Haite, still maintaining eye contact, bored a hole through Dart. He understood the meaning of Dart’s reserved tone of voice-he was trying to warn the sergeant off. Perhaps the only coincidence that Haite could pick upon-without Dart’s cooperation-was the date of Zeller’s retirement, which followed quickly after the Ice Man investigation.
“No questions,” Haite whispered dryly, fingering the photocopy of Wallace Sparco’s driver’s license, and Dart had to wonder what the man saw in the face. Did he, too, see the resemblance to Zeller?
Dart nodded. “Fine with me.” He hesitated and asked again, “And the ERT raid?”
“I’ll see what I can do.” Haite now looked as pale as Teddy Bragg.
Two vans pulled onto Park Terrace at 1:00 A.M. One was painted gray and carried a red diagonal stripe that read: MANNY’S STEAM AND CLEAN. It had been confiscated by the State Police in a drug bust two years earlier and was now outfitted with a personal computer and printer, communications hardware, and an elaborate video setup. The second van was a customized beige Dodge with what appeared to be darkly tinted windows but were in fact one-way glass. Behind the glass, six men and one woman sat on opposing steel mesh benches. Clad all in black, wearing combat boots that laced over the ankle, four were members of the State Police ERT unit. One of the outsiders was Joe Dartelli, who had suffered through an egregiously boring ninety-minute briefing that had been lectured by the commander of the State Police unit, Tom Schultz. The remaining two, a woman named Gritch and a man named Yates, were a team that someone at HPD had coined “Ted Bragg on amphetamines”: evidence technicians whose specialty was speed and efficiency.
They all wore communications devices in their ears, night-vision goggles perched on their foreheads, bullet-resistant vests, black handcuffs, black nine-millimeter semiautomatic handguns in their belt holster, and maglights Velcroed to their belts. Gritch and Yates carried bulging black canvas bags at their sides, the straps slung over their shoulders and necks. They all wore black farm hats that carried the single word POLICE in bright yellow stitching. The veterans called these “target caps” for obvious reasons. The ERT members wore the hats backward like black and Hispanic kids. The protective vests carried bold yellow print across the back: STATE POLICE. All but Dart also carried a stun grenade and a smoke grenade-both of which Dart had argued to leave behind. But ERT, the most militarylike unit of the State Police, did not, would not, vary from procedure.
One of the ERT members sitting directly across from Dart said, “A military unit could put a scope on those windows and tell us if we were facing any life-forms.”
“Life-forms, Brandon?” one of the others teased. “What are you expecting, Klingons?”
“Attack dogs, asshole. Animals and humans. The scopes work off infrared. You can scope right through walls with the newer ones.” Brandon held a bunch of electronic gear in his arms. Dart easily identified him as the techie.
“Hey, commander,” a third said to Schultz. “We ever gonna get anything like that?”
“On our budget? Who the fuck you kidding?” Schultz was the marine drill-sergeant type who had given the briefing. Every other word was a swearword or a denigrating, obscene comment involving some aspect of female anatomy. “Tit-sucker.” “Fist-fucker.” “Cunt breath.” A real charmer.
Gritch apparently tolerated Schultz, storing away enough harassment ammunition to retire comfortably if she ever chose to press a suit.
After the ninety-minute soliloquy, Schultz and Dart had entered into a brief but vehement discussion of chain of command, Dart emphasizing that it was his raid, Schultz insisting it was his team. They compromised whereby Schultz would handle the team logistics while Dart directed the actual reconnaissance-in this case, the physical inspection and the collection of evidence.
The search warrant had to specify what it was that Dart was looking for, if that item was to be removed for lab work. The trick-one of the oldest tricks-was for him to list everything and anything that he could think might be found in the search. It took a cooperating judge to go along with such practice, but there were plenty. On Dart’s list was everything from a portable vacuum cleaner to lamp cord, wool rugs, to latex gloves.
“Scope on,” Schultz directed Brandon, who carried what looked like a black metallic snake clipped at the calf and thigh to the outside of his right leg. He reached up to his head and flipped a small device into place that looked like a dentist’s mirror and came to rest two inches off his eye. His right hand worked a small box attached to his belt that Dart could not fully see. He reported, “Scope fully functional.” ERT members, Dart thought, apparently saw little use for verbs.
Schultz checked his watch. It had a black face and was on a black plastic band. Probably wearing black shorts, Dart thought. Schultz looked up at the van’s ceiling, which Dart now understood was this man’s reaction to radio communication, because as lead detective Dart was also able to hear the voice traffic from the operations van. “Two minutes,” Schultz told his troops.
Dart felt the prickle of heat in his scalp.
Exactly two minutes later, following a brief communication check between members of the unit, the van started up and turned into Hamilton Court.
Schultz rattled off orders. “Single file, people. We stay in shadow where possible. Brandon will scope the back gate; we move on my signals-we speak as little as possible. Any resistance, we withdraw to the park and our support transportation. Questions?”
“If we encounter weapons fire?” one of Schultz’s men asked.
“Dartelli leads the retreat to park. You, Brandon, and I take up defensive positions and follow ASAP. Anyone else?”
Dart felt his heartbeat strongly. He wanted to think of this as a drill, but his adrenaline told him differently. The van stopped and the doors flew open. The team moved quickly, quietly into the shadows. Dart, a part of them, could barely see the others.
“Okay,” Schultz said.
He followed at the back behind Gritch. The unit was well trained and moved as an entity. The van, having hesitated only long enough to disgorge the team, purred down the alley. Schultz held them in shadow for exactly one minute and then moved himself and his gadget man, Brandon, across to the green wooden gate. The two knelt and Brandon uncoupled the black snake from his leg and inserted it under the fence. The snake was, in fact, a fiber-optic camera, the small dentist mirror at his eye a viewing scope. Brandon inspected the back garden area and, with a hand signal, pronounced it clear. Schultz, using a speed key, unlocked the gate and then signaled the unit forward, his ERT man leading the way, followed by the evidence technicians and then Dart.
Within seconds, the unit was lined up in shadow alongside the house. Dart’s heart pounded heavily and he felt sweat trickling down his ribs. Brandon slipped the fiber-optic camera under the weather seal of the back door and used the video gear to inspect the inside. A moment later, Schultz had opened this door as well. Again, he waved them forward.
They were inside.
Dart had only used night-vision equipment once, in a seminar hosted by the New England Law Enforcement Association. The goggles were bulky, and the view from within them an eerie combination of green, black, and white. The unit moved ahead fluidly, but Dart felt awkward and disoriented, as if he had stepped into a video game. With his world reduced to glowing colors, he moved forward one unsure foot at a time.
Inside, the house was as it was outside-old and worn. In this first room there was a shoddy couch, a tilting standing lamp, a frayed recliner, and an old television set. Gritch and Yates fixed their attention onto Dart, who immediately pointed to the recliner; the two evidence technicians attacked the piece, working silently, efficiently, pulling cushions, sweeping, dusting for latent prints, digging at the crevices. Glassine and white paper bags, premarked with room locations, were used to capture the finds. In seconds the recliner was itself again. “No prints,” Gritch whispered into her microphone, playing in Dart’s right ear.
Dart scanned the roo
m, experiencing tunnel vision, annoyed by the goggles.
Schultz and his commandos were gone, presumably conducting a preliminary search. Gritch tried dusting the television remote. She shook her head at Dart. Yates took a special solvent and cleaned the dust away, leaving no trace of their having been here.
Dart looked across at an upright piano missing several keys. There were a half dozen photographs in acrylic frames on top. He pointed these out to Gritch and Yates as well, and again they descended on their targets with an uncanny quickness and efficiency. Bags were opened-somehow silently-and Gritch produced a special camera. Yates removed what looked like a flashlight from his pouch, switched it on, and directed it at the photographs. Without the goggles, the special light would have appeared an extremely dull violet. Inside the night vision it appeared as if he had shined a halogen flashlight onto the subjects. Gritch fired off a series of shots, and to Dart’s surprise the camera worked in absolute silence. It would be explained later that the camera was digital, recording the images onto a computer disk. These images could be enlarged and manipulated electronically.
Room by room, the team moved through the house. The kitchen was tiny. Gritch and Yates spent most of their three minutes there dusting objects and pulling tape in hopes of lifting latent prints. Dart checked the refrigerator and made mental notes: male food. Bacon, eggs, hot dogs, beer, Diet Coke, turkey sausage, English muffins, ice cream, orange juice, and a dozen frozen dinners. Yates swiped the toilet rim and bagged the tissue from the downstairs half bath. Gritch seemed to inventory the cleaning products, paying special attention to those that retained price labels.
All the while, a steady stream of communication flowed in to Dart and Schultz from the operations van. Mostly, this came in the form of a running time count: “one minute,” “two minutes thirty seconds …” These were punctuated by announcements of “traffic approaching” and “traffic clear.” This barrage instilled in Dart a sense of protection, of security; knowing that three plain-clothes street officers were working the immediate neighborhood and were in constant touch with the operations van.
They had been inside the building just over five minutes before Dart began to understand Schultz’s actions more clearly. Saddled with a team of six-concerned for the unit’s safety-the team leader was deftly deploying his manpower to avoid having more than three people occupy any one of the small rooms. Dart, Gritch, and Yates were orchestrated as a team, while Schultz and his three armed ERT men swept the next area and kept on constant alert.
Dart and the evidence team next found themselves headed down a narrow wooden staircase into an unfinished basement area that housed a washer/dryer, a clothesline, several cardboard boxes of storage, and, just to the side of the staircase, a workbench cluttered with fly-tying materials and hardware. Gritch signaled Dart, pointing to the side of the clothes washer, and to the shelves above. She shook her head no. Dart returned the gesture. Her message was unclear to him. She touched her communication pack and whispered, “No detergent, no bleach.” Dart saw then what wasn’t there, realizing, as Zeller might have once schooled him, that what was missing was as important as what was present, and that Gritch and Yates had been carefully schooled in such matters. Dart nodded, making a mental note.
Dart pointed out the fly-tying work area, and the team descended on it, furiously photographing, sampling, and collecting. Again, Dart found himself impressed, all their combined movements measured, coordinated, and productive. They left the basement within two minutes.
Schultz directed Dart and the evidence team to the second floor, where a narrow hall accessed two bedrooms and two baths. The main bedroom was larger than the guest room and had its bath adjoining. There was enough ambient light here that Dart could remove the annoying goggles, but Gritch and Yates kept wearing theirs.
“Seven minutes,” came the steady voice in Dart’s earpiece.
The evidence pair went about photographing and sampling areas of the room while the detective stood back, studying the layout. The bed’s headboard was centered between two windows that faced the alley. Across from the bed, a chest of drawers awkwardly spanned the corner, just clear of the door to the bath, to the right of which was a door to a closet. Something about the room troubled Dart, though he couldn’t put his finger on it-the neatness? the cleanliness? the lack of personality? He wasn’t sure.
It clearly had been lived in. He could make out a small pile of coins on top of the dresser, a Bic pen, and what might be a roll of antacids. Yates was already busy working these for latent prints. Dart edged over to the closet and carefully opened it, his hand sweating inside the latex glove. There were a dozen shirts on hangers, and a white wire rack that held folded jeans, socks, underwear, T-shirts, a sweatsuit and other clothing.
Gritch tapped Dart on the shoulder, moved him, and began shooting photographs of the closeted clothing, Yates training the special low-level flashlight on the contents.
“We have an unidentified male approaching on foot on Zion,” the voice in Dart’s ear announced.
“Heads up, people,” Schultz’s voice said into Dart’s earpiece. “Let’s rendezvous at the base of stairs immediately.” He paused. “Right now, people.”
Yates returned to the clothes dresser and wiped down the pen and several of the coins. Gritch prepared and then bagged the digital camera and said to Dart, “This was closed, correct?”
“Yes.”
She shut the closet door. “Fully closed?”
“Fully closed,” Dart acknowledged.
“Suspect is turning down Hamilton,” came the spotter in Dart’s right ear.
“Team leader,” inquired the male voice from the van, “do you copy that please?”
“Copy,” replied Schultz.
“Prepare to evacuate all personnel,” the operations van announced calmly.
“Roger.”
Over the communications device Schultz ordered, “Down here now, people. Get the lead out!”
As Dart headed out of the bedroom, he glanced over his shoulder to see both Gritch and Yates dash into the bathroom and then back out through the bedroom, their heads and the ungainly goggles sweeping left to right. During the briefing, Schultz had informed Dart that he wanted these two particular technicians because of their incredible photographic memories. He had told a story about Gritch returning from a raid and reciting forty-five tides of books contained on the study’s shelves-he estimated that Gritch had been inside there less than a minute. A later SID report had confirmed all forty-five titles.
“Report?” the operations van requested.
“Subject is entering Hamilton Court,” the male voice replied. “You’ll need to abort via the back route. Copy?”
How could the dispatcher sound so calm? Dart wondered. His chest felt on the verge of exploding.
“Copy,” said the van.
“Back route. Copy,” replied Schultz.
Schultz and his two men were waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
“We have an abort situation,” Schultz announced over the unit intercom. “Unidentified subject approaching.” He tripped a button on his belt pack and said to the operations van, “Status?”
“The back is still clear,” Dart heard in his earpiece.
Schultz repeated this.
Schultz now addressed Dart directly, the night-vision goggles making him look like some kind of bug. “Your call, Detective. Do we apprehend or not?” This was first time Dart heard emotion override the man’s military manner-Schultz wanted to stay and apprehend the suspect.
Dart asked Gritch, “How did we do in here?”
“Well below what we might have hoped for.” Yates nodded his agreement. She was saying that they had nothing. No evidence of consequence.
In a flurry of activity, Dart then heard the operations van direct the field surveillance operatives.
OPERATIONS VAN: This is Control. Shepherd, can we get a video of the subject with a drive-by?
DETECTIVE SHEPHERD: Negative. H
e’s already in the alley. If you get a pickup you’ll be lucky. I’d advise the team to enter Pope Park. We’ll pick up at York Street.
OPERATIONS VAN: Negative on Pope Park. We’re rolling. Team leader, acknowledge abort.
Schultz, off mike, said, “Well?”
Dart did not want to apprehend, given the lack of evidence. He wanted this suspect, but not yet. “Negative.” Then he immediately voiced a consideration to Brandon. “Can we get a look at him?”
Brandon, aware of the order of rank, looked to Schultz for the answer.
“We can get anything, Detective.” Schultz said. “It’s your call.”
PERSONNEL VAN: What’s the call?
OPERATIONS VAN: Team leader?
FIELD AGENT: Suspect has passed target. He’s turning down the drive.
Schultz yanked the gooseneck microphone to in front of his mouth and said for everyone to hear, “He’s going for the back door. We’ll take the front.” He threw the switch on his communications device and spoke.
SCHULTZ: We’ll need ten seconds.
OPERATIONS VAN: You won’t get it.
Schultz placed his gloved hand on the doorknob.
Pointing at Brandon, Dart asked, “Can we leave the camera set up in here?”
“If we leave Brandon, we can,” came Schultz’s answer. “We don’t have the necessary warrants for wire surveillance, but we are allowed in here. If you want to record this guy, it’s going to have to be in person. Your decision.”
“But we’ll pick it up in the van?” Dart asked.
“In the operations van, yes,” Schultz answered.
“Brandon and I stay,” Dart said.
OPERATIONS VAN: Suspect is inside the back gate. You better get out.
Dart heard a rattle at the back door as a key turned.
Schultz faced his crew and said, “We’re going to take him, people. Positions!”
“No!” Dart objected with a harsh whisper, his body in full sweat, the sound of the key in the lock somehow louder.
Chain of Evidence Page 18