Chain of Evidence

by Ridley Pearson

  The mustache itched. The glue had dried, shrinking his upper lip in the process. If he sneezed he might send the thing across the room.

  He used his cellular phone to call Narcotics’ second-floor office. He allowed it to ring eight times, thrilled that no one answered.

  He pushed the cart out into the hall, headed quickly to the building’s sole elevator, and rode up, his heart rate increasing with every yard. This exploit reminded him of trying to rob money from his mother’s wallet atop her dresser bureau-he would steal the money, not for himself but so that when she checked the wallet to send him out for a bottle, she would lack money.

  The elevator doors slid open, and at a distance of thirty feet, down the long ugly tile corridor, he caught eyes with Abby Lang. He felt stunned. Elated. She sat behind a desk inside her Sex Crimes office, looking both tired and concerned. Instinctively, Dart felt down for his pager and switched the beeper off so that if it were called it would vibrate, not sound. She was clearly there to help him. Nothing else could explain her presence at this hour.

  As he rolled the cart toward Narco, Abby picked up her phone and touched a single button. Less than five seconds later, the pager clipped to Dart’s belt began vibrating. He reached down and cleared it-like silencing an alarm clock. She did not look up at him but kept her head aimed down at her desk and the paperwork that seemed to absorb her.

  Dart had a lookout-an accomplice. An angel on his shoulder.

  The listing cart’s front right wheel chirped. Dart awkwardly navigated it to a position in front of Narco. He knocked, waited, and then knocked again. With no reply, he slipped his hand beneath the stack of green rags and removed the speed key. The fact that he was violating regulations distrubed him. If caught, he would have some tough explaining to do. He was the cop turned criminal, and for a moment he couldn’t bring himself to do this. But the hope that Kowalski, not Zeller, was responsible for the murder/suicide of Lawrence, and the possibility of connecting Lawrence to Stapleton drove him on-anything to quiet his guilt.

  With the speed key the door opened effortlessly. It was illegal in all fifty states to own such a device, and Dart suddenly understood why.

  As in hotels, the housecleaners at Jennings Road blocked open office doors as they worked. Dart did just that, though only partially screening the room inside so that the closet used as a vault to contain files remained obscured from the hallway.

  He switched on the interior light, emptied a trash can into the hopper on his cart, and placed a beat-up feather duster on the desk top closest. His watch face read 1:03. The cleaners would be arriving any minute and would start on the first floor. He had plenty of time.

  The file room closet was locked, but the speed key made quick work of it. The light switch was mounted on the wall outside. Dart studied his situation, planning, predicting every movement required should his pager alert him to a visitor. He had to keep all actions to a minimum, and so rather than venture inside the room, he stood there figuring how to avoid being caught. He relocked the file room door, so that once shut it would be locked and not require him to fiddle with it. He used a green rag to block it open, and tested that by kicking the rag free, the door would close on its own. Then, with the light on, he stepped inside and looked to judge the line of sight: If someone showed up unexpectedly, this person would quickly have a clear sight of the open file room.

  The light switch on the wall was on the far side of the hinges, meaning that Dart would have to kick the rag out of the way, get himself around the door, helping it close as he went, and then hit the light switch. But this light going off would be picked up even sooner by someone entering because the office door to Narcotics had an institutional smoked-glass panel, and a change in background light would be noticeable. He reviewed the situation; deciding he had things in the right order, rehearsed them once while counting in his head. Four to five seconds, he guessed. When combined with the five or so seconds that Abby needed to alert him, it would be too long.

  He grabbed the mop and headed directly to the hallway’s broom closet, filled the rolling bucket from the soapstone sink, wetted the mop and, carrying a yellow plastic sandwich board warning of a WET FLOOR, hurried to the end of the hall near the stairs and the elevator. He mopped the floor furiously, making it as wet as possible, then placed the sandwich board in the center of the hall. With all this water he hopefully had bought himself some extra time while also slowing down any approach.

  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-As 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.

  The elevator doors thumped shut, and the car groaned as it lifted.

  Dart had not pushed the second-floor button; someone had called the elevator.

  Had the desk sergeant been alerted? Were they already looking for an imposter?

  Dart tore off the mustache and shed the green work apron, preferring to be discovered as detective Joe Dartelli than a cop inexplicably impersonating a cleaner. As the elevator crawled upward, he prepared himself immediately to voice a complaint about the cleaning cart being left in the elevator.

  The elevator bounced to a stop and the doors slid open.

  Abby Lang stood facing him. Dart stepped out into the hall feeling vulnerable.

  For a brief second, Dart felt caught off guard-his complaint waiting on his lips. He told her triumphantly, “Kowalski investigated Stapleton in a meth case.”

  When she spoke, tension strangled her words. “A patrolman came by the office. They know there’s an extra cleaner in the building. He headed down the stairs. Told me they would work room by room, both floors. He’s young. New to the force. Bored, probably. Taking it very seriously,” she said. “Did you sign in?” she asked anxiously. During the night shift, all officers, regardless of rank, had to sign in and sign out; the desk sergeant tracked who was there.

  “I used the back door,” he informed her. “And I didn’t call down.” He added, “There are worse offenses.” There would be no official record of his having entered the building. To him it was a minor offense, but the more he thought about it, one that might be associated with the imposter cleaner and end up a nightmare. The more he considered it, the worse it looked.

  “Not good,” he admitted.

  “We can try the stairs,” she suggested wearily, knowing it was a bust.

  “The first thing we do is distance you from me,” he announced. “You use the stairs. I’ll figure something out.”

  “No,” she objected. “I’m part of this.”

  “You’re not.”

  “I am.”

  The elevator doors closed, indicating that it had been called.

  Dart tried to think of any way out other than the elevator or stairs. It was a fairly large building, though only two stories. And in a room-to-room search he’d be trapped.

  He thought about walking down the hall, around the corner, and into CAPers, but there would be a skeleton crew there who knew that this wasn’t his shift.

  “What about the crib?” she asked.

  Windowless, a glorified closet used for poker games and quick naps, the crib had been converted from unused storage space. If empty at the moment, Dart realized that he might be able to feign sleep there without raising too much suspicion-although questions would still be asked.

  “I’m official,” Abby reminded. She had signed in properly. “I have every right to be in this building. Stay here.” Dart watched her as she hurried down the hall, passed Narco, and threw open the door to the crib. She reached in and turned on the light.

  “Clear,” she hissed down the hall at him.

  Dart ran to catch up, and as he did a thought occurred to him-a way to avoid the questions-though the likelihood of her going along with it was slim.

  They stepped inside and he shut the door and locked it. They were both breathing hard.

  “Now what?” she asked. “A game of cards, I suppose?” she asked sarcastically, “at one-thirty in the morning? Oh Christ!”

  “Take off your clothes,” Dart advised her, already working down his own shirt buttons.

  “Yeah, right,” she snapped.

  “Now!” he said strongly as he continued undressing. He glanced over at the sad excuse of a couch, and Abby Lang blushed, understanding him.

  “Oh, shit,” she said.

  “It’ll work,” he told her.

  “Oh, shit,” she repeated.

  He threw his shirt onto the back of a chair and unfastened his belt and unzipped his pants, adding, “But only with both of us.”

  She hesitated, looking once to Dart, and then again at the sagging couch. Her finger
s reluctantly found the buttons to her blouse and she began to undress herself. As her blouse hung open she suddenly moved more quickly. “I have to tell you,” she said apologetically, “that I’m not real comfortable with my body.” She mumbled something about having had children and being forty-six, and it was the first time that Dart knew her age.

  “I would have guessed mid-to-late thirties,” Dart reported honestly, sitting down to pull off his socks.

  “No, no, no,” she set straight, clearly uncomfortable with which piece of clothing to remove first. Her blouse hung open and her jeans were unbuttoned and unzipped. “How about the lights?” she asked, sitting down on the edge of the couch and waiting.

  Dart tossed her one of the two blankets folded on the shelf. She caught it. He turned off the light and banged a shin coming over toward the sound of her jeans rubbing her skin as she slipped out of them.

  A young patrolman would not pursue identifying two detectives sexually engaged in the crib. He would switch on the light, apologize, shut the door, and go tell stories. It might just work, he thought. It also occurred to him that it might get them both suspended, and he felt awful about that.

  Sitting down on the couch, his shin throbbing, Dart felt embarrassed.

  He heard the unmistakable snap of her bra coming off, and she whispered, “Underwear?”

  “Let’s leave it on.” His skin prickled with heat.

  “Agreed!” she replied.

  “Sorry about this,” he said, groping in the dark for her.

  They hugged awkwardly, clumsily, and lay down together. She pulled the blanket over them. “How weird,” she said. But then she wrapped her arms around him strongly and held to him tightly, and said, “This is not a pass, Joe. I’m frightened.”

  “You didn’t need to-”

  “Sh!” She held him more tightly. “A little late at this point.”

  As if to punish himself, Dart suddenly became aroused. He wanted to say something, to make some excuse, to apologize, but he said nothing, attempting to move away from her instead but finding the couch too narrow.