Chain of Evidence by Ridley Pearson Page A

and the lock was open. Dart hid it under a stack of green cotton rags on the cleaner’s cart.
    The mustache itched. The glue had dried, shrinking his upper lip in the process. If he sneezed he might send the thing across the room.
    He used his cellular phone to call Narcotics’ second-floor office. He allowed it to ring eight times, thrilled that no one answered.
    He pushed the cart out into the hall, headed quickly to the building’s sole elevator, and rode up, his heart rate increasing with every yard. This exploit reminded him of trying to rob money from his mother’s wallet atop her dresser bureau—he would steal the money, not for himself but so that when she checked the wallet to send him out for a bottle, she would lack money.
    The elevator doors slid open, and at a distance of thirty feet, down the long ugly tile corridor, he caught eyes with Abby Lang. He felt stunned. Elated. She sat behind a desk inside her Sex Crimes office, looking both tired and concerned. Instinctively, Dart felt down for his pager and switched the beeper off so that if it were called it would vibrate, not sound. She was clearly there to help him. Nothing else could explain her presence at this hour.
    As he rolled the cart toward Narco, Abby picked up her phone and touched a single button. Less than five seconds later, the pager clipped to Dart’s belt began vibrating. He reached down and cleared it—like silencing an alarm clock. She did not look up at him but kept her head aimed down at her desk and the paperwork that seemed to absorb her.
    Dart had a lookout—an accomplice. An angel on his shoulder.
    The listing cart’s front right wheel chirped. Dart awkwardly navigated it to a position in front of Narco. He knocked, waited, and then knocked again. With no reply, he slipped his hand beneath the stack of green rags and removed the speed key. The fact that he was violating regulations distrubed him. If caught, he would have some tough explaining to do. He was the cop turned criminal, and for a moment he couldn’t bring himself to do this. But the hope that Kowalski, not Zeller, was responsible for the murder/suicide of Lawrence, and the possibility of connecting Lawrence to Stapleton drove him on—anything to quiet his guilt.
    With the speed key the door opened effortlessly. It was illegal in all fifty states to own such a device, and Dart suddenly understood why.
    As in hotels, the housecleaners at Jennings Road blocked open office doors as they worked. Dart did just that, though only partially screening the room inside so that the closet used as a vault to contain files remained obscured from the hallway.
    He switched on the interior light, emptied a trash can into the hopper on his cart, and placed a beat-up feather duster on the desk top closest. His watch face read 1:03. The cleaners would be arriving any minute and would start on the first floor. He had plenty of time.
    The file room closet was locked, but the speed key made quick work of it. The light switch was mounted on the wall outside. Dart studied his situation, planning, predicting every movement required should his pager alert him to a visitor. He had to keep all actions to a minimum, and so rather than venture inside the room, he stood there figuring how to avoid being caught. He relocked the file room door, so that once shut it would be locked and not require him to fiddle with it. He used a green rag to block it open, and tested that by kicking the rag free, the door would close on its own. Then, with the light on, he stepped inside and looked to judge the line of sight: If someone showed up unexpectedly, this person would quickly have a clear sight of the open file room.
    The light switch on the wall was on the far side of the hinges, meaning that Dart would have to kick the rag out of the way, get himself around the door, helping it close as he went, and then hit the light switch. But this light going off would be picked up even