In This Town

Walker had the sense that Taylor was studying him behind the dark lenses of his glasses. Trying to see how far he could push, if he could push him at all.

He couldn’t. At least, not without getting shoved in return.

Finally the chief nodded slightly as if coming to a decision. He held out a large mailing envelope. “Here.”

Walker narrowed his eyes. “What is it?”

“A little light reading for the weekend.”

Walker opened the flap, pulled out the thin sheath of papers and scanned them. They were copies of bank records. “Who is Joel Cannella?”

“Dale York. At least, that’s who he was for the past eighteen years.”

“What? Where did you get these?” A thought occurred to him and he squared himself to Taylor so they were toe-to-toe. The few inches he had on Taylor didn’t make up for the twenty pounds Taylor had over him, but it would make any physical altercation between them interesting. “Did you take these from the station? Do you realize what the penalty is for tampering with an ongoing investigation?”

Taylor kept his hands loose at his sides, his shoulders relaxed. “I’m aware of the consequences of breaking the law. But those papers were never in the station or entered into evidence. They’re something I was working on before your arrival.”

“Covering your tracks, Chief?”

“Doing a little research, Detective.”

Walker didn’t believe it. Taylor was probably trying to make it look as if he’d been investigating Dale’s death as mysterious this entire time. “I was under the impression Dale’s whereabouts for the past eighteen years were unknown and now you’re telling me you discovered he’d been living under the alias of Joel Cannella in—” he checked the address listed on the form “—Corpus Christi all that time?”

“No identification of any kind was found on Dale’s body, in his room or car, not even a credit card. The only thing in his wallet, besides a couple of hundred dollars,” Taylor continued, “was a piece of paper with a nine-digit number. I asked a friend of mine who used to work in the Crime Lab Unit of the Boston P.D. to do some digging for me. After a few false starts, he discovered the number was for Cannella’s bank account. Once I had the name, I was able to track down Cannella’s movements and found a safe-deposit box in a bank in Marblehead rented in his name.” He inclined his head toward the envelope. “You’ll find the contents in there.”

Walker turned the envelope upside down. A driver’s license, social security card and a credit card all bearing the name Joel Cannella slid out. The photo on the license, though, was none other than Dale York.

He squeezed the license, the hard plastic cutting into his fingers. “This should have all been logged into evidence.”

“Yes.”

But it hadn’t been. Walker had seen everything the MPPD had about both Valerie Sullivan’s murder and Dale York’s death. There was no mention of any account numbers or that Dale’s alias had been discovered.

“You’re admitting—to the officer investigating accusations of ethics violations against you—that you withheld evidence?” Walker asked.

“I’m handing over evidence that I believe will be helpful to the officer in charge of Dale’s murder investigation.”

“You want to help me? Why?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do. And because once I saw those toxicology reports, I would’ve fully investigated Mr. York’s death as a murder.”

“I guess we’ll never know if that’s the truth or not.”

“No, we won’t. But instead of whiling away our time trying to see which one of us can piss farther, I thought it might be in both of our best interests to get these investigations over as soon as possible.”