Fruits of the Poisonous Tree (22 page)

Brandt froze. For a moment, I saw them lock eyes like opposing force fields, each apparently hoping pure energy alone would atomize the other.

Tony finally took a discreet deep breath and countered, “I understand the pressure you’re under, but that might not be in your best interest. We know more about Bob Vogel right now than the state police will learn in a week of going through his files—and that’s a week in which Vogel could disappear forever.”

“They have better resources than you do.”

“Perhaps, and if we think Vogel has left the area, we’ll call on those resources.”

Dunn’s voice became the icy knife I knew all too well. “He’s already left the area, Tony. Your staff saw to that.”

Brandt ignored that bullet for the sake of the battle. “People in his position don’t run for distance, James, they run for cover, and they run for places they know personally. We’re not just faxing other departments to keep their eyes open—we’re telling them where to look and who to talk to, according to Vogel’s own files. The state police could do no better.”

Dunn didn’t answer at first. Then, finally, the hands came alive, slipping free of one another as he pointed to the exit. “Good. You’ll have twenty-four hours to prove your point.”

Bob Vogel’s trailer was dark and cluttered and looked like a cyclone had blown through it. And it stank—of dirty clothes, stale sweat, rotting food, and mildew. The small refrigerator oozed the gaseous sweet odor of a biological time bomb waiting to be freed.

To Tyler and Kunkle—Tyler’s unlikely but preferred companion for detailed searches—it was all as rich as an untapped gold mine. The two of them, gloved and masked, surveyed the dim premises with interest. I, in contrast, stood in the narrow doorway, imagining only the owner of this rat hole emerging to violate Gail in her clean, airy, sweet-smelling home. That someone with so little to offer could wreak such damage turned my stomach.

“Let me know if you find anything,” I told them, before returning outside to the relative pureness of the surrounding decrepit neighborhood, where the other members of the squad were foraging around and under the trailer and picking through the abandoned station wagon.

I stood in the middle of the rutted dirt lane, breathing the cool, fresh air so much at odds with the setting. The weather-beaten, broken-backed trailers were strung out along the road haphazardly, as if thrown away, and shared a disturbingly imperiled appearance—as if the earth were swallowing them up in imperceptibly slow bites.

Whether it was the disappointment following Vogel’s disappearance, Dunn’s display of clear self-interest, the unslacking melancholy that had dogged me since the attack on Gail, or just plain exhaustion from too many days without sleep, I suddenly felt overwhelmed by lassitude. The damage to Gail had been done, her attacker identified—to my satisfaction at least—and the subsequent process attending both those facts—her healing and his eventual capture and prosecution—put in motion. My role was soon to be diminished to that of the loyal supporter. I was to be attentive, encouraging, helpful if possible, but essentially useless until forces beyond my control had run their course. Once caught, probably by some other agency than ours, Bob Vogel would be in James Dunn’s manipulative hands, while Gail’s recovery depended mostly on her own abilities to rally and rebuild her life. It all left me feeling strangely empty-handed.

Brandt, who had broken with protocol to join us in the field, came up beside me in the middle of the road.

I guessed he was going to ask how I was doing, or maybe how Gail was faring—both questions I was in no mood to answer at the moment—so I sidetracked him with what I intended to be small talk.

“I was surprised Dunn let me off so lightly, even if he does plan to hang us all in public in twenty-four hours.”

Brandt chuckled and loaded up his pipe. “There won’t be any hanging. He’ll just write us off as well-meaning boobs. And he sure as hell isn’t about to land on you, especially now.”

I glanced over at him, puzzled. “What’s that mean?”

He took his time lighting up, sending out large smoke signals into the air. When he was finally satisfied, he removed the pipe from his mouth and peered into its bowl, as if curious to see how that had happened.

“It means,” he said at last, “that our State’s Attorney can become a little cynical when the pressure’s on.” He pointed his pipe stem at me. “You are in the public eye, a nice guy, a good cop, and Gail’s lover. In that same light, Helen Boisvert is an antagonistic, introverted crank with no political allies and a low profile—meaning the public doesn’t know who she is and doesn’t care that she also happens to do a good job.”

“He’s going after Helen?”

“Not necessarily. Dunn held that premature press conference this morning solely to steal Derby’s thunder, telling the media we were closing in on a prime suspect. He gave no names, detailed no strategy, and still managed to sound upbeat and in control. It was a gamble that worked in the short term, because an hour later Jack Derby gave a sincere and heartfelt dog-and-pony show, but he lacked the goods Dunn pretended to have. Point one to Dunn, something he felt he needed, since Derby had stolen the limelight at the candlelight march.”

Tony nodded toward the trailer. “If this search results in enough evidence to trigger an arrest warrant, that’ll be point two, showing Dunn to be the experienced old hand he claims to be, and maybe giving him enough of an aura that Vogel’s skipping out will seem like a minor detail, easily remedied, especially if he throws us out and brings in the state police.”

“But if the aura’s not enough,” I concluded bitterly, “then Helen gets crucified with a great show of reluctance.”

Tony raised his eyebrows. “You got it.” He was quiet for a moment, seemingly lost in reflection, his eyes on the distant treeline, which was tinged with the first colorful signs of the coming foliage season.

He turned and looked at me carefully. “If this thing works out, and we flush Vogel out, Dunn’s going to own him. We’ll do the paperwork and the background research and all the rest as usual, but Bob Vogel is going to sit on the SA’s velvet pillow—his golden key to reelection. And nothing better happen to threaten that. For whatever reasons, James Dunn is playing for keeps this time, and I don’t think anyone should forget it.”

He checked his watch suddenly and murmured, “Well, I better get back,” as if our seemingly impromptu little chat had been the sole reason for his visit.

· · ·

I was still mulling over Tony’s ominous prophecy when I heard Tyler calling me from the trailer’s front door an hour later, the white dust mask he’d been wearing dangling like a miniature feed bag from around his neck. I slid off the car hood I’d been using as a bench and crossed over to him.

“I think we got him” was all he said, gesturing for me to follow him inside.

They’d opened the windows, so the smell was less intense. In a bizarre reversal of the norm, their search had actually tidied things up a bit. Kunkle was standing in what passed for the kitchen with a triumphant look on his face, but he left the exposition to Tyler.

“Everything’s been sketched, photographed, and documented, so you don’t have to tiptoe too much, but you might still want to watch what you touch.”

I gave him a quizzical look, which Kunkle responded to more bluntly. “The guy beat off a lot, all over the place, including on the mirror.”

I repressed an involuntary shudder, much to Willy’s satisfaction. “What’ve you got?”

Tyler stepped over to the counter next to the cluttered, greasy sink and pulled open a drawer. Inside, among other utensils, was a newly bagged and labeled carving knife—short, broad, and ugly. “First: a knife, stained with what a preliminary field test tells me is blood. Obviously, Waterbury’ll have to check it out, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it matched Gail’s type.”

He stepped through to the narrow hallway in the waist of the trailer and pulled open a closet door. Hanging from a nail on the inside was a loop of cotton rope similar to the small nooses we’d found dangling from Gail’s bed frame. Tyler merely pointed at it, adding, “Item two. Again, I’ll have to match the cut end to what we’ve already got, but it looks likely.”

I nodded and continued following him down the hallway and into the bedroom, passing the bathroom door with its smeared full-length mirror along the way. “Watch yourself,” Kunkle chuckled, as if warning me against a chained rat.

Tyler stood at the far side of the disheveled, foul-smelling double bed. What sheets were still on it were stained dark and covered with scab-like blotches. Despite having visited countless places as bad or worse, I felt my throat tighten.

“This is the gold mine,” Tyler resumed, in a singularly odd metaphor. “You can tell he favors the right side of the bed.”

“No shit,” Kunkle murmured.

“I reasoned that if he were to hide anything under the mattress, it would be on the side he wasn’t occupying.” He lifted the mattress so that the light from the window played on the box spring and asked, somewhat indelicately, “Item number three—look familiar?”

Spread out like a crushed butterfly was a scanty pair of women’s underwear, gaudy and colorful, with a small red heart sewn on its crotch. Gail had bought it as a joke several years earlier.

I merely nodded. Willy had the rare good taste to keep quiet.

J.P. gestured to a pile of clothes in the corner, on which the red shirt Willy and I had seen Vogel wearing earlier was perched at the top. “The shirt speaks for itself, but this… ” he moved to another closet and pulled down a small box from the back of a high shelf, “is the real bonanza, if you ask me. The kind of thing prosecutors love. It was actually tucked even further out of the way, between the roof and the false ceiling, behind one of the acoustic panels.”

The box contained several four-by-five glossy photographs, which Tyler spread out carefully on the bed with his latex-clad fingertips. “These still need to be dusted using fancier equipment than I’ve got. If they’re as hot as I think, it’ll be worth the effort.”

I leaned forward and studied them. They were of various views of Brattleboro—of its sidewalks, crosswalks, and storefronts—but all of them featured Gail, alone or chatting with other people, dressed for summer weather in a tank top and shorts, and looking, to my saddened imagination, remarkably youthful, happy, and carefree. The pictures had obviously been taken on the same sunny day, close to one another in time, as if the photographer had found his quarry outside and downtown and had shot off a half roll in quick succession.

I straightened back up. “That’s eight photos. You find any others?”

Tyler shook his head. “No, but they were in a Green Mountains Lab envelope with the negatives.” He patted his pocket. “And the negs match the prints. I’m guessing he shot these and left the rest of the roll unexposed. Probably either he or the lab threw the blank film away.”

“How ’bout a camera?”

There was a pause. Willy and J.P. glanced at each other. Tyler finally said, “Guess not.”

I rubbed my aching eyes with my thumb and forefinger. “We’ll have to check into that. Anything else?”

“There’re about thirty porno magazines under the bed,” Kunkle said.

“Kiddy or adult?”

“Straight adult—no boys, no kids. Some of the girls look like teenagers, but that’s pretty standard.”

There was a long pause, and I realized that I’d trampled their euphoria with my lack of enthusiasm. I took a deep breath, trying to override the humming in my head, and gave them both as genuine a smile as I could muster. “Looks like a home run, guys. You might as well collect all this and log it in. It’s about as strong a basis for an arrest warrant as Dunn could ask for. Thanks.”

Tyler smiled back sympathetically, but Willy just shook his head. “Go to bed, boss. You’re falling apart.”

· · ·

Bed, however, was out of the question. As I walked into Ron Klesczewski’s operations room, intent on escorting the arrest-warrant affidavit all the way to the judge’s pen, I was stopped by the gleam in Ron’s eye. He cupped the phone in his hand and murmured, “I think we got something.”

I waited while he continued listening to whoever was on the other end of the line.

He finally said, “Hang on a sec,” and looked at me again. “This is Wilma Belleview—she’s the sheriff ’s dispatcher in Newfane. She just got a call from a power-company guy at Harriman Station asking if there’ve been any MVAs in the Jacksonville-Harriman Dam area. One of their field men was supposed to be working at the Glory Hole out there but he’s not answering his radio.”

MVA stood for Motor Vehicle Accident. “He have a history of wild driving?”

Ron shrugged. “I don’t know, but Wilma told them she’d call around. VSP and Wilmington PD drew blanks, so she thought she’d try us on a long shot.” He moved over to one of the neat paper piles on his table and retrieved a single, slim folder, his enthusiasm gaining momentum. “The point is, one of Vogel’s big enthusiasms a few years ago, when he was still living in North Adams, was fishing and hunting around the Harriman Reservoir. He and his buddies did that a lot, and they once got busted for trespassing onto the dam, trying to piss into the Glory Hole.”

Dulled as I was by fatigue, I was becoming infected by Ron’s energy. “How long ago did the field man head out there?”

“Early this morning.”

“Was his radio working when he left?”

“Yup. What do you think?”

I held up my hand instinctively, as if to slow down oncoming traffic. “I don’t know yet. How’s the sheriff handling it? They have anyone in the area?”

“Not really, and there haven’t been any MVAs. They weren’t planning on doing anything.”

No reason for them to, I thought, and pointed at the phone still clenched in Ron’s hand. “Better let your friend off the hook.”

Ron looked at the receiver in surprise, muttered his thanks to Wilma, and hung up. “Should we send someone out there?”

I sat down in one of the metal folding chairs grouped around the table. “How often did he visit the area?”

“Every hunting season, fished there every summer, all through his teenage years and into his twenties, at least according to family and friends.” He waved a hand across the stacks of files and folders before him. “I didn’t find anything recent, but it was obviously an old stomping ground.”