Archer Mayor - Fruits of the Poisonous Tree

“Not yet,” I answered. “Could we come in?”

The hopefulness died, but she opened the door wider and invited us to enter. “So what are you doing?”

“Everything possible. You know Todd Lefevre, from the State’s Attorney’s office?”

She shook her head, and I finished the introductions, which she just barely acknowledged. Except for a cursory glance at Todd, she kept her eyes locked on mine, her intention to get a fuller answer clear. We were still standing around the foyer, and Raffner made no move to extend her hospitality.

“Gail told the first officer she spoke to that she had no idea who this guy was. We have teams in the streets conducting interviews; we have a forensics unit going over Gail’s place with tweezers; and we’ve got people covering her grounds and neighborhood. Something like this doesn’t happen in a vacuum-for one thing, we’re already pretty sure he knew her-”

Raffner snorted. “I could have told you that-he raped her in her own bed, for Christ’s sake.”

I held up my hand. “I meant there’s a good chance she knows him, too, even though she didn’t recognize him. That’s probably the reason for all the cloak and dagger. If we can combine her memories of the attack with what we get from our investigation, it might be enough to come up with a name.”

She looked at all three of us doubtfully. This was hardly the first time she’d dealt with this kind of situation-part of Women for Women’s role was to escort rape victims through the legal system-and my request was certainly mundane enough. But Susan Raffner was used to dealing with “clients”-not members of her own board of directors. For her, as for us, this attack had become personal, and the trauma of it had cut through all our professional defenses.

“So you want to talk to her now? All three of you?” Tony Brandt answered for me. “No-just Todd and Joe. I have a selectmen’s meeting to make.”

Raffner was slightly mollified. “That might be a little less intimidating. Let me go upstairs and check if she’s up for it; then maybe you can see her.”

Todd and I stood in the entrance hall for some fifteen minutes, checking out the wall hangings, staring out the windows, and generally paying homage to whatever psychological mood Susan Raffner was establishing.

When she finally gestured to us from the top of the stairs, we discovered how thorough she had been.

Gail was located in a bedroom overlooking the reservoir, but she wasn’t in bed, which stood, fully made, to one side. Instead, she was sitting in an imposing wingback chair by one of the broad windows with the light to her back, dressed in a heavy, full-length caftan. Her feet were resting on a small ottoman, and she wore a shawl around her shoulders. Despite her pale and hollow face, the overall effect-while blatantly orchestrated-was one of security and peacefulness, almost of regality.

It may have bolstered Gail’s own psyche-I certainly hoped so-but it did nothing for me. My eyes locked onto hers from the moment I entered the room, and in them I saw only the pain, the exhaustion, and the despair of a woman in mourning. Once again, I felt a trembling at the center of my chest. I found myself yearning to embrace her and unwilling to speak-knowing I couldn’t do the first, and would have to do the second.

Todd Lefevre covered my initial paralysis by introducing himself, explaining what he was doing here, and asking permission to run a small tape recorder he’d pulled from his pocket, all while Susan Raffner and I found our seats-she comfortably by Gail’s side, and I next to Todd on one of two unstable-looking straight-backed chairs Raffner had placed in the middle of the room like penitents’ stools.

By the time he’d turned his machine on, I had found my voice. Leaning forward in my seat, elbows on my knees, getting as close to Gail as the staging allowed, I asked her, “Do you feel you can talk a little?”

She nodded. “Yes.”

It was said with determination, belying the circles under her eyes and the gauntness of her cheeks, but its brevity spoke also of a need to conserve energy. This interview had to be done, but it would cost her, and she knew it. It was then that I noticed, under the caftan’s long, roomy sleeves, that her hands were gripping the arms of her chair like a child’s on a wildly swinging Ferris wheel.

“Would you feel more or less comfortable with me asking the questions? Or even being in the room? I can wait downstairs if you want.”

Her face hardened, tight with impatience. “Come on, Joe.”

I stopped hanging back. “You told Ron you didn’t see your attacker-didn’t recognize anything about him. Now that a little time has passed, has anything come to mind? Some phrase maybe, some allusion he made that might place him in context?”

Her forehead furrowed in concentration. “He didn’t say much, and he whispered.”

“What kinds of things did he say?”

“Orders at first-telling me not to kick after he got off my legs to tie them down.”

“He’d already tied down your hands before you woke up, right? How could he have done that?”

Her face flushed abruptly. “I don’t know; I was asleep. Why don’t you catch him and ask him?”

I straightened in my chair, stung by her fury. I’d anticipated an awkwardness between us-not that she’d react completely out of character. It emphasized that our intimacy could be a real liability here, leading me to expect the even-keeled rationality I’d grown used to. The first rule in interviewing rape victims was to absolve them of any notion that the attack was their fault. I’d inadvertently cut a corner there, assuming Gail would understand where I was heading. Her failure to do so told me that the same love that had driven her to want me here could just as easily turn to resentment if I presumed too much.

“I’m sorry.” I pressed on, “He ordered you to cooperate while he tied down your legs. Is that when he used the knife? To persuade you?”

She nodded silently, her eyes downcast, the color draining back out of her cheeks.

“How did he use the knife, Gail?”

“He pricked my breasts; he said he’d cut off my nipples if I fought him.”

I paused a moment, steadying my voice. “What words did he use-exactly?”

“His voice was very calm-the whisper, I mean. He didn’t seem excited at all. He said-” She stopped, apparently thinking back. “He said, ‘I’m going to get off your legs now; if you move a muscle, I’ll cut your tits off.’ Then he pricked me with the knife and said, ‘With this.’”

“What happened then?”

“He tied me down. I didn’t move.” There was a tremor in her voice, and she looked-I thought almost apologetically-at her friend Susan.

Raffner squeezed her shoulder and kissed her forehead maternally. “You did the right thing. Your life was what mattered; you did it to save your life.”

“Did he ever use the knife again?” Todd asked in the brief lull.

Gail shook her head.

“But he did beat you,” I added.

“At the end, just before he finished. He seemed suddenly frustrated-angry for the first time. It was the only time his voice changed. He said, ‘You snotty goddamn bitch.’ And then he hit me.”

“Where?” Todd asked.

“In the stomach once; on the breasts a few times; and once across the face-hard.”

I focused again on the livid bruise that rested on her left cheek like an enormous birthmark, and tried not to play out the violence in my head. “Why do you think he became frustrated? Couldn’t he get hard?”

Her face underwent a subtle change, as if some deep-seated pain had just reasserted itself. It wasn’t a grimace but more a drawing out-a sudden thinning of her features, as if her entire soul was recoiling. “He was hard-the whole time.”