Chain of Evidence

debris.

Zeller, his eyesight adjusted to the darkness, saw Dart take a face full of bark and splinters. Zeller knew that the next sound he’d hear would be Dart’s last moment on earth.

No time for him to find a better position. It had to be now.

Like shooting fish in a barrel, using a scope like that. For himself, Zeller realized, it was over: He had tried to bring down Roxin and he had failed. The Davids didn’t always win out over the Goliaths- justice was something strived for, but not always won; as a cop, he had lived this truth for over twenty years. He pushed his back against the tree, pulled his knees into his chest, braced his arm, raised his weapon, and he fired. I will not be locked up, he thought. The report echoed through the woods, and the shot drew the respect of the shooter, who abandoned the electronic search in Dart’s direction, and he turned the laser onto Zeller.

Zeller fired again, thinking, Show me that muzzle flash …

The red dot crept across the snow, up a tree, and found Zeller’s knee. The sergeant braced himself. Give me a target, he mentally challenged.

A yellow-white flash came from within the woods straight ahead.

The woods echoed with a volley of reports as Zeller squeezed off a succession of shots, intentionally creating a wide pattern. His knee blew apart. His shoulder exploded. He managed one final shot. Run like hell Dartelli, he thought to himself. Go with God.

Dart, pressed into the snow, cleared his eyes. Zeller had clearly emptied his magazine and had to be in the process of reloading, for the woods were absolutely silent. As his eyes cleared, he could discern the rigid symmetry of the black tree trunks rising from the white snow, and the surreal geometry of the power substation to his left. He lay perfectly still, waiting-expecting the red dot to find him.

He came to his knees and scrambled wildly through the snow, stealing his way more deeply into the trees. He awaited a signal from Zeller but knew that with the shooter still out there, the sergeant too would lie low. He relived the events of the past few minutes once again-the sound of Zeller unloading, the ensuing silence.

Zeller might have hit him, Dart realized.

He crept forward, his eyes better now. He could make out the smooth white bark of the trees, the glowing ceiling of low clouds bouncing back the city light, the unbroken clarity of the snow, as sheer and smooth as a silk scarf.

Minutes passed, and still nothing. Dart wormed through the trees, making his way back toward the small clearing by the substation where he had last seen Zeller. He moved carefully, stopping every few feet, his body protected by a tree, eyes alert for the laser’s searching red dot. He waited and listened, and then he moved on, cautiously. He couldn’t be sure of time, but it seemed that five or ten minutes passed. And still nothing. No human sounds. No movement. Fear gripped him.

The hum of the power station grew louder. Again he paused, assessing the area, ever alert for the sharpshooter’s laser. The closer he came to the clearing, the more of a target he presented. At the start, Zeller had been in this approximate area. He looked for him left, and then right. He scanned the snow for tracks. The silence was frightening. It occurred to him that Zeller, believing he had hit the shooter, might have gone after him to confirm the kill. He realized that his best move might have been to remain relatively close to where he had been injured in case Zeller was himself now seeking out Dart, the two of them going around in circles. He moved forward, stopped, and waited. Nothing. Systematically, he moved forward again.

When he looked left, he saw him: Zeller was about ten yards away, sitting up, still facing the area from which the shots had come. Dart hissed at him, but not loud enough to gain his attention-or else Zeller was simply refusing to acknowledge, his attention all on the shooter.

It was bad form for Dart to approach the sergeant and increase the size of their target, so he hunkered down behind a pair of trees and waited. After another five minutes of absolute silence, of bone-numbing cold, he began resenting the man’s behavior. At a stakeout that had gone bad, Zeller had once kept him waiting like this for over forty-five minutes. When Zeller lit up a cigar, Dart would know the sergeant considered the area clear. Dart waited another three minutes and ran out of patience. He had seen Zeller take at least two shots-he might have passed out.

Dart weaved his way through the standing tree trunks and hissed once more, this time close enough, loudly enough, to be heard. Again, Zeller refused to acknowledge him in any way. So typically arrogant. Dart felt angry at the man-he would go to any length to remind Dart of the hierarchy of their relationship. He would sit by a phone and allow it to ring until Dart answered it. It infuriated Dart. He finally reached the man-Zeller was leaning against a small evergreen that bent away from him with his weight, a pair of white-bark birches in front of him as a screen. He held his gun in both hands, resting on the ground between his legs. His knee looked badly hit.

It was the position of Zeller’s gun that sent alarm shivering through Dart-the arm was slack, the barrel of the weapon planted into the wet snow and mud. Zeller revered his weapons, preached the code of proper care and handling. Treating the weapon like this was unthinkable.

Dart took another few cautious steps, coming to within an arm’s reach. He smelled blood. He leaned forward in the dim light. “Sarge,” he whispered anxiously, glancing over his shoulder, all the while expecting the laser’s searching dot. “Sarge,” he repeated.

The man didn’t move.

Dart looked into Zeller’s face. The hole was quite small, immediately below the left eye. He gasped. “Sarge!” he blurted out, the knot tightening in his throat, his chest burning, his eyes filling with tears. He didn’t reach out to touch him, to disturb him, only to check for a pulse. He gripped the man’s warm wrist, realizing in a flood of memory that the two had rarely touched, even to shake hands, realizing that, had Zeller had even a single heartbeat of life left within him, he would have broken Dart’s grip instantly and told him to keep his hands to himself.

Walter Zeller was dead.

Forgetting himself, forgetting all training, placing himself at serious jeopardy, Joe Dartelli raised his face to the sullen sky and shrieked, “No!” so loudly and for so long that to hear it from a suburban home one would have imagined a wounded animal. He stood then, weapon in hand, not thinking of lasers or semiautomatic weapons, but only of revenge. He ducked and moved deftly and quickly through the trees, as smoothly as water over rock. He ran across the clearing, his feet slipping on the wet snow, and entered the opposing woods. Tree by tree, he worked his way across the front of this copse, knowing the shooter could not have been too far into the trees during the attack.

At his feet, brass casings lay scattered about. Warm when first ejected, they had melted small tunnels into the snow. The ground was scuffed and muddy from the shooter’s frantic movements.

The path of mud indicated that the shooter may have dragged himself off into the woods, back toward Zeller’s former home. Whether he had followed one of them here, or had been keeping the place under surveillance and had overheard them, Dart couldn’t know.

The prints were not clean, and the snow was discolored with either blood or mud or both.

Neglecting concern for his own safety, Dart quickly cut his way through the trees and shrubs, leaving the hum of electricity behind him. The track left by the shooter grew heavier and more labored until it became apparent to Dart that the man had been wounded, had crawled his way through the trees. He pressed ahead, knowing that he must be gaining on the man.

Through the woods came the plaintive cry of sirens-at least two, perhaps three or more. The shots had been heard and reported. Dart suddenly had to contend with the pressure of time-he could not afford to be brought downtown for an officer-involved shooting investigation. The key to dealing with Martinson would be speed, timing.

He heard groaning before he saw the man. He passed the black shape of the man’s discarded weapon and kicked it aside. The shooter lay on his side, curled in a fetal position, clutching his bleeding stomach with both hands, ignoring his wounded shoulder. It was too dark to see much of his face, but his fingers were spread open, his hands clearly empty. He was a tall, lanky man-not the same build as the man in the laundry.

Zeller had hit him twice-a serious gut shot and a minor bleeder in the shoulder. The gut shot was final. Even with an ambulance, he didn’t look as if he’d survive.

The sirens quickly drew closer. Dart heard one of the cars come to a stop up on the highway rest area where Dart had parked.