Chain of Evidence (32 page)

Worse, he now needed to break the news of Zeller’s involvement to Haite, convincingly, and yet carefully, without mentioning Zeller’s name, never putting Haite in the position of being required to report Zeller to Internal Affairs and thereby losing control. Until Zeller’s actual arrest, it would be better if he were thought of as Wallace Sparco. That would keep both Internal Affairs and the upper brass out of the investigation. If the pursuit took on task force proportions, Zeller would never be caught. He was far too savvy.

Dart waited outside Christ Church Cathedral, not properly dressed for the cold weather, shifting back and forth on painful feet, nervous, cold, and tense. One of the first Gothic Revival churches built in the New World, the cathedral, with its tall spire shaped of brown stone, was said to have been created to bring the congregation to “heavenly thoughts.” Dart’s thoughts were on a baser level, though he looked skyward and asked for some help.

John Haite winced as he spotted Dart from afar. A man who liked to leave the office at Jennings Road and not bring it home with him, Haite motioned his wife and son inside the church. Coming over to Dart with a determined look, he said, “What’s the meaning of this?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“My son is in his first Thanksgiving pageant. I’m not on duty tonight. I traded with—”

“I know,” Dart interrupted, “but it has to be you. And it can’t wait until tomorrow’s shift. I’m sorry, Sergeant.”

“This is bullshit,” Haite said. “Impossible.”

“There’s been another suicide,” Dart informed him. “Another
homicide
,” he corrected. “Tomorrow’s Friday; we’re the night shift; that leaves the entire weekend; it’s never going to be the right time.”

Haite glanced around. He waved to a few of the other parents just arriving with their preschoolers. He seemed embarrassed. He whispered angrily, “Nice fucking timing.”

Vespers had just concluded in the chapel, and Dart spotted a priest at a side door. He approached the man, showed him his shield, and asked for a room in private for a few minutes. The priest quickly agreed. Dart waved Haite toward the door, and the sergeant approached reluctantly, apologizing and gesticulating deferentially to the priest, who showed them into a small choir room with rich, dark wood paneling and a lush red carpet. Dart found it interesting to see Haite’s more humble side; he was a more religious man than Dart would have guessed.

Haite was clearly uncomfortable here. A large dark table occupied the center, surrounded by four straight-back chairs. In the main hall, a pianist and guitarist could be heard practicing the program’s children’s songs, including “Old MacDonald’s Farm.” The setting felt surreal.

Dart placed an impatient Haite in one of the chairs and then leaned a shoulder against the paneling, alongside some choir robes on hangers. “We have a difficult situation,” he began.

“We have a psycho who’s killing sex offenders, is what we have,” Haite interjected.

“If it were only so simple,” Dart said, winning the man’s surprise and full attention.

“Go on.”

“I have to be careful how I put this.”

“You have seven minutes,” he said, checking his watch. “Otherwise, we do this little dance tomorrow night.”

“I have a list of names…. You don’t want to know how I came by it. Stapleton, Lawrence, Payne, and tonight’s victim, Greenwood, are all on this list. So are twenty others. I have reason to believe that a similar if not identical list is in the possession of a drug research company located out in Avon. All men. All test subjects for some kind of hormonal therapy—genetic therapy—that I believe is aimed at changing or eliminating their violent behavior toward women. Kind of a Prozac for sex offenders.”

Haite looked as if someone had slapped him across the face, except that both cheeks were bright red. He mumbled, “You need some time off.”

Dart continued, “It is also my belief—some of which I can prove—that a lone individual is staging murders to look like suicides to keep this drug company from bringing the product to market. To see that the drug fails in the clinical trials. To keep sex offenders behind bars, not wandering the streets under treatment.”

“I can support that attitude,” Haite said bluntly.

“They’re all homicides, Sergeant: Lawrence. Stapleton. Payne. Staged brilliantly. Teddy Bragg can prove it—or at least make a strong case. The technique is ingenious, the methodology impeccable.”

“Why suicide? Why not just kill the bastards?”

“To invalidate the clinical trials. To keep us off the investigation. To kill as many as possible before anyone catches on.”

Haite nodded. “Okay,” he said, “let’s say you’re right.”

“The individual in question is known to us as Wallace Sparco.”

“Of Eleven Hamilton Court. An ERT raid that blew up in our faces and had us arresting one of our own. Don’t lead with your failures, Dartelli.”

Dart tried hard to ignore him. “What’s of particular interest to us, Sergeant, is that this individual perpetrating these crimes”—and Dart paused here to collect himself—” is …”—he searched for a way to say this—“
confidently familiar
with police investigative procedure. Especially as regards the collection of hairs-and-fiber evidence, chain of custody, et cetera.”

“He’s a cop?” Haite was no dummy, he knew where Dart was going with this. He said, “You’re thinking
Kowalski?
”

Dart shook his head no and spoke extra slowly, “Someone with a personal grudge against sex offenders; someone, let’s say, whose wife may have been violently raped and murdered.” He paused, watching the color drain from Haite’s complexion. “Someone with a firm understanding of hairs-and-fibers evidence collection techniques, and a sharp enough mind to use that understanding against us.”

“God,” the sergeant said, his eyes wide.

Dart glanced at an oil painting of Jesus that hung above the handbells.

Haite said, “You think it’s—”

Dart quickly interrupted. “Better if this is kept speculative until such a time as the individual is apprehended, I think.”

Haite thought for two of his remaining five minutes in total silence, glancing intermittently at Dart with something like hatred in his eyes. He seemed to blame Dart for all this trouble, like a parent blaming a child.

Dart, letting the blame roll off him, felt that he had made his point well, and so far, Haite had kept a cool head. It was going better than he had hoped. Dart said, “I need the weight of this department behind me—the support that these were murders—if I’m to convince this company, Roxin Laboratories, to suspend their trials.”

“Forget it,” Haite said, shattering Dart’s brief flirtation with success.

“But, Sergeant—”

“One thing at a time, Detective! The investigation
first.
The suspect
first.
You are
not
putting this department into the position of defending a
theory
—one in which we’ve brought no charges against anyone and have nothing but some hairs-and-fibers evidence to go on. We have to involve the prosecutor’s office, we have to do this all aboveboard. You want to shut down this trial, you had better have a suspect in custody—”

“But, Sergeant—”

“For now, they are suicides,” Haite roared, his voice no doubt carrying into the main hall. “They’ve been
cleared
as suicides. You’re talking about reopening
cleared
cases.”

“He’ll go on killing,” Dart reminded in a hoarse whisper. He felt devastated, as if he’d had the wind knocked out of him.

“Some perverts? Some child molesters? You think that’s going to shake up a lot of people, do you? Get a clue, Dartelli.”

“He’ll kill them,” Dart repeated.

“That’s
your
problem, Detective. You are
my
problem. This is your theory, not mine. You prove it, or you lose it, but do
not
go making
any
accusations until you damn well know what you’re talking about—until you can
prove
it to me and the prosecuting attorney’s office. What you’re talking about here …” He rolled his eyes. They were filled with tears, his friendship with Zeller getting the better of him. “I, for one, hope to God you’re wrong.” He checked his watch, looked at Dart, and snapped, “Not
one word
of this to anyone.
Anyone.
Not until you hand me the smoking gun—with an arm attached to it. Do you understand?”

“Do you know what you’re saying?” Dart asked. “What you’re condoning?” He looked around the room.
And in a church, no less,
he felt like adding.

“Not
one word,
” the sergeant repeated.

“Please,” Dartelli said, speaking the
one word
he hoped might get through.

Haite kicked back the chair as he stood, and it nearly went over. “You really are a Boy Scout,” he said viciously, storming out of the room but stopping and turning to face Dart from the open doorway. “You didn’t learn anything from him, did you?”

Dart straightened the chair and followed Haite out into the cold.

CHAPTER 36

The house was a large Victorian on a one-acre fenced estate in West Hartford, just down the street from the governor’s mansion. Towering elms and oaks lined the street. The smell of woodsmoke tinged the air. One neighbor had already put up Christmas lights—a team of seven perfectly sculpted reindeer made of tiny white lights, arcing up toward the sky, drawing a sleigh parked on the grass. Hoping for snow. This was a Mercedes-Benz neighborhood. Dart felt conspicuous in his Taurus.

He checked himself twice in the rearview mirror, attempting to improve on the disheveled and unkempt appearance that seemed stuck on him. He jerked the mirror back into place, slipped a breath mint into his mouth, and climbed out of the car.

Dr. Arielle Martinson answered her own front door carrying a yellow legal pad and half-glasses. She wore stone-washed designer jeans, a man-tailored flannel shirt. Without makeup, she looked a few years older. He noticed a shock of gray on the right side of her head that he had missed during their first encounter. She had pulled back her hair just prior to answering the door, for she held a hair elastic wrapped around two fingers, and her hair still held that shape of someone standing in a strong wind. But it was down by the time she greeted Dart and she shook her head again, freeing her hair more, making sure to cover that scar.

She admitted him with hardly any small talk. He, the cop, taking note of the exquisite furnishings—oriental rugs, flowing drapes, and antiques; the security system—the motion detector winking high in the ceiling’s corner; and the hand-carved door to the library as she directed him through.

She had been working at one of two computers, one on a mahogany partner’s desk with a burgundy leather top. A reproduction Tiffany lamp. An original oil painting over the fireplace. A brown Lab lying between the leather couch and the leaded window. She offered him coffee, tea, or “something stronger.” He declined, mentioning that he was on duty. She found herself a glass of white wine in the kitchen and quickly returned.

“It’s a beautiful house,” he said.

Taking a chair with needlepoint upholstery, she said, “It’s late. Let’s get down to business, shall we? What brings you back so soon, Detective?”

“A man named Greenwood. A drug overdose suicide. Discovered late this afternoon. We think he’s part of your trial.”

She pursed her lips. “I have no comment.”

“I only wondered—”

“No comment is no comment,” she said curtly. Her heaving chest showed him that she was agitated. Her darting eyes provoked a sense of concern in him, as if she were attempting to conceal someone hiding in the room.

“We’re on the same team here,” he reminded.

“Following our last meeting, I attempted some inquiries. But a blind trial is just that, I’m afraid. Again, I assure you that if the suicides were found to be related
in any way
to our trial, I would be well aware of it, and the trial would be halted. But I have
not
been made aware of such a relationship, in spite of my inquiries. I understand that you have a job to do. I have no quarrel with that. I would suggest to you that—”

“They are murders. We’ve confirmed that,” Dart interrupted, silencing her. “Related directly to your trial. I need to stop the trials.”

“You can
prove
to me that they are related?” The fingers of her right hand ran up and down the stem of the wineglass nervously.

Dart said, “We need to offer these men protection—”

“Impossible.”

“They’re targets!”

She stared at him for a moment and then said, “Detective Dartelli, I can’t divulge to you the nature of any of our trials, but what you are suggesting would most certainly compromise the trial, most likely nullify any results, and thereby cost this company
millions
of dollars. I can promise you, Detective—
promise
—that we’ll fight any such attempt on your part. You and your department will bear huge legal costs if we have anything to say about it. I don’t think either of us wants that.”

“We need your cooperation,” he almost pleaded.
I need to bring proof to my superiors,
he thought.
I need to shut you down.

“No. That’s not going to happen,” she said sternly.

“You have Proctor working on this, is that it? You think you can handle this without—”

Dart caught himself midsentence, recalling Zeller at the fire and the man’s intimation that Zeller was himself a target. He met eyes with Martinson. Hers were stone cold and her breathing had calmed to where her chest was not moving at all. Frighteningly confident. Proctor had been told to rid her of this problem called Walter Zeller.
She knows about Zeller!
Dart realized.

“You need me,” he told her.

Her gaze remained unflinching. She sipped the wine and rested the glass cradled in her hands in her lap, and her fingers toyed with the stem again.

“The suicides will eventually be linked to your clinical trial,” Dart warned, “to your drug—this Prozac for sex offenders.” She stiffened noticeably, a look of hate filling her face. “Unless a person is held responsible
by the police,
tried, and convicted, your drug will be blamed.” He didn’t want a gang of rent-a-cops hunting down Zeller and performing roadside justice. No matter what his crimes, the sergeant deserved better. Suddenly he felt his sentiments shifting toward Zeller, found himself believing that he owed it to Zeller to find him first. “Do you understand me?” Dart asked angrily. Her impassive front was getting to him. She had still not recovered from his calling her drug Prozac for sex offenders. He sensed that he knew something that she didn’t want him to know, and that in desperation, he might have played that card wrongly.