Chain of Evidence

CHAPTER 17

The small, two-acre patch of grass along the west bank of the Connecticut River was technically part of Riverside Park, though not directly connected to it. This particular section was beneath the Charter Oak Bridge, a relatively new structure linking Hartford and East Hartford. The river’s brown surface reflected the gray of the sky and the delicate etching of the dormant trees that lined its banks. A pair of ducks raced down the very center of the waterway, their wings singing. A brisk November chill raised Ginny’s collar and had brought out a winter wool sweater. She wore her green oil slicker, partially open, green rubber half-boots with leather laces, and a pair of small pink gloves. The winter river was quieter than that of spring or summer, void of sound, as if sleeping while awaiting its blanket of ice, which had already begun to creep in from the edges.

Dart took a deep breath. “You look worried. What’s wrong?” He felt he knew her well enough to ask this, although it implied an intimacy that she was clearly not comfortable with on that day.

“Nothing.”

“If it’s personal-”

“It’s not,” she snapped.

He felt too much a part of her to separate himself from her tension; it attached to him and slowly choked a ring around his upper throat, restricting his air and increasing his heart rate.

“The name of this woman that you gave me, Danielle Payne,” she said, referring to the late Harold Payne’s wife, “is in the system as a victim a domestic abuse.”

For Dart, this confirmed that at least one verifiable way existed for the killer to identify his victims-this could not be explained by coincidence. The second part of the victim list seemed to be associated with convicted offenders. He said, “You could have told me that over the phone.”

“It’s bigger than that. Bigger than we thought. More confusing,”

She didn’t appreciate nagging, and so he waited her out, but the anxiety swelled in his chest.

She said, “Your friends Stapleton and Lawrence had both recently purchased extensive health care policies. Two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar deductible. The kind of policies you would associate with the affluent. Both within three months prior to their suicides. These are both men with no prior coverage. What did me in was your friend Harold Payne-”

Stop calling them my friends, he wanted to complain.

“He had a policy in place, but it was one thousand deductible. Exactly three months ago, he reapplied and obtained a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar deductible.”

Dart wasn’t sure what to make of this information. Thinking aloud, he muttered, “All three suicides had new or recently altered insurance policies.”

“Yes.”

“Which connects them all, one to the other.”

“Absolutely,” she agreed.

It seemed to Dart yet another way that a killer might have identified his victims, and this, in turn, worried him because Ginny had been exploring the same database. “Why?” he asked, still puzzled.

“I don’t have any idea. But it would seem that someone is buying these policies for them, and if that’s the case, I may be able to find out who that is by accessing billing.”

“Can you do that?”

“This is computers, Dart. You can do anything.”

“Safely?”

“More lectures?”

The comment infuriated him, and for a moment he felt tempted to give her a piece of his mind but restrained himself by chewing on his lower lip. “Maybe one of the companies had some kind of marketing campaign in place.”

“Offering policies for wife beaters and convicted sex offenders?”

“The demographics are similar,” he said, realizing immediately that Payne’s affluent lifestyle distanced him from both Stapleton and Lawrence. “I don’t know,” Dart conceded. “That’s not right.”

She handed him a large manila envelope and said, “Victims of domestic violence, as identified by the insurers-Hartford, East Hartford, West Hartford. It’s a big list, Dart, and probably quite incomplete. You might want to try your Sex Crimes files.”

Guilt in the form of a searing heat flashed up his spine-does she know about Abby? he wondered. Hartford was a small town and rumors circulated freely. Is she trying to tell me something?

“Right,” he said, attempting to interpret her expression while at the same time avoiding contact with her eyes. She could read him far too well.

But his eyes did stray to hers, and he saw that she was looking over his shoulder, not directly at him, and her expression was one of concern, causing him to glance back quickly.

In the distance, a ramped footbridge climbed up from ground level to a landing where it turned and rose by a series of formed-concrete steps to the pedestrian way on Charter Oak Bridge. Silhouetted on the landing stood the figure of a tall man.

Dart looked quickly away, his pulse pounding with this sight, returning his attention to Ginny and saying softly, “Is he still there?”

“He’s heading up the stairs.”

Dart ventured another glance and asked, “How long was he there?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, her voice reflecting her fear.

“Did he approach from the bottom or the bridge?”

“I don’t know!” she repeated harshly.

Dart’s first temptation was to turn and go after the man, despite the fact that it could have been any pedestrian simply pausing to enjoy the river view. But he felt uneasy about leaving Ginny alone in an isolated location, especially given her discovery of a possible conspiracy involving the three suicides.

“Listen-” he said.

“Go,” she prompted.

“Are you sure?”

“Go! I’m fine.”

Dart took off at a run. The entrance to the pedestrian ramp was a hundred yards ahead, the ramp itself climbing in his direction. He crossed several islands of weeds and a pair of paved roads that saw little, if any, traffic at that time of year. Reaching the ramp, he pushed hard, climbing it quickly while glancing down at where he and Ginny had been talking. Ginny, her head tilted back, her chin raised, watched him intently.

Dart flew up the concrete steps and up onto the bridge itself, and looked in both directions: first left, up the inclined arch of the bridge; then right, toward the city, and then down at ground level. He panted, out of breath, blood pounding in both ears. A car in the midst of a right-hand turn was visible to him only briefly. He blinked his eyes closed in an act of concentration, attempting to burn the image into his memory. But like the car, the image escaped, an undefinable blur, leaving only a color imprinted on the underside of his eyelids: blue-gray.

Dart recovered his breath and turned back to the steps to rejoin Ginny, but she and her car were gone, leaving Dart with that color imprinted into his vision, lingering like the afterglow of a flash camera: blue-gray.

He blocked out all else but this color, allowing it to swim within his head, and a voice quickly filled the void. It was the voice of a twelve-year-old black girl that interrupted him, the voice of Lewellan Page, resonating within her mother’s kitchen as she offered to Lieutenant Abby Lang a description of the car that she had witnessed parked behind Gerald Lawrence’s Battles Street apartment on the night of his “suicide.” Blue, maybe. Gray … he recalled her saying.

The killer? Dart wondered, furious that he had not seen enough of the vehicle to register a make, a model, or a year.