He looked over my shoulder. “Yeah—Dan Seaverns is out of town. I talked to him in Salt Lake City, just to make sure. Johnston Hill’s mother died two days ago, and he’s been dealing with that with witnesses. Philip Duncan was at a late dinner party, lasted till two-thirty. Mark Sumner was there, too—I think it was some realtor blast—they work in the same office. Anyhow, that checks out, too. Richard Clark was home in bed, according to his daughter—”
“His daughter?”
“Yeah. Dennis did that one. Little unorthodox, I guess, but he intercepted the daughter at school this afternoon, got into a big conversation, and found it out.”
“How would she know where her father was at two in the morning?”
“They sleep in the same bed—the whole family does.”
I shook my head and pointed at the last entry, not crossed out. “What’s ‘Peter Moore’s people’ mean?”
“That’s the hottest one we have so far. Didn’t Sammie tell you about him? Peter Moore runs Krystal Kleer—the people who put in Gail’s windows last year. I guess Gail didn’t know their names, but Harry Murchison’s the one we’re interested in.”
The phone had rung during this conversation, and a patrolman now held it up in the air and pointed at me with an inquiring look on his face. I leaned over Ron’s table, picked up his phone, and punched the one blinking button.
“Gunther.”
“Hi. It’s me.” Gail’s voice—soft, sounding a hundred miles away—warmed me like a fire on a cold winter night, giving me all the comfort I was yearning to give her. “Could you come over?”
“I’m on my way,” was all I said.
6
THE CIRCLE OF HOUSES on Chestnut Hill was somber and quiet, the only signs of life a glimmer here and there from a crack in some curtain. They looked chilly and withdrawn, buttoned up against a second night of near-zero temperatures. The reservoir around which they clustered was as much a bottomless hole of cold air as a slab of opaque water.
I parked opposite Susan Raffner’s home and got out, pausing a little, the vapor from my breathing dissipating the glow from the porch light. Raffner’s parting words last time still echoing in my head, I had mixed feelings being here, knowing I would have to watch myself with utmost care. The Gail I’d come to visit was not someone I felt I knew—she was frail, fractured, and struggling to recover, and I had no time-tested, familiar protocol to fall back on if things got emotionally complicated.
Susan opened the front door before I could ring the bell, smiling and ushering me in as a friend—a comforting change due, I thought, to her misunderstanding about why I’d been at the newspaper office so close on her heels. “She’s upstairs, Joe, waiting.”
I nodded and headed for the stairs.
“Joe?”
I looked back at her, surprised by the gentle tone of her voice. “Thanks for helping Mary out this evening. I know she could’ve gotten into a lot of trouble.”
I smiled at her. “Thank Ryan’s vanity.”
Gail was in a different chair this time, close to the now-rumpled bed, and lit by a single soft shaded light that gave her face a gentle glow. Still, she looked exhausted, her eyes weary and drooping, her cheeks gaunt. She sat as if she’d been dropped from a great height and was utterly incapable of movement.
But she did move. She saw me against the gloom of the hallway, smiled tiredly, and extended her hand to me.
I crossed the room and took it in my own, noticing its coolness and frailty, and I sat on the bed next to her, resting both our hands on my knee. “How’re you getting along?”
“I don’t know,” she said simply. “I wish I knew what to do.”
She squeezed my hand then and smiled again. “You’re doing fine. I’m sorry for what I’m putting you through.”
“You’re sorry?” I burst out. “You had nothing to do with all this. My only problem’s been not knowing how to act. Last time I was here, Susan told me to put a cork in it and concentrate on helping you.”
She actually laughed briefly. “The head lioness.” She paused and then looked me straight in the eyes. “Susan gave me your message. Releasing my name to the paper wasn’t easy. Your support meant a lot.”
Feeling guilty by now, I kept quiet.
Gail didn’t notice. “I feel like half of me’s looking in, and the other half ’s looking out. I’ve spent so much time with rape victims, working with Women for Women, guiding them through all the emotional stages… It’s strange being on the other side. I have all these feelings, and halfway into them I start thinking, ‘Oh, right—that’s the guilt kicking in—typical.’ Or, ‘Why aren’t I mad yet? Oh, yeah—that comes later.’ It gets pretty confusing.”
I knew some of those stages myself. “I saw the list you sent—that’s a good sign, isn’t it? Fighting back, regaining control?”
A look of pain crossed her face and I worried I’d overstepped somehow. “God, I’m a long way from there… And putting a list together of all the people you think could have… There were so many of them.”
Tears began to trickle down her cheeks. “I can’t stop asking, ‘Why?’ I’m not a bad person. I’ve had disagreements with people, but I’ve never wished them harm. What did I do?”
I let go of her hand and rubbed her back gently in a slow, circular motion. “You didn’t do anything, Gail. You were a target.”
Her anguish intensified. “But he planned it, right? He spent a long time thinking about it. He didn’t just wander by.”
I wondered if telling her more would help—not that I had much to tell. “He planned it, but he wasn’t as careful as he thought. He made a few mistakes, and those’ll lead us to him. The point to remember is that he attacked what you are, not who you are.”
She passed her hand across her forehead. “I wish I could remember more about him—something that would help.”
“You have… ”
A dog barked outside, once and not loudly, but Gail started as if stuck with a pin.
“You okay?” I asked in alarm, remembering a similar response when Todd Lefevre had snapped off his tape recorder early that morning.
She sat back in her chair and rested her head against its high pillow, her gaze on the opposite wall. The light hit her face directly that way and made it look like a marble mask. “I can’t relax—little sounds set me off. I’m so hyper they actually hurt.”
I glanced at the rumpled bed. “Have you tried to sleep?”
She rubbed her forehead and smiled, embarrassed. “I remember how peaceful I felt when you left me last night… I’m scared to fall asleep, Joe. I try to rationalize it, but I’m scared of everything—noises, sleep, going back home. I’m scared going down the hall to the bathroom, for God’s sake.”
I heard the hollowness of my own words: “It’s going to take time.”
A crease appeared between her eyes, and her voice darkened. “Yes, Susan comes by every once in a while and drops off one-liners like that.”
I began to rethink my approach, remembering what she’d just said before the dog barked. “You want to talk about the case? I hadn’t been planning on it, but there are questions you could answer. Maybe it would help.”
After a slight hesitation, she nodded. I tried to organize all the details running around my head into some kind of order. “Let’s start with something minor. J.P. was wondering if you still had your Swiss Army knife.”
A mix of expressions crossed her face—bafflement first, as she wondered why J.P. would care, followed by a frown as she figured it out for herself. “Yes, I do,” she answered in a near whisper.
“Okay. Another easy one: Do you have a wool shirt or piece of clothing that has red in it, other than the red-and-black check in your closet?”
She thought about that one for quite a while, the reason for it totally eluding her. “No. That’s it, as far as I can remember. I have other red things, but not wool.”
“Do you remember me wearing red wool in your bedroom in the last year?”
Her eyes widened slightly. “He left a strand of red wool behind?” I nodded. “We think so, unless you can place anyone else in that room wearing something like that.”
She shook her head emphatically, obviously heartened. “No, I can’t.”
“Good. Harder question now. Can you remember anything else about the attack that you might not have mentioned this morning? I’m thinking specifically about those few seconds just before he put the pillowcase over your head—you called it a blur.”
She sighed and closed her eyes briefly. “I need to do this—get it out.”
It was a statement to herself, not a question, but it still stimulated an answer from me: “Not if you don’t want to.”
Her eyes reopened, more purposeful, reminiscent of the Gail of just yesterday. “No, no. It’s okay.” She paused. “It was my breathing that woke me up—or the difficulty I was having. I felt something heavy on me. For a split second, I thought it was you—that I was dreaming, or that you’d come back. I opened my mouth and his hand pushed my head to the side—that’s when I saw the clock, and when I realized what was happening. It was almost clinical, as if something inside of me snapped to the outside and said, ‘You’re being raped—remember everything you can. Joe will want to know,’ as if it was happening to someone else.”
I paused before asking, “Did you ever catch a glimpse of him?”
She shook her head. “It was too dark. He fumbled around with the pillowcase for a couple of seconds—that’s when I first realized my hands were tied, because I tried to push him off—and then he pulled it over my head. After that, I couldn’t see a thing.”
“Was he trying to get the case off the pillow, or just having a hard time getting it on you?”
“It was already off the pillow. My head was flat on the mattress. He’d done all that before waking me up.”
“Okay—a little off the subject: On the list you had delivered to the police department this afternoon, you marked down, ‘Peter Moore’s people.’ I know you meant Krystal Kleer, but did that refer to when they installed those windows last year?”
Again, she looked both embarrassed and angry. “It’s so crazy, wondering who, of all the men you’ve set eyes on, was the one that finally raped you. It could have been anyone, Joe. It could have been a counter clerk at a shop, or a gas-station attendant, or even someone reading the newspaper and seeing my picture—someone I’d never even seen before.”
I reached out and took her hand again. “Maybe, but something made you write the window people down. What was it?”
She took a deep breath, doubt clouding her earlier determination. “Probably nothing—certainly nothing that anyone can do anything about. It was the equivalent of a wolf whistle in the street, or someone leering at you… ”
“One of them did something like that?”
She squirmed in her seat, still trying to avoid the inevitability of what she’d set in motion, the impact her words might have on others. “It wasn’t that obvious, or that direct. It was more a feeling I got from one of them—the way he looked at me.”
“Did you get a first name or a nickname?”
“No. That’s why I wrote it down the way I did. He was tall—over six feet—with black hair tied back in a ponytail and bright blue eyes. That’s what kept bothering me when they were here. It was so obvious every time he looked at me, because of those eyes.”
“But he didn’t do anything physical—touch you or anything?”
“No… It wasn’t a touch. It was creepier than that. I offered them both coffee, and I served it on a tray in the living room. I was wearing a work shirt with buttons down the front, unbuttoned at the top, and as I leaned forward to put the tray on the low table, the one with the blue eyes stood up slightly, so he could see down my shirt. It was so blatant… I jerked my head up when he did it, at first wondering if he was going somewhere, because of how quickly he’d gotten to his feet, but he just stayed there, watching me. No apologies—he didn’t try to pretend he was looking at something else, like most men do. He just kept looking until I put the tray down—I damn near dumped the coffee—and then he smiled at me. Nothing was said, but I felt like it had been. I left right after that—told them to close the door behind them. I had to get away—I felt I’d been trespassed upon.”
I almost asked why she hadn’t told me anything about it before I realized what a predictably masculine response that was.
She apparently sensed the question anyway. “Later, I felt kind of foolish. It’s hardly the first time something like that’s happened. Every woman knows most men’ll try to catch a glimpse either up her skirt or down her blouse. It’s an obnoxious fact of life.”
I felt distinctly uncomfortable, recalling how often I had done just that. “Did you ever see him again?”
“No. It was a quick job—only two windows. They were done the same day they began. But I never wanted to use Krystal Kleer again… ” She stared off into the distance briefly. “And now I feel I may have gotten this man into a lot of trouble.”
“Not unless he did it. Let me go back a bit. When you served them in the living room, it was in front of that row of older windows behind the couch, right?”
She nodded.
“Did you see either of them showing an interest in those windows—examining them in any way?”
“No. They were just sitting there. Their backs were to them.”
She leaned forward and rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hands.
I stroked the back of her head. “You okay?”
“It’s just this headache—I’ve had it all day.”
“You had any aspirin?”
“A couple, a long time ago.”
I was rubbing her back again, acutely aware of how thin and frail it felt. “When was the last time you ate anything?”
I felt her sigh—it was eloquent enough.
I got off the bed and circled around in front of her, squatting down to look into her face. “Look, I know lying in bed hasn’t been a big success, but why don’t you try it one more time while I get hold of some more aspirin and maybe a sandwich or some soup at least. You need something inside you or you’ll get sick, on top of everything else.”
She didn’t resist as I pulled her gently out of her seat and guided her to the edge of the bed. I propped up the pillows and set her down against them, covering her legs with a blanket I found draped over the footboard.
She held onto my forearms as I finished tucking her in, her eyes brimming with tears again. “Joe—what if he had AIDS?”
I felt my heart skip a beat. “One thing at a time. We’ll run blood tests and rule it out, but you can’t worry about it right now. Just work on what you can get your hands on.” I kissed her cheek and straightened up. “Let me get you something to eat.”
I found Susan downstairs and we quickly put together a small plate, along with some orange juice and two aspirin, but when I returned to the upstairs bedroom, Gail had finally fallen asleep.
I watched her for a few minutes, seeing how shallow her breathing was; every once in a while, her fingers would twitch, or her brow suddenly furrow. I could only imagine what nightmares were clashing inside her, and hoped with all my heart that they would soon be put to rest.
7
I COULDN'T GO HOME that night. For entirely different reasons, my place was no more appealing to me than Gail’s was now to her.
I returned to the department around midnight. I’d now been up for some twenty hours. The command post was ghostly in its emptiness, like a battlefield stripped of warriors—all except for a single policewoman from the graveyard shift, who presumably had been instructed on how to continue the sifting process that Ron had been overseeing all day. She was young and relatively new on the force, not an uncommon occurrence in a town the size of Brattleboro, whose police department was often used as a stepping stone to other, more lucrative jobs in law enforcement elsewhere. Particularly in the patrol section we had quite a few people who were inexperienced,
underpaid, overworked, and yet were expected to have at least a passing knowledge of every aspect of a police officer’s duties.
But spreading our resources thin was the only way we could afford to maintain a “full-service” operation, and it usually, if sometimes just barely, fit the bill—as long as no major cases came along to throw us all into turmoil.
Which is what was worrying me now. Unless something broke soon, the personnel allotted to finding Gail’s attacker would begin dwindling in direct proportion to the growing pile of other cases.
I grabbed a chair and pulled it over to the bulletin board with the timetable that Sammie had shown me a few hours ago. Additions had been made since then. Actual names written under older labels, like “voices heard walking by” and “jogger headed south,” indicated that real people had been linked to events, and—because Ron had written them in black ink and not red—that they’d also been eliminated from the suspects list. The pickup with the cap, going by at 4:15, was still unidentified, however, and its status had been upgraded by an accompanying red question mark. Harry Murchison, window installer, was going to merit an interview soon.
I wearily got back to my feet and crossed over to Ron’s long file-covered table. The young patrolwoman looked up as I approached. “Hi, Lieutenant—how’re you doin’?”
“Hi, Patty—hanging in there. Found anything interesting?”
She made a small face. “I’m just cross-indexing witnesses with things they saw, to see if anything shows up hinky. I’m working on UPS trucks and garbage pickups and what-have-you. I guess they’re lookin’ for someone casing the place out, but so far I don’t see it.”
I went around the table and sat next to her, my interest pricked.
“I didn’t know we’d rounded up that kind of information yet.”
She paused in riffling through a folder, happy to be interrupted. “Oh, yeah. Billy turned half the afternoon shift over to this—we’ve had people all over town. Everyone’s really psyched, you know, because… Well, you know,” she finished lamely, knowing of my ties to Gail and suddenly embarrassed by her own enthusiasm.
Fruits of the Poisonous Tree Page 9
