“I didn’t see it. Did you see this envelope when you went through the material?”
“No.”
Scott said, “I have it—their notes and the envelope. Down in my car. You want, I’ll go get it.”
Orso shifted position. He had been shifting and adjusting himself for the past ten minutes.
“Oh, I want, but not now. What made you think you could take
“The note said it was trash. Melon told him to toss it.”
Orso closed his eyes, but his face rippled with tension. His voice was calm, but his eyes remained closed.
“Okay. So you gave yourself permission to take it because you thought it was trash, but now you believe it’s evidence.”
“I took it because of the rust.”
Orso opened his eyes. He didn’t say anything, so Scott kept going.
“They collected this thing on the sidewalk directly below the roof above the kill zone. This is the roof I told you about. When I was there, I got rust on my hands. I thought there might be a connection. I wanted to think about it.”
“So you hoped it was evidence when you took it.”
“I don’t know what I hoped. I wanted to think about it.”
“I’ll take that for a yes. Either way, ’cause I don’t give a shit if you thought it was evidence or trash, here’s the problem. If it’s evidence, by taking it home like you have, you not being an investigating officer on this case, only an asshole we were courteous to, you’ve broken the chain of custody.”
Cowly’s voice was soft.
“Boss.”
Scott did not respond, and did not care if Orso thought he was an asshole. The cast-off brown leather strip had led to Daryl, and Daryl might lead to the shooters.
Tension played on Orso’s face until a tic developed beneath his left eye. Then the ripples settled, and his face softened.
“I apologize, Scott. I should not have said that. I’m sorry.”
“I fucked up. I’m sorry, too. But the band was at the scene, and Daryl Ishi was wearing it. Guaranteed. My dog isn’t wrong.”
Cowly said, “Daryl denies it’s his, and denies being at the scene. Okay, we can swab him and comp the DNA. Then we’ll know.”
Orso considered the evidence bag, then rolled his chair to the door.
“Jerry! Petievich! Would you see if Ian’s here? Ask him to come see me.”
The I-Man joined them a few minutes later. His face was more red than Scott remembered. A surprised smile split Ian Mills’ face when he saw Scott.
“You get a news flash from the memory bank? That white sideburn turn into a big ol’ pocked nose?”
The stupid joke was irritating, but Orso got down to business before Scott responded.
“Scott believes Marshall Ishi’s younger brother, Daryl, was present when Marshall robbed Shin’s store, and may have witnessed the shootings.”
Mills frowned.
“I didn’t know he had a brother.”
“No reason you should. Until now, we had no reason to think he was involved.”
Mills crossed his arms. He peered at Scott, then turned to Orso.
“He passed the poly. We established Marshall left before the shootings went down.”
“He also claimed he was alone. If Scott’s right, maybe Marshall is just a good liar.”
The I-Man’s gaze clicked back to Scott.
“You remember this kid? He saw the shootings?”
“This isn’t a memory. I’m saying he was at the scene, and I believe he was on the roof. I don’t know when he was there, and I don’t know what he saw.”
Orso slid the evidence bag to Mills, who glanced at the bag but did not touch it.
“Scott found this in the case file. It’s half a leather watchband SID collected at the scene. Scott believes he’s linked it to Daryl Ishi, which would put Daryl at the scene. Before we go further, you need to know we have a chain-of-custody issue.”
Orso described Scott’s mistake without passion or inflection, but Mills’ face grew darker. Scott felt like a twelve-year-old in the principal’s office when Mills unloaded.
“Are you fucking kidding me? What the fuck were you thinking?”
“That no one had done a goddamned thing for nine months and the case was still open.”
Orso held up a hand for Mills to stop, and glanced at Scott.
“Tell Ian about the dog. Like you explained it to me.”
Scott began with Maggie’s first exposure to the scent sample, and walked the I-Man through his test at MacArthur Park, where Maggie tracked the scent across the width of the park directly to Daryl Ishi.
Scott gestured at the evidence bag, which was still on the table by Mills.
“This was his. He was there the night we were shot.”
Mills had listened in silence, frowning across his bristling forearms. When Scott finished, his frown deepened.
“This sounds like bullshit.”
Orso shrugged.
“Easy enough to find out. The dog might have something.”
Scott knew Mills would listen to Orso, so he pressed his case harder.
“She has Daryl Ishi. See these red streaks? There’s a rusty iron safety fence on the roof. SID says these little red smears are rust. His watch got caught on the fence, the band broke, and this piece landed on the sidewalk. That’s where SID found it.”
Orso leaned toward Mills.
“Here’s what I’m thinking. We pick the kid up, swab him, run the DNA. Then we’ll know if it’s his. After that, we can worry about whether he saw anything.”
Mills paced to the door, but didn’t leave, as if he had needed motion to contain himself.
“I don’t know whether to hope the thing is good or garbage. You screwed us, kid. I can’t fucking believe you walked out with a piece of evidence, which, by the way, even the stupidest defense attorney will point out you contaminated.”
Orso leaned back.
“Ian, it’s done. Let it go.”
“Really? After nine fucking months with nothing to show?”
“Pray it’s good. If we get a match, we’ll know he’s a liar, we’ll know he’s hiding something, and we’ll find a thousand work-arounds. We’ve danced this dance before, man.”
If a future judge excluded the watchband, he or she might also exclude all downstream evidence derived from the band. The downstream evidence was called “fruits of the poisonous tree,” under the principle that evidence derived from bad evidence was also bad. If investigators knew they had a piece of bad fruit, they tried to find a path around the bad fruit by using unrelated evidence to reach the same result. This was called a work- around.
Mills stood in the door, shaking his head.
“I’m too old. The stress is killing me.”
He seemed thoughtful for a moment, then turned back to Scott.
“Okay. So when you and the Hound of the Baskervilles ran down this kid, I suppose you questioned him?”
“He denied everything.”
“Uh-huh, and you being the trained interrogator you are, did you ask if he saw the shootings?”
“He said he wasn’t there.”
“Of course he did. So what you actually accomplished here was, you gave the kid a big heads-up that we’re
