now the bad dreams came face-to-face with reality as he felt a huge weight bear down on him, drain him, drive him into the pavement as if his limbs were suddenly cement and the pavement beneath his feet a thick gripping mud.

“Yo, dude!” a high, winded voice called out from behind.

Dart reached Seymour and cut right, running smack into a group of four Hispanics in their twenties. Dart fell to the sidewalk and quickly scrambled to his knees. One of the kids drew a weapon and aimed it at Dart.

“Police!” Dart announced, more from instinct than consideration. He tugged back the shotgun’s recoil and engaged a shell.

“Bullshit,” the kid with the weapon said. “Gimme your gun.”

Dart, winded and out of breath, heard the fast slap of shoes as the other gang quickly approached. The Hispanic holding the gun had only a fraction of a second to make his decision. He seemed to take in Dart’s shotgun. Perhaps he recognized it as a police issue. He looked to his friends, shrugged, and gently returned his weapon to inside his jacket. He nodded. “Be cool, man.” Perhaps he had simply thought Dart out of his mind.

Dart ran on, his muscles aching as he tensed, expecting he might be shot in the back.

But instead he heard angry shouts from behind him as the kids from Funk Street collided with the Hispanics on Seymour. He heard the words, “He’s heat, man! He’s heat.”

Dart slowed to a fast walk, barely able to catch his breath. Up ahead, the facades on the buildings looked vaguely familiar, and he thought he remembered the look from the old photos on Zeller’s hallway wall. Seymour Street. For just that second he lost his focus, neglected to take in his surroundings. He leapt up into the air as a pair of alley dogs barked from only inches away, and he landed poorly, twisting his right ankle. He went down hard, dropping the weapon, and rose painfully to his knees. The dogs bellowed, edging toward him, heads down, teeth glaring. He picked up the fallen shotgun. One of the dogs lunged at him. Dart jumped back and fell onto the ankle and went down for a second time.

He growled back ferociously. The dogs whined and took off.

Regaining his feet, he glanced across the street and this time recognized the building without question. A faded photograph: Zeller with his aging parents, all grouped on the steps that served as a porch. The photo was daytime.

Now it was night.

The building’s upper-story windows were lit.

The back door was locked. Dart tried it a second time, gently twisting the knob, leaning his weight against the frame, but it wouldn’t budge. The only accessible window was locked and seemed to be nailed shut from the inside. Dart leaned his shotgun against the wall and slipped out the speed key. He shoved it into the upper lock, squeezed its trigger, and twisted, hearing a slight click. With the dead bolt free, Dart turned the doorknob and pushed, and the door came open, scraping against the sill. He took hold of the shotgun and stepped inside. He grabbed the doorknob, lifted the door on its hinges, and shut it silently.

The first thing that caught his attention was the smell of cigar smoke. It was both familiar and frightening. He stood absolutely still, caught up in memories, a surge of emotion flooding him. With all his determination, he had not given much thought as to how he might handle an actual confrontation with his mentor. He couldn’t help but still love this man, respect him, trust him even. He had formed his professional identity within this man’s formidable shadow, had been protected by him, and had, in turn, guarded him as both patron and teacher. He stood at that moment, shotgun in hand, intending to confront him-to accuse him of plotting and carrying out a string of homicides. Charges that would result in Zeller being brought downtown, to where he had earned his reputation as the best of the best.

The kitchen was small and dated back to the fifties: chipped linoleum, a stained sink, and pitted fixtures. The countertop carried crumbs and detritus of past meals. A string of small black ants paraded along the seam of the splash, disappearing behind an old toaster. The cigar smoke hung in the air. He felt it as a warning: Zeller was not far.

Dart set down the shotgun, having intended it for street defense, not necessary with Zeller. Then, having second thoughts, he picked it back up. He moved stealthily into a small sitting room and turned up a narrow flight of stairs. Zeller had been raised here; he had told so many stories about his youth and this place that Dart found himself imagining he knew the floor plan, disappointed now that the real item did not live up to his memory. It was far less grand than Zeller had painted it. Embellished by memory, the home’s size had been exaggerated by its former resident. Dart felt a growing sense of dread as he climbed the stairs: Zeller, a murderer, waiting somewhere in a house he knew well. Dart, the reluctant inquisitor, a stranger here. Zeller did not surprise well; he tended to lash out and ask questions later. Dart neared the top of the stairs, an equally narrow hallway leading to an open door immediately to the right and two opposing doors directly ahead. All the doors were open, all dark. It felt to Dart like a shell game-he expected to find Zeller in one of the three. But he worried too about the noise he’d made with the kitchen door-Zeller could well be expecting him.

Dart searched his memory for a clue left by one of Zeller’s family stories. He could hear the man’s voice inside his head, could see him sitting there…. Something about as a kid having witnessed a mugging down on the street, he recalled, leading him to favor Zeller’s room as being either of the two directly ahead of him. He would duck into the nearest room first, establishing a defensive position behind the doorjamb, then wait for some sure indication of Zeller’s position. His heart seemed stuck up in his throat, his chest was tight, and his mouth dry.

He was drunk on fear; his knees felt like water. Circulating his head were the crime scenes of the so-called suicides, the deaths so neatly orchestrated. Would this be how someone found Joe Dartelli? Were these to be his last few minutes-sneaking around an unfamiliar house in pursuit of a man he felt as close to as a father? He wondered what thoughts had been inside his mother’s numbed mind when she had pursued him. Had she, in her own way, been as terrified of finding Dart as he was of finding Zeller?

He lifted the stock of the shotgun, training the barrel at the floor in front of him; it would require only a slight lift and a squeeze of the trigger. At close range, a shotgun made everyone an expert marksman.

He counted down slowly from five, an old habit meant to settle the nerves. As far as he could tell, the technique failed miserably: three … two … He took one quick step up the last stair and turned quickly to his right.

The back of a wooden chair hit him squarely in the chest, as if the person on the other end of it were swinging for a home run. As the wind exploded from him, Dart raised the shotgun and pulled the trigger, and then pulled it again, but nothing happened-jammed from the tumble out on the street. The concussion of the chair lifted him off his feet; he skidded across the hall and banged into the far wall, expelling what little air remained. Dart gasped for breath, his chest feeling paralyzed, his ribs bruised. The shotgun flew from his hands as a boot connected with it. That same brown boot then came for Dart’s face, swinging straight up toward his chin, but Dart