by Lisa Gardner
His mother was a nag. His wife was a nag. And in another fifteen years he’d look just like his father, slightly hunched shoulders, chin tucked against his chest in perfect turtle posture, and selectively deaf in both ears.
He should’ve divorced her right then, but there were the children to consider. Yeah, his two darling, beautiful children, who already looked at him with his wife’s accusing stare every time he was late for dinner.
He found himself thinking of Catherine again. The way she’d first come to him nine months ago. Her fingers brushing up his arm. Her long black hair teasing his cheek as she leaned over his shoulder to study Nathan’s medical records.
She’d come to his office one day without Nathan, wearing a long black overcoat. She’d walked into his office. She’d locked the door behind herself. She’d looked him right in the eye and said, “I need you.”
Then she’d thrown open her coat to reveal nothing but smooth white skin and tantalizing bits of black lace. He’d taken her right then and there, up against the wall, his trousers around his knees, her legs around his waist.
She’d climaxed so hard, she’d sunk her teeth into his shoulder. Then they’d tumbled to the floor and next thing he knew, she was on her hands and knees and he was riding her from behind, already as hard and horny as a teenager catching his second wind.
Afterwards, when both of them were too exhausted to move, when he could barely summon his receptionist by phone to tell her to cancel all his appointments for the afternoon, he’d seen the contusion on Catherine’s left side.
It was nothing, she’d told him. She stumbled against the counter in the kitchen. That day, neither of them had commented on the bruise’s perfect palmlike shape.
She’d wept the day she’d finally told him about Jimmy. They’d been in a hotel room in Copley Square. She’d just spent twenty minutes on her knees doing stuff he’d only ever read about in magazines. Now he held her close, stroking her hair.
I need you, she’d whispered against his chest. Oh God, Tony, you don’t know what it’s like. I am so afraid …
He should leave this stupid hospital, Tony thought now, walking through the empty parking garage, his footsteps ringing off the cement. He was sick and tired of people telling him what to do—his wife, the head of Pediatrics, a prick like Judge Gagnon. What was the point of working so hard for so many years if he never got to do anything he wanted to do?
He loved Catherine Gagnon. He was tired of all this shit. Screw his wife, screw the kids. He’d drive to Catherine’s house right this minute. Tell her he took it back. He was sorry he’d let her down, sorry he’d told her he couldn’t help Nathan.
Hell, he was sorry he’d sat in front of some state cop this afternoon, feeling like half a man as he tried to explain how he could love Cat and yet do nothing to protect her from Jimmy. The way that trooper had looked at him …
That was it. He would buck the system. He would stand on his own two feet. Just this once, he would do what he wanted to do, and screw the other women in his life.
Tony got to his car. He got out his keys, his hand already shaking in excitement.
It wasn’t until he unlocked the door that he finally heard the noise behind him.
The footsteps moved quietly down the hall. Rubber soles treading carefully on white vinyl floors. The soft rustle of curtains. The beep beep of heart monitors, the hiss of numerous ventilators.
The nurse was gone, tending someone somewhere.
The hallway was dark and still.
The man tiptoed, tiptoed, tiptoed, until finally, the right room.
A shadow fell across the foot of the bed. Four-year-old Nathan stirred. He turned his head toward the sound. He opened his eyes to drugged half slits.
The man held his breath.
And Nathan whispered, “Daddy.”
Chapter
15
Bobby was doomed. His head had finally just hit the pillow when his phone rang again. He didn’t think of Susan this time. Instead, his thoughts went straight to Catherine. He’d been dreaming, he realized. He’d been dreaming of Jimmy Gagnon’s widow, and she had been naked with her long black hair splayed across his chest.
“I just want to get some sleep,” he snarled into the receiver.
“Still feel like playing detective, Officer Dodge?”
It took him a moment to place the voice. Harris, the Gagnons’ earnest detective. Bobby’s gaze went to the bedside clock. Dial glowed two a.m. Christ, he had to get some sleep. “What?” he asked.
“Got any friends with the Boston PD?” Harris said. “I think there’s a crime scene you’re going to want to visit.”
“Who?”
Harris paused a heartbeat. “Dr. Tony Rocco. Parking garage of the hospital. Don’t wear good shoes. I understand it’s messy.”
Detective D.D. Warren had been with Boston Homicide for over eight years. A petite blonde with a lithe build and killer blue eyes, she worked the Rocco crime scene in slim-cut jeans, stiletto boots, and a caramel-colored leather jacket. Sex and the City meets NYPD Blue. Lots of the guys were staring. Given that D.D. ate, slept, and breathed her job, none of them stood a chance.
She and Bobby went way back. They’d dated eons ago, when they’d both been new recruits, her starting out for the city, him for the state. They could sympathize with each other’s demanding days, without having to be in direct competition. Bobby couldn’t remember anymore why they’d broken it off. Too busy, probably. It didn’t really matter. They worked better as friends. He appreciated the meteoric rise of her career—she’d probably be lieutenant soon—and she was always interested in his work with STOP.
Now, however, D.D. was peering inside a dark green BMW 450i while chewing her lower lip. Across from her, a crime-scene technician armed with a camera was busily shooting away. The snap and whir of the advancing film echoed across the vast expanse of the cement parking garage and seemed to punctuate Bobby’s approaching footsteps.
Garage was a little crowded, given that it was three a.m. Coroner’s van, crime-scene van, numerous patrol cars, several detectives’ vehicles, and a much nicer sedan Bobby recognized as belonging to the ADA. Lot of cars for a homicide. Lot of attention, period.
Bobby’s breath exhaled in frosty pants. He sank his hands deep into the pockets of his down jacket and did his best to blend in. Several heads turned his way. Some faces he recognized, some he didn’t. All knew him, though, and despite his best efforts, a buzz was building by the time he arrived at the BMW.
“Hey, Bobby,” D.D. said without ever looking up.
“Nice boots.”
She wasn’t fooled. “Kind of late to be out on the town,” she said.
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“ ’Cause your phone was ringing off the hook?” She finally looked at him, blue eyes narrowed speculatively. “You got good ears, Bobby, given that we’re doing everything we can to keep this one quiet.”
He understood her question, but decided not to answer it. “If I happen to spend the next hour leaning against that concrete support column over there, studying my nails, how much of a problem would that be?”
“I’d say this is strictly a no-manicure zone.” D.D. jerked her head left, and Bobby spotted ADA Rick Copley in deep conversation with the ME. Last time Bobby had seen Copley, Copley’s men had been engaging in a friendly game of pin-the-shooting-on-the-beleaguered-state-trooper. So yeah, Copley would consider Bobby’s presence a big problem.
“Highlights?” he asked D.D. under his breath.
She gave him another look. “When we profile the vic, how many times are we gonna find your name?”
“Once. This afternoon. Met him for the first time today to ask him about Nathan Gagnon.”
She processed that, put two and two together very quickly and said, “Ah, shit. He’s the kid’s doctor?”
“Yeah.”
“What else?”
“Had an affair with the boy’s mom. Was already being questioned for a possib
le custody battle to be waged between the parents. Your turn.”
She flicked her gaze across the way. Copley was still talking to the ME, but now looking in their direction, a frown marring his pug-nosed face.
“One DOA doctor in the front seat,” D.D. murmured quickly, gesturing inside the car. “Looks like he just got his door open and someone nailed him from behind.”
“Shooting?”
“Knife.”
“Strong,” Bobby said, trying to glance inside the car himself, and being blocked by D.D.’s shoulder.
“That’s not even the half of it,” D.D. said.
Copley had started their way.
“You gotta run,” D.D. told Bobby.
“Yep.”
“But remember, we’ll always have Paris.”
Bobby got the message. “See ya.”
Bobby found the stairwell exit just as Copley closed the distance and the first crime-scene tech said, “Holy shit, is that blood?” and the second technician answered, “Actually, I think it’s women’s lipstick.”
Casablanca’s was a swanky Mediterranean restaurant in Cambridge. It featured a full martini bar and an eclectic menu targeted toward Harvard’s more upscale clientele—namely the well-to-do parents of its Ivy League student population. Bogey’s on the other hand was a tiny little diner tucked away just down from the statehouse. It offered twenty-four-hour service, peeling vinyl stools, and an extra-large griddle that hadn’t been cleaned in years. Now, this was a place for cops.
Bobby walked all the way there, using the freezing early morning temp to clear the last of the sleep from his head and icicle half his eyelashes. It was shortly after five when he arrived, the sun not even up yet but the diner already hopping. He waited twenty minutes in the egg-and-bacon-scented heat, then finally got to steal a booth in the back. His stomach was growling; he ordered up three fried eggs, half a dozen pieces of bacon, and a butter-soaked English muffin. He wasn’t sure if this qualified as a decent meal or not, but it did involve protein. He chased the food down with an extra-large OJ, then started in on the coffee.
He was entering that no-man’s-land between food coma and caffeine buzz when D.D. finally walked into the diner. She sported a tight-fitting white T-shirt that announced in scripted red sequins, Felonious. It worked well with the boots.
She slid into the booth, glancing at Bobby’s empty plate. “What, you didn’t save anything for me?”
“What’d you want?”
“Eggs, bacon, French toast. With the world’s biggest OJ. And maybe a side order of pancakes.”
“The case that good?”
“Oh yeah. I’m starved.”
Bobby walked up to the counter to place her order. When he returned, D.D. was emptying the last of his coffee urn into a mug she’d swiped from the serving station. He returned to the counter, refilled the urn and loaded up on cream. If memory served, D.D.’s appetite ran somewhere between a Marine’s and a truck driver’s. Lots of cream, lots of sugar, and anything else that was guaranteed to harden an artery.
When he returned to the table, loaded down with coffee and condiments, she finally appeared impressed.
“So, who gave you the heads-up?” she wanted to know, going straight to work on the sugar packets.
“Harris Reed. An investigator. Works for the Gagnons.”
“The Gagnons? As in Judge and Maryanne?”
“The dynamic duo themselves.”
She frowned. “And how’d this Reed know?”
“Didn’t say.”
“Have contacts inside the department?”
“Probably.”
She grimaced. “Police stations. One guy drinks a glass of water and everyone else takes a piss. So the Gagnons are keeping an eye on things?”
“Apparently.”
“Interesting.” She’d finished sweetening up her brew and now poured in the cream. “And you, Bobby? All things considered, shouldn’t you be off fishing or something?”
He spread his hands. “I can’t fish.”
“I heard about the lawsuit. That sucks.”
He didn’t disagree.
“Got a lawyer? How bad does it look?”
“Don’t know.” He shrugged. “Haven’t gone attorney shopping yet. Been busy.”
She stopped stirring her coffee. “Bobby, you gotta take this kind of thing seriously. If a cop can get pulled into criminal court just for doing her job … this is cause for concern.”
Again, he didn’t disagree.
“You have friends, you know. You guys covered for us when you took that call Thursday; no one wants to see you get hosed.”
Bobby didn’t feel like discussing it. What was done was done. “So what’s up at the garage?” he asked. “What happened to the good doctor?”
D.D. sighed, took a long swig of coffee, and settled back in the booth. “Not sure. For starters, however, I’d say he screwed around one too many times.”
“A wronged lover?”
“More likely a lover’s pissed-off spouse. Good doctor was attacked from behind. Subject wielded so much force, the blade severed half of Dr. Rocco’s neck.”
“Messy,” Bobby murmured.
“And how. Subject got the doctor leaning forward into his car, so most of the ewww is contained in the driver’s side of the BMW. Except, the fun didn’t end there. The good doctor was kind of, well, dismembered.”
“Dismembered?”
“Dis-membered,” D.D. said heavily. “We found it in the glove compartment.”
“Ouch,” Bobby said.
“Ouch,” D.D. agreed.
He frowned. That was pretty personal. And an awful lot of activity for a public parking garage. “Got video footage from the surveillance cameras?”
“Looking into it now. Film I have seen is very grainy and doesn’t show much. Whoever did this was thinking. Got the doctor incapacitated and into his vehicle. Then, best I can figure it, the killer crawled into the passenger side. BMW has tinted windows; it’s late at night. Anyone who walks by is just gonna catch the silhouette of two people sitting in a car. Except one was kind of dead and the other was getting jiggy with a serrated blade. People. I swear they’ve all seen too many movies.”
D.D.’s food arrived. She started layering the French toast with the fried eggs and pieces of bacon, her eyes positively gleaming. Then she got her hands on the syrup.
“Gotta be a lot of blood,” Bobby said. “That kind of work … I’d think you’d have splatter everywhere.”
“You’d think.” She sawed off a bite of French-toast breakfast sandwich with her fork and munched away blissfully. “You were at the scene, Bobby. Picture that big cold garage, think of the facility it was attached to, and tell me what we got.”
Bobby thought back. Under the glare of the floodlights, the cement floor had appeared smooth and unmarred, not a red drip in sight. He frowned, considered the matter again, then suddenly smiled. “A hospital. Surgical scrubs!”
“Bull’s-eye. We found a garbage bag filled with bloody scrubs and shoe booties in a dumpster outside of the west-side entrance. It would appear our clever killer donned scrubs, did the deed, then balled up the discarded garments and shoe booties and tossed them tidily away. So most likely he walked into the garage looking like any old surgeon. Once he was done, he waited for a quiet moment, got out of the car, peeled off the garments, and sauntered away.”
“You’d get two footprints,” Bobby said. “Him exiting the car.”
“Found smeared blood outside the passenger’s seat. Looks like he wiped up the spot, maybe with part of the scrubs. Didn’t get it perfect, but did obliterate any tread patterns. Ingenious little shit.”
“Foresight,” Bobby thought out loud. “Planning.”
“Yes and no. Did take some thought, but everything he needed was on site. So, he didn’t have to plan too far in advance. Assuming, of course, that the killer wasn’t actually a surgeon, which, of course, given the location, isn’t something we’ve ruled out.” D.D
. was halfway through her plate now and positively sighing. “Oooh, that’s good. I swear if it wouldn’t give me an immediate coronary, I’d come here every day.”
“So what about suspects?”
“Funny you should ask.”
“You’re not thinking me, are you?” He was genuinely startled.
“Should I be thinking you?”
“D.D.—”
“Relax, Bobby. It’s your girlfriend we’re going after. Catherine Gagnon.”
Bobby frowned. The girlfriend comment had been dangled as bait, but he refused to bite. “I don’t see it,” he said after a bit.
“ADA’s office started looking into the widow yesterday. Rumor is, she had a lot to gain from her husband’s death. Rumor is, she might have been shopping around for some hired help—or a misplaced fool’s heart.”
“Copley thinks Catherine approached Tony Rocco about killing her husband?”
“Copley tried to schedule an interview with the good doctor yesterday afternoon. Rocco blew him off.”
Bobby nodded, holding his coffee mug between his hands and thinking hard. “If Tony Rocco was Catherine’s ally, why would she kill him or find someone to kill him?”
D.D. shrugged. She wouldn’t meet his eye. “Rocco obviously didn’t kill Jimmy.”
“No,” Bobby agreed quietly, “he didn’t.” He kept gazing at D.D., but her eyes were now locked on her plate.
“But maybe Catherine spoke to Rocco about doing it,” D.D. said after a moment. “And maybe she got word that the ADA was looking into it. That would give her motive to want Tony Rocco dead—so Rocco couldn’t rat her out.”
“But the killer was most likely a male.”
“She has looks, she has money. Either one would get her help.”
“Help to eliminate the help,” Bobby pointed out dryly.
D.D. shrugged. “It’s Copley’s theory. Me, I’m still going with the jealous spouse. After all, if you were just killing someone to be expedient, would you really engage in postmortem weenie whacking?”
“That does seem more personal.”
“Plus there’s the message to consider.”
“The message?”