Chain of Evidence

CHAPTER 12

Joe Dart headed home to spend the rest of his Halloween alone. He channel-surfed, finding nothing but stupid sitcoms with everyone in costume, and black-and-white monster movies with sinister sound tracks.

Two beers later, he conjured up the nerve to call Abby Lang. She answered on the third ring, and he asked if she was busy, and she said not terribly and asked what he had in mind. “Have you ever been a costume judge?” he asked her.

Together, they drove in and around Trinity College searching out the best costume. Dart was the designated driver. Abby sampled from a thermos of scorpions, her mood becoming lighter with each passing mile. An hour into it, she slid over next to him so that they were like two teenagers cruising Main. When either of them spotted an award-winning costume, Abby would hop out of the car and snap a Polaroid, using Dart’s crime scene camera. She then stood the photos on the dash, lined up like mug shots, until she accidentally bumped the defrost switch and sent them flying.

They rated a phosphorescent glow-in-the-dark skeleton highly; a monster with green hair and an enormous wart-encrusted nose won a place in their top five, as did a giant turtle. But the blue ribbon went to a group of seven students, each dressed as a spear of green asparagus, the lot of them bound together around the middle with a blue sash as if contained in a rubber band. Deciding that seven walking spears of asparagus could not be topped, the two headed to Abby’s downtown loft, so that Dart could partake of the scorpions.

The loft was near the train tracks in a no-man’s-land across the Bulkeley Bridge, an area of town unfamiliar to him. It was a second-story loft, accessed by a clunky old freight elevator that smelled of sawdust and burning electrical motors, and gave Dart the impression of entering an abandoned building. But on the other side of the steel door to the apartment was a world all Abby’s. She had sanded the wood plank floors back to blond, and had hung seven white and green silk parachutes as her ceiling with the fixtures on the other side of the fabric so that the vast open space glowed in a soft, flattering light. White Sheetrock walls defined the kitchen, to the right, and a bath, some partitioned bedrooms, an office, and closet to the left. Directly ahead, a pot-bellied wood stove served as the focal point of lawn furniture with green striped cushions, including two chaise lounges and a quirky chess set that she used as a side table.

“Do you play?” he asked her as he built a fire at her request.

“Is that a come-on?” she answered.

“Chess.”

“Yes. And bridge and tennis and softball. And volleyball if it’s a sand court. I can’t play indoors anymore.”

“Where are the kids?”

“I dumped them off with a friend,” she answered. Then she added, “For the night.” And Dart felt her answer clear down to his toes.

“That’s where I’m lucky,” she continued. “Being a one-person division, I can pretty much make my own hours.”

He heard her mixing the drinks. He felt that he had somehow invited himself to stay with her, and that wasn’t his intention-or was it? he wondered. The bottom line was that he felt awkward, stretched out on a chaise lounge beneath a parachute, a fire crackling in front of him and a woman, four or five years older than he, mixing drinks in a kitchen half a block away.

“You’re going to love this batch,” she announced.

She had pulled off her sweater and unbuttoned the top two buttons of her shirt. She had kicked off her shoes so that he could see her toes wiggle nervously as she took the chaise lounge next to him and placed a tray bearing a pitcher of scorpions and their two filled cocktail glasses. The paper napkins had Gary Larson cartoons on them, and the swizzle sticks read: Cactus Pete’s Casino, Jackpot, Nevada. Dart felt outgunned.

She jumped up and put on a CD-south-of-the-border guitar instrumentals. He sipped the drink-mixed to kill-and felt himself relax.

“That was nice what you did for Lewellan,” she said, her eyes on the fire. “Arranging with the mother to allow the girl the rabbits. A homicide dick with a heart-now there’s a concept.”

He felt his face flush hot. “It just seemed to make sense, that’s all.”

“You don’t have to apologize. I’m not going to rat on you. I think it’s sweet.”

Trying to steer the topic away from himself, he said, “She’s so … young? I don’t know how you do it.”

“Innocent?” she asked.

“That’s what I wanted to say, yes. But she isn’t, is she?”

“No. Not thanks to Gerry Law.”

“I couldn’t do your job.”

“We each find our calling.”

He wanted to ask her how she had ended up in sex crimes and sex offenses, and then he realized that he didn’t want to know. He admired her. He felt a little intimidated. Could he date a lieutenant? “Packs a punch,” he said of the drink.

“You can handle it,” she replied, drinking down a liberal amount and wiggling her toes again.

The music took over, punctuated by sparks from the fire. She topped off his drink. He was well on his way to drunk. “The turtle was pretty good,” she said, recalling the costumes.

“Um,” Dart answered. “But the asparagus was genius.”

“Yeah. Incredible. You went kind of weird after our night in the crib,” she said honestly, the booze getting to her. “Was that so bad?” She added, “I thought it was fun.”

He looked over at her, but she kept her attention on the fire, letting him look. He finally admitted, “I enjoyed it. I guess I felt awkward. I don’t know.”

“You’ve been treating me like I don’t exist.”

“I felt like I forced you into that.”

“Into kissing you?” she asked. “Are you kidding?” She enjoyed some more of the drink. “Into taking my clothes off, maybe.” She laughed. “It certainly was an interesting first date.” She rocked her head and looked directly at him. Her eyes were smiling. Glassy. Her lips were a deep red and moist from the drink, and if their chaise lounges had been closer together he would have tried to kiss her. “What are you thinking?” she asked slyly.

“Nervous,” he confessed.

“Good.”

“Why is that good?” he questioned.

“I have my reasons.” Abby got up and moved the table with the drinks and pushed her chaise lounge closer to his. She teased, “If this bothers you, keep it to yourself. I’m feeling particularly good at the moment, and I can be dangerous when I feel this good.”

“I like danger,” he answered, reaching out for her hand and taking hers. “Is this all right?” he asked.

“This is perfect,” she answered, holding a knowing smile on her face. Dart felt suddenly at risk, under her spell-her control, he feared-and it made him uneasy.

“You’re not going to freak out, are you?” she asked.

You know me already, he thought.

She explained, “I like your company. Especially tonight. I make no claim to ownership. I ask nothing more of you than to relax and enjoy yourself. We’re both adults. We’re allowed this now and then.” She squeezed his hand in hers as a signal. “Okay with you?”

“I needed to hear that.”

“Good. I needed to say it.”

“It doesn’t make me any less nervous,” he told her and they both laughed-she confidently; he as a form of release.

She handed him her drink then, and with his both his hands occupied, she leaned over, her shirt falling away from her, and she kissed him wetly on the lips. She took his breath away, and she bit his lower lip and he felt it to his toes. He returned the kiss, awkwardly juggling the two drinks, and her hand found its way inside his shirt and over his chest and he was immediately aroused. “One thing nice about middle age,” she whispered into his ear in a way that gave him chills, “is that you know what you like … what makes you feel good …”-she stroked his chest-”what turns you on. And even better,” she added, “you aren’t afraid to enjoy yourself.” She helped him set down the drinks, and she climbed over the arms of the chaise lounges and straddled Dart and met eyes with him. “You know?” she inquired.

“It’s been a long time,” he told her, by way of apology.

“I’m a very patient woman,” she said, pulling him forward so that he sat up, and tricking the chair into a full recline. Then she eased him back and lay down atop him, and a heat grew where they touched.

He wrapped his arms around her strongly and held her, and she nuzzled her chin into the crook of his neck, kissed him once lightly, and hummed affectionately. “There’s nothing quite so amazing in this world as a good hug,” she said. “Sex is over before you know it, but the right kind of hug lasts forever.”

“Is this the right kind?” he asked.

“You bet,” she answered.

Thirty minutes later, she took Dart’s hand and pulled him out of the chaise lounge and led him around a Japanese paper screen to a small bedroom that contained a pine chest, two long rows of hanging clothes, and, on the floor, a futon with a down comforter. She turned and faced him and pulled the shirt over her head. Her bra was translucent, her nipples hard. She undid her jeans and stepped out of them, and Dart was reminded of their night in the crib. She said, “Do me a favor and at least take off your shoes.”

She slipped under the covers, her back to him. Dart undressed fully and climbed in beside her, pressing to her back like spoons. He reached around her and cupped her breasts and hugged her, and she hummed. The air trapped in the covers smelled of her arousal and penetrated Dart to his core. They remained this way for several long minutes, Dart stroking her breasts lightly, Abby, head bent, kissing his arms and hands. It felt to him that they had been lovers for a very long time and that they knew each other’s secrets and pleasures. His fingers explored her, and she slipped out of her underpants and bra, and she found a condom in a bedside box and said something about safe sex and rolled him over and put it on him. She kissed him then, and rolled them over together so that Dart lay atop her. “Gentle at first,” she requested, taking hold of him and rubbing him against her in a way that offered her pleasure and made her shudder. “Rough at the end.”

Later, they collapsed in a sweaty embrace, out of breath and spent with exhaustion. She kissed his neck lightly and ran her fingers down his back and giggled approvingly. “I knew it,” she said happily, the only words she offered. She held him tightly and wouldn’t let him off of her, even after they slipped apart, lingering in the glow of the moment.

“Will you stay with me?” she asked.

“Uh-huh,” he answered, kissing behind her ear, working down her neck, and finding her breast and kissing her there too.

“Maybe hugging comes in second,” she said a while later, and Dart dozed off with a smile on his face.

A beeping sound, emanating from Dart’s clothing, awakened them.

He slipped out of bed.

“I protest!” she complained. “You traded out,” she reminded him.

He carried the pager into the light of the other room and read the CAPers phone number off its LCD display. He called in to Jennings Road, speaking with Sergeant Haite. He hung up immediately, sneaked into the room, and collected his things. “Gotta go,” he told her in a whisper, grateful that she, unlike Ginny, would understand such things.

“Will you come back?” she offered. “Please.”

“I’ll try. It’s over in West Hartford. I’ll be a couple hours at least.”

“Why bother with something in West Hartford?” she asked, coming more fully awake. West Hartford was out of their jurisdiction. She answered herself immediately, confirming that even half-asleep she could think faster than most detectives. “Another suicide,” she said.

“Right.” He clipped the pager to his belt and checked his sidearm and holster. “Another suicide,” he confirmed. “West Hartford asked for our help.” Many of the neighboring towns had little more than patrol squads, using either HPD or the State Police for the bigger investigations.

“Any record?” she asked, flicking on the bedside light, with no inclination toward modesty. She had long since passed the age of pinup girl, but she had nothing to hide.

He hesitated, and she asked him a second time.

“A pornography conviction,” he said.

“I’m coming with you,” she announced, throwing the covers off.

Dart knew better than to argue.

Orchard Road climbed high up a hill, offering a spectacular view of the distant city. This was the high-rent district: half a million dollars and up for a three-bedroom on an acre. Woods. Ponds. Views. Beamers. Rolexes. Divorces. And silicon implants.

Dart pulled the Volvo into the curving drive and parked alongside an HPD patrol car in front of the brick-and-stone two-story house. Abby yanked the rearview mirror toward her and ran a brush through her hair. They both hung their badges around their necks and entered by the front door.

“Tuna’s got the wife upstairs,” announced patrolman Benny Webster. Tanya Fische, an HPD patrol officer, referred to as Tuna, was clearly Webster’s patrol partner. “The wife popped a bunch of Valium and is in la-la land. No use to us until morning. We ain’t touched nothing in the study. But it’s a messy one,” he said, eyeing Abby Lang as if she might have trouble stomaching it. “Single shot up through the roof of the mouth. Nine millimeter.”

“Who’s on it?” Dart asked.

“Kowalski and-” he answered.

Dart and Abby met eyes, interrupting the uniformed man.

“Something wrong?” Webster asked, seeing this.

“Everything’s just ducky,” Abby answered.

Webster continued, “And their assistant chief.”

“West Hartford’s?” Dart clarified. “Nolan?” he said, adding the name.

“That’s him. Yeah. Only he ain’t here. Showed up, talked to the K,” he said, meaning Kowalski, “and took off. It being a suicide and all, he didn’t seem too bothered.”

“Wanted to brief his chief and prepare a statement,” came the voice of Roman Kowalski. He looked tired; the buttons on his shirt indicated he had dressed hastily. “What brings you here?” he asked Dart.

“Sergeant Haite.”

“And you?” he asked Abby.

She didn’t want to explain her having been with Dartelli. She said for Kowalski’s benefit, “‘And you, Lieutenant.’ Is that what you meant to say, Detective?”

Kowalski glared at her. “The wife was out with friends ’til about an hour ago. Comes home, finds the hubby spread all over the study. Calls nine-eleven.” Kowalski eyed Abby again, and Dart realized that maybe he was busy with his arithmetic.

The entrance foyer had a low ceiling with hand-hewn dark timbers and plaster that had pieces of yellow hay stuck into it. To Dart’s left, a gray-carpeted stairway ascended to the second floor. He passed a small stone column supporting a wicker basket filled with trick-or-treat candy and fresh fruit. He thought that on this of all nights, Halloween, there would have been, should have been, potential witnesses around and about.

“Did she find the house locked or open?” he asked Kowalski.

“If you want to sit in the fucking bleachers and watch, I got no problem,” Kowalski said. “But if you want to play Twenty Questions, fucking take it somewhere else.”

“You know what’s amazing about you,” Abby told Kowalski, stepping past him and moving toward the open study door, “is how delicately you handle the language.”

He opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off, raising a finger at him, “And be careful what you say to your superiors, Detective.” With extra venom she added, “’Cause I’ll bust you down to traffic, given half the chance.”

Dart smiled at Kowalski and raised his eyebrows, taunting him.

Stepping up to Dartelli, Kowalski said earnestly, “I’m waiting on Buzz before I go in there. Don’t touch a fucking thing.” He pulled a pack of Marlboros from his coat pocket and stuck one in his mouth. “I’ll be outside.”

The study was the size of Dart’s studio kitchen and sitting area combined. Oriental rugs, dark antiques, a stone-and-brick fireplace with two gargoyles supporting the four-inch thick, burl walnut mantel. A substantial puddle of blood on the rug below the deceased. Splatter pattern on the ceiling consistent with the top of a human head coming off. An oil portrait of a man with a bulbous red nose, who lived back when the river trade kept Hartford prosperous, ruled from above the mantel. Leather-bound books crammed the shelves, looking both untouched and unread. Window dressing. Dart noticed a few spaces between the volumes, like missing teeth.

The body was a mess, draped over a walnut chair with a needlepoint cushion. What remained of the head was angled back away from the blast and discharge of the weapon. The top half of the man’s clothes was brown with drying blood-buckets of it.

“Harold C. Payne,” Abby Lang read, fingering a mailing label on a copy of Arts and Antiques left on a cherry side table in the hall. “I didn’t recognize him without his face.”

“You remember him?”

“Cyber-porn. Fuck shots and D-cup starlets over the Internet. Mail-order photo-CD-ROM. Digitized pornography. The Feds brought him down, but I was consulted. Yeah, I remember him.”

“Sounds like a real sweetheart,” Dart said.

“Piece of work, this one. Hired himself four attorneys and got himself acquitted on all but the mail-order charge, if I’m remembering right.”

Dart wasn’t about to question her memory.

She said, “The whole area of pornography over the Internet remains a little fuzzy-you’ll pardon the expression. It’s still being sorted out.”

“Is there a file on him in Sex Crimes?” Dart questioned.

She met eyes with him, understanding what he was asking. “No,” she answered simply but delivering the message that she did not appreciate the implications of his question. Her eyes said, No one gets in my files without me knowing about it.

Attempting to change subjects, Dart pointed out the snifter of cognac on the partner’s desk, a spilled ashtray at the foot of the deceased’s chair, and the butt of a cigar on the rug. It appeared that Payne had poured himself a drink, had a smoke, and then ate a barrel.

A walnut armoire was wedged into the corner immediately to the left. The rest of that wall was floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Four leaded windows occupied most of the wall behind the desk where a computer was set up on a custom-built return.

Before Bragg and the others arrived, while he still had a moment of peace, Dart studied the crime scene. A husband left alone while the wife went to a party, a glass of cognac, a cigar, and a bullet through the roof of his mouth. The perfect suicide, he thought, believing to his very core that Payne had been murdered. On the edge of the desk he spotted what appeared to be a gun-cleaning kit and what was clearly a box of shells. No suicide note that he could see, but the wife might have found one. The gun hung awkwardly from the dead man’s right thumb; Dart could predict that paraffin tests would confirm that the same hand had fired the weapon, and he wondered how that could have been accomplished.

Unlike the other suicides, he viewed this one as the audience views a magic show: looking for the tricks. He tried to reconstruct how a Zeller or a Kowalski could paint so clear a picture. A speed key or other lock-picking device could get a killer inside-no trick there. But then what? Overpower Payne-knock him unconscious, careful to tap him on that part of his head that would later shatter when the bullet entered. You would have to know about the gun, he thought. Some advance work would have to be done. But guns were registered, and most home weapons were kept in bedside drawers or on the top shelves of closets.

What ate at him was the absence of physical evidence. At the Stapleton jump, the trace evidence-crucial to any investigation-gave no indication of the presence of a mystery visitor. The Lawrence hanging evidence had come in the same way: Teddy Bragg’s report indicated finding some copper filings on the body-these from the lamp cord used for the hanging, the anticipated random cotton and synthetic fibers typical to any floor, and head and body hairs, but only from the victim. No evidence to suggest foul play. The scenario before him placed out the same way-it appeared a straight-ahead suicide. Having been trained in criminalistics, this is where Dart put his faith-the transference of evidence was virtually impossible to avoid; hairs and fibers were in a constant state of exchange: the person entering a room deposited such evidence; the person leaving a room carried such evidence with him. Every variety of organic matter from leaves to pollen, car-floor carpeting, clothing, food, seeds, hairs, dirt, and dust. It seemed inconceivable that the suicides had been staged without any such evidence being shed-and Dart knew that this was exactly what the prosecuting attorney would say: “No evidence, no case.”

Webster wandered over to check on them, and Abby asked him, “Did the wife enter the study?”

“Says she did, yeah. Said she felt for his pulse-his left hand.” He chuckled. “Can you imagine thinking that the thing in that chair might have a pulse. You talk about dreaming.”

“How long was she in the room?” Dart asked him.

“Don’t know. Didn’t say.”

Dart, his mind on fiber evidence, dropped to one knee and brought his head nearly to the floor, looking into the room. To Webster Dart said, “She was wearing slippers: blue fuzzy slippers. Is that right?” He glanced up at the patrolman, who appeared not to remember.

“I … ah …”

“Find out.”

“Yes, sir.” Webster took off a brisk pace, and Dart could hear him charging up the stairs.

“What?” Abby asked, kneeling.

“Get down low.” Dart demonstrated, nearly touching his ear to the floor.

Abby teased, “I love it when you talk dirty,” and then duplicated his actions.

“See them? The fibers?” he asked. “Play with your focus,” he instructed.

“Got ’em!” she exclaimed excitedly. “Blue fibers!”

“Yup. And do you see where they lead?”

“To the armoire. Not to the body.”

“Yup. And?”

She rocked her head, and they were nearly kissing, both of them with their ears to the hardwood floor. “There’s a dark swath cut down the rug between here and the deceased.”

“You’re good,” Dart told her. Her bottom was sticking high in the air, and for a moment he wasn’t thinking about fiber evidence.

“And there’s a lighter swath between the armoire and the desk.”

“The nap is worn down.”

“That’s a hell of a lot of trips to the armoire,” she pointed out.

“I agree.”

“And the darker swath?” she asked.

“The nap is raised,” he pointed out. “It’s going a different direction from the rest of the nap.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Exactly.” With the pieces coming together in his head, Dart wanted into the room, and was tired of waiting for Teddy Bragg. He told Abby, “Wait here. Don’t let anyone inside.”

“Joe?”

He hurried off. In the foyer, he ran into Webster just coming down the stairs. The patrolman confirmed, “Blue fuzzy slippers, Detective. She’s still wearing them.”

Kowalski was admiring the view, working on his second cigarette. As Dart passed him, Kowalski asked, “Are you fucking her, Dartelli?” Dart kept walking. “The reason I ask is she has that look, you know? All rosy around the chest and neck. A little more smiley than normal for her. And because on account of I’m only seeing your car out here, so I’m thinking the two of you rode together, and it’s kinda late for that,” Dart reached his car. “She any good, Dartelli? You know, if what they say about how a woman’s lips are the same in both places, I’d say you scored big.”

“Shut up, Kowalski,” Dart said, fishing two pairs of shoe covers and latex gloves out of the back of the Volvo where Dart kept a first-aid kit, a flak vest, and an evidence collection kit.

“Real nice mouth on her,” Kowalski said.

Dart shut the back of the wagon and heard a vehicle approaching. Probably Teddy, he realized, deciding to hurry. He passed Kowalski but then stopped. He said, “You know, I used to think that you’re as dumb as everyone says you are, as dumb as you act.” The big man’s head pivoted, and he looked into Dart’s eyes. Dart continued, “If you’ve fucked with these crime scenes in any way, I’m going to have your ass.” Smoke flowed out of Kowalski’s nose, and he squinted at Dart with such loathing that the detective thought he might take a swing at him. “Tell Teddy that I went in without him.”

“You can’t do that!” Kowalski protested.

Dart held up the paper shoe covers. “So stop me.” He turned and went inside.

At the study door, with Bragg’s step van just pulling up outside, Dart and Abby slipped the paper shoe covers over their shoes and donned latex gloves.

Dart told her, “I want you to guide me. Keep me away from the blue fibers wherever possible, and off that raised nap.”

Dart kept close to the near wall and reached the armoire without requiring any directions from Abby.

“Exactly what are you looking for?” she asked.

He opened the armoire, revealing a large television and an assortment of stereo equipment. He ran his gloved hand blindly along the interior of the piece of furniture.

“What’s up, Joe?” she asked.

Dart’s fingers bumped a stout piece of metal concealed beneath the first shelf. He hooked it, pushed it, pulled it. Pop! The edge of the armoire jumped away from the wall. Dart slid his fingers into the crack and pulled it open like a door.

“Jesus …,” she gasped.

“Stay close to the wall,” he advised.

Abby joined him. Dart pulled the armoire all the way open and found the interior light switch.

They heard the front door open and the voices of Kowalski and Teddy Bragg.

“Don’t touch anything,” Dart said as he led the way into the hidden room.

The room had no windows. The area closest to the hidden door was laid out like a computer/video laboratory, the remainder dedicated to library stacks crowded with books of every shape and size, cloth and leather-bound. On closer examination, the books appeared worn and quite old. One of the stacks held several long rows of video tapes.

“Ten to one,” Abby said, “this is the evidence that the Feds never found.”

The electronic equipment included two computers, a white table, several lights on tripods, two video cameras, a scanner, a color laser printer, and a multiline telephone.

“Nice gear,” Dart said.

“Major money,” she said.

A VCR and twenty-seven-inch television occupied a separate table.

Kowalski entered behind them. Dart looked first at his shoes, furious the man had not worn shoe covers-in theory, any hairs-and-fibers evidence was now contaminated. This kind of behavior was so typical of the man, that Dart realized mentioning it was useless. Kowalski was useless.

Kowalski stepped over and opened one of the leather-bound books.

“Gloves!” Dart chastised. But the man had already touched the book.

Kowalski, ignoring Dart completely, flipped though the pages. “Geez! Enough to make even me blush.” Abby peered over his shoulder, and Dart watched as her face reddened noticeably; she looked quickly away, stepped back and coughed, clearing her throat.

“I thought you was tough, Lang,” Kowalski teased.

“Gloves, Kowalski!” Dart said irritably.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Gloves!” Dart repeated, stealing the book from the detective.

Dart glanced at it. The photograph in question depicted a naked woman suspended beneath a horse via a leather harness. In a challenge of proportions, she was engaged in intercourse with the stud, nothing left to the imagination. Dart slapped the book shut, revolted.

Kowalski had the tact to say, “You ever play horsey, Lang?” Wearing latex gloves now, he took the book from Dart, opened it and said, “Oh my god! This one’s doing it with Flipper for crying in your beer! Fucking a porpoise, Dartelli. Get a load. Geez, what a pecker those things have!”

“Cool it,” Dart reprimanded.

Kowalski held the book up in front of the woman. “What is that, Abigail, a porpoise or a dolphin?”

She averted her eyes, “No thanks.”

Dart took the book away once again. “Enough!” He added, “Act like a detective, just once.”

“Easy, Fred,” Kowalski said back to him as an obvious warning. He towered over Dart by a good three inches and outweighed him by sixty pounds. “Just having a little fun is all.” He glanced at Abby and back to Dart. “She got no reason being here anyway.”

Dart’s mind froze.

Abby spoke up. “Smut like this, and you’re wondering what Sex Crimes is doing here? Get a clue, Kowalski.” She pulled a leather-clad book from the shelf, obviously incredibly old. She gently opened the volume. “Latin,” she said, studying it. “Twelfth-century drawings.” She turned the pages, shaking her head at what she saw. “It appears the Roman clergy enjoyed pornography.”

Returning the bestiality book to the shelves, Dart told Kowalski about the federal charges against Payne and Abby’s earlier involvement. Kowalski didn’t seem to be listening. He seized upon the same book-a kid in a candy store-opened it and asked, “Hey, Dartelli, would you recognize a boa constrictor if you saw one?” He had the arrogance to laugh. “What about half of one?” He looked up at Abby Lang and said, “Talk about getting snaked!”

Once again Dart stepped over to Kowalski, but he was spared the confrontation by Ted Bragg, who entered and, in an angry voice, condemned them all for having entered the room before he had a chance to go over it. “This is a crime scene, not a convention!” he complained. “Get out!”

Dart said to Kowalski, “Go ahead, tell him about the rug.”

Kowalski looked paralyzed.

“The rug,” Dart repeated, cherishing the moment.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Lieutenant?” Dart asked Abby.

She said to Bragg, “The wife claims to have entered and checked the body. Fiber evidence contradicts this-”

“What the fuck?” Kowalski blurted out.

She continued, “We have her crossing the room to the bookshelf, the desk, and here, to this room. Further evidence suggests a variance in the nap of the rug between the door and the deceased. Photos of that would be good to have before the place is walked all over.”

“Nap?” Bragg inquired.

Dart answered. “Someone vacuumed that section of the rug, Buzz, long before we got here.”

“Vacuumed?” Bragg asked.

“What the fuck?” Kowalski repeated.

Looking directly at Kowalski, Dart said, “Someone hoping to remove hairs-and-fibers evidence, in an effort to conceal what really went on here.”

Bragg, his annoyance showing, said, “And what really went on here, Ivy?”

“It’s a homicide, Buzz. I want it treated as a homicide.”

“Who’s lead on this?” Bragg inquired.

Kowalski, stunned and out of sorts, had yet to break eye contact with Dartelli. “I’m lead,” he announced authoritatively, defiantly, “and until you tell me that we got evidence to the contrary, Teddy, we treat it the way we see it: a suicide. You got any reason to doubt that, then I’m willing to change horses, if and when we make sense of it.” To Dart he said, “You have information I don’t have?”

Dart just stared at the man. He was thinking that he’d gone too far, that it was time to close ranks.