Can she get the names off the list? he suddenly wondered. He had no documentation from Martinson concerning the participation of Stapleton, Lawrence, and Payne in the trial, only a verbal comment made to him several days earlier. She could deny it all. If she could destroy the record of their participation then her only concern for their killer would be that he be taken care of-quickly and quietly, the less publicity the better. And that he, Dart, not make trouble.
“If someone has convinced you to go outside the law on this, Dr. Martinson, I strongly advise you to seek a second opinion-preferably a legal opinion. There’s no reason to further-”
“My impression,” she said sharply, interrupting him and coming to her feet, her chest heaving once again, “is that we are both wasting our time, Detective, and that we both have better things to do than to sit around speculating. I have, in fact, solicited just the legal opinion for which you seem to be strongly lobbying, and that has come back an unqualified ‘No comment.’ Unqualified,” she repeated. “I’ll show you to the door now.”
“This is not the way to handle this,” Dart warned. “You’re making a big mistake.”
“And you, Detective, had better be careful, or you may need your own attorney, your own second opinion.” She paused by the front door. The threat came not from her words, but from her eyes. “Don’t meddle, Detective.” She turned the handle and opened the door. The cold air rushed in and stung Dart’s face.
“We can work together on this,” Dart offered one last time.
“I don’t think so. No thank you.” She opened the door. Dart stepped outside, suddenly chilled to the bone.
He was out on Farmington Avenue when his cellular rang, and the phone got hung up in his pocket trying to come out. He thought he had missed the call because it stopped ringing just before he answered. The line was in fact dead, but a moment later it rang again.
“Dartelli,” he answered.
“You’re finally thinking like a cop,” said Zeller’s voice. Dart immediately checked the rearview mirror and the cars in front of him, but it was a pitch black night, and besides, he thought, Zeller would never make it that easy.
“I can help you, Sarge. But you-”
“Save it, Ivy. Just do your fucking job. That’s help enough. There’s a science editor at the New York Times might be interested in what you know. His name is Rosenburg. Good writer.”
The line went dead.
Dart jerked the wheel, skidded off the shoulder, and came to an abrupt stop at the top of a hill. He jumped out of the car and searched for a vehicle executing a U-turn or parked conspicuously. Below him was an intersection with a gas station and a bookstore on opposing corners. He looked for someone standing at a pay phone, or an idle car.
Nothing.
Besides, he thought for a second time, he would never make it that easy.
CHAPTER 37
With the surveillance of 11 Hamilton Court failing to produce any sign of Wallace Sparco, and with a Be On Lookout alert having failed to raise his vehicle, Dart felt his only chance of finding the man-of saving him, perhaps-lay within that building. But when during the Friday night shift he approached Haite to discuss the technical merits of the search-and-seizure warrant issued on the house, Haite forbade him to enter “or get anywhere near” 11 Hamilton Court. What began as a civilized discussion ended in a shouting match with all of CAPers staring at the two through the glass wall of Haite’s shared office. Dart stormed out and, feeling the brunt of everyone’s attention, continued into the hall looking for somewhere to calm down. He hurried down the hall and seeing Abby’s light on, knocked and entered. They hadn’t seen each other in nearly a week, a fact that had escaped Dart until he found himself standing there looking at her.
“What are you doing here?” he asked her.
“This is my office.”
“At night.”
“I make my own schedule. I’m a one-person division,” She hesitated and then explained, “I’m trying to get onto your schedule so we might see more of each other.” Another hesitation. “I’ve missed you.”
“The kids?”
“It’s actually better this way. They sleep at night. I’m with them in the mornings and afternoons. I should have tried this sooner.”
“When do you sleep?”
“I don’t,” she answered. “You look like you’re ready to break something. Not something I’ve done, I hope.”
“Haite. He’s bullheaded. I misjudged him. Brought him into my confidence when I probably shouldn’t have. Sent him off the deep end. He suddenly wants nothing to do with these suicides. He keeps assigning me domestics.”
“The night shift,” she reminded him. Domestic quarrels and assaults were almost entirely the domain of the night shift.
“Yeah, I know. But I’ve got bigger fish to fry and he knows it. It scares him, is the thing.”
“Which fish?”
“I told him-not directly, but I told him-about Zeller.”
“Oh, shit,” she gasped.
“Seems his loyalty outweighs his concern over-and these are his words-’a bunch of perverts’ getting killed.”
She nodded, as if she understood, or had encountered such resistance herself. She said, “I had a case involving a gym teacher. Junior high. Molesting his girl athletes, a peephole in the shower, stealing underwear from their lockers-the whole nine yards. He raped three of them. Got one pregnant, or maybe we’d have never known. The school board tried to pressure me not to press charges. Said it would hurt enrollment. Said that they’d fire him, and that that was enough. They got to someone upstairs-I don’t know how. And they fired him, and ran him out of town. And I pressed charges before he got out of town. But no press. No publicity.”
“I never heard about that.”
“No one did,” she said. “It damn near cost me my badge.” Looking at him coyly, she added, “But I kept my badge. In fact I got my own division.” She grinned. “I found out who they got to.”
Dart and others had wondered how she had managed to pull a Sex Crimes division out of CAPers, and now, years later, it was explained. He was struck with an idea.
“What is it?” she asked, seeing his change of expression.
“A thought,” he said, feeling more calm than when he’d entered. He placed a knee onto the room’s only other chair. “You are your own division,” he said, thinking aloud.