Ridley Pearson - Chain of Evidence

Fifteen minutes later Dart and Abby Lang were back in the department-issue Taurus soaking in the air-conditioning. Abby stated strongly, “She killed the dog, or let him go, or gave him away.”

“You think?”

“She wants those rabbits.”

He had a witness now that in many ways he did not want, and yet felt grateful to have. Someone had murdered Lawrence- the same person who killed the Ice Man? he wondered-and no matter who this person turned out to be-even if Walter Zeller-he had to be stopped, and right away. He couldn’t help but think that he might have stopped this killing if back then had he spoken up. He felt cold all of a sudden.

“Why would Kowalski leave her out of his report?” she fired at him.

Kowalski was a big white man; Dart understood what Abby was saying. He objected, “She could be lying about the guy’s color. About any of it.”

Abby kept her attention on the road and slowed for a red light. “I don’t think she’s lying,” she said.

“No,” he said, though he wanted to bury the whole thing. He thought he understood Kowalski now more than ever.

Mistakes compound other mistakes, Dart reminded himself. You overlook something three years ago, and it comes back to haunt you. I did my job, he reminded himself, wondering if a board of inquiry would see it that way, wondering if his career was on the line. He felt like a fuck-up. A fool. He considered a transfer-someplace in the South, away from the winters. People might attribute it to his breakup with Ginny. It was a good time to try.

But the better part of him knew that he could not outrun the truth. Better to stay and fight.

Abby asked, “What exactly is going on with us, Joe?”

Dart felt his face and spine go hot. How could she disconnect from Lewellan Page so quickly? Was that what Sex Crimes did to you, numb you, the way Homicide turned you into a comedian?

She wanted an answer; she didn’t want to repeat herself.

“Let’s forget the ice cream,” he said.

“I’m not talking about ice cream.” Abby found a stray button on her blouse and closed it. She steered clear of a slow-moving truck, turned at the jai alai fronton and crossed over the tracks. She parked in the back of the Jennings Road building, and just before they climbed out of the car, announced, “I know what I know. I know what I’m feeling from you. For you. It’s scaring me a little.”

“You’re good company, Abby.”

“Okay,” she said, accepting this.

But Dart didn’t accept his own explanation. He wanted to say something. She was more than good company; he was interested-the couple of years that separated them didn’t bother him a bit. She was a fighter; a comer. She spoke her mind, and when she met eyes with him he felt it inside.

Whereas she seemed to have faced all of this, to have reconciled herself to the obvious, he could not. Not verbally. And so he said nothing: Another deliberate omission on his part. Would he pay for this one as well?

After weeks of routine work in which it was easy to lose himself, Dart still retained a folder on his desk containing five mug shots that little Lewellan Page had identified as likenesses of Lawrence’s killer. To her credit, the faces appeared similar-renewing Dart’s faith in her as a witness. He stumbled onto the folder on a Wednesday afternoon in early October and decided to do something about the worry that he had been living with since the interview. The only step that he could clearly see was to steal a look at some files that he did not have authority to access. The risk had kept him away from them, but on this particular Wednesday he snapped. He had to do something before another “suicide” turned up.

Dart walked down the hall to Abby’s office, shut her door quietly, and asked her out for an ice cream.

“An ice cream?” she asked, viewing him curiously-as much for the way in which he had shut the door, as his question. “It’s October. ”

“Someplace away from Jennings Road is all,” he informed her.

They met eyes and he sensed that perhaps she understood. They agreed to meet in the parking lot a few minutes later.

The Oasis Diner was across town on Farmington Avenue, on the way to the Mark Twain house and West Hartford. The first triple-wide diner in the country, the Oasis retained its art deco interior, which included a total surround of stamped stainless steel and movie stills of Brando, Monroe, and James Dean. Dart had vanilla, Abby raspberry with chocolate sauce.

“So?” she asked. The drive over had been in complete silence.

Dart said, “Kowalski was Narco before Homicide. Doc Ray’s preliminary of Stapleton turned up some injection marks. They may be nothing, but it’s possible that Stapleton-maybe Stapleton and Lawrence-were dealers. The point is, we’ll never know because Narco records are shut away, and after what they’ve been through, if we go asking questions, we’re likely to open up a hornets’ nest and have Haite asking a lot of questions that neither of us wants to answer until we have some answers. Are you with me?”

“All the way,” she said, rolling her tongue over the chocolate sauce. She made no attempt to disguise her enjoyment and then licked her lips. “Lawrence was a cover-up?”

“It depends if we believe Lewellan Page or not,” he said.

“She wouldn’t survive on the witness stand, if that’s what you’re asking. No. She’d be torn apart by the psychologists, who would discover her abuse and create all sorts of reasons she would want to invent someone killing Gerry Law. That’s my professional opinion. Personally, I believe her, and I think that you do too, or we wouldn’t be sitting here, and you wouldn’t look so tired and bothered.”

“If we apply through Internal Affairs for Lawrence’s Narco file, it will take a ream of paperwork and six weeks. Plus countless interviews and reports, and at some point we’ll have to put everything out on the table.”

“In the meantime, we aren’t sleeping well,” she said, sampling the ice cream again. She drew it into her mouth on the end of a white plastic spoon and skimmed the surface softly with her lips stealing a little bit of the prize at a time, until what was on the spoon disappeared and she went after more. He sensed no intention on her part in making this overly sensual-it seemed more her way of eating her ice cream, but Dart had a difficult time with it. What would it feel like to be kissed by her?

“I’d like to get inside the Narco file room,” he confessed.

The spoon stopped inside her mouth. She returned it to the paper cup and put a napkin to her lips. “You what? ”

“We need to know, one way or the other, if either Stapleton or Lawrence was ever investigated by Narcotics. It’s our only hope of connecting Kowalski to Lawrence.”

She set the spoon down, noticeably more pale. She looked around, as if he might have been overheard. “You must really trust me,” she said, staring at him. “Does the word suspension mean anything to you? Or how about the words, suspension without pay? How about an IA investigation with you as its target?” She pushed the ice cream away. “If you’re using me as a sounding board, Joe, then take this advice: Forget it. They’ll suspend you, maybe toss you. They’ll make an example of you-that’s how it works.” She cocked her head at him. “What is that look?”

“Narco is empty by one in the morning. They’re all out working the streets or eating doughnuts or killing time at strip joints. By three, they go home. CAPers is up and running, but it’s down the hall. Thursday through Sunday the cleaners start at midnight. The rest of the week, they go eight to eleven.”