False accusations

CHAPTER 64

Lou Palucci was laughing, the phone receiver bobbing up and down with the flab on his double chin.

“I’m serious,” Chandler said. “I need you to do me a favor.” He heard a door close and realized Palucci was probably still at the lab and had just sequestered himself inside his office.

“The last favor I did for you nearly cost me my job. Is your memory that short?”

“Last time I checked, you were still in charge of the lab.”

“The answer’s no, Chandler. Absolutely not.”

“You don’t even know what I need.”

“The very point,” Palucci said, “is that you need something. And that means that I can’t help you. I work for the state, not Ryan Chandler.”

Chandler took a deep breath. “Lou, this is no big deal, but you’re the only one who can do it.”

“I don’t like the sound of it already, and I don’t even know what ‘it’ is.”

“It’s just a few numbers. Lot numbers, on the bottoms of the beer cans found in Phil Madison’s car and those confiscated from Harding’s house.”

“Why do you need those?”

“Don’t ask why. Just get them for me. You’re not running any tests, you’re not spending any state money for private purposes-”

“I’ll think about it. I need to let things settle down a bit before I go poking around. I’ll call you from home if I have anything for you.”

Chandler thanked him and hung up, then slumped in his chair. At this point, there was nothing to do unless Palucci called him back. As he sat there, he thought of a case his father had presided over, a case that first lit the spark in his heart for choosing police work as a career when he was sixteen years old. He smiled at the memory of sitting with his dad on a pier in Bay Shore, Long Island, going over the forensic evidence that helped put a killer behind bars for life.

Johnny Donnelly’s voice echoed through his head.

“It’s time, Junior…it’s time…”

Chandler picked up the phone, stared at it for a long moment, then dialed his father.