Fruits of the Poisonous Tree

9

Detective Jim Catone was in his mid-thirties, built like a wrestler, and had been with the Greenfield police for over ten years. What I wasn’t prepared for was the intensity of the man. As he entered the command post, escorted by Harriet Fritter, I had the distinct impression of a man under temporary-perhaps only marginal-control. It went a long way in explaining why he’d impulsively driven north to see us, rather than waiting for us to do the courtesy.

When I commented on this last point, after introductions had been made, he fixed me with a piercing look. “Lieutenant, I’d travel a whole lot farther to nail this guy. It’s a pleasure.”

I nodded silently. We were seated around Ron’s central-most conference table-Brandt, Lefevre, Ron, and myself, with Harriet taking notes-all of us looking positively disinterested in contrast to our visitor’s almost carnivorous eagerness. I finally felt obliged to mention, “Bob Vogel is at the top of our list, but he’s still only a suspect. We don’t actually have anything on him yet.”

Catone mashed his hands together as if he were compacting a snowball. The muscles running up under his shirt cuffs fluttered and bunched. “You will-I guarantee it.”

“When did you first come across him?”

“Six years ago, after he raped Wendy Polan. We screwed up the investigation, but he was as dirty then as he was when he got off for doing the same thing to Ginny Davis two years before that in North Adams.

“I’d been on the force just four years. I was still in uniform but being groomed for plainclothes. I worked with the detectives a lot, so I was involved in the Polan case from the start.” His voice darkened slightly. “In fact, I was the one who discovered her. Her neighbors heard her screaming and called us. We found her strapped to the bed, beaten and bloody, half out of her mind, his come dried on her face-like a piece of meat. It broke her. She was completely changed after that. ’Course, our fucking the case up didn’t help-we told her that helping us would put this scumbag behind bars. So she did. She spilled her guts to us, she picked him out of a lineup, let herself be humiliated by the DA and the defense attorney. She put herself through hell, and none of it even got to court.”

We all glanced at one another in uneasy silence. His intensity told me Catone wasn’t a man I’d ever want working for me, but listening to him convinced me that he was just the historian we were after. I finally asked, “You knew Polan from before?”

He looked up, his expression softening a bit. “She went to the same high school I did-a few grades behind me. She was a pretty girl-popular, fun to be with. I never got to know her that well, but she sort of stood out in a crowd. You couldn’t help noticing her.”

“Our records are pretty slim still-we’re having Massachusetts send up their files. She was single, right? Living alone?”

He nodded. “Yeah-bottom apartment in a three-story building-an old converted family home.”

“How did Vogel gain entry?”

“He broke a back window-just enough to reach the door lock.”

“She didn’t hear anything?”

“He used a glass cutter. Besides, she was asleep, and the bedroom was on the other side of the house.”

“Had he cased the apartment beforehand?”

Catone shrugged. “I don’t know. We never really got to talk to him, at least not without his lawyer there. We thought he must’ve. I mean, he had to have staked the place out to know she lived alone, and to pick a time when the upstairs neighbors were gone on vacation.”

“We were told Vogel and Polan didn’t know each other.”

“Right-she’d never set eyes on him before that night.”

“During the rape, he told her to keep her eyes shut?”

He smiled for the first time. “Yeah-of course she peeked. A rocket scientist he ain’t. Even with Katherine Rawlins, the third woman he raped, he messed that part up, wrapping her head in her nightgown and not noticing when it slipped.”

“Can you outline his approach?” I asked. “What were the common denominators between the two rapes you investigated?”

“I can do you one better-I researched the one he did in North Adams, too. All three were single women-”

“Prominent?” Brandt suddenly asked. “You mentioned that Wendy really stood out in a crowd. Were all three distinguishable that way, either through their looks or what they did for a living?”

Catone looked stumped for a bit. “Wendy was the prettiest. I only saw a photograph of Ginny Davis-the North Adams girl-she was the youngest, and sort of plain. She worked as a store clerk. I don’t remember anything about her that stood out.”

“How ’bout age?” I asked.

“Each one was a little older than the next. How ’bout yours?”

For a split second, I considered how we were referring to these women. Catone had begun by talking about Wendy Polan in almost reverential tones-now all four of Vogel’s victims were beginning to sound like car wrecks. “Mid-forties,” I answered.

He pursed his lips. “That’s a bit of a jump, but it fits. Ginny was eighteen, Wendy twenty-three, Katherine Rawlins twenty-nine. Rawlins was a lawyer and had been quoted in the paper off and on. I suppose that makes her small-time famous, if you stretch it a bit.”

“Let’s get back to his general approach,” I prompted.

Catone nodded. “All three happened in the middle of the night, all were illegal entry-once by unlocked door, twice by window, although Rawlins’s was half open because of the weather. All were done on the victims’ beds, and all of them lasted from two to four hours. The last two involved bondage, the first was forcible restraint. All three involved a knife-”

“Only used the last time?” Brandt interrupted again.

“Right. We already talked about the blindfold angle. Let’s see… ”

“Did he trash the bedrooms?”

Catone’s eyes widened. “Yeah-totally. It depended on how close the neighbors were, but if he could get away with it, he busted televisions, lights, pictures, you name it.”

“Any ritualistic displays of the victims’ underwear?” Lefevre spoke up for the first time.

“The last time-he draped Rawlins’s all over the lamp shade.”

“And she was also the only one he used his knife on, is that correct?” Todd pursued.

“Right. Cut her nipples.”

“And broke her jaw.” Todd consulted some notes he’d written to himself. “What was the sequence of all that?”

Catone’s expression had changed subtly during Todd’s questioning, recognizing as we all did the growing similarities between his cases and ours. His eyes seemed to take on an extra glow, and an enthusiastic flush colored his cheeks. It made me think of a basketball fan in the last quarter.

“He tied ’em down first-all except the first one-and then he threatened them with the knife to get ’em to cooperate.”

“Did he speak in a whisper?”

“Yeah, he did-the last time. Rawlins described it as ‘stage sexy,’ like Vogel was trying to win her over. We thought that’s why he got so violent with her, because she didn’t buy the act and told him to fuck himself.” He glanced at Harriet suddenly, who’d taken no notice. “Sorry-her words-not mine. That’s when he broke her jaw.”

Todd held up his hand. “Hold it. Let me back up a bit. The whisper wasn’t to disguise his voice?”

Catone looked blank for a moment. “She didn’t know him-why bother? He was just doing a Latin-lover routine.”

Lefevre paused to write something on his note pad. The rest of us were interested enough in his line of questioning that we waited patiently for him to resume. “How about gloves? Was he wearing any?”

Again, Catone smiled. “He probably wished he had. When he broke her jaw, he also dislocated his little finger. That’s one of the things that helped nail him. Rawlins heard him scream with the pain, and when we picked him up, he was wearing a splint.”

“So, presumably, breaking her jaw came at the end of the attack.”

“Yeah. He split right after.”

Todd made another notation. I spoke up during the pause. “You mentioned he was violent with the others, too. Aside from the rape itself, what did he do?”

“After he’d finished with them and trashed their stuff, he beat ’em up.”

“He hit them all in the face, or just Katherine?” Todd asked quickly.

“Just Rawlins. He punched the others in the stomach and breasts-Rawlins got it there, too-the face was an extra, probably because of what she said to him.”

“Was he naked during the attacks?” I asked.

He hesitated, thinking back. “I’m not sure exactly-it wasn’t something we focused on. He had his shirt off with Rawlins-she commented on his chest hair-but he kept his pants on. I don’t know about Ginny Davis. Wendy mentioned a T-shirt, but I don’t know about the pants.”

“The files we’re expecting might have that,” Todd muttered.

I reached back to early in the conversation. “You mentioned Wendy had seminal fluid on her, indicating Vogel ejaculated during the rape. Did he ejaculate with all three women?”

“He couldn’t get hard with Ginny, but he came with both Wendy and Rawlins.”

“Several times? You mentioned he spent several hours with each of them.”

He nodded. “Twice each with Rawlins and Wendy. Vaginally and orally with Wendy-vaginally only with Rawlins, I guess because of the nightgown around her head.”

I had other questions-mostly technical ones-which I thought would be better answered by the dry, emotionless paperwork already headed our way. As helpful as Jim Catone had been, I didn’t want to rely too much on him-or be influenced by his blatant prejudice.

Ron did have a question, however. “You said Vogel trashed the bedrooms of these women. What about the rest of the house?”

“He left them alone, except where he’d broken a window or lock to get in.”

“That reminds me,” Brandt said, “in trying to figure out if he cased the victims’ homes, did you ever find out if he got jobs in the area, or pretended to sell door-to-door?”

Catone shrugged. “We checked on that but came up empty. We never figured out why he chose the women he did. They were of different ages, backgrounds, appearance. Something about each of them caught his eye. We all had our theories, but nothing really made sense.”

“You’re absolutely sure he did them all?” I asked quietly.

I’d been saving this question for last, figuring it might stimulate more than a simple yes or no. We’d all had cases go sour, or stolen from us in court, but I’d rarely met anyone so emotionally hooked on a case. You learned to live with your losses in this business, and you trained yourself to stay as coolheaded as possible.

His reaction didn’t disappoint me. He leaned forward, fixing me with his dark, impassioned eyes. “You’re damned right I am. That son of a bitch is dirty as hell, even if he did beat the system two out of three times.” He held up his hand and began counting off on his fingers. “First time-the victim ID’s him right off the bat. Says she scratched him, and he’s got the marks to prove it. He’s got no alibi and his prints are all over her place. That one got to court, but the jury deadlocked, the judge threw it out, and the DA didn’t have the balls to try it again.”

“Why the deadlock?” I asked.

He sat back suddenly, disgusted. “Defense argued it was a consensual deal gone bad-that the girl changed her mind and screamed rape.”

“They bought that?” Ron blurted.

“Only because Vogel’s lawyer twisted it around. She showered after the assault, took a long time reporting it, messed up her story-she did everything you’re not supposed to do. In a nutshell, the jury didn’t like her, and maybe didn’t trust her, and the lawyer played on that. But there was no doubt about Vogel’s involvement. But the judge bought it, said that considering some of the sexual positions she described, she had to have been a willing participant, since a simple twitch of the hips would’ve ended it. I mean, Jesus, they didn’t even focus on the knife, or the fact she was scared shitless. The DA fucked up, if you ask me.”

Brandt interrupted gently. “And with Wendy Polan?”

Catone held up a second finger. “I know you’re not supposed to blame a fellow officer, but that fiasco rests entirely with Walter Huss. The bastard was hitting the bottle-got the wrong address on the search warrant of Vogel’s apartment, lost the chain-of-custody paperwork, and then made up a phony story to cover his ass… ” He slammed the tabletop with his hand. “But Vogel was dirty then, too. We just couldn’t do anything about it. If you people nail this creep, you’ll make a lot of people real happy. I came up here so you’d understand that-and so you’d know that if you need any help south of the border, don’t hesitate to call.”

Brandt and I exchanged glances. It was obvious things would have to get pretty desperate before either one of us took him up on that. Nevertheless, he had brought the similarities between our case and Vogel’s MO into sharp focus. I no longer had much doubt that we were on the right track.

I got to my feet and extended my hand, making it clear the interview was over. “Jim, we appreciate your making the trip up here. It’s helped a lot. And I promise we’ll keep you posted.”

As further niceties followed from the others around the table, Harriet closed her pad and gracefully escorted our guest back outside.

There was a long pause following his departure. Tony finally looked over at Todd Lefevre and asked, “Well?”

Todd smiled and confirmed my own thoughts. “Well, I don’t think we’d ever want to use him in court, but I do think he’s confirmed we’ve got a hot one.”

“With a few discrepancies,” I added.

Brandt nodded. “Like the gloves and the lack of ejaculate?”

“Yeah, and the fact that he kept some of his clothes on in the past.

Also, he never got a job in the victim’s neighborhood before, to scope the place out.”

Todd waved his hand in disagreement. “But his MO’s evolved from crime to crime. From tape to slipknots, from nightgown to pillowcase, from showing a knife to using it. He’s refined his style. So now he takes all his clothes off, puts on gloves to protect his hands, makes a display of the woman’s underwear, even gets a job to stake the target out. If you look at them all as a progression, including Gail, I don’t see much that doesn’t fit. I’d bet Dunn would have a field day painting exactly that picture to a jury-and making it stick.”

Since I happened to agree with him, I didn’t argue the point. I stood up and stretched instead, suddenly feeling the previous night’s lack of sleep. “Well, let’s not forget how Greenfield dropped the ball on victim number two. I’d just as soon go slow, take the heat, and get it right.”

“Amen,” Brandt said quietly. “Where’re you off to now?”

I paused halfway out the door. I kept forgetting my agreement not to move around independently. “I thought I’d see a man about some garbage.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Oh-right. Let me know what you find.”

I walked down the hallway to a set of stairs that was awkwardly located in the middle of the floor, opposite the detective squad’s front door. Earlier, returning from Vogel’s trailer, I’d asked Harriet to locate J.P. and have him dissect the garbage bag I’d swiped. Having seen him do similar operations before, I knew where I’d find him.

The Municipal Building’s basement is a wondrous throwback to a previous century-and to childhood nightmares. It is high-ceilinged and gloomy, strung along a twisting central corridor lined with mysterious blank doors and wired-off alcoves, complete with the distant rumbling of unexplained machinery and the sense-at all times-that one is never alone.

The police department had reserved several of those mysterious rooms for its own use, including a small gym and shower area, and it was to one of the least used of these that Tyler had retreated.

As I opened the door and crossed the threshold, I both blessed his consideration and cursed having set him to work. “Jesus Christ.”

He looked up from his hunched-over position in the midst of a putrid, rotting semicircle of refuse spread out over a large plastic sheet. He had Vicks Vaporub smeared under his nostrils and was wearing latex gloves.

“You get used to it eventually.” He dug the Vicks from out of his apron pocket and tossed it over to me. A box of gloves lay just shy of the plastic sheet.

“What’ve you found?” I asked, decorating my upper lip.

“So far? That this guy has one of the worst eating habits I’ve ever seen. His two major food groups seem to be Spam and peanut butter-I guess potato chips are considered roughage. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t eat anything that doesn’t come in a package. None of it even needs heating up, much less cooking. And he seems to have a fondness for cake icing, straight out of the can.”

I pulled on a pair of gloves and got down next to him. The sickly sweet odor that rose in waves from this glistening, mold-crusted mess made me slightly dizzy. “Anything else?”

He pointed to a segregated corner of neatly piled but slimy documents. “Third-class mail, mostly-same as we all get. The envelopes are all unopened.” He suddenly extricated a small piece of paper from inside a half-finished can of marshmallow fluff. “Grocery-store receipt.” He carefully placed it with a soggy pile of others like it. “It’s amazing to me how little paperwork people like this collect. Besides a single electricity bill, I haven’t found anything that links this guy to the outside world-no phone bills, letters, magazines, newspapers-nothing except lousy food, lots of cigarettes, and empty beer bottles.”

“And junk mail,” I added. I moved over and began gently peeling apart the various catalogues, flyers, and ad sheets, looking for something more personal that might have become mixed in with them. It was the usual haphazard collection, from local grocery-store inserts to mail-order brochures, along with three tantalizing offers from Ed McMahon to make “Robin Vogle” a millionaire.

Fifteen minutes and about half the stack later, I sat back on my heels, a barely perceptible buzzing pressing against the inside of my temples. “Bingo.”

Tyler looked at me, his eyes narrowing. “What?” I showed him a damp and incongruous Victoria’s Secret catalogue, my finger pointing to the mailing label. “Damn,” he muttered, surprise mingling with embarrassment. Smeared but still legible were Gail’s name and address.