Ridley Pearson - Chain of Evidence

“I’m sure.” She studied him. “Hard on anybody, Joe.”

“Kowalski ended up in the hot seat, but because of his connections he was pretty well protected. Spent most of his time defending an investigation that had basically gone nowhere.”

“If it’s any consolation, Joe,” she said, still misunderstanding him, “I’m sure you did as good a job as could be done, given the circumstances.”

“Me? No. It was Zeller who broke the case.”

“Meaning?” She had that Abby look of concern that he had come to know-knitted brow, pursed lips, lowered chin. If she had read those files, then she knew that the case had never been “broken,” but simply cleared as a jumper.

“It was Zeller who ID’d him. He had jumped from a window on the night of that terrible blizzard. Hit hard, and either landed or rolled into the street. Covered by the falling snow, he was struck by a city plow and pushed three blocks down the street, where he was deposited under a snowbank for three weeks. When it finally thawed, we had the Ice Man on our hands.” He stood and she followed, and they walked deeper into the woods. Gray and brown tree trunks; leaves mushy underfoot. He wasn’t sure how much to tell her, but he began to realize that it was all going to come out, that secrets were a thing of the past. If nothing else, he thought, this is a dress rehearsal for my discharge. “Zeller found the apartment first.” It should have sent up a red flag, he thought. “He didn’t want it to appear that he was working Kowalski’s turf, so he funneled the information through me-pointing me without actually telling me anything.” He’s doing the same thing again , he realized.

“He was the best,” she said admiringly.

“Maybe too good,” Dart replied, confusing her, judging by her expression. “He taught me-drummed into me, is more like it-to always return to the crime scene, not just once, but several times, that you always see it differently. And so that’s what I did.” He stopped. This was the dangerous territory, and despite his resolve to tell her everything he felt himself holding back, and he hated himself for it. This was the voice of the devil, he realized-still looking for a way out, still believing that the secret could be reburied.

“Are you going to explain that?” she asked. She pulled at her jacket, fending off the cold. She sat down on a log and Dart joined her.

He nodded and swallowed, his mouth and throat bone dry, and said, “It wasn’t from my repeat visits, but Teddy Bragg’s report and the accompanying inventory of the Ice Man’s apartment. It listed a spool of hemp rope. It was put down as a fifty-foot spool of three-eighths-inch hemp. Your mind does funny things. Who knows where my mind was, or what it was up to, but that hemp rope leapt out at me and wrapped itself around my neck like a noose.” Again he tried to swallow. Again his throat constricted. “Lucky Zeller had been found tied up with three-eighths-inch hemp.”

Abby, squinting, rocked forward nervously, her hands clamped in a viselike grip between her thighs.

Dart said, “I had access to the other Asian Strangler reports-Lucky wasn’t the only one. All three of the victims had been tied and bound with hemp rope. I was very proud of myself, and not thinking it through. I wrote it up and put it into the file. I requested that Teddy Bragg collect the spool from the apartment.”

“Oh, God,” she said, seeing clearly where Dart was headed.

“Not long after that, I started thinking what you’re thinking now, and it terrified me too.” He hesitated and said, “I stole two pieces of the rope from the property room-one used on Lucky Zeller, the other from the spool found in the apartment. I circumvented Teddy and submitted the samples to the lab and intercepted the return report so that no one saw it but me. It came back that the two were from the same manufacturer-more than likely the same lot run.”

“Oh, Christ.”

“Zeller had somehow tracked down his wife’s killer-the Asian Strangler-and, as far as I was concerned, had probably caved in his hat and then tossed him out a window to cover it up.” He looked up at the bare limbs and the gray sky-it all seemed so dead. “I had to cover myself, because the State Police lab would itemize the work done for us in their monthly bill, and Teddy Bragg, meticulous as he is, would see it. So I properly filed the lab report in with the Ice Man file, in case he checked-put it right where it belonged.”

“Oh, shit!” she said.

Good little Boy Scout , he was chiding himself as he held up a finger to stop her briefly. “I had some thinking to do. The Asian Strangler was dead. A man who tortured and mutilated women. No cost to society. No more concerns about the threat he posed. And I had to think: What’s so wrong here? If I was right, Zeller had evened the scales, had done us all a favor, and maybe had found a way to live with the loss of his wife. He was no longer drinking. He was looking better, even talking about teaching down at the university.” He continued, “But I had left quite a trail of evidence. I had to bring it to Kowalski’s attention-to Haite and Rankin-or let it slide. Leave it where it was-divided between the property room and the file room.”

She paled noticeably.

He said strongly, “It was entirely circumstantial. I knew damn well that this was no grounder. We wouldn’t get a conviction-not if Walter Zeller was in fact the killer; he wouldn’t leave that kind of trail-”

“Oh, shit,” she said, realizing what she had done by alerting Haite to the Ice Man files.

Dart felt resolved now to tell it all. In a way it felt good to him. “But I did bring Zeller the evidence that I had. I told him what I knew, and what I thought he had done. He must have gone ten minutes without saying anything. Then he looked over at me and told me that it was time to retire. He showed no remorse, no guilt. But he had hate in his eyes-he had wanted to stay on in the department, and he knew that I had ended that.”

She scooted over to him and held him, and he felt the warmth of her through his jacket. “I’ve opened it up again.”

“It’s better, I think. This thing has damned near killed me. And now Stapleton and Lawrence and Payne-all far too close to the Ice Man.”

“Oh, shit,” she gasped.

“It’s him, Abby. I may never prove it-I don’t know how he’s doing it-but I know it in my heart, and that means that I’m responsible for those deaths. You want to talk about motivation to solve a case?”

She leaned back and caught eyes with him. “They’re slime, Joe. Every one of them is pure slime. Trust me on this. There’s no great loss here.”

“Look the other way?” he said, disgusted. “You don’t think I’ve considered that? A jury of one? Uniform justice? Shoot the guy in the alley and it’s easier on everyone? You try that out. It’s not something you can live with and keep coming to work.”

“Bullshit,” she said. “You don’t know that you’re right. You can’t prove it-you said so yourself. You need to find Zeller, to collect more evidence.”

To take control , Dart felt like adding.

“Haite will tear you apart. You’ll be suspended, investigated-and you never will find out the truth.” She added, “Do you think Kowalski will?” She checked her watch. “There’s still time.”

“For what? Me to get out of the country?” he mocked.

“To get the Ice Man files and the evidence and make them disappear.”

“You’re not serious,” Dart said.

“I got you into this.”

“Abby-”

“I am serious,” she said. “And damn it, I’m going to need your help.”