Archer Mayor - Fruits of the Poisonous Tree

I thanked Harriet and asked her if either Sammie Martens or Willy Kunkle had reported back in from their respective sweeps of the town’s nether reaches.

Sammie’s head popped up from behind one of the soundproof panels that separated the four desks set up in the middle of the room. “I’m here.”

I went around the corner to find her climbing off her chair. Slim, dark, and almost overly intense, she was also as small as a teenage girl, with a similarly impulsive style. Over the years, I’d had to pour oil on occasionally troubled waters between her and her colleagues. Whether it was being the first and only woman to have been made detective in our department, or just a natural competitiveness that bordered on the cutthroat, her drive could make her difficult to deal with. Only Willy Kunkle, infamous in his own right, seemed totally unaffected by her.

Her expression was not encouraging. “I chased down almost every connection I have, Joe. There’s nothing stirring out there. And there’s a lot of interest-everyone knows who the victim was, and they’re all dying to be on the inside. If any of them knew, I’m pretty sure I would’ve heard about it. I’m real sorry.”

I shrugged it off. My conversations with J.P. Tyler had already braced me for bad news. The meticulousness of Gail’s attacker-the preplanning, the caution he’d taken to conceal himself-had persuaded me we wouldn’t find him hanging out in a bar, bragging about his latest score.

“I don’t think this was a spontaneous assault anyway. Did you compare notes with Willy?”

She nodded. “He didn’t find anything either. He’s getting coffee in the officers’ room, if you want to talk to him.”

The door to the hallway opened and Ron Klesczewski walked in, purposeful and obviously full of news. I turned back to Sammie. “I’d like to talk to both of you, actually. Round him up and bring him back over here, will you?”

Sammie left, and I shepherded Ron into my office cubicle, parking myself on the corner of my desk. “What’ve you got?”

“I’m setting up a command post in the extra room-bulletin boards, a dedicated phone line. Billy’s given me one guy out of each of his shifts to man it. We’ve already started classifying those neighborhood witnesses by what they saw and at what time, and Dennis is chasing down the ones he missed at their work places instead of waiting for tonight. We figured the sooner the better. With any luck, we’ll construct a chronology of the whole night and then see what sticks out.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Does Tony know about this?”

Ron smiled. “He authorized it. I don’t know if it’s James Dunn or the board-or maybe both-but the chief ’s catching some serious heat on this.”

I remembered Tony’s pessimism about keeping Gail’s name under wraps, and what would probably happen once it got out. “I think he’s just preparing for the worst. You doing all right coordinating it all?”

Klesczewski nodded emphatically. “Oh, yeah. I like it-tips are already starting to come in. It’s interesting, separating the bullshit from the solid stuff.”

“Good. Keep at it. Run things from the command post, keep me and Brandt updated, and use the patrol division to chase down leads as you see fit. Get Dennis to help you out. If you see the need for a squad meeting before Brandt or I do, call it yourself. Before too long you’re going to be in a better position than any of us to know the overall picture, so throw your weight around a little.”

I was pleased to see the satisfaction in his eyes. His youthful insecurities were hardening with time, and while he’d always have problems with someone like Willy Kunkle, I no longer harbored Tony Brandt’s ebbing skepticism that I’d backed the wrong horse as my second-in-command.

Sammie Martens and the infamous Kunkle were loitering outside my door-she almost at attention, a note pad clutched in her hand, and he typically leaning against the wall, sipping his coffee, and gazing out the window, looking bored. I waved them in as Ron happily departed for his newly established nerve center.

There is a media-hyped misconception among many people that the only difference between most cops and the people they bust is the badge in their pockets. In my personal experience, that’s mostly bunk-except with Willy. He was a cynical, hardbitten, nasty-minded street cop with a withered, crippled left arm he kept from flopping around by anchoring its hand in his pants pocket. He had no friends that I knew of, no pleasures outside his job, and no discernibly pleasant characteristics. He’d had a wife once, whom he’d taken to beating and who’d left him years ago, and he’d once fallen so far into the dumps that I’d thought we’d have to fire him. Instead, a sniper’s bullet in the arm had retired him on permanent disability.

That should have marked the end of his career, except that I’d encouraged him to challenge the town under the Americans with Disabilities Act to get his job back. He’d never thanked me for that apparent folly, but he’d never given me cause to regret it, either. For as bitter and disagreeable as he could be, he understood the workings of Brattleboro’s least desirable social circles like no man I’d ever met. And while he talked like them, acted like them, and at times even appeared indistinguishable from them, Willy Kunkle was positively driven to putting the “bad guys” in jail. He was, like a highly motivated but disturbingly hostile attack dog, unbeatable at his job. I just never had him tour the schools upholding the department’s image.

“Sammie tells me you didn’t have any better luck than she did.”

“Nope.”

“Did either one of you hear Jason Ryan’s name come up while you were poking around, in any context at all?”

Kunkle’s cup froze halfway to his lips. “Ryan? Don’t you think it’s a little early to get that desperate?”

Sammie merely shook her head.

“He threatened Gail just a few days ago-got so unruly at a board meeting, Santos was called in to throw him out.”

Kunkle shrugged instead of responding.

“I’d like you two to check him out-discreetly-especially what he was up to all last night. Find out if he’s been mouthing off about Gail, and see if you can nail down exactly what was said at that meeting.”

Kunkle made a face, drained his Styrofoam cup, and tossed it into my trashcan. He easily-even gracefully-shoved himself out of my guest chair with his powerful right arm.

Sammie, more polite, was looking at me dubiously. “You want us both on this?”

“As far as it makes sense-I want it fast and thorough. There is one other item, though. J.P. thinks Gail’s attacker entered through one of the living-room windows, and that he knew which one to choose beforehand. She had several windows replaced about a year ago, by whom I don’t remember-some local outfit. We’re thinking one of the workmen might have scoped her place out back then.”

They both nodded at that one, knowing full well that similar patterns had proven out in the past, in both rape cases and robberies.

Kunkle headed out the door, but Sammie lingered a moment, looking a little uncomfortable. “I’m sorry about what happened to Gail. Must be tough when it’s someone you know.”

I didn’t argue the point.

The next several hours were spent at Lou Biddle’s emergency intelligence meeting-discreetly held in the back room of the local ambulance squad-where a dozen of us culled through reams of files from Vermont’s Department of Corrections and those of law enforcement agencies from most of the towns and counties around Brattleboro, including several from Massachusetts and New Hampshire.

The mood was not encouraging, however. Stimulated already by Tyler’s faxed circulars, these people had already given their files a preliminary survey, all without a “hit.” Now, each of them discussed their second and third choices, mentioning the presence of a knife, the blindfolding of a victim, the use of physical restraints, the timing of an attack, or the fact that it had taken place in the victim’s home. And while I gratefully accepted even the most remote possibilities, I did so without much hope.