Chain of Evidence

by Ridley Pearson

  Dartelli allowed as how any CAPers detective would have acted in pretty much the same way; suicides cleared quickly.

  “Listen,” she confessed openly, “this is the kind of thing I celebrate. A known piece of shit takes himself out. Saves me time and energy. Five months on a five-year sentence? That’s justice?” she asked angrily. “But it was a suicide, and it was investigated by Kowalski.”

  “Meaning?” If she had evidence to support that Kowalski had somehow mishandled the investigation, then it was a case for Internal Affairs, not CAPers, not him.

  She didn’t answer his question directly. “Gerry Law worked the young girls in the neighborhood. Befriended them. Got them to trust him. Obtained a promise of secrecy. And then the horrors began. He took his time with them to make sure he could count on their secrecy-broke them in slowly. Kept some of them for several years. Took photos and videos. Sold some of them, used the photographs to blackmail the older ones: ‘You wouldn’t want your mother to see this.’ Pure slime. Discarded those over fourteen. We had some mothers who suspected someone in the neighborhood, but couldn’t find a witness. He had them all too well trained.”

  “You knew but couldn’t do anything?” Dartelli asked incredulously.

  “Suspected,” she corrected. “This kind of abuse is often first noticed in the bathtub at home or at the doctor’s office. It’s insidious because it’s not always that obvious, depending on the act. A doctor has to know what to look for. Parents-mothers in particular-are often the worst: They don’t want to believe what they see. Happens all the time.”

  “But you busted him,” Dartelli recalled. He leafed through the CAPers file, studying the photographs of the hanging. Lawrence’s body hung by the neck from a length of wire fixed to a ceiling light fixture that was itself pulled out of the Sheetrock.

  “Sure. We got lucky, but only once. Seven arrests, one conviction-you know the drill.”

  Dartelli also knew the frustrations that went along with such work.

  As he reached Bragg’s forensics report, she asked him, “Why use a strand of lamp wire? Does that sound right?” He flipped forward to the detailed report of the apartment’s contents.

  “What are you saying?” he asked. But he understood the question perfectly well: She doubted the suicide.

  She said, “If you’re Lawrence and you’re planning to do something like this, why not get a piece of rope?”

  Dartelli hurried through Bragg’s crime scene report. It lacked detail, indicating a hasty job typical of both a suicide investigation and Kowalski’s lax approach-the usual cotton and synthetic fibers expected in any home, some copper filings from the lamp cord found on the floor under the body, nothing special.

  “How did you finally get him?” Dart asked, trying to keep her away from questioning the suicide.

  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 poin
t 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 laws of physics. They dictate the rate at which an object will fall. You can’t screw with that, no matter what. This is a three-D modeled visualization program-computer animation but governed by the laws of physics. How fast and at what angle of trajectory an object falls determines where it lands-pretty simple. In this case, vice versa-we know where Stapleton landed. We measured it. We photographed it. We documented it every way available to us-and that’s considerable. Doc Ray’s pathology report tells us that wounds on Stapleton indicate that he struck that giant cement pot before he landed-one of those pots designed to keep trucks from driving into the lobby, although at the Granada Inn I think that might be an improvement.

  Dartelli felt obliged to chuckle, though he felt a little tense for this reaction.

  Bragg went on. “That pot is a fair piece of change away from the wall, which is what got me interested in the first place.” He glanced at Dartelli-he had mischief in his eyes. “Enough of my flapping,” he said. “I’ll let my fingers do the talking.”

  The screen changed to a color photograph. Bragg told him, “This is from inside Stapleton’s hotel room.” He hit some more keys and the photograph faded away, replaced by an exact replica in computer three-dimensional graphics.

  “Nice,” Dartelli said.

  “Slick piece of software,” Bragg agreed. “But notice the restrictions. Place is a sardine can. Foot of the bed practically hits the dresser; you can’t even open the bottom drawer all the way-I tried that, remember?” he asked curiously. Dartelli didn’t remember. “Enter David Stapleton.” He touched a few keys and a three-dimensional stick figure appeared in the room, looking like an undressed mannequin. “The animation lets us interact with Stapleton’s possible trajectories in a scientifically accurate model,” he emphasized for Dart’s sake. Bragg revered science the way theologians talked of God.

  He worked the keyboard again, returning Dartelli and the screen to the outside, this time from the sidewalk perspective where a crime-scene photograph showed a bloodied Stapleton folded on the sidewalk. He once again manipulated the system into performing a metamorphism between the photographic image and one that was the result of computerization. Stapleton transformed into that same white mannequin.

  “We work backward.” He controlled the software so that the mannequin slowly unfolded itself, lifted off the sidewalk, connected with the rim of the enormous cement pot, and then floated up into the air, feet first, head pointed down toward earth. Dartelli recalled the black kid’s description of Stapleton diving out the window, the kid whistling as he waved his large hand in the air indicating the dive.

  Bragg said, “The specific trajectory allows us to compute velocity necessary to launch Stapleton out the window in order for him to travel the distance he actually traveled. Any other velocity, and he lands in a different spot, connects with that pot differently, or misses it altogether.

  “Then,” Bragg added, “we look at three different scenarios: stepping off the windowsill, running at the window and diving, or … being thrown.”

  Dart’s breath caught and heat spiked up his spine. The chair wavered and nearly went over backward; he caught his balance at the last possible second.

  “We ask for new chairs,” Bragg said, “but we never get them.” He worked the keyboard. “Check this out.” The screen split into two halves: on the left, a side perspective of the interior of the room; to the right, a frontal image of the hotel and a graphical chalk mark where Stapleton had hit. The computerized colors were unnatural, the image eerie.

  The mannequin walked to the window, climbed to the sill and awkwardly squeezed through the small opening and disappeared. On the adjacent screen the computerized body appeared and fell through space. It landed feet first near the building’s brick wall, far from the chalk mark.

  “He didn’t simply jump,” Bragg said. “So did he dive?”

  The mannequin reappeared inside the hotel room. Feet on the floor, the head exited the open window and the body disappeared. In the communicating window, the body fell slowly and struck, headfirst, well away from the cement tub and the chalk mark.

  “No,” Bragg answered. “He did not dive.”

  Dartelli noticed that he had tuned out all else; he felt as if he were inside the computer screen.

  “We have his weight programmed into it, his height. If he had an extraordinary build I might tweak things to make him appear stronger to the software. But he’s basically a normal build, and I’ll tell you something-he needs a hell of a lot more velocity,” the scientist explained. “So, let’s make him run for that window.” The software showed the mannequin attempt to run through the room for the window. The tight quarters required an awkward sidestepping. “You should have seen us trying to convince the thing to do that dance,” Bragg said. The mannequin struck the window, and fake pieces of glass went out with him. “We tried ten different times to get him out that opening with the speed necessary. He went through the glass every time. Turns out he would have had to start the dive back by the bed to make it out that opening with the necessary speed. That computes to traveling three feet, perfectly level through the air-Superman, maybe, not David Stapleton.”

  Dartelli said, “And that leaves-”

  Interrupted by Bragg. “A little help from my friends.” />
  A second mannequin appeared in the room, appropriately, dark gray, almost black. It picked up the Stapleton mannequin by the neck and waist, took two running steps toward the window and ejected the body. In the adjacent screen the body appeared and floated downward. It fell short of the cement tub, but drew much closer to the chalk outline than the other attempts.

  “We got it right on the second try,” Bragg announced. “He would be a big guy, or one hell of a strong woman or smaller man, to accomplish this.”

  The gray mannequin was noticeably larger this time. Two steps and the body was thrown from the room.

  It came out the window parallel to the ground, arced, rolled, and the left shoulder impaled itself on the cement tub. The body lurched back, the head snapping sharply, and the mannequin smacked to the sidewalk in a crumpled heap.

  Bragg worked the keyboard. The crime scene photograph reappeared, perfectly replacing the computer graphics. An exact match.

  “Wow,” Dartelli said, rocking forward tentatively in the chair. A big guy, he was thinking. He had a couple of candidates in mind.

  “My sentiments exactly.” Ignoring the screen and the photograph of Stapleton’s bloodied heap, Bragg faced him. “The unfortunate part is that it’s not proof, Joe. It can certainly be used to sway a jury or a judge-I’m not saying that it’s worthless-but we have no other evidence to support someone spear-chucked Stapleton from that room, and the evidence that we do have contradicts it fairly strongly, given that it would have taken an Amazon woman-an easy six feet, one-eighty, one-ninety. If she’s under six feet, then she’s built like Schwarzenegger.”

  Dart’s attention remained on the screen. “So it suggests homicide but doesn’t confirm it.”

  “Precisely.”

  Dartelli wormed his hands together, and fidgeted in the chair. Its springs creaked under his weight. A dozen thoughts flooded him, but one quickly rose to the surface.