Chain of Evidence

CHAPTER 4

“You look tired,” Dartelli told the man, feeling both curious and nervous about this impromptu meeting. He hadn’t lost any sleep over Bragg’s “stay tuned” comment of a few days earlier, but he hadn’t forgotten about it either.

Bragg looked worse than tired, sick maybe, the kind of sick that steals color from the cheeks and reddens the eyes and paints an inescapable sadness over a person’s demeanor to the point that it’s hard to look without asking questions or offering advice. Dartelli didn’t know where to start; Bragg’s condition seemed irretrievable. Looking at him was like looking at a sad old dog. Dartelli felt sorry for him.

“I am tired,” Bragg confirmed needlessly. “And I haven’t got good news, I’m afraid.” He waved a finger at Dart, leading the detective out of his small office and across the hall to the pantry-size partial lab on the other side of the photo processor. Some computer equipment was gathered cheek by jowl in the far corner alongside some plastic milk crates stacked and used as shelving. That same finger directed Dartelli to a worn office chair. Three of the four wheels had survived its years; Dartelli tilted left and slightly back, feeling as if he might tip over any second. Bragg took the newer chair, the one immediately in front of the keyboard and oversize monitor. He placed his hands on the keyboard; his skin was shriveled and looked old-too many chemicals, Dartelli thought. Too many hours in laboratories. There were reasons they offered retirement at twenty years; Dartelli could spot those who had passed the date.

Bragg said, “We can go over hairs and fibers until the cows come home. It’s all neat and sweet. Buttoned up nice. Woman there-a hooker maybe, on account of finding both the vaginal condom and the one in his pocket-seems like overkill for a real relationship, doesn’t it? She likes to dye herself red. We confirmed that. So what? He likes redheads. What do we care?

“They were in bed together; I can prove that,” he continued. “She took a shower. She used the toilet. I’m good on both of those. Sometime later our Mr. Stapleton decides to test the effects of gravity. Nothing real new. In terms of trace evidence, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing sending up red flags. That’s what we got on the one hand.”

The computer came next, and not as any surprise to Dart, who was waiting anxiously for whatever had tightened Bragg’s throat to the point he had to squeeze out his words. He was excited about something. When he was really gassed about one of his discoveries, he went instantly hoarse.

“One big difference between the laws we both deal with. Yours are made by man and they vary all the time according to courts and juries. Mine are laws of nature, and they don’t vary an iota. I can’t make them vary, even should I want to-and sometimes I want to real bad.” He slapped the space bar dramatically, and the screen came alive with color. It took Dartelli a moment to see that he was looking from above, down the face of a building at a sidewalk. It was done in computer graphics, and though realistic, it did not look like anything Dartelli had seen: not quite a photograph, not quite a drawing.

“I know this place,” Dartelli said.

“The De Nada,” Bragg informed him. “The particular laws I’m referring to are the laws of physics. They dictate the rate at which an object will fall. You can’t screw with that, no matter what. This is a three-D modeled visualization program-computer animation but governed by the laws of physics. How fast and at what angle of trajectory an object falls determines where it lands-pretty simple. In this case, vice versa-we know where Stapleton landed. We measured it. We photographed it. We documented it every way available to us-and that’s considerable. Doc Ray’s pathology report tells us that wounds on Stapleton indicate that he struck that giant cement pot before he landed-one of those pots designed to keep trucks from driving into the lobby, although at the Granada Inn I think that might be an improvement.

Dartelli felt obliged to chuckle, though he felt a little tense for this reaction.

Bragg went on. “That pot is a fair piece of change away from the wall, which is what got me interested in the first place.” He glanced at Dartelli-he had mischief in his eyes. “Enough of my flapping,” he said. “I’ll let my fingers do the talking.”

The screen changed to a color photograph. Bragg told him, “This is from inside Stapleton’s hotel room.” He hit some more keys and the photograph faded away, replaced by an exact replica in computer three-dimensional graphics.

“Nice,” Dartelli said.

“Slick piece of software,” Bragg agreed. “But notice the restrictions. Place is a sardine can. Foot of the bed practically hits the dresser; you can’t even open the bottom drawer all the way-I tried that, remember?” he asked curiously. Dartelli didn’t remember. “Enter David Stapleton.” He touched a few keys and a three-dimensional stick figure appeared in the room, looking like an undressed mannequin. “The animation lets us interact with Stapleton’s possible trajectories in a scientifically accurate model,” he emphasized for Dart’s sake. Bragg revered science the way theologians talked of God.

He worked the keyboard again, returning Dartelli and the screen to the outside, this time from the sidewalk perspective where a crime-scene photograph showed a bloodied Stapleton folded on the sidewalk. He once again manipulated the system into performing a metamorphism between the photographic image and one that was the result of computerization. Stapleton transformed into that same white mannequin.

“We work backward.” He controlled the software so that the mannequin slowly unfolded itself, lifted off the sidewalk, connected with the rim of the enormous cement pot, and then floated up into the air, feet first, head pointed down toward earth. Dartelli recalled the black kid’s description of Stapleton diving out the window, the kid whistling as he waved his large hand in the air indicating the dive.

Bragg said, “The specific trajectory allows us to compute velocity necessary to launch Stapleton out the window in order for him to travel the distance he actually traveled. Any other velocity, and he lands in a different spot, connects with that pot differently, or misses it altogether.

“Then,” Bragg added, “we look at three different scenarios: stepping off the windowsill, running at the window and diving, or … being thrown.”

Dart’s breath caught and heat spiked up his spine. The chair wavered and nearly went over backward; he caught his balance at the last possible second.

“We ask for new chairs,” Bragg said, “but we never get them.” He worked the keyboard. “Check this out.” The screen split into two halves: on the left, a side perspective of the interior of the room; to the right, a frontal image of the hotel and a graphical chalk mark where Stapleton had hit. The computerized colors were unnatural, the image eerie.

The mannequin walked to the window, climbed to the sill and awkwardly squeezed through the small opening and disappeared. On the adjacent screen the computerized body appeared and fell through space. It landed feet first near the building’s brick wall, far from the chalk mark.

“He didn’t simply jump,” Bragg said. “So did he dive?”

The mannequin reappeared inside the hotel room. Feet on the floor, the head exited the open window and the body disappeared. In the communicating window, the body fell slowly and struck, headfirst, well away from the cement tub and the chalk mark.

“No,” Bragg answered. “He did not dive.”

Dartelli noticed that he had tuned out all else; he felt as if he were inside the computer screen.

“We have his weight programmed into it, his height. If he had an extraordinary build I might tweak things to make him appear stronger to the software. But he’s basically a normal build, and I’ll tell you something-he needs a hell of a lot more velocity,” the scientist explained. “So, let’s make him run for that window.” The software showed the mannequin attempt to run through the room for the window. The tight quarters required an awkward sidestepping. “You should have seen us trying to convince the thing to do that dance,” Bragg said. The mannequin struck the window, and fake pieces of glass went out with him. “We tried ten different times to get him out that opening with the speed necessary. He went through the glass every time. Turns out he would have had to start the dive back by the bed to make it out that opening with the necessary speed. That computes to traveling three feet, perfectly level through the air-Superman, maybe, not David Stapleton.”

Dartelli said, “And that leaves-”

Interrupted by Bragg. “A little help from my friends.”

A second mannequin appeared in the room, appropriately, dark gray, almost black. It picked up the Stapleton mannequin by the neck and waist, took two running steps toward the window and ejected the body. In the adjacent screen the body appeared and floated downward. It fell short of the cement tub, but drew much closer to the chalk outline than the other attempts.

“We got it right on the second try,” Bragg announced. “He would be a big guy, or one hell of a strong woman or smaller man, to accomplish this.”

The gray mannequin was noticeably larger this time. Two steps and the body was thrown from the room.

It came out the window parallel to the ground, arced, rolled, and the left shoulder impaled itself on the cement tub. The body lurched back, the head snapping sharply, and the mannequin smacked to the sidewalk in a crumpled heap.

Bragg worked the keyboard. The crime scene photograph reappeared, perfectly replacing the computer graphics. An exact match.

“Wow,” Dartelli said, rocking forward tentatively in the chair. A big guy, he was thinking. He had a couple of candidates in mind.

“My sentiments exactly.” Ignoring the screen and the photograph of Stapleton’s bloodied heap, Bragg faced him. “The unfortunate part is that it’s not proof, Joe. It can certainly be used to sway a jury or a judge-I’m not saying that it’s worthless-but we have no other evidence to support someone spear-chucked Stapleton from that room, and the evidence that we do have contradicts it fairly strongly, given that it would have taken an Amazon woman-an easy six feet, one-eighty, one-ninety. If she’s under six feet, then she’s built like Schwarzenegger.”

Dart’s attention remained on the screen. “So it suggests homicide but doesn’t confirm it.”

“Precisely.”

Dartelli wormed his hands together, and fidgeted in the chair. Its springs creaked under his weight. A dozen thoughts flooded him, but one quickly rose to the surface.

Bragg seemed stuck with his own thoughts. A heavy silence settled between them. The screen showed the photograph of Stapleton’s ungainly corpse, twisted and awkward-painful, even to look at.

It has started, Dart realized.

He felt a surge of panic as Bragg said, “I don’t want to make a big deal of this, but I’m going to try the software out on the Nesbit jump-the Ice Man.”

Dart was thinking that both Zeller and Kowalski closely matched the physical requirements that Bragg had put forth. Zeller was right around six feet, barrel-chested, built like a pickup truck, not a sedan. He had lost a considerable amount of weight after Lucky’s murder-but not his strength, Dartelli thought.

“Why bother?” Dart asked, thinking: He knows!

“It would be an interesting test of the software, wouldn’t it?” Bragg asked rhetorically.

“I suppose,” Dartelli answered, trying to sound bored.

“That one never cleared,” Bragg reminded.

“True.” Dart was wishing the man would leave it alone, and yet he, too, wondered what the software would reveal. “I’d be interested in the results.”

The lab man typed instructions into the keyboard and the white mannequin representing David Stapleton once again came out of the window in a dive. He floated, twisted, and he fell, connecting sharply with the cement tub before being thrown to the sidewalk. Dartelli felt the collision in his bones. “The software is on trial with us. I need to test the modeling,” Bragg said. “This could work well for me.”

“I wouldn’t make a big deal out of it,” Dartelli cautioned the man. “Rankin would not exactly welcome pulling that particular case back out of the uncleareds.”

“Agreed,” Bragg said, knowing the political sensitivity of the case, and no doubt recalling the battering the department had taken from the press. “But it could be done quietly-strictly to test the software.”

Dartelli felt sick. What if the software suggested that the Ice Man had not jumped? he wondered.

“I’ll give it a try,” Bragg said.

Dartelli said carefully, “And for now, maybe we keep it our little secret.”

Teddy Bragg nodded, and as his fingers danced, the animated David Stapleton was thrown from the window once again, catapulted to his contorted death five stories below.