Chain of Evidence

by Ridley Pearson

  When he looked left, he saw him: Zeller was about ten yards away, sitting up, still facing the area from which the shots had come. Dart hissed at him, but not loud enough to gain his attention-or else Zeller was simply refusing to acknowledge, his attention all on the shooter.

  It was bad form for Dart to approach the sergeant and increase the size of their target, so he hunkered down behind a pair of trees and waited. After another five minutes of absolute silence, of bone-numbing cold, he began resenting the man’s behavior. At a stakeout that had gone bad, Zeller had once kept him waiting like this for over forty-five minutes. When Zeller lit up a cigar, Dart would know the sergeant considered the area clear. Dart waited another three minutes and ran out of patience. He had seen Zeller take at least two shots-he might have passed out.

  Dart weaved his way through the standing tree trunks and hissed once more, this time close enough, loudly enough, to be heard. Again, Zeller refused to acknowledge him in any way. So typically arrogant. Dart felt angry at the man-he would go to any length to remind Dart of the hierarchy of their relationship. He would sit by a phone and allow it to ring until Dart answered it. It infuriated Dart. He finally reached the man-Zeller was leaning against a small evergreen that bent away from him with his weight, a pair of white-bark birches in front of him as a screen. He held his gun in both hands, resting on the ground between his legs. His knee looked badly hit.

  It was the position of Zeller’s gun that sent alarm shivering through Dart-the arm was slack, the barrel of the weapon planted into the wet snow and mud. Zeller revered his weapons, preached the code of proper care and handling. Treating the weapon like this was unthinkable.

  Dart took another few cautious steps, coming to within an arm’s reach. He smelled blood. He leaned forward in the dim light. “Sarge,” he whispered anxiously, glancing over his shoulder, all the while expecting the laser’s searching dot. “Sarge,” he repeated.

  The man didn’t move.

  Dart looked into Zeller’s face. The hole was quite small, immediately below the left eye. He gasped. “Sarge!” he blurted out, the knot tightening in his throat, his chest burning, his eyes filling with tears. He didn’t reach out to touch him, to disturb him, only to check for a pulse. He gripped the man’s warm wrist, realizing in a flood of memory that the two had rarely touched, even to shake hands, realizing that, had Zeller had even a single heartbeat of life left within him, he would have broken Dart’s grip instantly and told him to keep his hands to himself.

  Walter Zeller was dead.

  Forgetting himself, forgetting all training, placing himself at serious jeopardy, Joe Dartelli raised his face to the sullen sky and shrieked, “No!” so loudly and for so long that to hear it from a suburban home one would have imagined a wounded animal. He stood then, weapon in hand, not thinking of lasers or semiautomatic weapons, but only of revenge. He ducked and moved deftly and quickly through the trees, as smoothly as water over rock. He ran across the clearing, his feet slipping on the wet snow, and entered the opposing woods. Tree by tree, he worked his way across the front of this copse, knowing the shooter could not have been too far into the trees during the attack.

  At his feet, brass casings lay scattered about. Warm when first ejected, they had melted small tunnels into the snow. The ground was scuffed and muddy from the shooter’s frantic movements.

  The path of mud indicated that the shooter may have dragged himself off into the woods, back toward Zeller’s former home. Whether he had followed one of them here, or had been keeping the place under surveillance and had overheard them, Dart couldn’t know.

  The prints were not clean, and the snow was discolored with either blood or mud or both.

  Neglecting concern for his own safety, Dart quickly cut his way through the trees and shrubs, leaving the hum of electricity behind him. The track left by the shooter grew heavier and more labored until it became apparent to Dart that the man had been wounded, had crawled his way through the trees. He pressed ahead, knowing that he must be gaining on the man.

  Through the woods came the plaintive cry of sirens-at least two, perhaps three or more. The shots had been heard and reported. Dart suddenly had to contend with the pressure of time-he could not afford to be brought downtown for an officer-involved shooting investigation. The key to dealing with Martinson would be speed, timing.

  He heard groaning before he saw the man. He passed the black shape of the man’s discarded weapon and kicked it aside. The shooter lay on his side, curled in a fetal position, clutching his bleeding stomach with both hands, ignoring his wounded shoulder. It was too dark to see much of his face, but his fingers were spread open, his hands clearly empty. He was a tall, lanky man-not the same build as the man in the laundry.

  Zeller had hit him twice-a serious gut shot and a minor bleeder in the shoulder. The gut shot was final. Even with an ambulance, he didn’t look as if he’d survive.

  The sirens quickly drew closer. Dart heard one of the cars come to a stop up on the highway rest area where Dart had parked.

  Dart leveled his handgun, sighting down the short barrel at the man’s head. The shooter cowered, curling up tighter. Dart’s arm began to shake. A voice from inside him demanded he pull the trigger. Do it! this voice pleaded. Dart’s finger found the trigger guard and then the trigger itself. His thumb tripped the safety, allowing the gun to be fired. He stared down the dark tube at the man’s head.

  The man shook with fear.

  He couldn’t do it. Dart lowered the weapon, securing the safety, and walked silently off into the woods.

  He knew well what hell Zeller’s murder would create-three, perhaps as many as five, investigators would be assigned. The forensics work would be exhaustive, the meetings endless. When the second dead man proved to be a hired killer from out of state, the governor and the FBI would be brought in. The press would get wind of it and the story would take off like wildfire, stealing headlines and news radio leads from Greenwich to Putnam, perhaps as far as Boston and Providence. And in the process, Dart knew, the opportunity to sink Roxin would disappear quickly. The cover-ups would begin, the fictitious stories welded in place, the connections quickly distanced. Within a few short hours following the first news leak of Zeller’s death, any and all hope of exposing Roxin could be lost, all Zeller’s efforts defeated.

  Zeller’s methods had ultimately killed him-Dart could not escape this thought. Despite his good intentions, the man had chosen the wrong solution. By violating the very laws he had once upheld, he had dug himself into isolation and desperation, convincing himself, no doubt, that he was engaged in noble self-sacrifice. The truth, it seemed to Dart, was more that Lucky’s death had pushed him over the edge. And it felt sad to Dart that such a man could become so lost. So maybe I am a Boy Scout, Dart thought.

  Dart went off, first at a walk, then at a run, in the opposite direction from the arriving police who were already crowding into the woods. As shouts raised behind him, he felt filled with an overwhelming wish that Zeller’s death would not be in vain.

  Martinson had not destroyed the files. Dart felt certain of it.

  CHAPTER 42

  Haite glanced up from his desk at the detective standing in his office doorway and said, “Jesus H. Christ.” Dart was all mud, blood, and wet clothes. “Shut the door,” were Haite’s next words, closely followed by, “You were there!” Dart nodded. “What the hell happened?”

  “I won’t be dragged into the investigation,” Dart said.

  “The hell you won’t.” Haite glanced over at the wall clock-it was one in the morning. “I’ve got a dozen patrol and four detectives out there.” The CAPers office area was empty. “What the hell happened?”

  “The shooter?”

  “Died in transit. DOA at HH,” he said, referring to Hartford Hospital.

  Dart looked Haite directly in the eyes and said, “I was wrong about the suicides. They weren’t murders.”

  “Is that right?” Haite asked, not believing Dart for a momen
t but not questioning him either. This was what Haite wanted to hear.

  “I misread the evidence, Sergeant. It’s my fault,” Dart said.

  “Did you?”

  “Yes. I may be able to prove that Roxin Laboratories is involved in a cover-up concerning a gene therapy treatment they are testing. The drug apparently has severe psychological side effects, resulting, I assume, in some of these suicides. It’s a terrible thing.”

  “Where does Zeller fit in?” Haite asked bluntly.

  “I don’t believe I have ever mentioned Zeller’s name to you, sir. I’m not sure what you’re referring to.” The use of “sir” was certain to catch Haite’s attention. “His death,” Dart choked out, “is certainly a tragedy to us all.”

  “I want him to die a hero, not a criminal,” Haite hissed, openly honest. “How much of this is going to surface?”

  “How much of what?” Dart asked in his best innocent Boy Scout voice.

  “You can keep it that way?” Haite asked, sounding both surprised and impressed.

  “We’re under some time pressure, sir,” Dart said, making sure to repeat the formal address. He coughed and picked some mud out of his teeth. “If we’re going to prove Roxin’s involvement, we have to move quickly. We’ll need a variety of warrants, a full ERT, the surveillance van…. If we fail,” he said, maintaining his eye contact with Haite, “I fear that accusations may be made against Sergeant Zeller in an effort to discredit him and divert blame from where it belongs.”

  “You can really keep him out of this?” Haite asked again.

  “I wasn’t aware that he was ever implicated in anything,” Dart answered calmly, playing his part. “Has his name ever come up in regards to any of these investigations?”

  Haite dragged a hand across his mouth, contemplating Dart’s offer.

  Do this for Zeller! Dart’s eyes told the man.

  “Can you actually pull this off, Dartelli?” Haite understood that to commit the resources Dart was requesting would necessitate his own involvement, putting his ass on the line should Dart’s plan fail and the truth of Zeller’s criminal activity be revealed. They would both be risking their careers to save Zeller’s reputation. “Can you?” Haite repeated, wanting an answer that they both knew Dart could not give.

  “I had a good teacher,” said Joe Dart.

  CHAPTER 43

  They needed Martinson’s password.

  Driving a department-confiscated Lexus, Dart approached the employee parking lot entrance to Roxin at 2:30 A.M. He wore jeans, a sweater, and a windbreaker.

  The lineman at the top of the phone pole, armed with a high-powered monocular, worked Narcotics but had done a good deal of undercover surveillance work. Across town, the worker down the manhole not far from the governor’s mansion was with SNET, and was awaiting court permission to tap into a high-speed data transmission line that serviced a remote computer terminal located in the study of Dr. Arielle Martinson’s home. Ginny had determined the existence of this remote terminal after questioning Dart thoroughly about the computers he had seen there. Bud Gorman’s check of SNET billing had confirmed it.

  The unmarked black ERT step van was parked half a mile down the hill from Roxin, the team ready with black ladders to assault the facility’s west wall if necessary.

  Haite was in the command van with two techies. Parked near Roxin’s main entrance, it had the rear left wheel jacked off the ground, and a number of tools lying nearby, as if abandoned with a flat tire. In fact, the all-wheel-drive vehicle could be driven right off the jack, if required.

  In Dart’s left ear, a small earpiece kept him in touch with the command van, and thereby, Ginny and the spotter atop the phone pole. He wore taped to his chest a fiber-optic camera no thicker than a fountain pen and curved on a piece of flex so as to capture Dart’s point of view-an interesting twist demanded by the judge issuing the warrants. There were few guidelines for a hostile raid on a computer network. They were improvising.

  As Dart pulled up to the unmanned security gate, he switched on the video recorder-no bigger than a Walkman-and spoke to the microphone clipped under the collar of his jacket. “Position one. I’m all yours, Gin.”

  The techies inside the van were recording his every word.

  Dart heard Ginny’s voice answer. Wearing a telephone headset at her kitchen table with two laptops in front of her, both connected to high-speed data lines, Ginny echoed “Position one” and said, “Here goes nothing.”

  Dart wondered what this validation must feel like to her. She had hacked into Roxin’s mainframe with the permission of the court and at Dart’s request. In return for her cooperation, the court had agreed to expunge her criminal record, including taking her off probation. And now, with the law behind her, she was attempting to take control of the security area of Roxin’s computer and open the arm of the gate from a remote location miles away.

  The security gate resembled the ones at car rental lots-a red and white horizontal bar prevented entry and a long row of sharp spikes, designed to puncture tires, inhibited exit.

  Dart waited nervously for Ginny’s magic.

  “Anything?” he heard her ask.

  “No.”

  “One second,” she said. “How ’bout this?”

  The gate opened.

  “Bingo!” Dart said as he drove through. “You’re a genius.”

  “Let’s just hope I can get you back out,” she said, only half teasing.

  At this hour, his was the only car in the lot. He drove toward the several-story block of glass and metal that attached at the north end to the giant dome. The place looked like an enormous glowing spaceship.

  Dart switched off the headlights. “I’m facing the second door from the south end,” he informed Ginny. “There’s no number on it.”

  “The stairways are to your right?” she asked.

  The glassed-in stairways were clearly visible to him. “That’s right.”

  “Correct,” confirmed the spotter, also listening in.

  “I’ve got it,” she informed him. “I’ve logged you into the system under the employee name of Nealy. George Nealy. He’s listed as a biochemical engineer assigned to B-block-whatever that is. Did you get that?”

  “George Nealy. B-block,” Dart answered. To get him in, Ginny had needed to choose an existing employee’s identity. If stopped by security, he would claim to have lost his ID card somewhere between the parking lot and wherever they caught up to him.

  “Can you get me in?” he asked.

  “Tell me when you’re at the door,” she answered.

  Dart climbed out of the car, reckoning that by now the night security had been notified of Nealy’s use of the parking lot. Outside the door was a stainless steel device used to read ID cards. Dart had none.

  Standing at the door, he said, “I’m here.”

  “Stand by,” Ginny said in his ear.

  Dart’s nerves were already shot. He had no idea how he would make it through the next half hour. He checked in both directions repeatedly.

  “How ’bout that?” Ginny asked.

  The security device’s blue-green LCD read:

  INCORRECT SIGN-ON INFORMATION-PLEASE TRY AGAIN.

  Dart tried to open the door. “No,” he informed her. He worried that she was in over her head. Completely unfamiliar with Roxin’s security system, she had to come to understand it all on the fly. Real time, as she called it.

  “Stand by,” she repeated. “How ’bout that?” she inquired.

  INCORRECT SIGN-ON INFORMATION-PLEASE TRY AGAIN.

  “Negative,” Dart announced, sweat streaming from his armpits with the temperature one degree below freezing.

  “This is lookout,” reported the man atop the phone pole. “I have an unidentified individual, on foot, heading south along the east side.”

  Dart looked up. He could just make out a tiny black dot a hundred yards away. A security guard-and heading toward him.

  “We have one more try,” Ginny expla
ined. “If we fail, then Nealy will not be permitted inside, and if we’re to continue, I’ll have to check you into the parking lot under a different name and try again.”

  INCORRECT SIGN-ON INFORMATION-ACCESS DENIED-PLEASE CONTACT THE SECURITY DESK-THANK YOU.

  “We’re toast,” Dart announced.

  “Unidentified individual is seventy yards and closing,” reported the lookout.

  “The gate?” Ginny asked, panicked.

  Dart looked over his shoulder. The entrance gate rose and fell.

  “You got it.”

  “Hold the phone,” she said.

  The guard approached, now less than fifty yards away. The man waved, still too far for his face to be seen, and conversely, Dart’s could not be seen by him.

  “We’re running out of headroom,” Dart warned.

  Another few yards, and Dart’s face would be identifiable. How many Roxin employees would a security guard recognize?

  “Joe?” she asked.

  Dart read:

  WELCOME: DR. JANET JORGENSON

  The door clicked. Dart pulled on the handle. It opened.

  The guard was twenty yards away. They could clearly see each other. You’ve got to think on your feet, Zeller had once schooled him. He’s an outside guard, Dart thought. Disarm his suspicion. Dart raised his voice and offered, “You want me to hold the door for you?”

  The guard shook his head. “No, thanks,” he answered.

  Dart stepped inside, his armpits soaked, his throat dry. The elevator was straight ahead; a door marked the stairs to his right. Not wanting to wait for an elevator car, and recalling from his earlier trip to Roxin that elevators also required security access, Dart chose to use the stairs. The door thumped shut behind him.

  “Janet Jorgenson?” he complained into the microphone, climbing the stairs. His new identity had given him a sex change.

  In his left ear he heard, “The name was immediately above Nealy’s on the list. What can I tell you?”

  “Who am I?” Dart asked, although it didn’t matter-he couldn’t very well pose as Jorgenson.