by Chris Mooney
‘This is bullshit.’ His jaw muscles bunched, his eyes watery and heated. ‘This asshole says jump and we drop whatever we’re doing and go running off to the next thing. We’re not investigating anything, we’re just jumping from one thing to the next.’
‘No argument there. But I genuinely feel he’s –’
‘Let’s just get to work,’ Coop said, and handed her a thick black three-ring binder.
She had known him for a long time, knew his rhythms and facial expressions and tics. She knew something else was eating at him – something that was at the moment caged but wanted to get out and start tearing down walls, knock over buildings. She also knew pressing him to talk when he was in this place was useless; he’d just shut down. Retreat.
‘We have access to BPD computers?’ she asked.
Coop ran a finger down the inventory list of evidence. ‘Last time I checked,’ he said. ‘The Ellis case, though, wasn’t in the system.’
It should have been logged into the computer system. But a lot of the old cases – and this was one of them – hadn’t been entered when BPD switched over to computers because of cutbacks and lack of personnel.
‘If Donnelly takes over, BPD access disappears,’ Coop said with distaste. ‘Better hurry.’
Eyes dry and burning with fatigue, Darby flipped open the binder, the spine cracking from age, and dived into the typewritten pages yellowed by time.
At six p.m. on September 30, 1992, Boston Patrolman Stephen Fitzpatrick spotted what he wrote up as a ‘suspicious black male’ looking at a pre-teen girl sitting alone on a stoop near a bus stop on Dixwell Street in Dorchester. Something in the way the man was looking at the girl made Fitzpatrick wary, and the patrolman decided to make an approach.
The suspect immediately began to walk away. Fitzpatrick followed him through Egleston Square, where it quickly turned into a chase.
Fitzpatrick pursued the man through a park on Columbus Avenue and down Cleaves Street, which ended in a fifteen-foot drop to the street below it, Boynton Avenue. By the time Fitzpatrick reached Boynton, he had lost sight of the suspect. There, an unidentified bystander told Fitzpatrick the suspect had fled into a fenced yard on the other side of the road, at 7 Boynton.
Fitzpatrick approached the fence and, peering through the slats, saw the suspect.
Fitzpatrick testified that after he climbed the fence, the suspect attacked him. During the struggle, which lasted almost two minutes according to the patrolman’s testimony, the suspect managed to pull Fitzgerald’s service weapon, a semi-automatic nine-millimetre Glock, from the holster and fired it three times. One shot hit Fitzpatrick in the right buttock. The other two hit him in the lower back. The suspect fired at least two other times, Fitzpatrick stated, before jumping the fence.
BPD’s response was swift. Cops were already swarming the area while EMTs treated Fitzpatrick, who had suffered from a single GSW to the buttock. His bulletproof vest absorbed the two shots fired at his lower back.
A two-hour search of the neighbourhood failed to find the shooter. The man seemed to have made an amazing getaway.
But a little over half an hour after the shooting, a group of patrolmen led by Detective Daniel Hill knocked at the door of the house abutting the fenced-in yard. Other officers, the police report noted, had previously knocked on the door and gotten no response.
Hill had better luck. The door opened and the owner of the house, a forty-two-year-old African American woman named Clara Lacy, informed them that the shooter had forced his way inside her house and then held her and her eight-year-old son Raymond at gunpoint for roughly ten minutes before leaving the house.
Clara Lacy told police she didn’t recognize the black man – had never seen him before or around the neighbourhood. He carried a nine-millimetre handgun and she described him as ‘thin and tall, a couple of inches shy of six foot, and had dark brown eyes’. He wore jeans and Nike high-top basketball sneakers and a black knit hat and a black coat. The man took off his hat at one point and wiped at a cut on his face. Lacy described him as having a close-cropped haircut. She told Hill the shooter stuffed his hat in his coat pocket then helped himself to a can of Coke sitting on a coaster on the table. Hill confiscated the can and logged it into evidence.
Darby now knew the particulars of the incident. And she already knew the outcome: Sean Ellis was convicted of the shooting and served nearly twelve years of a fifteen-year prison sentence before being exonerated on October 3, 2004 after the fingerprint evidence used to convict him was proven to be wrong. He was twenty-eight when he went to prison, almost forty-one when he left. Eight months later, in 2005, someone entered his house, beat him to death with a baseball bat, and then, as he lay dying from massive internal injuries, tied a plastic shopping bag around his head.
The cops who were murdered last year, Ventura and Owen, had been tied down to a chair with duct tape and worked over by a blunt object and then suffocated to death by a plastic shopping bag.
‘The evidence for the Sean Ellis homicide,’ Darby began.
‘Right behind you.’
Darby found the box. Opened it and found the plastic garbage bag sealed inside a clear evidence bag. The garbage bag was white, no writing on it. A generic bag that could have come from anywhere.
The evidence boxes for the Ventura and Owen homicides were stacked in the corner behind Coop, who was busy at work examining the fingerprint evidence used to convict Sean Ellis. Darby pulled the boxes, opened the tops.
The shopping bags used in the homicides were gone.
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+06.35
Darby grabbed the laptop Coop had brought with him. She tapped a key and the screen came out of sleep mode, Darby relieved to discover the connection to the BPD’s computer network was still live.
She had the case numbers for the Ventura and Owen homicides, which gave her access to all the case evidence. A few keystrokes and mouse clicks and she found out why the shopping bags were missing: they had been submitted to the FBI lab for analysis. The BPD crime lab didn’t have the ability to run down the manufacturer of the bags, but the Bureau could.
According to the file, the bags were still with the FBI lab. No big surprise there. The federal lab was, and would always be, backed up. Take a number and then wait weeks, sometimes months, for your answer. Typical.
The crime scene pictures of the shopping bags used to kill the two retired cops and the pictures of the same bags taken at the BPD crime lab, where they were measured and photographed under bright light, were included in the file. The bags were white and contained no writing, logos or any printing – just like the one tied around Sean Ellis’s head. The bags had been fumed for fingerprints, all of which had been submitted to the federal database, IAFIS. No matches to any known offenders were found, no matches to any other cases.
Something was nagging at her about the Ventura and Owen homicides.
She spent twenty minutes bouncing between the two case files until she found it.
Her mouth was dry, her voice tight when she said, ‘Coop.’
He looked at her. Waited.
‘The date Frank Ventura was murdered,’ she said. ‘It’s the same month and day of my father’s birthday.’
Coop waved it away. ‘Coincidence,’ he said. ‘Don’t read into –’
‘Ethan Owen was killed on the exact same day my father was shot.’
Coop sunk back in his chair. Darby stared at the floor.
No doubt Lopez had been grilled as to why she had asked Darby to consult on the two case files. Darby didn’t know why specifically – she thought she was doing a favour to a friend and colleague – but if the reason why Lopez wanted her to look was because she knew the dates of the two homicides matched Big Red’s birthday and death, then it stood to reason Lopez had passed along this information to a Boston detective, maybe even the commissioner himself.
‘Do those cases have any significance to you?’ the governor had asked her. And she had said no, because it was tru
e – they didn’t have any significance to her at that point because she hadn’t read the case files, hadn’t seen the dates. The governor, Donnelly – any of them could now spin it to say that she had deliberately lied to them, had withheld information. They would step on her like a roach.
‘The evidence for the Sean Ellis homicide is still on the BPD system,’ Coop said. He was looking at the computer screen now. ‘The bag tied around his head had also been fumed for fingerprints. Nothing on IAFIS.’
‘The plastic shopping bag used to kill Ellis looks an awful lot like the ones used to kill Ventura and Owens.’
‘I saw that. The prints came up empty.’
‘Right, but we should see if any of the prints from the Ellis bag match the prints found on the bags used to suffocate Ventura and Owens. Judging from what I’m reading there, the prints on all three bags haven’t been compared. If there’s a match –’
‘Already spoke to the boys working in the mobile lab. They’re on it, getting the info from the federal lab.’
‘Then why didn’t you just tell me that before I started on this?’
‘I look like I’m taking a vacation here? You didn’t ask. Now you did, and I answered the question.’
Her face felt hot, the back of her white shirt damp, stuck to her skin. She was tired and angry and she wanted to dump it all on Coop. Instead, she pinched the bridge of her nose and took in a deep breath.
‘When I brought out Anita Barnes, she still had duct tape on her mouth. We should see –’
‘The guys in the mobile lab are already doing a comparison,’ Coop said. He was studying the fingerprint chart shown to the Sean Ellis jury. ‘They’re in touch with the people in our duct tape library. When I know, you’ll know.’
You could have told me that in the beginning and saved me some goddamn time, Darby thought. The words were on her lips, ready to launch, when she swallowed them and sat back in her seat, angry. She didn’t try to breathe it away. Anger was underrated; it made a great partner, lit a fire under your ass and cleared away the other bullshit. Darby was wide-awake and laser-focused as she tore through the remaining documents on Sean Ellis’s conviction, seeing the holes in the defence and the prosecution.
When she finished, she leaned back in her seat, rubbed her eyes and checked her watch. Almost an hour had passed.
‘BPD’s radio communications don’t add up,’ she said.
‘I noticed that too.’
‘Well, it looks like you’ve already got the whole thing figured out, so why don’t you tell me what I’m missing and we can call it a day.’
Coop’s face softened a bit. Just a bit. His face and his eyes were still coiled tightly, like a fist, when he looked up from the fingerprint chart and placed it aside, giving her his full attention.
‘The case materials arrived before the evidence did, so I had a chance to dig into the Ellis case a little before you got here,’ he said. ‘Tell me what you’ve found, your thoughts. Let’s talk it out.’
She stared at him for a beat. Then she said, ‘Fitzpatrick radioed that he was going to climb the fence and go after the suspect, but he doesn’t mention he’s in trouble, that he suspects he’s in any trouble. Four seconds later he radioes in a shots fired, then eight seconds later there’s a call for an officer shot. Fitzpatrick testified that he had – and I’m quoting here – “a lengthy struggle with the suspect.” ’
‘Said it lasted almost two minutes.’
Darby nodded. ‘If that’s true, the radio times negate that. And then there’s the witness testimony on the evening of the shooting. One witness said there wasn’t a struggle, that Fitzpatrick kicked open the gate and went in with his gun drawn. Another witness said he saw the shooter crouched behind the fence, that the guy had his own gun drawn, and fired it when Fitzpatrick entered the yard. What’s ballistics say?’
‘Haven’t double-checked the evidence yet, but the report says the shots all came from the same gun – Fitzpatrick’s. Thing that’s bothering me is Fitzpatrick’s testimony regarding the shooter.’
Coop leaned back in his seat, crossed his legs. ‘Not long after he’s shot, Fitzpatrick starts telling people he knows the shooter – has seen him before, had a few encounters with him, but doesn’t know the guy’s name. So he’s shown an eight-person photo array. Ellis’s picture is in it, and Fitzpatrick says Ellis “most resembles” the person who shot him.’
‘But he’s not positive,’ Darby said. ‘Those were his exact words.’
‘Right. Not positive. So, Fitzpatrick asks for a live lineup because he wants to be sure. That’s where it gets real hinky.’
‘The lineup comes two weeks after the shooting.’
‘And by that time, Ellis’s name and face are all over the papers and on TV as the main suspect. Everyone in Boston knows him.’ Coop shook his head. ‘Two weeks? That doesn’t add up. Fitzpatrick was out of the hospital in two days, they could’ve arranged it when he was discharged, but two weeks? Nobody does that.’
‘And don’t forget the grand jury specifically asked for the lineup from Fitzpatrick because Clara Lacy was shown the exact same eight-man photo array and failed to identify Sean Ellis. Lacy and her eight-year-old son – who are now dead.’
‘Fitzpatrick goes in, picks Ellis out of eight men, and the next day Ellis is indicted.’
‘And the same day Fitzpatrick does the lineup, Clara Lacy is brought in and she fingers Ellis. What’s that suggest to you?’
‘Possible collusion,’ Coop said. ‘But as you and I both know, you need evidence to get a conviction, and that’s where this comes in.’ He tapped the fingerprint chart. ‘This is what got Ellis a fifteen-year sentence, this fingerprint evidence doctored by Trey Warren.’
‘Doctored,’ Darby said.
Coop nodded, kept nodding, Darby feeling as though some part of him had checked out of the room, was off searching for something, maybe hiding.
‘We know Warren didn’t have any fingerprint training,’ she said.
‘True. Here’s the thing, though. The chart? The print on the left was taken from the soda can. The print on the right came directly from Sean Ellis, the inked print they took when they booked him. Two things immediately jumped out, the first of which is it says right here on the chart – and in the testimony given by Warren – that he found sixteen points of identification. It’s unheard of.’
‘And the second thing?’
‘The print lifted from the soda can? That print doesn’t match the one displayed on the chart used on the jury. Warren – or maybe Warren and Hill – maybe a whole group of people wanted to put Ellis away for some reason, and they did it by selling the jury on this bullshit fingerprint testimony back in ’ninety-two.
‘What I can’t figure out,’ Coop said, ‘is why.’
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They were quiet for a moment. Through the walls they could hear the chatter of people talking. She wondered how the bomb at the garage in Hyde Park played into the gunman’s agenda.
‘Ellis was exonerated on DNA evidence,’ Coop said. ‘DNA from the soda, DNA from the crime scene in the yard – not one single sample matched Sean Ellis. But Ellis doesn’t find that out until twelve years into his sentence, when his attorney, Shapiro, and the Innocence Project out of New York pressed for the DNA to be tested because BPD never tested it.’
‘Judge gets the DNA results back, decides to exonerate Ellis.’
‘And the AG at the time, Reilly, says he’s going to retry Ellis and never does. My guess is it’s because of the fingerprint evidence. He found out there wasn’t any fingerprint evidence, maybe even found out it was doctored, and let the thing go.’
‘The same year Ellis was convicted was the same year BPD shut down its fingerprint unit, started over from scratch.’
‘You read the background material on Ellis?’
Darby nodded. ‘Guy wasn’t an angel – he was pinched a few times for shoplifting, mainly luxury clothing – but he wasn’t a gang-ban
ger, and according to everyone who knew him he hated guns.’
‘Was scared of them, according to friends,’ Coop added.
‘He didn’t live in that neighbourhood – lived on the other side of Dorchester. Time of the shooting, Ellis had an old outstanding warrant for a failure to appear in court on a shoplifting-related charge. Why put him in the photo array?’
‘Not that unusual, putting in someone different to mix things up.’
‘But Hill had already fingered Ellis as a lead suspect when Fitzpatrick was shown the photos two days after the shooting.’ Darby flipped open the binder, thumbed through the pages, stopped. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘The day after the shooting, Ellis was arrested on an outstanding warrant and handed over to the lead detectives on the case, Hill and … Christ.’
‘What?’
‘Ventura was one of the lead detectives on the case. Him and Ethan Owen and Hill.’ Darby kept reading. Hunting. ‘They brought in Ellis to question him about the shooting, told him that they found his prints at the crime scene, as well as DNA and fibre evidence.’ Only none of that was true; the detectives didn’t have one shred of evidence on Ellis or anyone else. Lying to a suspect was a commonly used interrogation technique to try to elicit a confession, make the suspect feel as though he was cornered, the walls about to fall down on him.
‘Who arrested Ellis?’ Coop asked.
‘That’s what I’m looking for.’
It took five minutes of flipping pages and checking a second binder to find it. Darby saw the name and her stomach clenched.
‘Robert Murphy,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘Son of a bitch was there.’
‘Where?’
‘At Clara Lacy’s house. If I had known this, I could’ve taken him in then.’ Darby had her hand on the doorknob, was thinking about something more sinister: what was Murphy doing at the Lacy house? Could he have been responsible for shooting Clara and her family? Warren? What was Murphy doing inside the lobby this morning?
Coop said, ‘He made me clean up after the parties.’
