Fruits of the Poisonous Tree (16 page)

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.”

I was struck by the location—the town of Jamaica was a good forty minutes away, and one of the ways of getting there involved Meadowbrook Road. “How long’s he been there?”

“Four months. He must’ve been moonlighting when he worked for Mrs. Wheeler.”

I slowed the car by a peeling, barely readable wooden sign announcing Treetops Mobile Park, and turned off Route 9 onto a dirt lane in such poor shape it looked more like a track.

“Did Boisvert know about that?”

Bracing himself against the car’s lurchings over the potholed, mangled road, he answered, “Indirectly. She said he does do odd jobs for extra cash sometimes. He tells her about them when she asks, so she’s never thought much about it. They’re always outside, and she’s never heard a complaint. She double-checked on him at first, calling after he’d done a job and asking the employer how he behaved. She gave it up when it never led to anything.”

I stopped the car and checked my watch. “Well, if he’s still working nights, he must be gone by now—it’s almost 3:25.”

We looked over at what had once been a beige and silver trailer, shoved up against the base of a large evergreen. It was decorated in mottled earth colors now, weather and neglect having conspired to concoct an enviably effective camouflage. Over the top of it, someone had built a pitched tarpaper roof, supported by rotting, warped beams at each corner, presumably to supplement the trailer’s own leaky roof. Skirting the home’s edge, sheets of ancient, shredded plastic had been duct-taped to cut down on the annual winter cold. The windows were small, stained, and blank, showing no curtains, light, or signs of life. Between the battered metal front door and the road was a weed-choked jumble of rusting, broken debris, some of it almost fully returned to the earth, along with one garbage can holding a bulging plastic bag, and an exhausted example of J.P. Tyler’s famous Russian olive. Chained to the evergreen were a rusty, prehistoric, but apparently valued bicycle and an equally ancient lawnmower.

“Home sweet home?” Todd asked in low voice.

“According to what Ron gave me.” I killed the engine, swung out of the car, and approached the trailer.

As I did so, I heard a noise to my left and saw a man emerging from a half-wrecked home similar to Vogel’s. He had long, stringy hair and a struggling, wispy beard and looked like a turn-of-the-century ad for the terrors of consumption.

“He ain’t in.” The voice was jagged and harsh—a smoker’s half croak.

I made a show of seeming disappointed. “Damn. When’s he get back?”

“Late—night shift.”

Now I looked surprised. “This is Bob Vogel’s place, isn’t it? The handyman?”

That brought a half smile to the neighbor’s haggard face. “I don’t know how handy he is.”

“He does yard work, right? A friend of mine recommended him.”

He rolled his eyes. “Some friend.”

“Not a good idea?”

He equivocated slightly. “I don’t know—I’m not in a hiring position. Maybe he’s a frigging green thumb. I wouldn’t try getting sociable, though. He’s a dickhead.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Is there somewhere he hangs out where I might find him tomorrow?”

“Try the Barrelhead.” And without further ceremony, the human scarecrow moved off, climbed into a car I’d thought was abandoned, and drove away under cover of an explosive, rank-smelling smoke screen of burned oil.

Todd had slid over to the driver’s side of my car and rolled down the window to eavesdrop on this conversation. I looked up and down the street for other signs of life, found none, and turned back to Todd. “Pull around in a U-turn.”

He did as requested, stopping right next to Vogel’s garbage can. As quickly and unobtrusively as possible, I pulled the fat plastic bag from the can, tossed it into the car trunk, and got into the passenger seat.

Lefevre shook his head slightly and smiled as he slowly negotiated our way back out of the trailer park. “You’re not going to ask me to help dig through that, are you?”

“Might be interesting.”

“So might the disease you catch from it.”

The radio on the seat between us muttered my call number. I picked it up and answered.

“Ron says the Greenfield investigator you wanted to talk to is on his way up here. You available?”

I hesitated briefly. What I’d been hoping to do was drop the garbage bag off with Tyler and go see Gail. All day I’d been pulled by the twin desires of running the investigation and keeping her company—knowing full well the former not only held the higher priority, but was also what she’d prefer I’d do. Nevertheless, having spent most of the day at it, I now dearly wanted to take a break and see how she was faring, especially in light of tonight’s planned march down Main Street. It was reluctantly, therefore, that I told Dispatch I was on my way in.

Todd noticed my lack of enthusiasm. “Problems?”

“No, no. I asked Ron to locate the guy. I’m hoping he can fill us in on Vogel’s past.” That much was perfectly true, of course, but I sensed from his silence that Lefevre was waiting for a fuller response to his questions.

“It’s just tough pretending all this doesn’t mean something personal to me,” I continued.

“Maybe you shouldn’t try so hard.”

I looked at him directly. “I’m not so sure. Billy—among others—seems to think I’m losing my grip. At the
Reformer
, Stan Katz questioned the wisdom of having me involved. Even Tony had to shove me down your boss’s throat, and only succeeded by guaranteeing I’d have a twenty-four-hour babysitter. I’m what’s due the devil because we’re shy on manpower and the case is too hot. Which doesn’t mean a lot of people won’t find it convenient to pin the tail on me if something goes haywire. Part of me wants to focus on Gail and on getting her—and us—back on track. Part of me wants to do my job and nail the son of a bitch who raped her. And I know that by trying to do both I’m basically tripling my chances for screwing things up royally.”

Todd was honest enough not to argue the point, which was just as well. My own description fell short of my true feelings. Gail’s rape had triggered inside me the exact same emotions of sorrow and loss, albeit to a lesser degree, that probably would have attended her death. The bizarre twist, of course, was that she hadn’t died. She was alive, vibrant with her own pain and suffering, and her living thwarted the conventional closure that would have followed her funeral.

It was a paradox that gave credibility to a phrase I’d always held in contempt—that rape was a “fate worse than death.” While I still didn’t completely agree with that, I was beginning to understand it.

DETECTIVE JIM CATONE WAS
in his mid-thirties, built like a wrestler, and had been with the Greenfield police for over ten years. What I wasn’t prepared for was the intensity of the man. As he entered the command post, escorted by Harriet Fritter, I had the distinct impression of a man under temporary—perhaps only marginal—control. It went a long way in explaining why he’d impulsively driven north to see us, rather than waiting for us to do the courtesy.

When I commented on this last point, after introductions had been made, he fixed me with a piercing look. “Lieutenant, I’d travel a whole lot farther to nail this guy. It’s a pleasure.”

I nodded silently. We were seated around Ron’s central-most conference table—Brandt, Lefevre, Ron, and myself, with Harriet taking notes—all of us looking positively disinterested in contrast to our visitor’s almost carnivorous eagerness. I finally felt obliged to mention, “Bob Vogel is at the top of our list, but he’s still only a suspect. We don’t actually have anything on him yet.”

Catone mashed his hands together as if he were compacting a snowball. The muscles running up under his shirt cuffs fluttered and bunched. “You will—I guarantee it.”

“When did you first come across him?”

“Six years ago, after he raped Wendy Polan. We screwed up the investigation, but he was as dirty then as he was when he got off for doing the same thing to Ginny Davis two years before that in North Adams.

“I’d been on the force just four years. I was still in uniform but being groomed for plainclothes. I worked with the detectives a lot, so I was involved in the Polan case from the start.” His voice darkened slightly. “In fact, I was the one who discovered her. Her neighbors heard her screaming and called us. We found her strapped to the bed, beaten and bloody, half out of her mind, his come dried on her face—like a piece of meat. It broke her. She was completely changed after that. ’Course, our fucking the case up didn’t help—we told her that helping us would put this scumbag behind bars. So she did. She spilled her guts to us, she picked him out of a lineup, let herself be humiliated by the DA and the defense attorney. She put herself through hell, and none of it even got to court.”

We all glanced at one another in uneasy silence. His intensity told me Catone wasn’t a man I’d ever want working for me, but listening to him convinced me that he was just the historian we were after. I finally asked, “You knew Polan from before?”

He looked up, his expression softening a bit. “She went to the same high school I did—a few grades behind me. She was a pretty girl—popular, fun to be with. I never got to know her that well, but she sort of stood out in a crowd. You couldn’t help noticing her.”

“Our records are pretty slim still—we’re having Massachusetts send up their files. She was single, right? Living alone?”

He nodded. “Yeah—bottom apartment in a three-story building—an old converted family home.”

“How did Vogel gain entry?”

“He broke a back window—just enough to reach the door lock.”

“She didn’t hear anything?”

“He used a glass cutter. Besides, she was asleep, and the bedroom was on the other side of the house.”

“Had he cased the apartment beforehand?”

Catone shrugged. “I don’t know. We never really got to talk to him, at least not without his lawyer there. We thought he must’ve. I mean, he had to have staked the place out to know she lived alone, and to pick a time when the upstairs neighbors were gone on vacation.”

“We were told Vogel and Polan didn’t know each other.”

“Right—she’d never set eyes on him before that night.”

“During the rape, he told her to keep her eyes shut?”

He smiled for the first time. “Yeah—of course she peeked. A rocket scientist he ain’t. Even with Katherine Rawlins, the third woman he raped, he messed that part up, wrapping her head in her nightgown and not noticing when it slipped.”

“Can you outline his approach?” I asked. “What were the common denominators between the two rapes you investigated?”

“I can do you one better—I researched the one he did in North Adams, too. All three were single women—”

“Prominent?” Brandt suddenly asked. “You mentioned that Wendy really stood out in a crowd. Were all three distinguishable that way, either through their looks or what they did for a living?”

Catone looked stumped for a bit. “Wendy was the prettiest. I only saw a photograph of Ginny Davis—the North Adams girl—she was the youngest, and sort of plain. She worked as a store clerk. I don’t remember anything about her that stood out.”

“How ’bout age?” I asked.

“Each one was a little older than the next. How ’bout yours?”

For a split second, I considered how we were referring to these women. Catone had begun by talking about Wendy Polan in almost reverential tones—now all four of Vogel’s victims were beginning to sound like car wrecks. “Mid-forties,” I answered.

He pursed his lips. “That’s a bit of a jump, but it fits. Ginny was eighteen, Wendy twenty-three, Katherine Rawlins twenty-nine. Rawlins was a lawyer and had been quoted in the paper off and on. I suppose that makes her small-time famous, if you stretch it a bit.”