Chain of Evidence

She answered, “An eighteen-year-old girl came forward. She had seen some Oprah program that dealt with sexual abuse, and realized what had been done to her and how she had blocked it out. We put her on the stand and she identified him, but she fell apart on cross and that cost us. He gets five years, commuted to one-out in six months; five, as it turned out, because of prison overcrowding. I mean, here’s a piece of shit that had done over a dozen young girls by some counts, and he gets virtually nothing.”

Dartelli pulled out the medical examiner’s report.

Abby reached over his shoulder and flipped past to a photocopy of Lawrence’s suicide note. “Let me ask you this,” she said. “You’re Gerry Law, slime ball pervert, and here is your last comment to the world. Two sentences, the grammar correct, the message simple. ‘I can’t live with my crimes. Forgive me.’”

Dart studied the photocopy. The lettering was jerky, indicating stress-understandable, he thought, given that the man was about to kill himself. Nonetheless, the wording was curious, though he was loath to admit it. What is she after?

“The choice of words is what intrigues me,” she said. “The word crimes for instance. Is that how a guy like this thinks? Crimes? I’ve interviewed dozens of these men, Joe. It doesn’t ring right with me.” He could see in her doubting expression that he faced trouble. “Does that sound right to you? Some down-and-out slime ball living on the edge of Bellevue Square?” She answered herself, “It sounds more like a prosecuting attorney than Gerry Law.”

Or a detective, he kept to himself, thinking of Walter Zeller.

“What if Gerry Law was into drugs?” she asked. “What if he has a Narco record as well?”

Roman Kowalski had worked Narcotics before coming over to CAPers; Dartelli finally saw what she was after-she suspected Kowalski. Not Zeller.

She had nearly flawless skin, belying her age. She nibbled at her lower lip as she concentrated and said, “The Narco files are kept separate, same as mine. Without access to those files, we’d never know if there was a connection between an investigator and these suicides or not.”

“Listen,” Dartelli said, feeling heat spike up his spine, “this is interesting, Abby, but I doubt there’s any great cover-up going on here.” There had been a shake-up in the department a year earlier. Two Narco detectives had been sent packing. She was still sniffing these same bushes.

“You’re CAPers, Joe. You could take another look at the Lawrence case-maybe it’s connected to Stapleton.”

Maybe it is, but not in the way you think. It occurred to him how convenient it would be for him if it could be connected to Kowalski. Realizing that she had handed him the Lawrence file not for his sake, but because of her own curiosity, Dartelli wondered how to shake her interest. “What is it you want from me, Lieutenant?”

“It’s Abby, Joe. Please! And you know how it is with me and CAPers. How far would I get with any of this?”

It was true, her rank and privilege were coveted and the source of much envy and resentment in CAPers. Sexism was rarely discussed, but it existed. “Any of what, Abby?”

She offered him a look of annoyance and disappointment that reminded him of his mother. He felt a pang of guilt and he wanted to shout: Leave me alone!

She reminded, “Two suicides, both investigated by the same detective-one, with a questionably worded note. You were at the Stapleton scene, Joe. All I’m wondering … what I’m asking … was there anything there to suggest any kind of-”

“No,” he cut her off. “Nothing.” Leave it alone, he mentally encouraged. Drop it.

The interruption infuriated her. “You, Joe? You’re not one of them.” She meant the clique at CAPers, the old boys’ club. No, he wasn’t one of them; he was Ivy, the outcast with the education-only Zeller had included him. “Don’t tell me that. I don’t believe that for a minute. We’re not so different, you and me. And don’t tell me to go running to Internal Affairs, because you know damn well that would be the beginning and end of it. Kowalski is far too well connected.”

Roman Kowalski was loved by all. Perhaps the worst cop on the force, the biggest fuck-off, and the detective with the best connections to the top, the most friends and allies. “You want me to stir up trouble? Is that what you’re asking?”

“Just forget it,” she said, standing up, glaring down at him, and then storming off.

He wanted to call out to her-to stop her and tell her that yes, he too was curious. But he sat in his chair watching her go, hurting, knowing somehow that things were different now, and that with Abby’s involvement he would have to beat her to the truth.

He looked at the open file in his lap. She was good; she was thinking; she was trouble.

Damn her, he thought.

CHAPTER 4

“You look tired,” Dartelli told the man, feeling both curious and nervous about this impromptu meeting. He hadn’t lost any sleep over Bragg’s “stay tuned” comment of a few days earlier, but he hadn’t forgotten about it either.

Bragg looked worse than tired, sick maybe, the kind of sick that steals color from the cheeks and reddens the eyes and paints an inescapable sadness over a person’s demeanor to the point that it’s hard to look without asking questions or offering advice. Dartelli didn’t know where to start; Bragg’s condition seemed irretrievable. Looking at him was like looking at a sad old dog. Dartelli felt sorry for him.

“I am tired,” Bragg confirmed needlessly. “And I haven’t got good news, I’m afraid.” He waved a finger at Dart, leading the detective out of his small office and across the hall to the pantry-size partial lab on the other side of the photo processor. Some computer equipment was gathered cheek by jowl in the far corner alongside some plastic milk crates stacked and used as shelving. That same finger directed Dartelli to a worn office chair. Three of the four wheels had survived its years; Dartelli tilted left and slightly back, feeling as if he might tip over any second. Bragg took the newer chair, the one immediately in front of the keyboard and oversize monitor. He placed his hands on the keyboard; his skin was shriveled and looked old-too many chemicals, Dartelli thought. Too many hours in laboratories. There were reasons they offered retirement at twenty years; Dartelli could spot those who had passed the date.

Bragg said, “We can go over hairs and fibers until the cows come home. It’s all neat and sweet. Buttoned up nice. Woman there-a hooker maybe, on account of finding both the vaginal condom and the one in his pocket-seems like overkill for a real relationship, doesn’t it? She likes to dye herself red. We confirmed that. So what? He likes redheads. What do we care?

“They were in bed together; I can prove that,” he continued. “She took a shower. She used the toilet. I’m good on both of those. Sometime later our Mr. Stapleton decides to test the effects of gravity. Nothing real new. In terms of trace evidence, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing sending up red flags. That’s what we got on the one hand.”

The computer came next, and not as any surprise to Dart, who was waiting anxiously for whatever had tightened Bragg’s throat to the point he had to squeeze out his words. He was excited about something. When he was really gassed about one of his discoveries, he went instantly hoarse.

“One big difference between the laws we both deal with. Yours are made by man and they vary all the time according to courts and juries. Mine are laws of nature, and they don’t vary an iota. I can’t make them vary, even should I want to-and sometimes I want to real bad.” He slapped the space bar dramatically, and the screen came alive with color. It took Dartelli a moment to see that he was looking from above, down the face of a building at a sidewalk. It was done in computer graphics, and though realistic, it did not look like anything Dartelli had seen: not quite a photograph, not quite a drawing.

“I know this place,” Dartelli said.

“The De Nada,” Bragg informed him. “The particular laws I’m referring to are the