Archer Mayor - Fruits of the Poisonous Tree

Grateful, that is, until I got inside.

“Hi, Joe. Slip out the back door?”

Stan Katz sat in the passenger seat, looking smug and terribly pleased with himself. Trust him not to run with the pack.

“Get the fuck out of my car, Stan,” I said through chattering teeth.

He took the keys from my trembling hand and stuck the appropriate one into the ignition. “At least turn on the heater.”

I didn’t argue; but overcome by sudden nausea I had difficulty turning the key. The engine caught, and I tried to sit back, fighting the pain that was doubling me up.

Katz’s expression and attitude changed abruptly. “Jesus, Joe, are you okay?”

He wrestled out of his overcoat and tucked it around me, its warmth having as immediate an effect as the cold preceding it. “Give the motor more rev,” he ordered, sliding the heater control over to high. He watched me carefully. “Should I get some help?”

I shook my head. “I’ll be all right. Just give me a few minutes.”

“What the hell happened?”

“Nothing-you saw the mob. I guess it was the heat, then the cold, then the running. I’m not in too great shape yet.”

He turned the fan on high. The first hints of warmth were beginning to blow from the dash registers. “So, did you guys come up with something exculpatory on Vogel?”

I closed my eyes briefly, letting the growing warmth sink in. “Give it a rest, Stan.”

His voice rose several notches in protest. “Give it a rest? Fuck you. Did I park someone in the hospital hallway after you came out of your coma? Did I have a photographer stake out the farm so we could have shots of you limping around with Gail? No-”

“Fine, I get the point. You’re a saint.” I returned his coat, feeling much restored now that the heater had fully kicked in. “Look, let’s skip this crap. What do you want?”

“Last time we talked, I told you I wanted to turn the paper around-prove to the owners that a tabloid wouldn’t cut it in this town, but that I needed some cooperation.”

“I remember,” I said neutrally.

“Well, I’m not going to let you people read articles about your own department before publication, like you asked, but I can let you and Gail have your privacy and cut down on the titillation.”

I shifted my gaze from the darkened parking lot to his dimly lighted face, surprised at the passion in his voice. He had caught my interest.

I made a point not to show that. “So what?”

“So ask around. You’ve been out of touch the last month or so. The paper’s been hosting forums. It’s expanded the letter box to two full pages. We’ve invited guest columns about rape, and women’s rights, and sexual whiplash, and half-a-dozen other topics. I know damn well Dunn’s going wild up there right now, and that something’s about to turn this town inside out. This is my town, the Reformer ’s town, and I don’t want to lose this story to all these fancy bastards from out of town.”

“We can’t give you an exclusive, Stan. That only happens in the movies. And I’m not going to give you anything right now.”

He nodded. “The headlines are common property-I can live with that. I want the inside stuff-the feature material. That’s what’s going to make my owners realize this tabloid angle is bullshit.”

I smiled in the darkness, constantly impressed by the man’s odd combination of energy and ego. Nevertheless, what he’d said had possibilities. “I’ll talk to Tony about it.”

He opened his door, letting in a wash of cold air. “That’s all I ask. So where’re you off to now?”

“Good-bye, Stanley.”

He laughed and slammed the door, walking toward the other end of the lot. Slightly off to one side, I thought I saw a quick flash of light and the sound of a door slamming, just as I had on the Wardsboro Road. Then as now, I waited for the expected roar of an engine and the ignition of a car’s headlights. But nothing happened.

I drove out of the lot, turned right onto Grove Street, and checked my rearview mirror for signs of anyone following. There were none. Of course, Vogel hadn’t known Willy and I were following him either, so many nights ago.

The parking lot of the Barrelhead Bar was as still and vacant as the wasteland it resembled. At seven in the evening, it was still far too early for Ray Saint-Jacques’s regular crowd. Nevertheless, as implied by the anemic neon beer ads in the window, it was open for business-like some time-frozen, Depression-era snapshot, taken by a long-dead artist with an eye for forlorn irony.

Ray Saint-Jacques had testified this morning as part of Dunn’s opening salvo. Never one to start a trial with all the dull, picky, supporting evidence so precious to most prosecutors, James Dunn had an almost Shakespearean flair for presentation. He knew that his jury, like most audiences, would nod off if poorly entertained and end up giving him bad reviews regardless of how many thrills he provided at the end. Ray’s damning description of Bob Vogel’s verbal self-incrimination was perfect relief from such doldrums-like the sound of distant drumbeats, it had perked the jury up and made it attentive to whatever might next appear on Dunn’s theatrical landscape. From what Todd Lefevre had told me, Ray’s had been a muted, low-key, and therefore stellar performance, since everyone in the room knew where it was intended to lead.

It had also been, from the moment Willy and I had first heard it, a crucial turning point in the case against Bob Vogel-the key that had unlocked the search warrant to his trailer and fully revealed Vogel’s guilt. As such, it was also evidence I ranked high among that deserving a second look, and was something I wanted to pursue alone, at my own pace, away from the impatience and expectations of my colleagues. For while I trusted the competence of everyone I worked with, I also knew I was the only one convinced that we’d all made a terrible blunder.

The enormous, nylon-skinned waitress was back on her corner chair; Ray was behind the bar, polishing glasses that probably hadn’t seen use all day. The rest of the place was deserted.

I approached the bar unsteadily, a purposely bleary smile on my face. “Hi, Ray.”

“What do you want?” His voice was flat, his eyes watchful, taking in my small performance and weighing it against a half-million legitimate ones he’d been privy to over the years.

I raised my eyebrows and parked myself heavily on a stool, getting my hand tangled up in the pocket of my jacket as I did so. “Colder’n a witch’s tit out there. Give me a glass of something.”

He kept polishing his glass, now gleaming in the television’s reflected rainbow of changing colors. “Where’s your coat?”

I stared at him a moment, as if wondering what he meant, and then I dropped my eyes to my jacket sleeve. “Shit. Must’ve forgotten it someplace.”

I didn’t pursue the point, or ham it up beyond that. I perched on my elbows and lost myself in the eyes of a beautiful woman on the TV screen high above the rows of bottles opposite me.

Ray let a full minute crawl by, waiting for more. I refused to play. “So what’ll it be?” he finally asked.

I dreamily returned to him and the present. “I don’t know. A beer, I guess.”

Ray came back a minute later and put a chipped mug in front of me. “Five bucks.”

Barely taking my eyes off the set, I put the money on the counter without protest. He hesitated before removing it, as if allowing me one last chance to drop the playacting.

He became more direct then, blocking my view of the television. “Why’re you here?”

I blinked at him a couple of times, surprised by his aggressiveness. Either Ray was using me as a scapegoat for the humiliation he’d suffered from Willy earlier, or he was feeling hot under the collar for some other reason.