The Dead Room

51

Darby stepped out of the elevator with Lieutenant Warner and saw two men dressed in suits and ties waiting outside the doors for the crime lab. They saw Warner and reached for the bulky plastic briefcases sitting on the floor near their legs. Must be the men here to sweep the offices for bugs, she thought.

Warner didn’t introduce the men to her. She didn’t care. She was sick of talking and now she had to talk to Coop.

The lab was eerily quiet, the offices she passed by empty. The staff had most likely been called out to Charlestown to help assist the bomb squad in the collection of evidence and to help search for bodies and remains.

Coop wasn’t in his office. She checked the fingerprint database. IAFIS had come up with a match on one of the prints.

She opened the screen. It was the fingerprint from the blister pack of nicotine gum. The print had a 96.4 per cent match to a man named Jack King.

That was one of the names Ezekiel told me – one of the dead Feds.

Sure enough, it was. The information on the screen said that Special Agent King had died on July 2, 1983 – the same day Sullivan had died. All the notes were listed.

Coop had been here this morning. Surely he had checked the database. Why hadn’t he called her?

Darby didn’t find him in any of the other exam rooms, but she found Randy and Mark in serology examining Kendra Sheppard’s bloody clothing and the personal items she had removed from the body yesterday at the morgue – a black plastic watch, a sterling silver Claddagh ring and a plain, thin gold necklace.

Randy put down his clipboard, his gaze fixed on the raw stitches covering her face. Both he and Mark looked exhausted.

‘We thought you could use a hand with the clothes,’ Randy said, ‘so Mark and I came in early.’

‘Thanks,’ Darby said. ‘Thank you both. I really appreciate it. Have any of you seen Coop?’

Randy shook his head. Mark said, ‘I know he was here this morning. I haven’t seen him since.’

Darby wondered if Coop was working at the bomb site. She checked in with the lab’s secretary.

‘He took a personal day,’ the secretary said.

‘Did he say why?’

‘Not to me he didn’t. Maybe he left you a message.’

Darby went to her office. No message from Coop, but there was one from Madeira James.

‘Miss McCormick, I’m calling to follow up on our conversation yesterday regarding the microstamped bullet you found. The company president has the form I signed to release all information regarding the test ammo and the demonstration. He’s currently reviewing it with legal. As soon as I know anything, I’ll call or email.’

The message had come in this morning shortly before ten. It was now a quarter to four.

The second message was from Rob Litzow, the desk sergeant in charge of the evidence trailers. He had been unable to find the evidence and murder books associated with the Sheppard murder in April of 1983.

Darby called Litzow. ‘What happened to the evidence?’

‘Don’t know. It could’ve been mislabelled or lost. This happens a lot with older stuff. We’ll find it, I’m sure, but it’ll take some time.’

She recalled what Ezekiel had said about Sullivan having inside help within the police departments. You can’t trust anyone, especially people inside the Boston police department. Sullivan had plenty of your people on his payroll.

She turned to her computer and said, ‘I need a list of people who’ve checked out the Sheppard case.’

‘Nobody’s asked for it for the last five years, I can tell you that.’

‘What do you do with the old logs?’

‘They’re in storage.’

‘Find them and fax them over to me. And while I have you on the phone, I want you to pull everything you’ve got on the murder of Thomas McCormick.’ She read out the evidence and case file numbers.

Darby hung up and checked her email. Nothing from Madeira James. Randy had emailed her a copy of the evidence report he had filled out on the items he recovered from the woods. She printed out a copy, then picked up the phone and dialled James’s direct number at Reynolds Engineering Systems. She got the woman’s voicemail. Darby left a message asking her to call with an update.

Next, she tried calling the owner of the Belham house, Dr Wexler, in France. No answer. She left another message.

Now Coop. He didn’t answer his mobile. She tried his home number. No answer.

Why are you avoiding me, Coop?

Darby went to the printer. Her head throbbed separately from the wounds on her face. Thump-thump, like a heartbeat. She sat back in her chair and pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes. The Percocet the doctor had prescribed for her would take care of the pain. It would make her feel sluggish and stupid. She grabbed some Advil tablets from her desk drawer and dry-swallowed them as she picked up the evidence report.

No prints or blood were recovered from the smoke canisters. Randy had given the serial numbers to the bomb squad. Good move. They would know where to look to see if they had been stolen. Running down the serial numbers, though, had taken a back seat for the moment now that the entire bomb squad was busy in Charlestown.

Darby flipped through the sheets and read through Randy’s notes. The Wonder Twins had done an exhaustive job processing the evidence.

Something about the binoculars bothered her. She thought about Randy’s grid map and carried the evidence report with her to the conference room.