Fruits of the Poisonous Tree Read Free

Raffner were parting company, so I joined him as the Women for Women contingent headed up the hall toward Gail’s room. “Trouble?”
    He smiled thinly. “No—just staking out turf. I basically told her we would pull out all the stops—like we always do—and she basically told me we better do a hell of a lot better than that. All very polite.” He glanced over to where the reporters were looking increasingly impatient. “Maybe I’ll have better luck with them.”
    He left me to watch Raffner and her colleagues knock on the door to Gail’s room and walk in. I hesitated a moment, groping for a reasonable excuse for what I was about to do—Gail had said she wasn’t up to seeing visitors, albeit a while ago; she obviously was receiving people now, and her door had been left open.
    For the third time that night, fueled by flimsy logic and pent-up emotions, I walked down that corridor, unsure of my motivations—or of what I expected to see.
    At first, loitering in the doorway, I didn’t see anything except the backs of the three women I’d followed, lined up in a tight semicircle around a chair in the far corner of the room. Then one of them bent forward to receive the hug I’d been longing to give, and over her shoulder I saw Gail’s face—pale, swollen, her eyes shut tight with longing, a dark bruise beginning to take hold of her left cheekbone. Her bare arms encircled the neck of her friend, and I clearly saw the red welts the rapist’s bonds had left around both her wrists. The sight left me rooted in place, without a word to say.
    Her eyes opened then, and she took me in for a long couple of seconds before murmuring, “Joe.”
    Gail’s visitors turned to face me, their expressions stern, even vaguely hostile, their usual professional demeanor transformed by the emotional toll of having to tend to one of their own.
    I stayed put, thoroughly daunted by the anger I felt radiating toward me. Gail motioned to me to come nearer, and as I did, two of the women flanking her draped protective hands on her shoulders. It was not how I’d envisioned our encounter, and it triggered a small but resentful response deep inside me—toward the man who had done this to my best friend, toward the women around her who obviously lumped me with him, and toward Gail herself, for not allowing us this moment alone.
    Fully revealed by the others who’d moved aside, Gail sat in an oversized, green hospital gown, her arms and legs pale and skinny by contrast, looking as frail as a lame child. Her swollen face, crowned by a tangle of disheveled dark hair, made her head look enormous atop a thin, almost shrunken body. The effect was so startling I instinctively crouched before her and reached to hold her hands in my own, my throat tight with emotion.
    That twin gesture caught her by surprise and made her jump and grip the arms of her chair. I dropped my hands immediately, embarrassed that my own professional training had been so easily overridden.
    “I’m sorry,” I muttered, painfully aware of the others all around, looking down at me. “How are you doing?”
    She smiled faintly. “I’ve been better.”
    “I wish I’d been there,” I added without thinking. There was a predictable but silent stirring at this traditional male cliché, but Gail embraced its intent.
    She nodded and said, “I do, too.”
    I found myself groping for something to add, something other than what was crowding the front of my brain and which would do her no good at all—about how we would catch the guy and take him to the cleaners; that I wouldn’t sleep till we had; that I wished we could turn the clock back a few hours.
    “Is there anything I can do?” I asked instead.
    “Catch the guy,” Susan Raffner answered immediately.
    I didn’t take my eyes off Gail’s. “Would you like to stay at my place? I could bunk out on the couch, or at the office.”
    Gail shook her head. “No, that’s okay.”
    Susan Raffner’s voice was softer and she