Archer Mayor - Fruits of the Poisonous Tree

I decided to step away from the subject a bit, to give her time to get used to the idea that we would have to ask her for all the details-if not now, then eventually, and probably many times over. “Your room was a mess-drawers pulled out, closets emptied. When did he do that?”

“Sometime in the middle. He stopped and I could hear him going around the room.”

“After he’d completed the sex act?” Todd asked. All three of us looked at him, caught off guard by his choice of words. He didn’t seem fazed.

Gail finally shook her head. “If you mean ejaculate, he didn’t. He just stopped.”

Todd looked confused. “He didn’t ejaculate at all?”

“No.”

I was intrigued by that, wondering if it explained his flash of anger at the end. “Did he say anything before or while he was trashing the room?”

“No.”

“Did he seem violent-throwing things, breaking them?”

“No. I mean, yes, he threw things, but I don’t remember much breaking. Something broke-I think it was that plate I bought in Mexico I had hanging on the wall from a wire-and he said, ‘Shit’ when that happened, but that’s the only thing I remember. A lamp fell over, but I don’t know if it broke or not.”

“Gail,” Todd spoke up again, unburdened by my emotional caution, “I hate to have to do this, but I want to ask you some questions about the rape itself-what this guy did, how he did it, in what sequence, for how long-things like that. Not only to help nail him, but so we can build a legal case for my boss. Chances are good this man’s done this before, maybe even developed a style. If we can find a record of that, it might end up being just like a fingerprint.”

“He wore gloves,” Gail blurted out impulsively, influenced by Todd’s last image. “Through it all?” I asked, struck once again by her attacker’s peculiarities.

“Not when he touched me-mostly-but I could hear him putting them on before he tore the room apart.” She hesitated. “And just before he hit me.”

I put my hand on Todd’s arm to stop him from going on. “Gail, what did he do with his clothes? Did he have them on when you first woke up?”

She shook her head. “He was naked.”

“But you heard him getting dressed after he was finished?”

“Yes,” she murmured.

“Where was he when he was doing that?”

“By the door.”

I nodded to Todd that I was finished, and he began his detailed questioning, prompting her to take all three of us through her ordeal step by step, virtually movement by movement. He paused occasionally to ask if she felt like taking a break, but every time she urged him to continue, although all of us could see the toll it was taking on her.

I was grateful he was there, to do the job I doubted I could have done alone. Watching Gail reliving the event, her body still sore and throbbing from its brutality, her voice quavering toward the end, was more than I would have allowed. And yet, the three of them knew better than I-knew that she had to partake in her own reconstruction, and perhaps play a hand in the capture of her tormentor-or forever remain his victim.

Finally, two hours and several tapes later, Todd punched the off button on his recorder, the sharp metallic click making Gail start with surprise, her nerves frayed and hypersensitive. “That’s it. You did a super job. I’m sorry we had to put you through it. And I’m afraid, as I said earlier, that this won’t be the last time, either. To be honest, especially if we get this guy to trial, there’s going to be times you wished you’d never called the police. But you did the right thing.”

He gathered his equipment together and turned to me. “Is there anything more you wanted to ask, Joe?”

I looked at his blandly pleasant face-an unsettling mix of everyone’s favorite Uncle Charley and an IRS auditor-with something approaching wonder. He’d been so perfect through it all-concise, polite, accommodating, solicitous, and efficient, to Gail and me both-that it almost challenged his sincerity. That viewpoint was mostly fueled by my own ambivalence, of course, but knowing it didn’t help any. I was feeling increasingly disenfranchised, unable to be either the grieving partner or a sisterly friend or even, I was beginning to think, an objective cop.

I turned to Gail, shoving all this to one side. “It’s a bit of a long shot, and I know you’ve got a lot on your mind-a lot to work through-but if you can take some time to think about who might have done this to you, it would help.”

Gail’s eyes took on a bewildered look, glistening with tears. “I’ve tried, Joe.”

The pain in her voice was saturated with despair and bafflement. Still, I persevered. “You’ve been looking for a monster. Think about normal people-men who struck you as just a little odd-too attentive, maybe, or too quiet, or who showed up at odd times with odd excuses. We’re looking for anything out of the ordinary.”

She shook her head at the vagueness of the suggestion, muttering, “So many people.”

I stood up, and Todd followed my example. I hesitated, then leaned forward and touched the back of her hand gently and briefly. It was cold and unresponsive, and after I straightened back up, she tucked both her hands into the opposing sleeves of her flowing robe as if she’d suddenly felt a chill.

I groped a moment for the proper platitude-“We’ll get him,” or “You’ll be all right,” or “At least you’re alive.” I’d already tried “I love you” at the hospital and had walked away feeling drained. I finally gave it up, said, “Take care. I’ll come back to see you soon,” as if I were addressing some octogenarian in a rest home, and took my leave.

Susan Raffner followed us downstairs and ushered us through the door. She grasped Todd’s forearm as he passed by her. “Thank you. That was the best interview I’ve ever seen.”

He nodded and smiled sadly. “Sorry I had to do it at all.” She stopped me too, as Todd made his way down the stairs and toward the car. “I’ve got a problem with you, though.”

I stared at her, my face rigid, the dormant rage in me giving a tiny lurch, like a tremor across a field of thinly crusted lava.

But she leavened her words by laying her hand gently on my arm. “I know what you’re going through, Joe, but you can’t expect her to hold your hand. She doesn’t need to worry about you.”

“I don’t expect her to.”

That was at best suspect, and Raffner knew enough to ignore it. “She also doesn’t need you to bottle it up inside. Find someone to talk to-someone professional. Don’t try to tough it out-it’ll only do you both dirt in the long run.”

I heard the echo of Nurse Pace’s counsel earlier-except that lurking within Raffner’s soothing tone I heard the subtle implication that she would be keeping a critical eye on me.

I nodded but didn’t respond directly. “Thanks for being there for her, Susan. Let me know if she comes up with any names.”

She frowned slightly, nodded without comment, and closed the door behind me. I turned away and walked to the edge of the porch. The smooth, black surface of the reservoir met my gaze-ugly, wrapped in concrete, awaiting winter’s frozen glaze. That’s what they all expected from me, I thought without blame, despite their conciliatory words: a quick, solid solution, delivered without screwups. And they were right.

My apartment was down the hill and two blocks over from Susan Raffner’s house. I had Todd drop me off so I could shave, shower, and get properly dressed. It had been just a few hours since I’d been catapulted from my sleep by some primordial instinct, but I felt totally drained, as if I’d been up for days.

Yet there was a familiar inner momentum slowly picking up speed, fueled as it always was by the first faint stirrings of an investigation coming to life. Even now, with so many of my own emotions in play, the steadying instincts of over thirty years of police work were beginning to settle in. The sad irony remained, however, that the very questions lending me stability were the same ones torturing Gail: Who did it? And why?