Fruits of the Poisonous Tree

11

Pending Dunn's approval, we had all that we needed for a search warrant of Bob Vogel’s trailer-enough circumstantial evidence linking him to Gail’s rape to convince a judge we had probable cause. I didn’t write up the affidavit as soon as I got back to the office, however. I still wanted to determine that our guess about why he traveled the back roads to commute from work was correct, and for that I needed to contact both the Department of Motor Vehicles and Helen Boisvert, Vogel’s probation officer, neither of whom would be available until morning.

I also wanted to get some sleep before tackling this next crucial step. Cops march to ever more precise legal drummers as they follow an investigation toward its hoped-for finale in court, and the further they proceed, the more paranoid they become, increasingly convinced that something they do or don’t do will result in some lawyer destroying their case. I didn’t want to embark on that road with the little sleep I’d gathered over the last two days. The tradeoff of a little time lost for a clear head in the morning seemed more than a bargain.

I therefore left my office at 3:30 a.m.-after dictating my daily report for Harriet to transcribe later-as exhausted as I could ever remember feeling, and virtually sleepwalked the few blocks to my apartment, not trusting myself to drive.

But things didn’t turn out the way I’d hoped. Throughout the few hours I’d planned to spend sleeping, I kept working and re-working the case in my mind, reviewing the steps we’d taken, the facts we’d amassed, knowing of the general scrutiny that awaited our results. For as soon as that affidavit was filed, it would become part of the public record, available to Katz and his colleagues, to Susan Raffner and hers, to Dunn’s opponent, Jack Derby, and to the selectmen and any other politician or advocate with a point to make. Headlines would follow, speeches by Dunn, Derby et al., debates in the press, more marches and demonstrations-and through it all, I hoped, Gail might begin to find solace knowing that the man who had permanently affected her life was about to be similarly treated.

Assuming we’d done our jobs right.

As a result of all this mental thrashing, I returned to the office in as bad shape as I’d left it-my eyes burning, my temples tender to the touch, and my head resonating with a buzz as pervasive as an overworked boiler in the basement.

As I crossed the threshold, Harriet’s expression told me I looked as bad as I felt. “I know, I know. Bad night. Could you do me a favor? Contact DMV and run a license check on Robert Vogel-find out if he’s legal, and if he has a car registered to his name.”

She nodded wordlessly, and allowed me to escape to my glassed-in cubicle without any maternal admonitions.

I sat heavily in my chair, wishing to hell I could somehow shake off my exhaustion, or at least make it less visible, and looked up Helen Boisvert’s number in my address book. I called her emergency private line and was met by a voice both preoccupied and irritated.

“Helen, it’s Joe Gunther. I’m sorry to butt in but I need a quick piece of information about Bob Vogel.”

“Fine-come by in forty-five minutes.”

I pushed harder, still reluctant to reveal more than I thought she needed to know. “It’s real quick, and I’m scrambling for time.”

There was a pause, followed by a half-strangled, “Shit-hold on.”

I heard her talking to someone in the background, explaining that she needed privacy for just a few minutes.

“What do you want?” she asked when she got back on the line.

“How does Vogel commute to work?”

There was dead silence. I imagined her struggling with the urge to rip the phone out of the wall, but her response when it came was strangely placid. “Hold on a sec-let me grab his file.”

During the pause, Harriet poked her head in through my door and half whispered, “Bob Vogel has no driver’s license, and no vehicle registered in his name.”

I gave her a nod as Helen got back on the line. “He car pools with a guy named Bernard Reeves. Did Bob do something to screw that deal up?”

I should have been more tuned in to her peevish state of mind and kept my mouth shut. But I was operating at low voltage, and feeling a little guilty about keeping her out of the loop. “He’s driving around the back roads like a rumrunner.”

I heard the click of Helen’s lighter being ignited in the background. “That little peckerhead. You got any other questions?”

I quickly requested Bernard Reeves’s address and phone number and let her get back to work.

Bernie Reeves’s phone was answered by a cheery-voiced woman. Without identifying myself, I asked for Mr. Reeves.

Her voice immediately chilled. “Are you selling something?”

I looked at the phone in surprise. “No. I’m just looking for some information, and I heard Mr. Reeves was the man to call.”

“About New England Wood?” She had regained about half of her previous good humor, obviously disappointed I was not calling for her.

“Indirectly, yeah.”

“Why don’t you call back in about two hours? He’s still asleep-he works the night shift.”

I thanked her and hung up, not even remotely interested in waiting two hours. Bob Vogel’s personal file still hadn’t arrived from the Massachusetts Department of Corrections, which meant we were on the brink of getting a search warrant for someone we still knew too little about. The opportunity to at least nail down Vogel’s peculiar commuting, therefore, despite its presumably mundane explanation, played larger in my mind than it might have otherwise. I grabbed my coat from the hook behind the door and told Harriet where I’d be, too tired to bother lining up someone to ride shotgun.

Reeves lived along the no-man’s-land stretch of Western Avenue between Brattleboro and West Brattleboro-a narrow umbilicus, half residential, half commercial, that had linked the two communities for over a hundred years. Despite West Bratt’s long-lost political and municipal independence from its overwhelming neighbor, this stretch had still resisted becoming more than a minimal concession to the alliance. West Brattleboro prided itself on its separate identity, even though it had little left to show for it.

The address Helen Boisvert had given me fit a modest, tidy, one-story frame house set back from the street on a steeply sloped, well-tended, quarter-acre lot-as unique to this town as swing sets, the Lions Club, and fast-food franchises.

I parked in the driveway and rang the front-door buzzer protruding from under a small wooden sign proclaiming this “Bernie and Edith’s.”

A small, middle-aged woman with short, suspiciously gray-free hair greeted me with a quizzical but pleasant, “May I help you?”

I showed her my badge, a gesture I generally bypassed unless I was either treading on legal thin ice or trying to make an impression. “I’d like to speak with Bernie Reeves.”

She recognized my voice. “You just called here. I told you he was asleep.”

“I understand that, but I’m afraid I need to talk with him now.”

Her eyes widened and her shoulders slumped in fear. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

I smiled encouragingly. “This doesn’t involve you directly, Mrs. Reeves. I just need some information-but I need it now.”

Defeated, she backed out of my way and invited me in. “I’ll go get him.”

I stood for a few minutes in a small, overstuffed living room, its windows lined with glass and porcelain trinkets, its curtains and furniture decorated with clean but faded flowers. Two recliner armchairs separated by a small table faced a large television set whose blank, shiny screen seemed poised to mesmerize at the touch of a button. It made me think of some predatory magician taking a brief nap.

Mrs. Reeves returned with her husband in tow, bleary-eyed and disheveled, still tucking his shirt in over a well-founded beer gut. He looked at me warily but without fear as his wife moved to one side.

“What’s up?” he asked. His voice was neutral but pleasant-that of a man with nothing much to hide.

I showed him the badge I was still holding in my hand. “I was wondering if we could chat a little-in private.”

Mrs. Reeves furrowed her brow angrily and left without a word. He smiled as she went and lifted his eyebrows at me as she slammed a distant door behind her. “That didn’t win you any points. She’s going to give me the third degree anyway.”

“Sorry, but I’d like to keep this confidential for at least a day or two.”

He pointed to the sofa and sat in one of the armchairs. “I can hold out that long-depending on what it’s about.”

I settled on the edge of the sofa and watched his face carefully. “Bob Vogel.”

His eyes narrowed and his mouth turned down, half in disgust, and half, I thought, in apprehension. His hands found one another and his fingers knotted together nervously. I was glad I’d decided to do this in person instead of on the phone.

“What about him?”

“According to his probation officer, you’re supposed to be his car pool to and from work. I gather that’s no longer true.”

He opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and paused. His face had become pale. “Why do you care?” he finally murmured.

“When did you two stop riding together, Bernie?” My position on the edge of the sofa gave me a little leverage over him, trapped as he was in the embrace of the soft chair. I let my voice take advantage of the implied authority.

“A month-maybe a little longer.”

“You knew you were supposed to contact Helen Boisvert, didn’t you? What happened?”

Reeves glanced out the window behind me, apparently hoping some gorilla’s arm would suddenly appear and whisk me away. “I meant to. I guess I forgot. Didn’t seem like that big a thing.”

The tension in his voice told me otherwise. “Why didn’t you call her?”

“He said I shouldn’t tell,” he almost whispered.

“Did he threaten you?”

Bernie Reeves nodded toward the back of the house, where his wife could be dimly heard moving about in the kitchen. “Her. He said he’d take it out on her if I told anyone.”

“You guys get in a fight?”

Now that his secret was out, Bernie regained some of his composure, his voice strengthening slightly. “It was all right at first. The supervisor asked me to help him out since we were on the same shift and didn’t live too far apart. I figured Vogel had done his time, and if the company was willing to take him on, that was okay with me. He gave me the creeps, though-talking the way he did. I guess he picked up on my not liking him much. Said he didn’t need me acting superior and that he’d get him his own car. That’s when he told me not to tell anyone or he’d come after Edith.”

“Why didn’t you call us, or Boisvert? You knew he was on probation. Either one of us could have yanked his chain.”

He gave me a look of utter contempt. “That son of a bitch is crazy. He said that no matter what happened to him, he’d come back sooner or later-that he never forgot anyone who fucked him over.”

Reeves shifted angrily in his seat and tried to paint a slightly more stalwart portrait of himself. “I might not have cared much for myself, but Edith’s alone here most nights. What the hell could I do?”

I shook my head, utterly unswayed. I had spent a professional lifetime listening to people convince themselves that their self-preservation was the same as high moral ground. As far as I could see, Bernie Reeves’s spinelessness had eventually led to Gail’s rape.

I struggled to keep my voice neutral. “You said Vogel gave you the creeps. What did you mean by that?”

“When we started the car pool, I tried to make small talk, you know? Break the ice a little. I didn’t know the guy-we work in different sections of the plant. I thought I’d be friendly. But whenever we talked about women-you know how you do with another guy-he got really weird. When we talked about girls in the plant, say-he’d say things like, ‘She’d look better with my dick in her mouth,’ or real violent stuff, especially about women who stood their own ground or were a little snotty to him. We’ve got some tough ones at the plant.”

That single word cut through the weariness clouding my mind. Gail’s attacker had called her a “snotty goddamn bitch.”

“Is that how he described those women? As snotty?”

“You mean, is that the word he used? I guess so. I couldn’t swear to it.”

I paused, disappointed by his faulty memory. “Did he ever talk about what he’d done with women?”

His lips tightened and looked uncomfortable again. “A little.”

“He told you what he’d done time for.”

It wasn’t a question, but he answered anyway by the way his eyes suddenly dropped to his hands.

“What did he do, Bernie? Start bragging?”

He nodded, back to whispering again. “I told him I thought he was twisted. He pulled a knife and made me swear to keep quiet. And he said the car pool was over-that he’d take care of himself, and that I better keep quiet about that, too, or he’d do to Edith what he’d done to those others.”

“And you believed him.”

He leaned forward then, no longer tentative or doubtful of his motivations. “Damn right I did. He scared the shit out of me. I didn’t know if he was going to cut my throat or not. What did I care if he drove himself to work? It sure as hell meant more to him than it did to me, and I wasn’t about to risk my life over it. I just wanted to be rid of him.”

“Did you see him after that?”

Reeves shook his head emphatically. “I’d see him from a distance, maybe, but I’d steer clear. He didn’t mess with me, and I sure as hell didn’t mess with him.”

“So you don’t know what he was wearing at work two nights ago?”

“Nope. Didn’t even see him.”

I stood up and walked over to the front door. “Did he have any friends at the plant, that you know of?”

Having made his confession, Bernie Reeves regained his homeowner’s authority. He made a gesture as if to usher me out. “I told you what I know, and that was probably too much. The way you people work, I’m probably knee-deep in shit by now, right?”

“Everything’s relative, Bernie. Thanks for your time.”

Despite my ambivalence about his character, I felt Bernie Reeves had done me a double service. As I drove back toward the center of town, I now knew we’d gathered more than enough for a warrant-and I was personally convinced that we had the right man.

My optimism was apparently catching. The Municipal Center’s parking lot, normally pretty dormant, was teeming with activity. Cars and trucks bristling with antennas and sporting flashy logos of newspapers and radio and TV stations from as far away as Burlington were parked at odd angles all over the lot, their owners either fiddling with equipment or clustered in small groups sipping coffee from Styrofoam cups. A news conference, a big one, was in the offing.

But my own confidence deflated suddenly at the sight, and settled unhealthily with the exhaustion pounding softly at my temples. I continued driving, parked around the corner, and entered the building from the far side, dreading the start of a circus that could only do us harm.

I went straight to Tony Brandt’s office, finding him, as I thought I might, in close company with James Dunn. They had their backs to the door as I entered, both of them standing over Tony’s desk, studying the contents of an open folder.

“Isn’t it a little early for a press conference? We don’t even have a search warrant yet,” I blurted out, my sense of self-preservation dulled by lack of sleep and irritation.

They both turned and looked at me.

“I don’t think so,” Dunn answered at his chilly best.

“Where the hell have you been?” asked Tony, “I’ve been looking all over for you.” His own anger ran deeper than it needed to, which told me the press conference was not his idea.

“Interviewing Bernie Reeves, Vogel’s ex-car pool partner to and from work.”

“Alone?” Dunn asked. I saw Tony go still, obviously ruing that he’d brought the subject up.

“Yes. It was only a background talk. He’d make a good witness. Vogel bragged about his past rapes and fantasized about committing sexual violence on women at work. He even pulled a knife on Reeves to keep him quiet about dropping the car pool.”

Dunn jerked a thumb toward the window and the reporters milling about outside. “Do any of them know you’ve been working alone?”

I felt my cheeks flush and struggled to keep my voice level. “I haven’t been. I wanted to check this one thing out before drawing up an affidavit. I wanted every detail covered before committing ourselves in public.”

Dunn gave me a withering look. “We had more than enough for a search warrant early this morning. That’s what those reporters are doing out there. The warrant’s in the bag-unless you screw it up. I’ve already handled enough questions about you as it is, so don’t add to my problems.”

In the strained silence that followed, Brandt explained, “Santos got chatty with Alice Sims.”

Mention of the Reformer’s courts-’n’-cops reporter gave Dunn a second wind. “And now Katz is thinking that a little human-interest piece on the trials and tribulations of a certain cop with a big personal stake in this case-whose boss thinks he’s Sherlock Goddamn Holmes and lets him work on his own girlfriend’s rape-might make interesting reading. So if you don’t like the timing of this press conference, keep in mind that it might just keep your ass out of hot water.”

Brandt let out a small sigh and began guiding me out the door. “Vogel’s jacket came in this morning from Massachusetts. Why don’t you compare notes with Ron while we dance with the media? It won’t be long. Work up a rough draft of the affidavit in the meantime.”

I paused at the door. “Katz did ask me about a feature piece. I turned him down.”

Brandt’s murmur was beyond Dunn’s earshot. “Don’t worry about it. He talked to me, too, very reasonably. This Santos thing’s just got the SA worked up. And we do have more than enough for a search warrant.”

I, too, kept my voice down. “What if we come up empty? We’ll all look like idiots. Why not wait the few hours it’ll take us to check the trailer out? Then he can talk till he puts ’em all asleep.”

Brandt sighed and glanced over his shoulder. Dunn had gone back to studying the press release. “There was a bad poll this morning.” He paused, knowing how hollow that sounded. “And Jack Derby’s holding his own press conference in an hour.”

He raised his eyebrows and smiled tiredly. “I can’t tell a state’s attorney what to do. I can only recommend that he’s full of shit, and that only diplomatically. His entire staff is against this, too.”

Given the threat to the case, that came as no comfort, but I nevertheless did as Tony suggested-I checked in with Ron Klesczewski at the command center, and used him and his by-now voluminous files to draw up the most careful and thoroughly researched warrant application of my career. If this thing was going to blow up in our faces, the police department was not going to be the one needing surgery. In the back of my mind, however, an unacknowledged bell kept sounding that, despite all my care, I was too tired to be doing such detail work.

I knew some of the hoopla was inevitable. Gail’s own candlelight march had kicked it off, and even it had been the mere overture to a media/politics/public-relations carnival that was going to play on the front page for weeks. What was unsettling me was James Dunn’s reaction. Although never a mellow man, he was powerfully self-restrained, and had never before left the boundaries of his office to meddle with police procedure on such a personal level, and at such a hysterical pitch.

He had also never made any bones about his dislike of sex-crime prosecutions, of how they hinged more on appearances and prejudice than on the solid evidence he cherished. As far as I could see, the combination of just such a case and an increasingly desperate reelection bid was apparently pushing him to some sort of edge.

Driving my fogged brain through the wordy intricacies of the affidavit, I kept wondering how the pressures on Dunn might affect his performance. Given his almost irrational behavior now, how safe was Gail’s case in his hands?

Such meanderings were interrupted by a patrolman sticking his head into the room, informing me that Dennis DeFlorio was on the radio. I crossed over to Dispatch. Dennis had taken over the discreet surveillance on Bob Vogel, stationing himself well out of sight in the trees ringing the trailer park. He was calling in on a special frequency, not commonly found on the recreational scanners around town. Nevertheless, he made all his references as oblique as possible.

“Joe, our boy just got a visit from Probation, accompanied by a sheriff ’s deputy.”

I checked my watch. It was late morning. I’d spoken to Helen Boisvert just a few hours earlier. She hadn’t mentioned she was scheduled to visit Bob Vogel. This was not good news.

“Why was the deputy there?”

“Pure babysitting-just Helen following the rules. He never left the car.”

“Anything happen between her and her client?”

“They weren’t happy with each other. She yelled something at him when she left, and he gave her the finger after she turned her back.”

“He still there?”

“Far as I know.” I turned to Maxine Paroddy, the day-shift dispatcher, suddenly alive to how thin the ice had become under Dunn’s-and our-feet. “Who do we have out in West Bratt, or nearby?”

She answered without hesitation. “Santos and Smith, in separate vehicles. I’ve got two other units close enough to the interstate to be there in under five minutes.”

“Get all four of them rolling and tell them to convene at the state police barracks down the road. Lights but no sirens till they get near, then go with the flow of traffic. I don’t want to spook this guy unless it’s already too late.”

I turned to Ron, who’d followed me across the hall. “Where’re Dunn and the chief holding their press conference?” “Upstairs-the boardroom.”

“Get Brandt and bring him here-now-but don’t tip off the reporters that something’s up.”

I turned back to the radio. “Dennis, you within sight of the trailer?”

“Negative. I couldn’t raise you on my portable, so I had to go to higher ground. Too many trees or something.”

More likely antiquated equipment, I thought. “Get back to your observation post. I’m sending you backup-four cars. They should be there in exactly eight minutes for the bust. You’re in command.”

There was a surprised silence. Dennis had obviously thought he was calling in with an informational tidbit, not a summons for reinforcements. “What’s the charge?”

“Driving without a license and operating an unregistered vehicle. But he may be armed. So be careful and do it by the numbers.”

DeFlorio gave a strictly neutral “10-4,” and returned to his post.

Maxine, operating the other radio, looked over her shoulder at me. “First two units are standing by at the barracks.”

I nodded but didn’t answer. After a minute’s silence, I yielded to impulse. “Call Parole and Probation and see if you can locate Boisvert. Maybe she’s back by now.”

Brandt walked in a moment later, looking grim. “What’s up?”

“I’m worried Boisvert might’ve tipped Vogel off. I’m sending a team in to arrest him for his vehicular violations. I figured that would hold him till the search warrant is issued.”

Brandt nodded. “Okay.”

Maxine added. “The second two units are in place, and Boisvert is still out.”

I checked my watch. “Tell them to hit the trailer in four minutes.”

She turned back to the transmitter and passed the word. We could hear the cryptic replies, the tension in the officers’ voices filling the air like static. The room was deadly silent, each of us listening, balancing what we knew should happen, based on our training and past experience, against what might go wrong. Both Smith and Santos were members of the department’s special reaction team-what used to be called SWAT before Hollywood made the term politically unpalatable-and Dennis, for all his slovenly habits and slow-witted reputation at other times, was at his best in these types of operations, his nature abdicating to adrenaline and years of practice. All of us in the dispatch room would have preferred a more thought-out, coordinated approach, but we were trained to respond to the unexpected, and no one questioned my judgment.

The four minutes came and went; a few more were added to them. I could visualize the trailer surrounded, the area secured, positions and equipment checked, an attempt made to rouse someone from inside, and finally the forced entry, made low and fast, shotguns ready, men fanning out, their hearts hammering under bullet-resistant vests.

The radio finally came alive; Dennis again: “He’s gone, Joe. Nobody’s home.”