Fruits of the Poisonous Tree (19 page)

I went beyond the turnoff for Vogel’s trailer park as he pulled in, and parked in the lot of an abandoned garden center, across from an exhausted-looking motel with a stuttering, half-lit Welcome sign.

Kunkle sat back cautiously, as if unsure the seat was still behind him. “So what the fuck did that do for us?”

I flexed my stiff fingers. “We have to check his habits—same as you did with Harry Murchison. And this may have given us something to squeeze him with, if we need it.”

He turned away and stared out the side window. I didn’t blame him for being irritated. Above and beyond the danger of the wild goose chase we’d just survived was the fact that Willy was here purely to babysit me, as both Brandt and Todd Lefevre were unavailable. That might’ve been all right if Vogel had done something other than take the scenic route home, but now Willy obviously felt it well within his rights to make me pay for his disappointment.

Until I spotted a lone figure on an ancient bicycle wobbling away from the trailer-park entrance. “I’ll be damned.”

Willy followed my gaze. “That him?”

“It’s the same bike he had chained up next to his trailer.”

We watched him laboriously grind away at the pedals, his body bent over the handlebars, heading east toward the anemic glittering of West Brattleboro’s outermost inexpensive restaurants, motels, and bars.

“What the hell’s he doing on that thing?” Kunkle wondered out loud.

“If we’re right about the car, he’s keeping a low profile.” I pointed to a long, nondescript building set back from the road slightly. “We are, after all, cutting right across the front door of a state-police barracks.”

I followed him in several stages, moving only once I was about to lose sight of him. Within a mile, he wheeled up to the front of one of the town’s more decrepit bars and leaned his bike against the wall.

Kunkle chuckled beside me. “The Barrelhead. At least I’ll be able to find out what he’s up to in there.”

That the Barrelhead was one of Willy’s listening posts came as no surprise. It was the Rainbow Room for Brattleboro’s down-and-out. In constant jeopardy of losing its license, it was also where we found Willy himself in the old days when he’d still had both arms, a marriage in shambles, and been in a headlong rush toward alcoholism.

I killed the lights again and found a parking space far from the bar’s front door. We got out of the car and stretched in the refreshingly cold night air. There were about six other cars in the lot, enveloped in the red-and-blue glow from the Barrelhead’s neon sign. Jukebox music leaked from the building like secondary smoke.

We moved to the shadows by the side, where a small window decorated with a flickering beer sign allowed us a dim view along the length of the bar inside. Bob Vogel had just seated himself on a stool and was struggling out of his windbreaker, talking to the bartender. There were two other men at the bar itself, neither one of them close to Vogel, and several more in the booths along the opposite wall. A fat waitress in a black-satin uniform, complete with cap, lounged at the far end of the bar in an overloaded long-legged director’s chair, either uninterested or unable to tend to her flock.

“You still come here?” I asked Willy.

“Fuck you.” He suddenly pointed at Vogel. “Well, look at that.”

Having finally removed his jacket, Vogel revealed a filthy but solid-red wool shirt underneath.

“Did J.P. come up with a final analysis on that fiber sample yet?” I asked, knowing that Kunkle, despite his seeming disregard for everyone but himself, actually made a clandestine effort to keep up on every detail in a case.

“Yeah—said it showed engine oil and dirt stains, just like that,” he said, pointing at Vogel, who by now was working on his first shot and beer.

We stood by the window for several minutes more to determine that Vogel was there for his own entertainment and not to meet anyone. Then, after Willy relieved himself against the wall, we retired to my car to wait him out—again.

Willy settled into the folds of his blanket, awkwardly tugging it up around his neck, and fixed his eyes on the sporadic traffic passing by on Route 9 before us. “So—assuming we’re only farting around with Jason Ryan because of Gail’s dykey friends—we’ve got two real suspects, right? Harry Murchison and old Bobby in there?” He jerked a thumb at the bar.

“I remember six others from Gail’s list of possibles, and two from the intelligence meeting.”

He didn’t hide his contempt. “Very diplomatic. You could throw yourself in there, too—you were the last one with her. And from what I hear, the DNA analysis won’t come up with anybody else.”

I didn’t bother responding. His style aside, he was essentially correct. “So how close are we to doing more than sniff through their garbage?” he persisted.

Willy was not a chatty man, nor was he given to seeking the counsel of others. It occurred to me therefore that he was curious about my reasoning. He wanted to know whether Vogel—whom we’d almost broken our necks tailing for no apparent reason—was becoming an obsession with me, to the detriment, perhaps, of Kunkle’s assigned target, Harry Murchison.

I turned the tables on him. “You’re the Murchison expert. What’ve you got?”

“He had motive, opportunity, and means—”

“What motive?” I interrupted.

“He’s a grab-ass generally, and he made eyes at Gail enough for her to put him on her list.”

I conceded the point with a nod.

“He also had the opportunity to preplan the attack when he was in her house fixing the windows. He might’ve even rigged one of them then. I interviewed the guy he worked with that day. He said they were out of each other’s sight off and on the whole time. On both those points alone, he’s stronger than Vogel. We don’t know if Vogel and Gail ever set eyes on each other.”

“Why did he wait a year between rigging the window and breaking in?”

Willy shrugged. “Why does any guy jump a broad? Something snaps. Maybe he rigs windows all over town. And it looks like it could’ve been Murchison’s truck on Gail’s street that night. Plus he has no alibi.”

“We haven’t talked to him yet. Faced with a rape charge, he’ll probably come up with some explanation, even if it shows he was cheating on his girlfriend.”

Kunkle scowled at the window for a moment. “So you’re not buying Murchison?”

“Not like I buy Vogel. Like with the red shirt tonight—every time we take a look at him, he gives us something new. Did J.P. tell you we found a catalogue in his garbage with Gail’s address on it?”

Kunkle’s inbred restlessness shot to the surface. “So when do we get a warrant to search and bust the guy?”

He was echoing the same thoughts I’d been mulling over after the rally. My conclusion then held all the more true now. “As soon as we’ve answered every question we can on our own. When I sit down with Bob Vogel, I want to know more about him than he does—like why he drives home the way he does. And what he talks about in there.” I gestured to the bar. “And what he was doing to make him miss his appointment with Boisvert the morning after the attack.”

Kunkle merely nodded, apparently satisfied.

“It shouldn’t be too much longer,” I added. “Maybe a couple more days, especially if Dunn puts on the pressure.”

The bars close at two during weekdays, and it had been after one when Bob Vogel had wheeled his bicycle into the Barrelhead’s lot. Nevertheless, he looked much the worse for wear when he staggered outside exactly at closing time—the last to leave—and fumbled with his handlebars. It was with an element of relief that I saw he was too drunk even to get on the saddle, and contented himself with pushing his transportation homeward. I didn’t need him flattened under some passing truck—not just yet.

Simultaneously, Willy and I swung out of the car and walked over to the bar’s entrance. I faded back slightly to let Willy cover obviously familiar ground.

He pounded on the thick glass window covering the top half of the door.

The predictable answer was instantaneous and reflected the manner of the establishment: “We’re closed—fuck off.”

Kunkle pulled out his badge and tapped it against the window, calling out, “Hello, Ray.”

A muted curse barely reached our ears, followed by footsteps and the sound of the lock being shot back. The actual opening of the door, however, was left to us, as we heard the footsteps retreating without further ceremony.

Raymond Saint-Jacques—short, squat, balding, and in dire need of a shave—was heading back behind the bar as we entered, like a mole seeking the sanctuary of his hole. The gargantuan waitress was still perched on her endangered chair, as oblivious to us as an overdressed fire hydrant.

Willy and I parked ourselves on two stools opposite Ray, who was now safely barricaded among his bottles and shot glasses.

“What do you want?” He kept a wary eye on Kunkle, which made me wonder about the full extent of their shared past.

Kunkle smiled. “We were working late. I told Joe what a wonderful place this was, and what a great conversationalist you were, and he said he wanted to meet you.”

Ray stared at us sullenly for a few moments, fully understanding Willy’s gist. He turned to the waitress, who’d done no more than breathe since I’d first seen her an hour ago. “Nora—go away. Do something outside.”

Nora slid off the creaking chair with the delicacy of a dolphin in heels and drifted off through a door leading to the back.

“What’ll it be?” Ray then asked Willy.

“A beer. Joe?”

“Tonic water.”

Willy laid two twenty-dollar bills on the bar; Ray served us our orders and stuffed the money into his pocket. He didn’t make change. “What do you want?” he repeated, with no less hostility.

Willy took a sip from his beer, allowing me to ask, “You know the guy who just left? The one on the bicycle?”

Ray shook his head. “Nope—Bob somethin’.”

“How long’s he been coming in here?”

“A few months.”

“Good customer? Pays his tab?”

“He’s okay—a little behind sometimes.”

Willy wiped his mouth and spoke, “Not a good guy, though, Ray—could cause you problems.”

Ray merely stood still and looked from one of us to the other, a resigned look on his face.

“Does Bob talk about himself much when he’s here?” I asked.

“He’s usually working the bottle too hard.”

“He have his ups and downs, like most of us?”

“I suppose.”

“Night before last,” Willy asked, “what was he like?”

“Wasn’t like anything. He wasn’t here.”

“That unusual?”

The bar was as still as a confessional, the three of us utterly motionless. I could see in Ray’s face that he was becoming interested, tipped off by Willy’s comment about Bob’s character and our having pinpointed the time we were interested in. Gail’s rape had played big enough in the media by now—including on the currently silent television that hung above the bar—that Ray would have to have been brain dead not to know of it.

He finally said, “Yeah. It’s the first night he’s missed since I’ve known him. He came in later, though.”

Willy jumped on that. “How much later?”

“’Bout nine in the morning. He was in a real bad mood.”

I poked at the ice in my untouched drink. “How so?”

We were all playing by different rules now. By telling us Vogel had messed up his routine on the night of the attack, and had appeared at the bar later in a depressed state, Ray had moved from informant to witness, whose statement would in all likelihood make it into court. All three of us knew that, and Willy and I knew further that we’d better tread carefully, making sure we couldn’t later be accused of putting notions into Ray’s head.

But the bartender was no stranger to the process. He and Willy went back a long way. He even seemed to bask in the moment a little, understanding the importance of what he was about to tell us, and knowing we could do nothing but wait for him to do so.

“You want me to freshen those up a little?” he asked with a smile.

Kunkle was not in the mood. “Cut the crap.”

Ray Saint-Jacques looked pleased with himself. “All right. Look, I read the papers, like everybody, so I know about the rape, right? It was sort of a hot subject that morning—even on the radio. Bob didn’t start right in on it. He maybe knocked off a few at first, but later, after everybody else had pretty much left, he started in, saying shit like, ‘Sure as hell I’m fucked now—they’ll be all over me—don’t even have an alibi—fucking broads.’ Stuff like that.”

I chose my words carefully. “Did he explain what he meant? Go into any detail?”

Ray laughed now, his entire mood changed by the conversation. “Well, shit, he didn’t confess, if that’s what you’re after, but it was kind of creepy. It was like he was resigned to it. Most of my customers are a little paranoid, you know—got a record and all, or maybe just think the world’s out to get ’em. But he didn’t seem all worked up—just in the dumps.”

“Did he explain why he didn’t have an alibi?”

“Nope.”

“He didn’t say anything else?”

Ray grinned again and made a tossing-back gesture with his fist and thumb. “Too busy, you know?”

“He drink a lot?” Kunkle asked.

“No more’n the rest of ’em.”

“That’s not telling me a hell of a lot, Ray.” Willy’s voice had gained a touch of menace.

The bartender held up both hands in mock surrender. “Hey—it’s the truth. He drinks, but he always gets out the door. That’s more’n I can say for some of ’em—remember, Willy?”

Kunkle glared at him.

“Has he been drinking more in the last forty-eight hours?” I asked.

He tilted his head to one side, looking thoughtful—or at least pretending to. “Could be, you know?”

That didn’t satisfy Kunkle. “Has he or hasn’t he?”

Ray’s voice suddenly went surly, as if he understood that with me there, there was little Willy could do physically to back up his aggressive tone. “What the fuck am I—his nanny? He has, all right?” He stepped away from the bar, grabbing both our glasses and dropping them into a sink of greasy water at his waist. “I got work to do before I can turn in. Are we done here?”

I slid off my stool. “For the moment.”