Free In This Town by Beth Andrews

risk, talking to her outside of the police station
without the legality of a formal interview. But he’d seen the opportunity and
had taken it.
    Just because he helped enforce the rules didn’t mean he was
above bending them a bit when it suited his purpose.
    “Any judge worth their robe will toss out anything she had to
say,” Taylor said.
    Undoubtedly. “I guess that’s a chance I’m willing to take.”
    Taylor stepped forward, his eyes hidden by sunglasses, his
mouth a hard line. But his voice remained neutral. “While you’re taking chances,
Captain Sullivan and I are fighting for our careers and reputations and a
murderer is walking free. Maybe you’d do better to play things by the book
instead of playing hotshot.”
    “When it comes to solving my cases, I do whatever it takes to
get justice for the victims. Whether you get caught in that crossfire, are found
innocent or guilty, really doesn’t matter to me. All that matters is finding the
truth.”
    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