Free Fruits of the Poisonous Tree by Archer Mayor Page A

room. “I’m here.”
    I went around the corner to find her climbing off her chair. Slim, dark, and almost overly intense, she was also as small as a teenage girl, with a similarly impulsive style. Over the years, I’d had to pour oil on occasionally troubled waters between her and her colleagues. Whether it was being the first and only woman to have been made detective in our department, or just a natural competitiveness that bordered on the cutthroat, her drive could make her difficult to deal with. Only Willy Kunkle, infamous in his own right, seemed totally unaffected by her.
    Her expression was not encouraging. “I chased down almost every connection I have, Joe. There’s nothing stirring out there. And there’s a lot of interest—everyone knows who the victim was, and they’re all dying to be on the inside. If any of them knew, I’m pretty sure I would’ve heard about it. I’m real sorry.”
    I shrugged it off. My conversations with J.P. Tyler had already braced me for bad news. The meticulousness of Gail’s attacker—the preplanning, the caution he’d taken to conceal himself—had persuaded me we wouldn’t find him hanging out in a bar, bragging about his latest score.
    “I don’t think this was a spontaneous assault anyway. Did you compare notes with Willy?”
    She nodded. “He didn’t find anything either. He’s getting coffee in the officers’ room, if you want to talk to him.”
    The door to the hallway opened and Ron Klesczewski walked in, purposeful and obviously full of news. I turned back to Sammie. “I’d like to talk to both of you, actually. Round him up and bring him back over here, will you?”
    Sammie left, and I shepherded Ron into my office cubicle, parking myself on the corner of my desk. “What’ve you got?”
    “I’m setting up a command post in the extra room—bulletin boards, a dedicated phone line. Billy’s given me one guy out of each of his shifts to man it. We’ve already started classifying those neighborhood witnesses by what they saw and at what time, and Dennis is chasing down the ones he missed at their work places instead of waiting for tonight. We figured the sooner the better. With any luck, we’ll construct a chronology of the whole night and then see what sticks out.”
    I raised my eyebrows. “Does Tony know about this?”
    Ron smiled. “He authorized it. I don’t know if it’s James Dunn or the board—or maybe both—but the chief ’s catching some serious heat on this.”
    I remembered Tony’s pessimism about keeping Gail’s name under wraps, and what would probably happen once it got out. “I think he’s just preparing for the worst. You doing all right coordinating it all?”
    Klesczewski nodded emphatically. “Oh, yeah. I like it—tips are already starting to come in. It’s interesting, separating the bullshit from the solid stuff.”
    “Good. Keep at it. Run things from the command post, keep me and Brandt updated, and use the patrol division to chase down leads as you see fit. Get Dennis to help you out. If you see the need for a squad meeting before Brandt or I do, call it yourself. Before too long you’re going to be in a better position than any of us to know the overall picture, so throw your weight around a little.”
    I was pleased to see the satisfaction in his eyes. His youthful insecurities were hardening with time, and while he’d always have problems with someone like Willy Kunkle, I no longer harbored Tony Brandt’s ebbing skepticism that I’d backed the wrong horse as my second-in-command.
    Sammie Martens and the infamous Kunkle were loitering outside my door—she almost at attention, a note pad clutched in her hand, and he typically leaning against the wall, sipping his coffee, and gazing out the window, looking bored. I waved them in as Ron happily departed for his newly established nerve center.
    There is a media-hyped misconception among many people that the only difference between most cops and the people they