Archer Mayor - Fruits of the Poisonous Tree

I passed my hand over my eyes and rubbed one of my temples as if massaging a headache. “For one thing, I wanted to thank you. Most of all, I guess I just wanted a change of scenery.”

“Thank me for what?” The hostility in his voice was slightly tempered by curiosity.

“Testifying the way you did-not that it did much good-but I appreciate it anyway.” I picked up the mug and buried my nose in it, wishing it smelled less like old socks.

He stood there for a moment, his interest beginning to gain the upper hand. “I just told them what I told you guys.”

I paused to wipe my mouth with my sleeve. Not quite-what he’d said on the stand had been a lot more damning. That, in fact, was why I was here-to find out why he’d fine-tuned his story. “Yeah, well, whatever.”

Absentmindedly, he took a couple of swipes at the stained bar top with his rag. “So what happened this afternoon, anyway?”

“Gail got raped twice, that’s what… I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

The rag froze in mid-wipe. “You mean that jerk’s going to get off?”

I put the mug back down wearily. “Don’t start, okay? I heard enough already. We did the best we could-you did, too. It’s just… Shit, I don’t know.”

The emotion in his voice was more intense than it should have been, considering that he’d told us earlier he hadn’t even known Vogel’s last name. “You’re shitting me. What about knifing you? He’s got to get serious time for that, ain’t he?”

I shrugged and fed his growing anger. “Maybe not. If he’s innocent of the rape charge, he can claim we pushed him into a corner and forced him to protect himself. He’s got a real good lawyer-he could be in here next month, drinking to your health.”

The rag was wadded up in his fist. “Not fucking likely.”

I raised my eyes to his. “Why not? This is his favorite watering hole. What do you care?”

He stepped away and threw the rag into the sink in disgust. “You guys. Don’t know from shit. That bastard owes me a bundle. He never paid his tab, and he never settled his bets. There’s no way that son of a bitch is coming in here again.” He walked toward the waitress, muttering, “Fucking deadbeat,” and then pointed a nail-bitten finger at her. “Nora, you stupid bitch. There’s nobody here. Get your ass out back and do something useful, for Christ’s sake.”

She slid off her chair as before and vanished without a murmur, Ray glaring at her and shaking his head.

I put the stale beer down, the need for pretense over.

Ray, as if sensing my eyes on the back of his head, slowly turned, his expression an oddly rueful mixture of self-revelation and shock. Seasoned snitch that he was, he knew that he’d just shot himself in the foot.

“You lied to us, Ray,” I said in a clear voice.

He made a dismissive gesture and gave me a lopsided grin. “You should talk… Christ’s sake-you know he did it.”

“He never bitched about not having an alibi, did he?”

“He came in that morning in the dumps.” His voice was slightly plaintive.

“And you laid it on thick because you had a beef against the guy. You saw a chance to stick it to him.”

He scowled at me, taking the higher ground. “I don’t believe this. You’re her fucking boyfriend. Why’re you busting your nuts for this creep? He fucks with everybody he meets, for crying out loud. All I did was help get the right thing done.”

“All you did was jeopardize the whole case. We used your testimony to get a search warrant, Ray. If that warrant’s ruled invalid now because you lied to us, then everything we got as a result of it is going to be thrown out.”

He spread his arms wide and raised his eyebrows, his face incredulous. “Then don’t tell anybody. Jesus-are all you guys this stupid?”

I sat in the car outside the bar, torn between elation and dread. My goal from the start had been to find Gail’s attacker-for her sake and society’s, and perhaps also-in more primeval terms-to prove my worth to her. Now, while my intent was the same, my methods were going to shock a lot more people than just Ray Saint-Jacques.

If what I’d just discovered-and was legally bound to pass through Dunn to Tom Kelly-did contribute to a mistrial, then all I’d really done was destroy our legal case. I hadn’t actually proved Vogel’s innocence, much less someone else’s guilt. Everything we’d found in Vogel’s trailer still stood as damning evidence against him. But as I’d explained to the bartender, they could no longer be used.

There’s a whimsical legal phrase covering such a situation; tainted pieces of evidence, secured under what amounts to an illegal search, are termed “fruits of the poisonous tree.” Thinking of that now-the ironic duplicity of the image-I felt it applied to much more than just a legal sleight of hand. Its ramifications spilled over to color Gail’s and my relationship.

Of course, Ray’s story had been but one part of the affidavit used to get that warrant. If the rest held up, Dunn would still have enough to fight off Tom Kelly.

But I wasn’t betting on it-and it wasn’t going to be long before we all found out.

It was close to midnight. The entire detective squad-plus Tony Brandt, Billy Manierre, and Todd Lefevre-was crammed into the conference room. There was none of the usual chatter; everyone’s face was a study in apprehension, disappointment, or flat-out disgust. Looking around the table, I could see the emotional toll my news had cost them. Dedicated, underpaid, and generally viewed with skepticism or scorn, police officers tended to be a force unto themselves, self-effacing in public, seeking one another’s company when off duty, but finding strength in the conviction that, while they occupied the fringes of “polite society,” the very nature of their job helped give them a moral advantage.

They weren’t used to having that image tarnished, especially by one of their own.

I had been talking for a half hour, explaining step by step the realities that now faced us, trying to prepare them for what the morning would bring, but I couldn’t deny the humiliation they’d soon be suffering at the hands of a probing media and a judgmental public.

It turned out Ray’s faulty testimony had not been the only boulder to fall from the pile we’d stacked on top of Bob Vogel. Tyler had returned from the state police crime lab in Waterbury a few hours earlier with proof that the pubic-hair samples he’d gathered from Gail’s bed had no appreciable levels of nicotine, and thus couldn’t have belonged to Vogel. Furthermore, he’d reinspected the garbage I’d stolen from Vogel’s front curb, as requested, and found that a front-page fragment of an old newspaper, soiled almost beyond legibility, had someone else’s address label on it, opening up the possibility that Vogel had collected some of his mail the way we had-from the trash. Scrupulous to a fault now, Tyler had called Gail and asked her where she’d last seen her catalogue. She hadn’t been able to swear that she hadn’t thrown it out.

All this, combined with the questions I’d already raised about the red shirt and the oil slick, did more than bolster Bob Vogel’s prospects-they all but guaranteed that the search warrant that had led to his arrest would be thrown out. The probable cause that had earned us Judge Harrowsmith’s signature on that warrant no longer existed.

But now that my official status had been reinstated a few hours earlier to “fully active” by our insurance carrier, I wanted it made clear to everyone in this room that we were finally on the right track, and that the case against Vogel had collapsed for good reason. I used J.P. Tyler’s rigorously-objective personality to finish that job for me.