Alone

by Lisa Gardner

  He learned, he perfected. And one day, he struck.

  It was short, messy. Not at all like he'd pictured. Afterwards, he panicked. Didn't know what to do with the body. Finally he'd weighted it down and driven all the way to the Connecticut border, where he found a river.

  He'd returned home shaken, disturbed, and interestingly enough, remorseful. He'd watched the news for days, palms sweating, waiting to be discovered.

  But nothing happened. Simply . . . nothing. And then the fantasies started again. He dreamed and he hungered and he wanted. Until one day, he'd turned down a street not far from his parents' house, and there had been the girl. She'd been wearing a brown corduroy skirt instead of green plaid, but otherwise, she'd been close enough.

  It had been surprisingly simple after that. He'd approached it a whole new way, and it had been satisfying. Right up until that moment when the girl had taken the witness stand.

  He'd been young still. He saw that now. He'd been young and he'd made mistakes. Of course, he'd now had twenty-five years to learn better, and people who didn't think you got an education in prison had obviously never been there.

  Mr. Bosu wandered down Park Street until he found the giant Gothic cathedral he remembered from his youth. He sat outside on one of the wooden benches, next to an elderly woman who was feeding bread crumbs to the pigeons. She smiled at him. He warmly smiled back.

  “Lovely morning,” he said.

  “It is, it is,” the woman said, and gave a little giggle.

  Yesterday, he'd gone on an afternoon shopping binge, courtesy of Benefactor X. The oversized, slightly menacing man from Faneuil Hall was gone. In his place was a classy, middle-aged gentleman who obviously prided himself on being fit. Oh, the wonders of Armani and a decent haircut.

  The old woman threw more crumbs at the fat pigeons waddling around their feet. Mr. Bosu tilted back his head and lifted his face to the sun. Damn, it felt good to be outside.

  Presently, the church bells started to ring. Grand wooden doors were thrown open. Families poured down the front steps, first proud fathers, then harried mothers, and then finally screeching children.

  Mr. Bosu opened his eyes. He admired dark-haired girls, their long lustrous locks tied back in big white bows. He smiled at the teeming throngs of little blonde princesses, all flouncy white dresses and high-polished Mary Janes. In the vast city block yawning in front of the church, parents were already deep in conversation with other parents while their children ran wild.

  Here were five little girls playing tag. Here were two little girls swinging arms. Here was one little girl, already half unnoticed, chasing the scattering pigeons. . . .

  “Beautiful, aren't they?” the elderly woman said.

  “Nothing so attractive on earth,” he assured her.

  “Makes me remember my own youth.”

  “Funny, mine too.”

  He smiled once more at the woman. She looked a little puzzled, but smiled back. He got off the bench and walked into the sea of young, racing bodies, feeling the breeze of their quick passes like a tingle up his spine.

  He walked to the front steps of the church, ascended to the two large doors, then turned and surveyed his kingdom.

  People had a tendency to be wary in the city. But this was a particularly upscale area. A posh little island in the middle of an ocean of concrete. Besides, people grew lax in the comforting embrace of their church. They paid more attention to their earnest networking, or the contest over who was driving the right kind of car or drinking the right kind of coffee. They liked to believe they were keeping watch over little Johnnie or little Jenny out of the corner of their eye. But they weren't. Children wandered away, particularly when their parents were talking to other adults.

  Sometimes, they never wandered back.

  Mr. Bosu felt a surge, sudden and unexpected. A fierce, rushing appetite that leapt up from his gut and demanded now, now, NOW. He leaned over the steps. He swept his gaze across the screeching, laughing, playing throngs. He was a hawk, circling in the sky. There, no, there, no. There, YES.

  One single child. A little girl, maybe four years old, toddling off in pursuit of a dried leaf scattering in the wind. No parental gaze followed her progress. No doting sibling gave chase.

  He could walk down the steps now. Moving smooth but casual. Place his bulk between her and the crowd. Herd her a little more right and she'd be behind a tree. Then one last look, left, right, wait for that go-feeling in his gut and scoop her up effortlessly. One blink of the eye and it would be over and done. Child Disappears in Broad Daylight, the headlines would read. Frantic Parents Desperately Search for Clues.

  They would never find any. Not when it came to the incredible, powerful Mr. Bosu.

  He was halfway down the stairs before he caught himself. His hands found the wrought-iron railing. With genuine effort, he forced himself to take one deep breath. Then another. Then another. Slowly, he relaxed his hands on the railing, his fingers opening up, his hands slowly returning to his sides.

  He forced himself to recall last night, the rusty scent of blood, the feel of the blade in his hands, the genuine look of surprise in another, lesser human being's face. It wasn't the same, of course. But it had been more satisfying than he'd expected. Like a pity date. Not his type, not his first choice of entertainment, but action just the same.

  Better yet, for the first time in his life, he'd been paid. Up front. In cash. Ten thousand dollars. When Mr. Bosu had been released from prison yesterday, a driver had been waiting for him out front. Mr. Bosu had gotten into the car. A suitcase was waiting for him in the back. Inside was a note, and plenty of cash. The note contained instructions, and with the note came a list. For each target, there was a dollar amount. Now, this was a decent system.

  Of course, Mr. Bosu wasn't as stupid as his mystery employer seemed to think. In the note, Benefactor X suggested that things would be easier in the future if Mr. Bosu opened a savings account. Money could be wired directly in, etc., etc. Benefactor X volunteered ways for Mr. Bosu to get ID. Benefactor X even supplied a list of banks.

  Benefactor X was an idiot. Banks were monitored. Money transfers were traced. Worse, banks weren't open on Sundays and Mr. Bosu wasn't doing anything for free. He would stick to cash, thank you very much. Nice, thick bundles of dirty green he could strap to his stomach and spend to his heart's content.

  Mr. Bosu took the briefcase. His wordless driver dropped him off at Faneuil Hall, handing Mr. Bosu a cell phone containing preprogrammed numbers; that's how they would keep in touch.

  Mr. Bosu nodded a lot. He let the driver think he was grateful. Of course, Mr. Bosu knew exactly who his driver was. Most of the guys in the joint knew the go-between by reputation, and of course Robinson's reputation was definitely no match for Mr. Bosu's.

  Mr. Bosu didn't say anything, though. As he'd learned in prison, knowledge was power.

  Mr. Bosu stuck his hands in his pockets. He started whistling as he sauntered down the church steps and walked one last time through the smorgasbord of running, happy, laughing treats. All in good time.

  Now, he was off to find a puppy.

  S O HOW DOES this kind of thing work?” Bobby was sitting in a small cramped office in Wellesley. He counted four gray steel filing cabinets, one oversized oak desk, and about half a dozen cheap bookcases overflowing with legal reference texts and piles of brightly lettered manila folders. In the two-foot strip of wall space available between the teetering stacks of bureaucracy and the water-stained ceiling, two framed diplomas crookedly announced UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST and BOSTON COLLEGE.

  Bobby tried to picture the office of the lawyers that were representing James Gagnon. It probably didn't look much like this. For starters, he would bet the diplomas came from places like Harvard or Yale. That office also probably came with a receptionist, cherry-paneled conference room, and unbeatable skyline views of downtown Boston.

  Harvey Jones, on the other hand, was essentially working out of the a
ttic of an old hardware store. He was a one-man show who'd been practicing law for the past seven years. He had no partners. He had no secretary. Today, at least, he wasn't even wearing a suit.

  One of Bobby's fellow cops had recommended the guy. And the minute Harvey had heard Bobby's name, he'd agreed to meet with him. Immediately. On a Sunday. Bobby didn't know if that meant good things or bad things yet.

  “So,” Harvey was trying to explain to him now, “a clerk-magistrate hearing takes place in front of a judge in the Chelsea District Court. Basically, the plaintiff will bring forth evidence that probable cause exists that you committed a felony. Our job is to refute that fact.”

  “How?”

  “You'll testify, of course, saying why you felt the situation justified the use of deadly force. We'll bring in other officers who were present that night. The lieutenant in charge—what did you say his name was?”

  “Jachrimo.”

  “Lieutenant Jachrimo, we'll want him to testify. Then any other officer who can independently corroborate that you had reason to believe Jimmy Gagnon was going to shoot his wife.”

  “There isn't independent corroboration. I was the first sniper deployed. No one else saw what I saw.”

  Harvey frowned, made a note. “Aren't snipers generally sent out in pairs? With a spotter, something like that?”

  “We didn't have enough manpower yet.”

  More frowning, more notes. “Well, we can still go after two things. One, we'll boost your credibility. Bring in the training you've done, have your lieutenant testify as to your expert skills. Establish that you are a well-trained, highly experienced police sniper, qualified to make tough judgment calls.”

  Bobby nodded. He'd expected that much. Every training exercise performed by the STOP team was heavily documented for just this sort of thing—so someday, if necessary, their lieutenant could prove they were qualified to act as they'd acted. If it's not documented, it didn't happen, the rule of thumb went. Lieutenant Bruni made sure every last thing they did had the proper paper trail.

  “Of course,” Harvey was saying now, “James Gagnon has politics on his side.”

  “Being a judge?”

  “Being a superior court judge,” Harvey said, and grimaced. “As the civil side of the court, a clerk-magistrate doesn't spend a lot of time contemplating what may or may not entail criminal charges. That's what the superior court does. So, think of it from the clerk-magistrate's perspective—here's a judge who's an expert on criminal law testifying that he believes a felony took place. That's going to carry a lot of weight for the clerk-magistrate. If the Honorable James F. Gagnon says it was murder—well then, it must be murder!”

  “Wonderful,” Bobby muttered.

  “But we still have some tricks up our sleeves,” Harvey said brightly. “We can hope for a decent ruling from the DA's office—that they've investigated the incident and found the shooting to be justified. That would be huge. Of course,” he murmured now, “that's probably why Gagnon filed the motion so fast. It'll take weeks for the DA's office to render an opinion, so Judge Gagnon will try to cram through this motion in a matter of days. Then we're back to his word against your word, with no tie-breaker from the DA.”

  “Can he move things that fast?”

  “If he has the bucks to pay all the attorneys who'll be working overtime, sure, he can do as he pleases. Of course, I'll do what I can to delay. Then again . . .” Harvey looked around his crammed office and Bobby followed his gaze. One-man show versus hordes of top-billing legal eagles. Attic space versus an entire wood-paneled law firm. They both got the picture.

  “So he tries to move fast, we try to move slow,” Bobby said quietly. “He tries to exert his expertise as a criminal court judge. We hope for a countering opinion from the DA. Then what?”

  “Then it gets personal.”

  Bobby stared at the lawyer. Harvey shrugged. “Basically, it's he said/she said. You're saying you saw a credible threat. The other side is saying you're wrong. To do that, they gotta go after you. They're gonna bring in your family. Were you a violent child, did you always love guns? They're going to dig into your lifestyle—young, single officer. Do you frequent bars, sleep around, get into brawls? Too bad you're not married with kids; it always looks better if you're married with kids. What about a dog? Do you happen to own a cute dog? A black Lab or golden retriever would be perfect.”

  “No cute dogs.” Bobby considered things. “I'm a landlord. My tenant has cats.”

  “Is your tenant young and beautiful?” Harvey asked suspiciously.

  “Elderly woman on a fixed income.”

  Harvey brightened noticeably. “Excellent. You gotta love a man who helps the elderly. Which, of course, brings us to ex-girlfriends.”

  Bobby rolled his eyes at that segue. “There's a few,” he admitted.

  “Which ones hate you?”

  “None of them.”

  “Sure about that?”

  He thought of Susan. He honestly didn't know how she was feeling. “No,” he found himself saying. “I'm not sure.”

  “They'll talk to your neighbors. They'll look deep into your past. They'll look for incidents of bias—that you don't like blacks or Hispanics or people who drive BMWs.”

  “I don't have biases,” Bobby said, then stopped, frowned, and got a bad feeling. “The DUI arrest.”

  “The DUI arrest?”

  “Earlier that day. Guy was driving a Hummer while intoxicated. Did a bit of damage, then got bent out of shape when we actually tried to put him in jail. He had an attitude. We, uh, we exchanged some words.”

  “Words?”

  “I called him a rich prick,” Bobby said matter-of-factly.

  Harvey winced. “Oh yeah, that's gonna hurt. Anything else I should know?”

  Bobby looked at the lawyer a long time. He debated what to say, how much to say. In the end, he settled on, “I don't want my father to take the stand.”

  Harvey regarded him curiously. “We don't have to call him as a character witness if you don't want us to.”

  “What if they call him?”

  “He's your father. Assuming he's going to testify in your favor, they won't call him.”

  “But if they do?” Bobby insisted.

  Harvey was catching on now. “What don't I know?”

  “I don't want him on the stand. Period.”

  “If they know something, Bobby, if they know something you're not telling me, we may not have a choice.”

  “What if he's . . . out of state?”

  “They'll subpoena him. If he doesn't answer the summons, he's in contempt of court and they can pursue legal action against him.”

  Bobby had been afraid of that. “What if I don't testify?”

  “Then you'll lose,” Harvey said baldly. “It'll be just their word on what happened Thursday night, and their word will be that you committed murder.”

  Bobby nodded again. He hung his head. He was looking into the future; he was trying to see beyond one night when he had done, honest to God, what he'd had to do. Nothing looked promising anymore. Nothing looked good.

  “Can I win this?” he asked quietly. “Do I really have a chance?”

  “There's always a chance.”

  “I don't have his kind of money.”

  “No.”

  Bobby was honest. “I don't have his kind of lawyer.”

  Harvey was honest back. “No.”

  “But you think you can pull this out?”

  “If we can delay things long enough for the DA's office ruling, and if the DA's office ruling finds that it was justifiable use of force, then yes, I think we can win.”

  “That's a lot of ifs.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “And then?”

  Harvey hesitated.

  “He can appeal, can't he?” Bobby filled in the blanks for the lawyer. “If this is the clerk-magistrate, then James Gagnon can appeal to the district court, then the superior court, then the supreme judicial
court. It goes on and on and on, doesn't it?”

  “Yeah,” Harvey said. “And he'll file motions, dozens of motions, most of them frivolous but all of them costing you time and money to refute. I'll do what I can. Call in some favors. I know some young lawyers who will help out for the experience and others who will do it for the exposure. But you're right: this is David and Goliath, and, well, you're not Goliath.”

  “All it takes is money and time,” Bobby murmured.

  “He's old,” Harvey threw out there.

  “You mean one day he'll die,” Bobby filled in bluntly. “That's my best-case scenario. Another death.”

  Harvey didn't bother to lie. “Yeah. In a situation like this, that's pretty much it.”

  Bobby rose to his feet. He got out his checkbook. He'd had this nest egg he'd been building. Thinking of one day maybe buying more property, or maybe, if things between him and Susan had gone differently, it would've helped with a wedding. Now he wrote a check for five thousand dollars and placed it on Harvey Jones's desk.

  According to the good lawyer, that might last a week. Of course, Bobby already knew something the lawyer didn't—if his father took the stand, he would lose.

  “Is this enough for a retainer?”

  Harvey nodded.

  “If I'm going to pursue things,” Bobby said, “I'll call you tomorrow by five p.m.”

  They shook hands.

  Then Bobby went home and got his guns.

  T HE FIFTY-FOOT INDOOR shooting range at the Massachusetts Rifle Association in Woburn, Massachusetts, was slow for a Sunday afternoon. Bobby rolled two spongy orange plugs between his index finger and thumb, fit them into the canals of his ears, then adjusted his safety glasses. He'd brought his Smith & Wesson .38 Special, and just for the hell of it, a .45 Colt Magnum.