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by Lisa Gardner

  “I don’t know. Rope. He had a whole coil of it. It was thick, maybe half an inch. White. Dirty. Strong. He would pound stakes into the wooden ground, then tie my limbs to the stakes. I will confess that at the time I didn’t notice the knots.” Her voice remained remote.

  “Did he ever bring trash bags to the scene?”

  “Trash bags? What do you mean? Like a Hefty bag?”

  “Like any kind of trash bag.”

  Catherine shook her head. “Richard favored plastic grocery bags. He’d have supplies and/or food in them. You’d be proud of Richard, he was a conscientious camper, carried in, carried out. A regular Boy Scout, that one.”

  “Mrs. Gagnon, do you know why Mr. Umbrio kidnapped you?”

  “Yes.”

  D.D. momentarily faltered, as if not expecting this answer, though she was the one who asked the question. “You do?”

  “Yes. I was wearing a corduroy skirt with knee-high socks. Turns out, Richard had a fetish for Catholic schoolgirls. Took one look, decided I was it. No one else was around, so lucky me.”

  D.D. and Bobby exchanged glances. Bobby had been taking furious notes while D.D. asked the questions. Cataloging the details of Catherine’s attack to compare to the victims found at Boston State Mental, I would suspect. But this bothered them. Now both stared at Catherine.

  “Catherine,” D.D. asked quietly, “had you met Richard before that afternoon?”

  “No.”

  “Had he by any chance noticed you? Mentioned following you home from school before or watching you on the school playground, that sort of thing?”

  “No.”

  “So, that afternoon, when his car turned down the street. That’s the first time you and Richard met?”

  “Like I said, lucky me.”

  D.D.’s frown deepened. “After you got into his car, what happened?”

  “The door was jammed, locked, I don’t know. It wouldn’t open.”

  “Did you scream, did you struggle?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “No. I remember getting into his car. I remember growing…confused, uneasy. I think I tried the door handle and then…I don’t remember. Police and therapists have asked me for years. I still don’t remember. I would guess I screamed. I would guess I fought. But maybe I did nothing. Maybe my lack of memory is my cover for shame.” Her lips curved slightly, but the self-conscious smile never reached her eyes.

  “What do you remember?” D.D.’s voice was gentler now. It seemed to put the steel back in Catherine’s spine.

  “Waking up in the dark.”

  “Was he there?”

  “Ready to rock and roll.”

  “In the pit?”

  “Yep.”

  “So he’d already prepared the pit, before he’d spotted you and decided to make his move?”

  Bobby and D.D. exchanged that look again.

  Bobby spoke up this time. “According to what you said earlier, Umbrio grabbed you on impulse, based on your outfit. So how could he have known to be so prepared?”

  Catherine looked at him. “The pit wasn’t new. He’d found it one day exploring in the woods. Turned it into a sort of secret hideaway for himself, where he could stash his weenie-whacking magazines and get away from his parents. And, of course, maintain his own personal sex slave.” She shrugged again.

  “But do I think he grabbed me on impulse? No. He said that, but I never believed him. He had rope, material for gagging my mouth, covering my eyes. What normal kind of person has that kind of stuff lying around in his car? Richard was a bondage freak. Every single fucking porn magazine he had was pretty much Bind That Bitch or Smack Her Ass. You’re the experts, you tell me, but I would guess the idea of his own little rape kitten had been growing in his mind for some time. He had the physical size to do as he pleased. And he had the perfect location. All he lacked was the unwilling subject. So one afternoon in October, he went shopping.”

  “Shopping—your word or his?” D.D. asked sharply.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes.”

  Catherine arched a brow. “I don’t remember.”

  “Catherine”—Bobby spoke up, earning an annoyed frown from D.D., who clearly planned on running the show—“how experienced do you think Umbrio was when he abducted you? Were you number one, number three, number twelve?”

  “That’s asking for speculation,” Carson interjected.

  “I understand.”

  Bobby kept staring at Catherine. She had placed her hands on the table. Now she flexed and curled her fingers as she considered his words.

  “You mean sexually? Was he a virgin?”

  “Yes.”

  For a moment, she didn’t answer. “I was twelve,” she said at last. “Not experienced enough myself to be any judge of those things. However…”

  “However,” Bobby prompted when she didn’t continue.

  “As a woman looking back? He was overeager in the beginning. Climaxed before he ever penetrated, then grew flustered and beat the shit out of me to cover his own embarrassment. That happened frequently those first few days. He would arrive with elaborate plans for what he wanted to do, but be so overexcited he’d ejaculate before we ever got going. With time, however, he settled down. Grew less eager, but more imaginative.” Her lips twisted. “He learned to be cruel.

  “So, if you ask, as a woman looking back, I would guess that he was inexperienced in the beginning. Certainly, his fantasies grew more complex and demanding with time, if that is any indication.”

  Her gaze suddenly pounced on me. “Did you know him?”

  “Who?” I asked, slightly bewildered to have all eyes on me.

  “Richard. What did you think of him?”

  “I didn’t…I haven’t…I don’t know him.”

  She frowned, turning once more to Bobby. “I thought you said she was a survivor.”

  “She is. She survived being stalked by an unknown white subject in the early eighties. Who that subject was—e.g., was he Umbrio—is what we’re trying to determine now.”

  She frowned at me again, clearly skeptical. “And you’re basing this on what, the fact you believe she looks like me? Honestly, I don’t think we bear that much of a resemblance.” She flipped back her glossy black mane, managing to jut out her breasts in the same motion. I thought that made it clear just what she considered our key differences to be.

  “Have you seen her before?” D.D. prodded Catherine, trying to get us back on track. “Does Tanya look familiar to you?”

  “Of course not.”

  D.D. stared at me. “I haven’t seen her before either,” I confirmed. “But do the math. In the fall of 1980, I was five. What are the chances of me remembering a twelve-year-old girl?”

  I turned back to Catherine on my own. “Did you live in Arlington?”

  “Waltham.”

  “Go to church?”

  “Hardly,” she said.

  “Visit any friends or family members in Arlington?”

  “Not that stands out in my mind.”

  “What about your parents, what did they do?”

  “My mother was a homemaker. My father worked as an appliance repairman for Maytag,” she provided.

  “So he traveled.”

  “Not into the city. His territory was the outlying suburbs. Yours?”

  “My father was a mathematician, MIT,” I offered.

  “Different.” Catherine frowned, more speculatively now. “Suffice it to say, in 1980, I doubt our paths crossed, at least not in any memorable kind of way.”

  “What about other relatives?” Bobby spoke up. “Given the, uh, family resemblance.”

  Catherine merely shrugged. “You and D.D. are reading too much into this. We both simply look Italian. There must be hundreds of other women in Boston who could say the same.”

  Everyone looked at me. I had nothing more to add. Frankly, I agreed with Catherine. I didn’t think we looked all tha
t much alike. She was much too skinny, for one. And I had better legs.

  The interview was petering out. D.D. had a perplexed scowl on her face. Bobby was staring hard at the tape recorder. Whatever they had been looking for, they weren’t getting it. MO, I thought. They were trying to compare Richard Umbrio to my stalker; except, according to Catherine, Umbrio had snatched her as a crime of opportunity, whereas the person who had left little gifts for me…

  The victims may look alike. But the crimes themselves were different.

  When no new questions materialized, Catherine planted her hands on the table as if to push back.

  “One moment,” Bobby said sharply.

  “What?”

  “Think very hard. Catherine, how sure are you that the man who abducted you was Richard Umbrio?”

  “I beg your pardon!”

  “You were young, ambushed, traumatized, and most of the time you were with him, you were trapped down in the dark—”

  “Mrs. Gagnon,” the lawyer started to say nervously, but Catherine didn’t need his help.

  “Twenty-eight days, Bobby. Twenty-eight days Richard was the only person who occupied my world. If I ate, it was because he brought me food. If I drank, it was because he deigned to give me water. He sat beside me, he laid on top of me. He fucked me holding my head between his massive hands and screaming at me not to turn away.

  “To this day, I can picture his face as he stared out the car window. I can see him haloed by the light each time he appeared at the opening of my prison and I knew I’d finally get fed. I remember how he looked by the glow of the lantern light, sleeping just like a baby, my wrist tied to his so I couldn’t escape.

  “There is no doubt in my mind that Richard Umbrio kidnapped me twenty-seven years ago. And there is no doubt in my mind that each and every day I’m thankful that I stuck the barrel of the gun inside his mouth and blew out his brains.”

  Carson, the attorney, grew wide-eyed at the end of his client’s statement. Bobby, however, merely nodded. He reached across the table, snapped off the recorder.

  “All right, Cat,” he said quietly. “Then you tell us: If Richard Umbrio went to prison in ’81, then who was left to build an even larger underground pit at the site of an old lunatic asylum? Who kidnapped six more girls and stuck them beneath the earth?”

  “I don’t know. And honestly, I’m a little offended that you think I do.”

  “We have to ask you, Cat. You’re as close to Umbrio as we’re going to get.”

  That clearly pissed her off. This time she did push away from the table, rising to her feet. “I believe we’re done here.”

  “You were alone with him in the hallway,” Bobby continued relentlessly. “He talked to you in the hotel suite. Did he mention a friend? A pen pal? Someone he met while in prison?”

  “He mentioned exactly how he was going to kill me!”

  “What about Nathan? Richard kidnapped him first, maybe while they were alone—”

  “You leave my son out of this!”

  “Six dead girls, Catherine. Six girls who didn’t make it up out of the dark.”

  “Goddamn you!”

  “We need to know. You have to tell us. If Richard had a friend, an accomplice, a mentor, we have to know.”

  Catherine was breathing hard now, her eyes locked on Bobby’s. For an instant, I wasn’t sure what she was going to do. Scream? Slap him across the face?

  She placed her hands on the edge of the table. She leaned forward until she and Bobby were nearly nose to nose.

  “Richard Umbrio had nothing to do with your crime scene. He was in prison. And while he was a homicidal son of a bitch, he was also, blessedly for your purposes, a loner. He had no friends. No accomplices. Once and for all, we are done here. Any other questions you have can be delivered to my attorney. Carson.”

  Carson obediently whipped out business cards.

  Catherine straightened. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, Annabelle—or Tanya, or whatever her name is—and I have business to attend to.”

  “We do?” I spoke up rather stupidly.

  “Wait a minute—” Bobby started.

  “Absolutely not,” D.D. echoed, rising from the table.

  It was the very vehemence of their response, its implied possessiveness, that made me follow Catherine.

  “Don’t worry, darlings,” our hostess tossed over her shoulder at Bobby and D.D. “I’ll have her back before midnight.” She shut the library doors behind us and headed down the hall.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, having to hustle to keep up.

  “Oh honey…Obviously, I’m taking you shopping.”

  CATHERINE’S RETAIL-THERAPY location of choice was Nordstrom. Her limo driver dropped us off out front. Catherine breezily informed the chauffeur she’d call him again when needed. He drove off to do whatever it is limo drivers do in between being summoned by their mistresses. I followed Catherine into the store.

  She started off by suggesting that we eat. Since my stomach was growling audibly, I didn’t protest.

  It was after six, and Nordstrom’s café was growing crowded. I waited in line for grilled chicken and pesto on focaccia. Catherine ordered a cup of tea.

  She glanced at my enormous sandwich, the side of Terra sweet potato chips. She arched a brow, then returned to sipping her green tea. I ate the entire sandwich, the bag of chips, then went back for a piece of carrot cake, simply out of spite.

  “So what do you think of Detective Dodge?” she asked, when I was halfway through the cake and presumably so blissed-out on sugar I wouldn’t notice the fine hint of longing that had entered her voice.

  I shrugged. “As a cop or what?”

  She smiled. “Or what.”

  “If I found him naked in my bed, I wouldn’t kick him out.”

  “Have you?”

  “That’s not exactly the nature of our relationship.” Though the image of Bobby, naked, was taking longer than I would’ve thought to clear from my head. “Now, him and D.D., on the other hand…”

  “Never happen,” Catherine said immediately. “Sex, maybe, but a relationship? She’s far too ambitious for him. I doubt she’ll settle for anything less than a politically minded DA, or perhaps a crime boss. Now, that would be interesting.”

  “You two don’t like each other very much.”

  Her turn to shrug. “I have that effect on women. Perhaps it’s because I sleep with their husbands. Then again, if the husbands weren’t sleeping with me, they would simply be fucking their secretaries, and if you were going to be jilted, wouldn’t you rather be jilted for someone who looks like me than for a peroxide blonde with cheap taste in shoes?”

  “I never thought of it that way before.”

  “Few do.” Catherine put down her tea. She traced a random pattern on the tabletop with her red-lacquered nail. When she spoke again, her voice was low, with a trace of vulnerability again.

  “Once upon a time,” she said quietly, “I invited Bobby to move to Arizona with me. Offered him everything, my body, my home, a glamorous life of leisure. He turned me down. Did you know that?”

  “Was this before or after he shot your husband?” I asked.

  She smiled, seemed amused that I knew that minor detail. “After. You’ve been listening to D.D., haven’t you? She’s obsessed with the notion I set up Bobby to kill my husband. I think she’s read one too many suspense novels. Ever heard of Occam’s razor—the simplest explanation is the best one?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, simply put, Jimmy beat the shit out of me, Bobby made the right choice that night, and I’m now living happily ever after, can’t you tell?”

  Her voice hit a brittle edge on the last word. She seemed to hear it, picked up her tea, and took another sip. I said nothing for a while, just absorbed this woman in front of me, who packaged herself as a walking advertisement for sex, when I was pretty sure now she hadn’t felt a thing in nearly twenty-seven years.

  Is this the fate I had
narrowly avoided when my father decided to flee? And if so, then why didn’t I feel more relieved? Because mostly I felt sad. A deep down achy kind of sad. The world was cruel. Grown men preyed on little kids. People betrayed the ones they loved. What was done could never be undone again. That’s just the way things worked.

  As if reading my mind, Catherine’s head came up. She looked me in the eye: “Why are you here, Annabelle?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Richard isn’t your stalker. By the time you were seven, he was already sentenced to life in prison. Besides, Richard’s fantasies involved physical intimidation and domination. He wasn’t subtle enough for stalking.”

  “You were only twelve; it wasn’t your fault.”

  She actually smiled at me. “You think I don’t know that?”

  “And you survived.”

  Now she laughed, a full throaty sound that caused several of the other diners to glance our way. “You think I survived? Oh Annabelle, you are simply precious. Come now, as a seven-year-old target yourself, surely you learned something.”

  “I happen to be an expert kickboxer,” I heard myself say stiffly. “My father took my safety very seriously—taught me self-defense, criminology one-oh-one, when to run, when to fight, and how to know the difference. I grew up with over a dozen different aliases, living in a dozen different cities. Trust me, I know how serious this is.”

  “Your father taught you?” Arched brow again.

  “Yes.”

  “The academic from MIT?”

  “The same.”

  “And how did your father know so much about criminology or self-defense?”

  I shrugged. “Necessity is the mother of invention. Isn’t that what they say?”

  Catherine stared at me in bemusement. “Wait, wait,” she said, when she could tell I was getting pissy again, “I’m not trying to mock you. I want to understand. When this all happened, your father…”

  “He moved my family away. We packed our suitcases in the middle of the afternoon, loaded up the car, and disappeared.”

  “No!”

  “Yes.”

  “With fake names and everything?”

  “Absolutely. There is no other way to be safe. Which reminds me, you’re supposed to be calling me Tanya.”