(1995) Chain of Evidence

by Ridley Pearson

  “I understand that.” He apologized again.

  Dart stressed the urgency of his case, building up Corwin’s importance and underscoring that the information was vital to an active homicide investigation. The man rallied to the call, an unusual but welcome response. “I’ll need to go down to the office. Blue tags, you said? Only blues?”

  “Blue; Five digits, starting with nine-eight.”

  “If we sold them,” Corwin said confidently, “I’ll know who to.” He paused. “You did say murder, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “That’s what I thought you said.”

  Forty-five minutes later, Corwin called back. “I got two retail and one commercial with blue tags. The ninety-eight thousand series went to Abe’s over on Seymour.”

  “Seymour?” Dart shouted into the phone without meaning to.

  “Yeah, Seymour Street. Abe’s Commercial Laundry.”

  Dart checked the open yellow pages for an address. “Abe’s is not listed in the Yellow Pages,” he complained.

  “They’re commercial, not retail. They do institutional work—nursing homes, that sort of thing. I doubt they would advertise.”

  “No retail?” Dart asked.

  “Some, probably. There’s a storefront of sorts, as I recall—mind you, I haven’t done a delivery in ten years. It’s not a big part of their business—retail. That’s a bad part of town.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Even ten years ago.”

  “Yes.”

  “Commercial work, mostly. They’re a good customer for us. Big volume.”

  Dart thanked the man and was already turning through the white pages, his finger running down columns. A manicured nail entered his vision—Abby had found the listing. Corwin clarified, “You said a murder investigation, right?”

  “Yes I did.”

  “And I helped?”

  “Very much.”

  “That’s okay … I like that…. Hey, Detective?” he said, holding an impatient Dart on the phone. “Nail the bastard.”

  Dart thanked him again and hung up. He told Abby, “He said to nail the bastard.”

  “What did you say?” she asked.

  “I thanked him.”

  She was over checking the map, pinned to the wall. “It’s Seymour Street, just south of Park Street.” “We can’t go in there alone, Joe,” she chided. “Not without a cruiser. Not without backup.”

  He didn’t want to get into this with her. Haite would resist giving him any help, would never grant him backup. What made this worse, much worse, for Dart was that just the sound of the words Seymour Street was familiar to him, but he couldn’t remember why, could not place the voice speaking those words, Corwin’s voice too fresh, too present, in his mind.

  But then that voice came to him. After seven years of hearing a voice daily it did not stay blurred for long. Walter Zeller had been raised in his parents’ house on Seymour Street, back when Park Street had been a good neighborhood, not a demilitarized zone. He had spoken of that house, that time, often, affectionately, nostalgically, referring to it simply as Seymour Street.

  Dart could not remember what had happened to the house. Zeller had inherited it upon his mother’s death four years ago. That much he remembered well, because Zeller had paid some inheritance tax rather than sell the place, despite its almost worthless value. He wasn’t sure what had become of the place after that.

  Perhaps, Dart thought, Wallace Sparco lives there now.

  CHAPTER 38

  This was it—Dart knew before he set foot out the door.

  He stole four hours sleep at home after walking Mac around the block and fixing himself a tuna sandwich. By five-thirty it was dark outside, and it occurred to him that the earlier the better because the worst gang violence came after ten at night, by the time the drugs and the alcohol and the restless anger had taken hold. He dressed in black jeans and a navy blue sweatshirt so that he could walk with hood up and buy himself some disguise.

  He made the trip alone, believing that he would find Zeller at the house on Seymour Street, that the man had chosen the perfect safe house—no one from outside, not even a cop, would enter the heart of Park Street at this time of night without good reason and plenty of backup. Maybe Zeller had cut himself a protection deal with one of the gangs—establishing himself on an inner-city warning system consisting of cellular phones and CB radios. The cops always arrived five minutes too late.

  As he drove past the courthouse and a string of gentrified houses used as law offices, he was struck by the irony of their closeness to Park Street only a few short blocks to the south. Law and lawlessness, coexisting side by side. Two blocks from these law offices fourteen-year-old girls hustled themselves on street corners and crack dealers sold their goods from the sidewalk. Dart drove with his sweatshirt’s hood pulled up, and he drove fast, running stop signs and disobeying traffic lights.

  On the seat beside him lay a loaded shotgun. Under the sweatshirt, he wore a flak jacket, in the pocket a speed key. His sidearm had a round loaded into the chamber. In his left pocket he carried two ammunition magazines taped together into a “speed clip.” The car doors were locked. The closer he drew to Park Street, the slower the traffic and the busier the activities. This was the south end’s Sin Street—the night was alive with possibility.

  Despite the November cold, the dark street corners were crowded with Puerto Ricans and a sprinkling of Spanish, Italians, and Portuguese, all under twenty-five. Le Soledos and the Latin Kings ruled this turf. The wrong color socks could cost a kid his life. To show a weapon was to start a fight. They had teethed on Stallone and Lee and Schwarzenegger and Snipes and considered themselves equal to the task. It felt to Dart as if anyone older than thirty had been exiled. The place was ruled by restless youth.

  Forty-thousand-dollar BMWs and Mercedes Benzes cruised Park Street at ten miles an hour, driven by teenage kids doing business over cellular phones—and proud of it. To honk at a car for driving too slowly was to invite a stream of bullets.

  If it could be snorted, mainlined, or smoked, it was available. If it could be fucked, it was pimped. If it had been stolen, it was for sale. If it was living, it could be made dead.

  He felt the glare of suspicious eyes but did not exchange glances. In a moving car a white person would briefly be tolerated—business was business, and a good deal of Park Street’s business came in from the white enclaves to the west.

  But for a white person to make more than two passes down this street would quickly spread the word. He knew that he was being watched, monitored. And if Zeller had bought protection, then to leave the car was to face an army of hungry street rats looking to make trouble.

  He parked the Taurus on Walcott, three short blocks from Seymour. He grabbed the shotgun and hurried from the car, carrying the weapon in plain view, moving at a slow jog, moving deeper and deeper into darkness and hoping to reach Funk Street without incident.

  Streetlights around here were knocked out as quickly as they were replaced. To view this area from overhead in a passing plane, it would appear as a square black box, lit only by the brilliance of Park Street, a block to the north.

  Dart cut left, crossed the street, and jogged down Funk toward Seymour, his heart somewhere up around his ears, his body feeling as if he had stepped inside an oven.

  Then, across the street, appeared a group of youths like a pack of hungry dogs. Where they had come from, he did not know. But there they were.

  He had spent much of the last four years interrogating cold-blooded killers no older than these kids—killers who showed absolutely no remorse, proud to kill for a pair of basketball shoes or a leather jacket or the imagined love of a sweetheart. Blank eyes. Dialogue borrowed from movies. Human shells, void of love, filled with unspeakable hate.

  They spotted him and they catcalled. They liked the shotgun, they yelled and taunted. Dart cut across the street at a run, not looking back. Appear in control, the frightened voice ins
ide of him encouraged. When he heard their footsteps at a run, he knew that he had problems. He turned up the steam, broke into an all-out sprint. A cop running from a bunch of punks. … He couldn’t let go of this thought, and yet he couldn’t run fast enough.

  Halfway down Funk, he violated his own rule and glanced over his shoulder. They were coming for him. They too were running.

  He felt the desperate fear of the hunted. Never mind that he was armed equally, he was outnumbered. He faced armed children who would kill out of boredom, who would kill because of the color of a man’s skin. He faced the very real possibility of firing his weapon at a minor. Could he bring himself to do such a thing? He had no idea if and when self-defense could or would overcome reason.

  They were fast runners. They were gaining on him.

  He often had dreams in which his legs grew impossibly heavy. He would run as hard as he could and yet be caught in a slow-motion crawl. And now the bad dreams came face-to-face with reality as he felt a huge weight bear down on him, drain him, drive him into the pavement as if his limbs were suddenly cement and the pavement beneath his feet a thick gripping mud.

  “Yo, dude!” a high, winded voice called out from behind.

  Dart reached Seymour and cut right, running smack into a group of four Hispanics in their twenties. Dart fell to the sidewalk and quickly scrambled to his knees. One of the kids drew a weapon and aimed it at Dart.

  “Police!” Dart announced, more from instinct than consideration. He tugged back the shotgun’s recoil and engaged a shell.

  “Bullshit,” the kid with the weapon said. “Gimme your gun.”

  Dart, winded and out of breath, heard the fast slap of shoes as the other gang quickly approached. The Hispanic holding the gun had only a fraction of a second to make his decision. He seemed to take in Dart’s shotgun. Perhaps he recognized it as a police issue. He looked to his friends, shrugged, and gently returned his weapon to inside his jacket. He nodded. “Be cool, man.” Perhaps he had simply thought Dart out of his mind.

  Dart ran on, his muscles aching as he tensed, expecting he might be shot in the back.

  But instead he heard angry shouts from behind him as the kids from Funk Street collided with the Hispanics on Seymour. He heard the words, “He’s heat, man! He’s heat.”

  Dart slowed to a fast walk, barely able to catch his breath. Up ahead, the facades on the buildings looked vaguely familiar, and he thought he remembered the look from the old photos on Zeller’s hallway wall. Seymour Street. For just that second he lost his focus, neglected to take in his surroundings. He leapt up into the air as a pair of alley dogs barked from only inches away, and he landed poorly, twisting his right ankle. He went down hard, dropping the weapon, and rose painfully to his knees. The dogs bellowed, edging toward him, heads down, teeth glaring. He picked up the fallen shotgun. One of the dogs lunged at him. Dart jumped back and fell onto the ankle and went down for a second time.

  He growled back ferociously. The dogs whined and took off.

  Regaining his feet, he glanced across the street and this time recognized the building without question. A faded photograph: Zeller with his aging parents, all grouped on the steps that served as a porch. The photo was daytime.

  Now it was night.

  The building’s upper-story windows were lit.

  The back door was locked. Dart tried it a second time, gently twisting the knob, leaning his weight against the frame, but it wouldn’t budge. The only accessible window was locked and seemed to be nailed shut from the inside. Dart leaned his shotgun against the wall and slipped out the speed key. He shoved it into the upper lock, squeezed its trigger, and twisted, hearing a slight click. With the dead bolt free, Dart turned the doorknob and pushed, and the door came open, scraping against the sill. He took hold of the shotgun and stepped inside. He grabbed the doorknob, lifted the door on its hinges, and shut it silently.

  The first thing that caught his attention was the smell of cigar smoke. It was both familiar and frightening. He stood absolutely still, caught up in memories, a surge of emotion flooding him. With all his determination, he had not given much thought as to how he might handle an actual confrontation with his mentor. He couldn’t help but still love this man, respect him, trust him even. He had formed his professional identity within this man’s formidable shadow, had been protected by him, and had, in turn, guarded him as both patron and teacher. He stood at that moment, shotgun in hand, intending to confront him—to accuse him of plotting and carrying out a string of homicides. Charges that would result in Zeller being brought downtown, to where he had earned his reputation as the best of the best.

  The kitchen was small and dated back to the fifties: chipped linoleum, a stained sink, and pitted fixtures. The countertop carried crumbs and detritus of past meals. A string of small black ants paraded along the seam of the splash, disappearing behind an old toaster. The cigar smoke hung in the air. He felt it as a warning: Zeller was not far.

  Dart set down the shotgun, having intended it for street defense, not necessary with Zeller. Then, having second thoughts, he picked it back up. He moved stealthily into a small sitting room and turned up a narrow flight of stairs. Zeller had been raised here; he had told so many stories about his youth and this place that Dart found himself imagining he knew the floor plan, disappointed now that the real item did not live up to his memory. It was far less grand than Zeller had painted it. Embellished by memory, the home’s size had been exaggerated by its former resident. Dart felt a growing sense of dread as he climbed the stairs: Zeller, a murderer, waiting somewhere in a house he knew well. Dart, the reluctant inquisitor, a stranger here. Zeller did not surprise well; he tended to lash out and ask questions later. Dart neared the top of the stairs, an equally narrow hallway leading to an open door immediately to the right and two opposing doors directly ahead. All the doors were open, all dark. It felt to Dart like a shell game—he expected to find Zeller in one of the three. But he worried too about the noise he’d made with the kitchen door—Zeller could well be expecting him.

  Dart searched his memory for a clue left by one of Zeller’s family stories. He could hear the man’s voice inside his head, could see him sitting there…. Something about as a kid having witnessed a mugging down on the street, he recalled, leading him to favor Zeller’s room as being either of the two directly ahead of him. He would duck into the nearest room first, establishing a defensive position behind the doorjamb, then wait for some sure indication of Zeller’s position. His heart seemed stuck up in his throat, his chest was tight, and his mouth dry.

  He was drunk on fear; his knees felt like water. Circulating his head were the crime scenes of the so-called suicides, the deaths so neatly orchestrated. Would this be how someone found Joe Dartelli? Were these to be his last few minutes—sneaking around an unfamiliar house in pursuit of a man he felt as close to as a father? He wondered what thoughts had been inside his mother’s numbed mind when she had pursued him. Had she, in her own way, been as terrified of finding Dart as he was of finding Zeller?

  He lifted the stock of the shotgun, training the barrel at the floor in front of him; it would require only a slight lift and a squeeze of the trigger. At close range, a shotgun made everyone an expert marksman.

  He counted down slowly from five, an old habit meant to settle the nerves. As far as he could tell, the technique failed miserably: three … two … He took one quick step up the last stair and turned quickly to his right.

  The back of a wooden chair hit him squarely in the chest, as if the person on the other end of it were swinging for a home run. As the wind exploded from him, Dart raised the shotgun and pulled the trigger, and then pulled it again, but nothing happened—jammed from the tumble out on the street. The concussion of the chair lifted him off his feet; he skidded across the hall and banged into the far wall, expelling what little air remained. Dart gasped for breath, his chest feeling paralyzed, his ribs bruised. The shotgun flew from his hands as a boot connected with it. That
same brown boot then came for Dart’s face, swinging straight up toward his chin, but Dart managed to lean away to one side, sagging, and the blow missed.

  Walter Zeller lost his balance and caught himself on the banister, nearly going down the stairs instead. The brief look that Dart caught of the man’s face showed a person different from the one Dart remembered: haggard and worn, destroyed by grief and guilt and exhaustion. He’s an old man, Dart thought, knowing that Zeller was only in his early fifties. He wore a dark green plaid flannel shirt and blue jeans, but they fit him loosely, like a man diseased. He had a weathered round face, sparse graying hair, and an Irish nose broken too many times to count. He looked hard and mean, but to Dart the man’s soft blue eyes gave away his true personality.

  Dart tried to reach for his weapon, but his arms weighed tons and his chest had been set afire by the crushing blow of the chair. His one feeble effort was to rear back and slide his right foot along the floor, connecting with the one boot that held all of Zeller’s unsteady weight. For Zeller, it happened too quickly—first he lost his balance, and then Dart kicked away his only solid platform, sending him down the stairway headfirst. He went down hard, turning a full somersault. Dart, whose arms still would not function, rolled himself face down on the dusty floor and drove himself forward with his feet. His hurt ankle cried out. Splinters tore from the floor and embedded into his chest and arms. He heard Zeller groan, curse, and then start back up the stairs. “You’re dead, Ivy,” the sergeant barked, clawing his way up the stairs. Dart had lived ten years believing in that voice and everything it said.

  Dart propelled himself to the end of the hallway and into the dark room to the right. His arms began to tingle; they were coming back to life. He rolled across the rug, about to lodge himself beneath the bed but grasped the absurdity of trying to hide. As a child he had developed himself into a professional hider, and as he reached again for those talents he glanced around, assessing that he had to get out of the room. Now!

  He heard the recoil of the shotgun and a shell bang and roll on the hardwood floor. Zeller was in the hallway; had cleared the weapon.