Chain of Evidence

CHAPTER 2

Teddy Bragg looked like a candidate for bypass surgery. Dartelli worried about him. His skin was the color of watery cottage cheese and he lacked the nervous energy that had given him the longtime nickname Buzz. His eyes were bloodshot and his breath bad, and he had buttoned his shirt incorrectly, making him into an old man, but Dartelli didn’t have the heart to point out the buttoning error because Teddy Bragg took such things extremely personally, and when his mood went sour, everyone around him suffered.

“I got a total staff of two, don’t forget,” he said, apologizing first, which troubled Dart. “And I gotta run this by Kowalski-I’m perfectly aware of that-but you’re the one who asked about the apartment, so you’re the one I called.”

The lab ceiling was water-stained acoustic tile, the floor, paint-stained cement. Too much stuff had been taped and removed from the walls, leaving dark holes in the cream-colored paint. What remained of the evidentiary lab communicated by an open door with the pantry-size area in which a behemoth photo developer churned out crime scene photographs and mug shots, lending an inescapable toxic odor to both areas that gave Dartelli a quick headache, and Teddy Bragg his rheumy eyes.

“I can wait if I have to, Buzz, it’s only a suicide.” Lies. One begot the next.

“That wasn’t your attitude on Monday.”

“It’s Thursday. I have other fish to fry.” Dartelli tried this out on the man, despite the churning in his stomach and the tightness in his chest. For four days he had slept poorly, haunted by the image of Stapleton’s crushed face, and the suspicion that the past had surfaced like Ahab’s whale. He wanted whatever Bragg had, wanted it badly, but felt more like his alcoholic mother when she tried to hide her bottle. No one must know, he reminded himself.

“I gave it to Sam,” he said, meaning Samantha Richardson, the other half of Bragg’s department. Richardson handled all of the photography and most of the evidence collection, while Bragg dealt with the scientific analysis that wasn’t shipped out to the State Police, administration, and most of the court testimony. “I sent her with a uniform as an escort because I was hoping to get her back alive.”

“Stapleton’s apartment,” Dartelli clarified, itching for whatever information Bragg could supply and trying to appear nonchalant about it. The area north of the city where Stapleton had lived was not safe for a Caucasian out of uniform, even in the daytime.

“We didn’t lift any red pubic hairs or head hairs, for that matter. And though the neighbors knew there was a girlfriend involved-a lot of shouting, evidently-she, Sam, didn’t get a name from them.”

Dartelli had wanted to handle these interviews himself but had decided that on a north end suicide it might attract unnecessary attention within the department for him to express such interest. Leaving it to Bragg and Richardson had been difficult. Dart liked to maintain control, but he had complete faith in Bragg-at least when the man was healthy.

“No name?” Dartelli asked, frustrated by the thought he might have lost his chance to connect Stapleton to whoever had been in that room with him.

Lots of unanswered questions remained: Why had Stapleton traveled downtown to the De Nada, if his intention had been to commit suicide? And if his intention had not been to commit suicide, then why did he come prepared with the special screwdriver? And if his sole intention had been to have a whore on the night of his suicide, then why had Vice/Narcotics failed to produce the missing redhead? Given the two-hundred-dollar finder’s fee offered for information leading to the woman’s identity, it seemed inconceivable to Dartelli that they still had no solid leads. This was not a big town.

“I didn’t say that,” Bragg corrected, “just that the neighbors were worthless as usual.”

“You did get a name!” Dartelli said, seizing on the fact and belying his external calm. Give me the fucking name! he felt like shouting.

“Sheesh, think you won the lottery or something,” Bragg said suspiciously. Knowing he had the man, Bragg was withholding the vital information. “No sign whatsoever of this woman currently residing in the apartment with Stapleton, except for an empty closet and a couple of empty drawers in the bathroom. Maybe she moved out, or something. And as I said: no red hairs-all black. Sam said the place was trashed up pretty bad; guy lived like a slob.”

“Her name?” Dartelli asked, as calmly as possible.

“And she didn’t find a note, or anything even close to explaining why he might have took the dive.” Studying Dart’s reaction, he said, “I didn’t think you’d like that.”

“I need the woman’s name, Buzz. That’s where I start.”

Attempting to sound definitive, Bragg stated, “You’re not going to ask us to compare fibers.” Adding quickly, “Not on a north end jumper, for Chrissakes. Put it to bed.”

Dartelli hesitated and said, “Not for a north end jumper, no.”

Bragg looked bothered. Dartelli couldn’t be sure if he was reading the man right, or if Bragg was indeed physically ill, but he was acting oddly, as if he might be concealing something. “Buzz?” Dartelli inquired, reminding himself at that moment of Ginny Rice because she always used Dart’s name as an interrogative, and it bothered him.

“Priscilla Cole,” Bragg volunteered, heading off Dart’s inquiry. “Sam found phone and electric bills in the name of Priscilla Cole. Got to be the girlfriend.”

Making note of it, Dartelli thanked the man.

“What’s bugging you, anyway?” Bragg asked.

Dartelli tried his best to wash the concern off his face. “Nothing.”

“About this jump, I mean,” the lab man said. “I felt it from the get-go.”

“I’ll be happier once I’ve talked to this redhead,” Dartelli explained. “Loose ends, you know.”

“Zeller,” Bragg said.

Dart’s throat constricted and he felt choked. Does Teddy know? he wondered.

“He turned you into a worrier, just like him,” Bragg stated.

The explanation flooded Dartelli with relief. “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Dartelli managed to say, though his throat remained tight, causing him to sound emotional.

Bragg nodded. “You could do worse than remind me of Walter Zeller,” Bragg complimented him.

“Priscilla Cole,” Dartelli repeated, hoping to end the conversation. He didn’t want to be talking about Zeller.

Escorting Dartelli past the smelly photo machine and to the door, Bragg said, “Stay tuned.”

Dartelli left with a nagging bubble in his throat: “Stay tuned” was Teddy Bragg’s warning for something unexpected. Dartelli didn’t want any surprises in this investigation. The man jumped, he reminded himself.

He headed upstairs feeling ill at ease and nauseated. Perhaps whatever illness Teddy Bragg had succumbed to was contagious.

Bud Gorman looked like an underpaid, middle-aged accountant who had elected to allow his hair to fall out and couldn’t be bothered to disguise this with a rug. He had thick glasses, a gap between his front teeth, and a red nose with flanking Irish cheeks. Standing at five foot five inches, he wore a size forty-six-short sport coat, and had an eighteen-inch neck that made his neckties hang funny. There was enough glare coming off the top of his head to prompt Dartelli to want a pair of sunglasses. When he spoke, it sounded as if someone were choking him: He chain-smoked non-filters.

“I don’t have shit on this girl Cole, Joe. My guess is this guy took damn good care of her, because she doesn’t have any kind of credit history. I mean nothing.”

“Nothing,” Dartelli repeated, disgusted. Dead ends-they would etch it on his gravestone someday. Bud Gorman worked for GBT Credit Services, and as such had access to every credit database in the country. Any credit rating, bank account, or credit card account was his. He had access to the records of ninety percent of all major retail firms issuing personal credit, including all department stores, major oil companies, hotel chains, travel agencies, major airlines, and phone companies. If a person spent anything but cash, Bud Gorman could track it. Usually this was done for the purpose of protecting companies or tracking demographics, but for Joe Dartelli it was done as a public service, quietly, and for free. Bud Gorman liked sport cars-thanks to Dart, he had not paid a speeding ticket in over five years. If James Bond had a license to kill, Bud Gorman had a license to drive.

“And I tried to find you something, Joe. You gotta know that’s right-because I could hear it in your voice, and I can see it in your face now. And I feel like shit that I can’t help you, but that’s the way it is with some people.” He studied Dart’s disappointment. “If I had access to government entitlement programs, I have a hunch that’s where your Ms. Cole would be. And I do have some contacts over at IRS, though as you know, my gut take on this is that she’s not filing income anyway, so why use up our welcome over something like this? But it’s your call, I want you to know.”

“No credit history?” Dartelli was incredulous.

“That address is damn near in the projects, Joe. It’s not that surprising. Not really.”

“I’ve lost her?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Gorman said, dragging a stout hand nervously over his shiny head. “Maybe not,” he repeated.

“Help me out here, Bud.”

“Insurance,” the man said, speaking clearly. “Maybe she’s covered, maybe not, but if she is then she’ll be in the database, and her address will be current.”

“Health insurance?” Dartelli questioned.

“Fair odds that she’s covered, Joe.”

“Lousy odds,” Dartelli argued. “The David Stapletons of this world are the exact demographic that go without health insurance.”

“Shit, this is an insurance town, Joe. Everybody’s got some kind of coverage.”

Dartelli knew it was true: Hartford people carried inordinate amounts of insurance, the same as Rochesterians used only Kodak film. But what this meant to Dartelli-what Gorman was suggesting-carried a personal agenda for the detective. The last thing that Dartelli wanted was to go hat in hand to Ginny Rice asking for favors. And she was the only insurance person that he could think of. I won’t do it, Dartelli promised himself.

A promise broken with his next phone call.