Ridley Pearson - Chain of Evidence

Back inside Narco, Dart unlocked the file room for the second time, blocked the door open with the rag, and switched on the light.

The room was crowded with gray metal utility shelving along all walls and a pair of opposing stacks in the center. All the shelves were crammed with folders.

Dart checked his watch. This could take a while.

A rolling stepstool allowed him access to the top shelves, which was where he found the L’s. Dart was surprised by the number of files, each representing a Narco investigation, an arrest, or a snitch. The city’s drug problem was huge. He fingered the spines: L … A … W … and came up with five files carrying the last name LAWRENCE. Splitting his attention between the files and the open door, Dart nervously inspected the spines of each of these five files. Charles “Buster” Lawrence, Eldridge Lawrence, Philip Lawrence, Maynard Franklin Lawrence, Lawrence Taylor Lawrence. No Gerald. Dart hadn’t thought to memorize the dead man’s social security number, or driver’s license number for comparison, and people like Lawrence used enough aliases that it seemed plausible that any one of these five could be his. Dart took the time to go through the folders again opening each to a mug shot or crime scene photo. One by one he eliminated them; no Gerald Lawrence to be found. If Lawrence had been investigated by Narcotics, it hadn’t been in the recent past.

Disappointment depressed him.

He didn’t need the stool for Stapleton. The S ’s were in the center aisle with S … T … A at eye height. Again, he thumbed through the spines, all marked with color-coded stickers.

A phone rang, not ten feet from him. Dart’s heart skipped and his chest froze, and for a second his head swam. The phone in the outer room rang again, seemingly louder, and a third time. Hurrying, he overcame his anxiety and started pulling files stickered S … T … A.

Stacker; Stadler; Stafford … He had to pull each file out a ways in order to read the name on the spine. He looked down the line of similarly colored stickers, realizing there were dozens of S-T-A s to go. He jumped forward by a group of ten: Stands … Standzleff … Staples … Stapleton. Three of them: Clifford, David R., Edgar. He tugged David R. from the shelf, but felt distracted by the possibility of someone walking in on him.

He pulled open the file. There, looking back at him, was the mug shot of a younger version of the jumper. He pulled the paper clip and flipped through the pages to the write-up. Possession and distribution of a controlled substance. David Stapleton had been busted fourteen months earlier for dealing speed. Dart’s finger raced down the sheet to the name of the lead detective: Roman Kowalski.

His pager vibrated at his side. “Careful, it’s wet!” he heard a slightly hysterical Abby called out loudly.

Dart flicked off the pager, shoved the Stapleton folder back into the stack, and turned for the file room door.

It took four strides to reach the green cotton rag bracing the door. Dart kicked the rag out of the way and rounded the edge of the closing door in a smooth motion, his right hand seeking out and locating the light switch. As the file room door thumped shut, the light went off simultaneously. Dart picked up the feather duster and beat the desktop violently, the result of too much adrenaline.

He heard a male voice in the hallway call out, “Someone done already clean up here?” A moment of silence lapsed. “Hey, lady, someone already done this floor?” Dart could hear the man’s footsteps and the rattle of the man’s cart as he drew closer. Ironically, this was worse than being discovered by a Narcotics detective who would pay little or no attention to the lowest of the low: a janitor. But one cleaner erroneously covering another’s territory was certain to raise some Irish.

Answer him , Dart mentally encouraged her. He pushed his cart, but only a few inches because the bad wheel cried out, and then ensuing silence engulfed him. There was no way to hide the cart without drawing attention. Dart stood inside the Narco offices feeling completely exposed.

“Somebody done mopped the hall,” Abby answered. “What do you think-that they did it for fun? ”

The cart stopped rattling, signaling that the man pushing it had come to a halt.

Dart turned and slipped the speed gun into the file room door, prepared to use this as his hideout. The cleaner wouldn’t have a pass key. The unexplained cart would present a problem, but at this hour would anyone make a fuss?

The silence dragged out. Had the cleaner spotted the open door to Narcotics, or had Abby’s tone merely humiliated him into thinking this through?

“You could always clean it a second time,” she offered sarcastically, regaining her composure. “You people never do a very good job the first time anyway.”

“Ain’t you a peach,” the man replied. “No wonder your sorry ass is working late,” the man replied angrily. “Who the hell would want to be with you?”

“Fuck off!”

“Bitch.”

“What’s your name?”

The cart began to rattle again, and this time more quickly. The cleaner was beating a hasty retreat. She had pushed this into the realm of a personal argument, and as a police officer-as a client-she carried the stronger hand.

Dart waited through the agonizing minutes for the elevator to arrive. He then edged his squeaking cart out into the hall and closed the door. When he glanced at Abby, she was shaking her head at him in disappointment. Dart fingered the brim of his hat in thanks and raced to the elevator, stopping only to snag the WET FLOOR sign and stash it on his cart. He had to return the cart to the first-floor storage room as quickly as possible. He didn’t want the cleaning company raising any questions and if he could pull this off, then when the cleaner reported the conflict, Abby would be gone, the floor would be dry, the sign gone, and there would no evidence that any cleaning had taken place. The result would be an impression that the cleaner was trying to shirk some of his duties.

Dart rode the elevator nervously, his finger resting on the CLOSE DOOR button, ready to push.

As the elevator doors slid open, he smelled cigarette smoke and heard a man and a woman in conversation. At this hour, he assumed them to be cleaners. He needed to return the cart and then get out, both without being seen.

The hallway was clear. The voices appeared to be coming from down toward the Property Room, where a door led to the parking lot. Grabbing a smoke , he realized.

“Johansen! Get over here!” a voice called out from Dart’s left as he was stepping into the hall.

“Coming,” the male smoker hollered back.

Johansen, the smoker, would have to pass the elevator to reach that other voice.

The detective stepped back into the car and punched the CLOSE DOOR button. Nothing! He punched it a second time and the doors finally responded, though to Dart they seemed to close more slowly than any pair of elevator doors he had ever encountered. The footsteps of the two smokers approached quickly, and it sounded to him that they would reach the elevator before the doors shut fully.

He tugged the cart parallel to the elevator car’s side wall and squeezed himself with his back against the panel.

But the elevator interior was done in mirror, he realized too late, and as the two smokers passed by, the woman glanced into the car and saw Dart’s reflection in the mirror.

Had he managed to appear calm, he might have pulled it off, but as it was, with his face screwed up into a knot and his eyes locked in terror, he gave himself, and his false identity, away. This woman worked with only three other people, and Joe Dartelli was not one of them.