Fruits of the Poisonous Tree

by Mayor, Archer

  Ron hesitated and then resumed running the meeting. “Robert Vogel is next. I assume you’ve all read the updates, so you know basically who he is. I made some phone calls after Joe gave me Vogel’s file, and talked to an assistant DA in Massachusetts who knew a little about his case. From what he told me, it does look like we should put Vogel at the top of our list.”

  Ron shuffled a few pages in front of him and extracted a single sheet of notes he’d presumably written to himself during his phone conversation. “Bob Vogel is twenty-eight years old—and a dark-haired Caucasian, which fits the samples J.P. recovered from Gail Zigman’s bed. As far as law enforcement in Massachusetts knows, he’s committed three rapes, the last of which landed him in jail for a fully served four-year sentence. As your updates make clear, he’s now out on a burglary probation, being monitored by our own Department of Corrections.

  “The interesting thing about this man is that his record shows a learning curve, as if each rape taught him how to improve on the next. In the first attack in North Adams, he held his victim down by the neck and got scratched for his efforts. The next time, he used tape on her wrists and ankles; and on the third outing, he used the slipknots. Same thing with the blindfold: first time, nothing; second time, he ordered her to keep her eyes shut; third time, he used her nightgown.”

  “And now he’s into pillowcases,” Sammie muttered.

  Ron continued speaking. “In all three instances, the women were single, lived alone, and didn’t know Vogel personally, although they may have seen him around town. Also, all the attacks were made in the middle of the night, all of them involved a knife—although he actually used it the third time only—and all of them lasted several hours.”

  “Were the second and third rapes committed in North Adams?” Lefevre asked, taking notes of his own.

  “No. After the first one landed him in court, and ended with a hung jury and a dismissal from the judge, Vogel moved to Greenfield. That was about eight years ago, when he was twenty. The second one occurred a couple of years after that, but it never got to court. The prosecutor couldn’t run with it because the investigation was botched—illegal searches, a broken chain of evidence, a few other things. The officer in charge turned out to have a drinking problem and was let go right after, but the case was a wash. The ADA I talked to was pretty bitter—even though they nailed him good and proper the third time, the court had to sentence him as a first-time offender. That’s why he got off so light.”

  The similarities between Vogel’s record and the MO used on Gail prompted an outburst of questions as Ron paused to sip from his coffee mug.

  “Why don’t we just pick him up?” Dennis suggested.

  “Does he have an alibi for the night before last?” Lefevre asked. “How did he set up the three rapes?”

  Ron swallowed quickly and held up his free hand. “Hold it, hold it. All this is based on a single phone call. I got the name of the Greenfield cop who worked on the last two attacks, but I haven’t talked to him yet; nor have I seen any paperwork. There’re a lot of holes to fill.”

  “And we don’t want to pick him up until we have them filled,” I answered Dennis indirectly. “If we grab this guy before we know most of the answers, we could open ourselves up to a nasty surprise. The press and a lot of other people would have a field day with that. We need to put Robert Vogel under a microscope before we pick him up, not only for an alibi, but for more details on his MO: Did he ever wear gloves? Did he strip before assaulting these women? Did he whisper? Did he trash their rooms or houses? There’s a lot to do yet.”

  I turned back to Ron in the answering silence. “What else?”

  “A couple more things on Vogel—I’m having the arresting officers’ affidavits faxed to us, since they’re part of the public record, but court transcripts and other closed documents’ll take a little longer.”

  Todd Lefevre got the hint. “I’ll get on it—just give me the particulars after we’re through here.”

  Ron nodded his agreement. “Okay, next suspect on the hit parade: Jason Ryan. While Willy was prowling the streets checking out Murchison, he also dug a little deeper into Ryan’s supposed activities, which at last report amounted to going home to bed. Were you able to find out if he snuck out later?”

  Kunkle gave a disgruntled shrug of his shoulders, typical for when he came up empty-handed. Both his personality and his crippled arm dictated that he should outperform anyone around him. So not doing so tended to make him sullen. “I’ve got one witness who says he might’ve seen him on a bike, but if I’d pushed him harder, he also would’ve said it was pink and had wings. Ryan’s going to stay a question mark until we get lucky.”

  Ron was obviously disappointed. “That’s it for me. Since the paper came out this morning, we’ve been getting a steady stream of calls, some of them interesting, some of them loony, and the rest in between. Ryan’s a popular suggestion, mostly among women callers, and there’ve been about ten men who called in suggesting Gail faked the whole thing for publicity. One guy claimed Dunn did it for votes—he didn’t explain how that worked. I was thinking that if we fed the Reformer a few more details, especially about the timing of the attack, we might get another lead.”

  I gave Ron credit for an impartial presentation, purposefully downplaying the buzz that the evidence against Bob Vogel had stimulated, but there was no denying which name had suddenly hit the top of the charts.

  Still, I wanted to play it by the numbers, this time more than ever. Not only did I have Gail’s interests in mind, but I knew damned well that if we pushed too hard and somehow screwed up, there’d be more hell to pay than any of us could imagine. The upcoming election, Gail’s willingness to have her plight politicized, and the fact that Bob Vogel had escaped prosecution once already through a policeman’s incompetence, all combined to make me especially wary. The moment we let Vogel’s name become publicly linked to this case, we would begin to lose control of it—Dunn, Women for Women, and Stanley Katz, among others, would see to that.

  I therefore supported Ron’s suggestion. “Okay. We should stress that we’re currently building a case, but that we’d appreciate all the corroborative help we can get—anything heard or seen that might be linked to the specific time and location of the assault.”

  I was looking at both Tony Brandt and Todd Lefevre when I said this. They both silently nodded their agreement. “All right. Ron, why don’t you put together a press release, then.”

  I got to my feet and began pacing back and forth across the front of the room. “It would be dumb denying Bob Vogel is now number one. But I don’t want that overshadowing that we have at least two other strong likelies—Murchison in particular—plus Christ knows who else that might pop up. What we need to do, therefore, is to divide into teams and hit all three suspects with equal strength.”

  “I’d like you on the Vogel team,” Brandt said quickly and clearly.

  “All right, since I’m partnered with Todd and/or the chief anyway, we can make that one team. Willy, you’ve done most of the digging on Murchison. How ’bout you and J.P. keep on him?”

  Willy gave a barely perceptible nod, but I knew I’d done him a favor. Besides Sammie, whom he liked because of her devotion to the job—and because she was one of the few people who regularly told him to drop dead—J.P. was Willy’s favorite partner. Polar opposites personally, they’d forged a mutual respect, knowing that each had special abilities the other didn’t.

  Unfortunately, all this also predicated who would form the last remaining team. I looked at Sammie, my expression as supportive as I could make it. “And you and Dennis tackle Ryan.”

  Her face remained studiously impassive, which for a naturally expressive person told me a lot. I wondered if she’d be in to see me shortly after this meeting.

  I returned my attention to the whole group. “Each team should be seen as a core grouping only. I want to leave Ron running the command post, and it’s to him that all of us should report. That way,
if any team develops a need for more manpower or resources, Ron’s the man to talk to. Ron, in turn, will either pull people from the other teams, depending on what they’re up to, or he’ll go to Billy for help. Ron will also be responsible for forwarding any information he might get to the appropriate team, as well as giving all of us general updates on all three investigations.”

  I turned to the one member of the department whose importance was constantly underrated, except by me. “Harriet, that means you’ll be running the day-to-day details for all of us, plus keeping track of Ron’s paper flow. If you ever feel you’re beginning to drown, I’m sure Tony can find it in the budget to pay for a temp.”

  Harriet gave me a look that suggested the possibility of that was remote at best.

  I stopped pacing and stood before them in silence for a couple of seconds, slightly tongue-tied by what I felt I had to add. “I’d like you all to know, by the way, that I appreciate all the hours you’ve been putting in—personally, as a friend. It means a lot. Thank you.”

  There was a predictably awkward silence following this, diplomatically broken by Tony Brandt pushing back his chair and announcing that it was time to get back to work. In the slightly overplayed hubbub that followed, J.P. Tyler came up to me just as I was about to leave the room.

  “Since you’re handling Vogel, I thought you might be interested in this.” He held out a small, slightly silvery leaf.

  I held it quizzically between my fingers.

  “It’s from a Russian olive—like the one I found on Gail’s couch. After we talked this morning, I drove out to West Bratt to where Bob Vogel lives. There’s a Russian olive right in front of his trailer.”

  8

  TODD CAUGHT UP TO ME in the hall as Harriet informed me, “Billy wants to see you.”

  I smiled at that, watching Billy’s large form slowly lumbering toward his office. Something was bothering him, and typically he wanted to air it on his own chosen ground—using Harriet as an emissary so his plans wouldn’t be upended. I thanked her and followed Todd around the corner, out of the flow of traffic emerging from the command post.

  “How do you want to divvy things up?” he asked.

  “I’d like to close in on Vogel—just a hair. Scope out his neighborhood, learn his daily routine, maybe follow him around a bit. I don’t want to flush him out yet, but maybe we can find out what he was up to the night before last. Ron’s going to try to set up a meeting with the Greenfield cop who worked Vogel’s last two rapes, so I thought a little hands-on research might be appropriate beforehand.”

  He glanced back at Harriet.

  I followed his meaning.

  “Yeah, I’ll see what’s up with Billy first. You’ve got to make a few phone calls for Ron anyway, right? Could you make a couple for me?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Call Mrs. Wheeler. She hired Vogel because her regular man’s equipment was destroyed in a fire. I’d like to know how she heard about Vogel. Also, we need to get the regular yard man’s name from her and chase him down. That fire sounds pretty convenient.”

  Todd began heading toward the stairs. “Why don’t you have your chat with Billy and then come up to my office? See if I got lucky.”

  I nodded my agreement and started down the hallway, pausing as I heard Tony’s voice behind me. “Susan Raffner informed me just before the meeting that they’re planning an ‘awareness march’ down the middle of Main Street tonight, complete with hand-held candles. They want to wind up surrounding the courthouse—‘an unbroken circle of light,’ quote-unquote.”

  We fell into step side by side. “Is Gail going to be part of it?”

  He smiled grimly. “Right at the front.” It looked like he wanted to say more but thought better of it.

  “I take it you’re not impressed.”

  He paused in front of the unmarked door to the officers’ room, suddenly giving vent to his frustration. “I’m impressed that a woman fresh from being beaten and raped and having her name plastered all over the paper would think it a good idea to march down Main Street advertising the fact. I know she’s committed to her principles, Joe, and I hope you don’t take this wrong, but if I were her, I’d choose a different way to straighten out my life.”

  I merely looked at him and raised my eyebrows. He respected Gail, and liked her. He also knew there wasn’t anything he or I could do to change her mind once it was set.

  He finally shook his head, muttered, “What a pisser this is,” and continued down the hall.

  I found Billy ensconced in his cluttered office, like mine separated from a larger, outer room by an aquarium-like window. He’d surrounded himself with the memorabilia of a lifetime in police work—pictures, citations, antiquated equipment, and mementos from favorite cases—in a way that reminded me of a bear trapped in a small museum.

  He nodded genially at me when I entered and offered me a mug filled from his own private coffee urn.

  I sat in his fancy guest chair. “I don’t think so, thanks. I’m about fifty-percent coffee as it is. What’s up?”

  He pursed his lips and pulled on his chin, settling his bulk more comfortably in his own chair. He was a man who enjoyed the social niceties, often lamenting the rush of the modern world. But he was also obviously feeling ill at ease.

  “Scuttlebutt has it you really reamed Al Santos. Thought you weren’t going to do that.”

  I sighed. Not my finest hour. “Yeah—probably overdid it. He pissed me off.”

  “It was as much my fault as his—should’ve reamed me, too, when I first told you it was him.”

  “All right, consider yourself reamed.” I knew, however, that he was after more than that. So I added, “I nailed him as much out of frustration as for what he did—I could’ve apologized, but then I figured I better leave it alone. The more they think I’m on the warpath because of Gail, the more careful they’ll be to cross every t and dot every i. If we find this man, I don’t want him to walk because of anything we did or didn’t do.”

  Billy was quiet for a while, looking out the window at a few of his officers working at their desks or milling about the other room. “That’s one way to look at it, I suppose.”

  “As against what?”

  “They start talking about how this one’s maybe screwing up your objectivity. They know damn well if it had been their wife or girlfriend, there’s no way in hell they would’ve been allowed on the case. Maybe that’s a good rule.”

  I’d been expecting the objection, but not from within my own ranks. That was unsettling. “Are you saying I should have another chat with Santos?”

  Billy shook his large head slowly. “I wouldn’t do that.” He hesitated, honesty with a friend being something more easily praised than practiced. “Just don’t give ’em any more to feed on.”

  · · ·

  A half hour later I climbed the three flights to the rabbit warren of short hallways and minute offices that made up the SA’s domain. As with most old buildings that had been designed for one use and converted to another—in this case a school built in 1884—the torture showed in the details. Some offices were merely wide spots along a hall, others looked like big broom closets with little air and no windows. Lefevre’s eight-by-eight office did have a window, but it was placed a good five feet off the floor, probably to dissuade any student’s wandering eye. The window was open in an effort to dissipate the sauna-like heat that routinely rose—summer and winter—from the floors below.

  “Any luck?” I asked Todd, poking my head through his doorway.

  He got quickly to his feet. “Yeah—couldn’t believe it—three calls, and I got everything I was after. You ready to go? I need some fresh air.”

  Brattleboro has a fair number of mobile-home parks, planted like sentries around its outer perimeter. Some have been there for decades and share the same rooted look of any middle-class suburb, complete with above-ground pools, detached garages, and paved driveways. Others look considerably more ravaged by time and economics
—clusters of rusting, swaybacked boxes, their mobile days long gone, arranged haphazardly along grids of rutted, trash-strewn dirt lanes. These latter groupings are small and few in number, and are usually relegated to the no-man’s-land between the town’s outermost civilized fringes and the true boonies—away from the major thoroughfares, out of sight of most of the populace, and out of mind for most public-health and code inspectors. Bob Vogel’s address was in one such backwater, at the very edge of West Brattleboro’s town line.

  I waited until we were on Route 9 before asking Todd what he’d dug up.

  “Talked to Mrs. Wheeler. Story hasn’t changed—her regular guy told her he couldn’t service her until his insurance settled, and Vogel dropped in out of the blue. He did the job well and disappeared. The regular guy’s name is Ned Barrows.

  “I called him next and talked to his wife. The fire that trashed their equipment was in the garage—wiped out his two lawnmowers. Interesting, since he also has two snowblowers, neither of which was touched.”

  “Do they think it was arson?”

  “No. She said they had no reason to. They just assumed an oily rag started it, or maybe the sun coming through a window and superheating a small gas spill. Barrows apparently isn’t too neat and tidy.”

  “A little farfetched, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “Maybe. You won’t find their insurance company arguing with you. That’s why they haven’t settled. Barrows is an on-call fireman—dealt with the blaze himself out of embarrassment. I called his adjuster and was told they think the whole thing is pretty murky, including the spontaneous-combustion part. The only catch is, Barrows had undervalued his equipment to save on the premiums, so he’s actually going to lose money on it, even if they do settle.”

  “So it’s possible Vogel torched the mowers just to get the job at Mrs. Wheeler’s,” I muttered half to myself.

  Todd continued, “I also called Helen Boisvert, and she told me that Vogel currently had a night job with New England Wood Products, a lumber manufacturer up around Jamaica—the four-to-midnight shift.”