Chain of Evidence by Ridley Pearson Page A

downward. It fell short of the cement tub, but drew much closer to the chalk outline than the other attempts.
    â€œWe 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.
    â€œWow,” Dartelli said, rocking forward tentatively in the chair. A big guy , he was thinking. He had a couple of candidates in mind.
    â€œMy 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.”
    â€œPrecisely.”
    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.
    â€œWhy bother?” Dart asked, thinking: He knows!
    â€œIt would be an interesting test of the software, wouldn’t it?” Bragg asked rhetorically.
    â€œI suppose,” Dartelli answered, trying to sound bored.
    â€œThat one never cleared,” Bragg reminded.
    â€œTrue.” 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.”
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œAgreed,” 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.
    â€œI’ll give it a try,” Bragg