Fruits of the Poisonous Tree Read online

  “Where?” Todd asked.

  “In the stomach once; on the breasts a few times; and once across the face—hard.”

  I focused again on the livid bruise that rested on her left cheek like an enormous birthmark, and tried not to play out the violence in my head. “Why do you think he became frustrated? Couldn’t he get hard?”

  Her face underwent a subtle change, as if some deep-seated pain had just reasserted itself. It wasn’t a grimace but more a drawing out—a sudden thinning of her features, as if her entire soul was recoiling. “He was hard—the whole time.”

  I decided to step away from the subject a bit, to give her time to get used to the idea that we would have to ask her for all the details—if not now, then eventually, and probably many times over. “Your room was a mess—drawers pulled out, closets emptied. When did he do that?”

  “Sometime in the middle. He stopped and I could hear him going around the room.”

  “After he’d completed the sex act?” Todd asked. All three of us looked at him, caught off guard by his choice of words. He didn’t seem fazed.

  Gail finally shook her head. “If you mean ejaculate, he didn’t. He just stopped.”

  Todd looked confused. “He didn’t ejaculate at all?”

  “No.”

  I was intrigued by that, wondering if it explained his flash of anger at the end. “Did he say anything before or while he was trashing the room?”

  “No.”

  “Did he seem violent—throwing things, breaking them?”

  “No. I mean, yes, he threw things, but I don’t remember much breaking. Something broke—I think it was that plate I bought in Mexico I had hanging on the wall from a wire—and he said, ‘Shit’ when that happened, but that’s the only thing I remember. A lamp fell over, but I don’t know if it broke or not.”

  “Gail,” Todd spoke up again, unburdened by my emotional caution, “I hate to have to do this, but I want to ask you some questions about the rape itself—what this guy did, how he did it, in what sequence, for how long—things like that. Not only to help nail him, but so we can build a legal case for my boss. Chances are good this man’s done this before, maybe even developed a style. If we can find a record of that, it might end up being just like a fingerprint.”

  “He wore gloves,” Gail blurted out impulsively, influenced by Todd’s last image. “Through it all?” I asked, struck once again by her attacker’s peculiarities.

  “Not when he touched me—mostly—but I could hear him putting them on before he tore the room apart.” She hesitated. “And just before he hit me.”

  I put my hand on Todd’s arm to stop him from going on. “Gail, what did he do with his clothes? Did he have them on when you first woke up?”

  She shook her head. “He was naked.”

  “But you heard him getting dressed after he was finished?”

  “Yes,” she murmured.

  “Where was he when he was doing that?”

  “By the door.”

  I nodded to Todd that I was finished, and he began his detailed questioning, prompting her to take all three of us through her ordeal step by step, virtually movement by movement. He paused occasionally to ask if she felt like taking a break, but every time she urged him to continue, although all of us could see the toll it was taking on her.

  I was grateful he was there, to do the job I doubted I could have done alone. Watching Gail reliving the event, her body still sore and throbbing from its brutality, her voice quavering toward the end, was more than I would have allowed. And yet, the three of them knew better than I—knew that she had to partake in her own reconstruction, and perhaps play a hand in the capture of her tormentor—or forever remain his victim.

  Finally, two hours and several tapes later, Todd punched the off button on his recorder, the sharp metallic click making Gail start with surprise, her nerves frayed and hypersensitive. “That’s it. You did a super job. I’m sorry we had to put you through it. And I’m afraid, as I said earlier, that this won’t be the last time, either. To be honest, especially if we get this guy to trial, there’s going to be times you wished you’d never called the police. But you did the right thing.”

  He gathered his equipment together and turned to me. “Is there anything more you wanted to ask, Joe?”

  I looked at his blandly pleasant face—an unsettling mix of everyone’s favorite Uncle Charley and an IRS auditor—with something approaching wonder. He’d been so perfect through it all—concise, polite, accommodating, solicitous, and efficient, to Gail and me both—that it almost challenged his sincerity. That viewpoint was mostly fueled by my own ambivalence, of course, but knowing it didn’t help any. I was feeling increasingly disenfranchised, unable to be either the grieving partner or a sisterly friend or even, I was beginning to think, an objective cop.

  I turned to Gail, shoving all this to one side. “It’s a bit of a long shot, and I know you’ve got a lot on your mind—a lot to work through—but if you can take some time to think about who might have done this to you, it would help.”

  Gail’s eyes took on a bewildered look, glistening with tears. “I’ve tried, Joe.”

  The pain in her voice was saturated with despair and bafflement. Still, I persevered. “You’ve been looking for a monster. Think about normal people—men who struck you as just a little odd—too attentive, maybe, or too quiet, or who showed up at odd times with odd excuses. We’re looking for anything out of the ordinary.”

  She shook her head at the vagueness of the suggestion, muttering, “So many people.”

  I stood up, and Todd followed my example. I hesitated, then leaned forward and touched the back of her hand gently and briefly. It was cold and unresponsive, and after I straightened back up, she tucked both her hands into the opposing sleeves of her flowing robe as if she’d suddenly felt a chill.

  I groped a moment for the proper platitude—“We’ll get him,” or “You’ll be all right,” or “At least you’re alive.” I’d already tried “I love you” at the hospital and had walked away feeling drained. I finally gave it up, said, “Take care. I’ll come back to see you soon,” as if I were addressing some octogenarian in a rest home, and took my leave.

  Susan Raffner followed us downstairs and ushered us through the door. She grasped Todd’s forearm as he passed by her. “Thank you. That was the best interview I’ve ever seen.”

  He nodded and smiled sadly. “Sorry I had to do it at all.” She stopped me too, as Todd made his way down the stairs and toward the car. “I’ve got a problem with you, though.”

  I stared at her, my face rigid, the dormant rage in me giving a tiny lurch, like a tremor across a field of thinly crusted lava.

  But she leavened her words by laying her hand gently on my arm. “I know what you’re going through, Joe, but you can’t expect her to hold your hand. She doesn’t need to worry about you.”

  “I don’t expect her to.”

  That was at best suspect, and Raffner knew enough to ignore it. “She also doesn’t need you to bottle it up inside. Find someone to talk to—someone professional. Don’t try to tough it out—it’ll only do you both dirt in the long run.”

  I heard the echo of Nurse Pace’s counsel earlier—except that lurking within Raffner’s soothing tone I heard the subtle implication that she would be keeping a critical eye on me.

  I nodded but didn’t respond directly. “Thanks for being there for her, Susan. Let me know if she comes up with any names.”

  She frowned slightly, nodded without comment, and closed the door behind me. I turned away and walked to the edge of the porch. The smooth, black surface of the reservoir met my gaze—ugly, wrapped in concrete, awaiting winter’s frozen glaze. That’s what they all expected from me, I thought without blame, despite their conciliatory words: a quick, solid solution, delivered without screwups. And they were right.

  3

  MY APARTMENT WAS DOWN THE HILL and two blocks over from Susan Raffner’s house. I had Todd drop me off so
I could shave, shower, and get properly dressed. It had been just a few hours since I’d been catapulted from my sleep by some primordial instinct, but I felt totally drained, as if I’d been up for days.

  Yet there was a familiar inner momentum slowly picking up speed, fueled as it always was by the first faint stirrings of an investigation coming to life. Even now, with so many of my own emotions in play, the steadying instincts of over thirty years of police work were beginning to settle in. The sad irony remained, however, that the very questions lending me stability were the same ones torturing Gail: Who did it? And why?

  I watched myself in the mirror as I prepared to shave—placing the lathered brush just below my right sideburn, working the creamy soap down one cheek, across my chin, and back up the other side. Methodical, practical, a habit born of endless repetitions. Gail’s attacker had neatly stored his clothes before waking her up, had put on gloves before trashing the room and again before running the risk of hurting his hands by striking her. He’d covered her face, protected himself by tying her down, spoken only in a whisper, had shown very little emotion, and had come prepared with rope and knife—a neat and tidy man, not easily seized by impulse. Gail had been a carefully chosen target, and raping her had been the reward for good planning.

  I’d given Gail a difficult assignment, asking her to conjure up possible suspects. Any public figure, but especially an outspoken, successful, left-wing feminist, drew resentment and contempt from far beyond her knowledge. Any vote she’d cast as a selectman, any unorthodox stance she’d publicly taken, could have lit the twisted, vengeful fuse this one man so tenderly cultivated. Separating him from his surroundings, based on the very subtleties I’d told her to think about, would take some doing.

  Unless, as Todd had mentioned, he’d done it before.

  · · ·

  An hour later I stepped out of my corner office on the first floor of the Municipal Center and handed a single sheet of paper to Harriet Fritter, the detective squad’s secretary, or “clerk,” according to the current politically correct nomenclature—although Gift from God was more the way I thought of her.

  She looked at it wordlessly over the top of her half-glasses, her snow-white eyebrows colliding in silent fury. Over the years that Gail had visited me here, Harriet and she had formed their own friendship.

  “That’s the MO of this morning’s rapist, or at least what we have so far. I’d like copies sent to the Vermont Department of Corrections, state police, SA’s office, and the sheriffs’ and local police departments in all surrounding counties, including Massachusetts and New Hampshire. And see if you can’t set up an appointment for me with Lou Biddle at Probation and Parole—this afternoon if possible.”

  “How’s Gail?” was all she asked.

  “A little shaky—determined as hell. How many people know she was the victim?”

  She looked slightly apologetic. “Probably everyone in the department. She’s like family because of you; it hit people hard. Are you worried her name will get out?”

  I began walking toward the door leading to the building’s central hallway. “Tony says it’s just a matter of time. It might help if we can nail this guy first.”

  I left her staring at the information I’d typed up, sadly shaking her head.

  I crossed the hallway to the police department’s other half, where Dispatch, the officers’ room, and the chief ’s office were located. I was buzzed through the main entrance by dispatcher Maxine Paroddy and walked straight to Tony Brandt’s door. A fog bank of pipe-tobacco smoke told me of his presence somewhere within.

  Brandt squinted up at me from his computer console like a distracted mad scientist surrounded by toxic fumes. “You back?”

  “Have been for a while—just wrote up the MO for distribution.”

  “How was Gail?”

  The ever-present question. “She’s hanging in there. She insisted on giving Todd a full statement; he said he’d have a transcript to you this afternoon.”

  “Learn anything?”

  “The method was thought out, careful. Off the bat, I’d say he’s smart, doesn’t want to be caught, and she knows him. He took too many precautions to avoid being identified. That probably means he’s local, too.”

  Brandt made a sour face. “Great. What did J.P. come up with?”

  “Don’t know yet. I was about to head back up there, but I thought I’d check in first.”

  He looked glumly at the computer screen for a second and then checked his watch. “Todd at his office?”

  “He was headed there when I saw him last.”

  “All right.” He hit a couple of keys on the computer and stood up, reaching for his jacket. “I’ll come along.”

  “There’s no need; J.P.’s probably almost done anyway. I just want another look around.”

  Tony was putting the jacket on. “Sounds like a good idea.”

  “I’ll be right back,” I tried one last time.

  He stopped, one arm in a sleeve, and looked at me levelly. “Get used to this, Joe. Trips to the can you get to take by yourself. Everything else, you have company.” He waved a hand at my obvious irritation. “I told you that at the start. I want you babysat.”

  We walked to the rear parking lot in silence and got into my car. The temperature was merely cool by now, warm enough to unlock those smells of earth and trees that Brattleboro managed to retain despite its urban appearance.

  “You having problems with this arrangement?” he asked.

  “No; it was more for your sake.”

  He went along with the lie. “Don’t worry about it—I could use the break.”

  But I’d seen his wary expression just before he’d insisted on coming, and I remembered the meeting he’d had with the board of selectmen while we were interviewing Gail. Before that meeting, he wouldn’t have been so compulsive about following the guidelines he’d arranged with Dunn. “I take it the board’s not too happy with my being on the case.”

  He hesitated slightly. “They have their political concerns.”

  “Which are high-pitched enough to put you in this car.”

  He was silent for a minute, as I got us out onto High Street, headed toward West Brattleboro. “Let’s call it preventive maintenance,” he finally said. “A down payment of good will. If the shit hits the fan, maybe they’ll remember how we kowtowed. Besides, that was the deal with Dunn.”

  I sighed at the familiarity of it all—how every major investigation came fully loaded with politicians, press people, and “concerned citizens” with ulterior motives. I was grateful Tony Brandt seemed content with his hybrid role of half cop, half politico, catching most of the flak so we could focus on our jobs.

  But I sensed an additional factor in his reasoning—one that explained why he wasn’t putting too much blame on the board. I was the potential loose cannon in all this, not our predictable, hand-wringing town leaders. I carried the gun, gathered the facts, and it was my lover and friend who’d been raped. Despite his apparent support, Tony Brandt was obviously less trusting of my state of mind than he was letting on, and happy to use politics as an excuse to keep me company.

  “You having second thoughts about me?”

  He gave me a surprised look. “No. Why?”

  “Everyone else sounds pretty dubious. That’s a lot of people to ignore.”

  “They don’t know you.”

  I left it there, forcing him to listen to the echo of his own doubts. He finally shifted in his seat to better face me and added, “I’d be an idiot if I wasn’t concerned, Joe.”

  I smiled for his sake. “True—so ask.”

  “All right. Now that you’ve talked to her, how’re you handling it?”

  “Not well, at first, but I think I’m getting it. The one way I can help her and myself is to do the job.”

  “That simple? And what happens after we catch the guy?”

  I shrugged. “None of it’s simple—it’s just all I’ve come up with. I guess I’ll see what happ
ens next—to both of us.”

  Gail’s property loomed ahead on the left as we climbed the road, its entire two acres encircled by a single, pathetic-looking yellow ribbon, repeatedly stamped, “Police Line—Do Not Cross.” At the entrance to the driveway, which now held only a handful of cars, we were stopped by one of our own patrolmen, and by a woman emerging rapidly from a parked Volvo, who ran to cut us off. Brandt groaned.

  “Want me to keep going?”

  “No,” he muttered, rolling down the window. Mary Wallis was one of the women who’d been attending Gail at the hospital, and one of Tony’s prize antagonists. An outspoken advocate of women’s rights, she was dedicated, hard-working, and utterly dependable when it came to the cause, but she could also be dogmatic, narrow-minded, and combative—the type of partisan that made feminists like Gail and Susan Raffner true connoisseurs of a gift horse’s mixed value.

  “Hi, Mary,” Tony called out. “What are you doing here?” She was obviously not in a sociable mood.

  “I’ve been looking for you. What’ve you found out?”

  Brandt looked apologetic. “We’ve got everybody working on it, Mary—”

  Her eyes narrowed, “Which means you’re stuck. What about Jason Ryan?”

  Tony turned briefly and looked at me. I merely raised my eyebrows. Jason Ryan was well known to us—and anyone else who regularly read the letters to the editor in the Reformer. A local restaurant owner, he was a major town crank, finding conspiracies under every rock and proclaiming his discoveries from any available pulpit. The police department was one of his supposed regular dens of iniquity, apparently a clever cover for a major drug ring, among other things.

  “What about him?” Tony finally asked.

  “Have you questioned him? He threatened Gail at the last selectmen’s meeting—said he knew exactly what she needed to get her off her high horse.”

  Gail hadn’t mentioned it to me, although that came as no surprise—it sounded like the kind of thing Ryan leveled at almost everyone he met. But this was no time to be dismissive. I leaned forward to better make eye contact. “What was the nature of the disagreement?”