by Lisa Gardner
“My son. He was a little wild sometimes. But he was good, too. When he was seven, one of his friends was diagnosed with leukemia. That year for his birthday, Jimmy had a big party. Instead of asking for presents, he asked people to bring money for the American Cancer Society. He even volunteered at the suicide hotline while in college.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Every Mother’s Day, he’d bring me a single red rose. Not a hothouse rose, but a real rose, one that smelled like the gardens of my youth. Jimmy knew how much I loved that scent. He understood that, even now, I sometimes miss Atlanta.” Maryanne’s gaze went to him, and there was a pain in her eyes that went on without end. “When it’s Mother’s Day,” Maryanne murmured, “what am I going to do? Tell me, Officer, who will bring my rose?”
Bobby couldn’t help her. He walked out the door just as her grief finally broke and her sobs began in earnest. James’s arms were already going around his wife and Bobby could hear the man as the door shut behind him: “Shhhh. It’s all right, Maryanne. Soon we’ll have Nathan. Just think of Nathan. Shhhhh.…”
Chapter
17
When Catherine got up, Prudence was already gone for the day. Sundays were the nanny’s day off and Prudence didn’t like to waste a minute. Catherine thought it was just as well. The sun was out, an almost unbearably bright blue sky yawning above, looking the way only a New England sky could look during the crisp days of November. Catherine went from room to room, turning on lights anyway. She thought she might be going a little mad.
Had she slept last night? She couldn’t be sure. Sometimes she dreamed, so that must have involved sleep. She’d seen Nathan, the day he was born. She’d been pushing for three hours. Almost there, almost there, the doctor kept telling her. She’d stopped screaming two hours ago, and now only panted heavily, like a barn animal in distress. The doctors lied, Jimmy lied. She was dying and this baby was tearing her in two. Another contraction. Push, screamed the doctor. Push, screamed Jimmy. She sank her teeth in her lower lip and bore down desperately.
Nathan came out so fast, he overshot the doctor’s waiting hands and landed on the sheet-covered floor. The doctor cheered. Jimmy cheered. She merely groaned. Then they put little Nathan on her chest. He was blue, tiny, all covered in muck.
She didn’t know what she was supposed to think. She didn’t know how she was supposed to feel. But then Nathan moved, his tiny little lips rooting for her breast, and she found herself unexpectedly blubbering away like an idiot. She cried, huge fat tears, the only genuine tears she had shed since her childhood. She cried for Nathan, for this beautiful new life that had somehow come from her own barren soul. She cried for this miracle she had never believed could happen to her. And she cried because her husband was holding her close, her baby was snuggling against her, and for a fraction of an instant, she did not feel alone.
She’d dreamed of her mother. Catherine saw her standing in the doorway of her childhood bedroom. Catherine lay in her narrow bed, her eyes desperately alert. She had to stay awake, because if she slept, the darkness would come, and in the darkness would be him. Forcing her head into his lap. The smell, the smell, the smell. Grunting as he rammed himself into her, a camel trying to pass through the eye of a needle. The pain, the pain, the pain. Or it would be worse. It would be the days and weeks later, when he didn’t even have to force her anymore. When she simply did whatever he wanted, because resistance was futile, because the indignities no longer mattered, because the little girl who’d been thrown into this hellhole didn’t exist anymore. Now only her body remained, a dried-up shell going through the motions and feeling only gratitude that he returned to her at all.
Someday he wouldn’t. She understood that. Someday, he would tire of her, simply walk away, and she would die down here. In the dark, alone.
There were not enough lights in the house. Three, four, maybe it was five in the morning, Catherine rounded up all the candles. Flashlights were good. The light in the oven. The night-light for the water dispenser in the refrigerator door. The undercabinet lights. The inside-the-cabinet lights. The fires in the two gas fireplaces. She went from room to room, turning them on. She needed light, she had to have light.
She’d dreamed of Jimmy. Smiling Jimmy, happy Jimmy. Hey, what’s a guy gotta do to get a little spritz? Angry Jimmy, drinking Jimmy, cold Jimmy. You’re sure she won’t get anything? I don’t want her touching one red cent.
She’d dreamed of Jimmy so much, she’d bolted out of bed at six a.m. and run to the bathroom to throw up.
Boo, a voice whispered in the back of her mind. Boo.
Oh please God, let Jimmy be finally dead.
Now it was nearly nine. Visiting hours at the hospital. Catherine had already called four times. Nathan was awake. She could see him.
Fuck that. She didn’t trust the hospital. It didn’t offer enough security. She was bringing her son home.
Catherine had her coat, had her keys. One last check of the house. That’s right, the candles. She passed through the rooms, blowing out the burning wicks one by one. She was just coming downstairs again when she remembered the Taser. She’d had one in the safe. She returned upstairs to the master bedroom, preparing to arm herself for a war against an enemy that had no name.
Who would write Boo! on her rearview mirror? Who would do such a thing?
She didn’t like to think about it too much. There were answers out there, and most of them terrified her.
The safe was wide open, the way the police had left it. She gazed inside. The Taser was gone. Rat bastards. They’d probably inventoried it for evidence. Like the Taser was really going to protect her from Jimmy’s gun.
She returned downstairs, the anger reinvigorating her and driving her toward the front door. To the hospital, to Nathan. She’d just put her hand on the knob when, from the other side, someone knocked. Catherine recoiled, hand to her chest as if struck. The knocking came again.
Very slowly, she put her eye to the peephole.
Three people stood there. The police.
No, she thought wildly. Not now. Nathan was all alone. Didn’t they know that at any time, a man driving a blue Chevy could turn down the street?
Knocking again. Slowly, Catherine opened the door.
“Catherine Gagnon?” the man standing in front asked. His nose was squashed, as if he’d been hit in the face one too many times. It appeared incongruous with his nice gray suit.
“Who are you?”
“Rick Copley, ADA for Suffolk County. I’m here with Detective D.D. Warren, BPD”—he gestured to a beautiful blonde with cheap taste in clothes—“and Investigator Rob Casella, DA’s office.” He gestured to a particularly grim-faced man who was wearing a dark suit fit only for funerals. “We have a few questions we need answered. May we come in?”
“I’m on my way to see my son,” she said.
“Then we’ll do our best not to take too much of your time.” The ADA was already pushing into her home. After another moment, she gave way. It probably was best to do this now. Before Nathan—or Prudence—returned.
The cheap blonde was looking around the downstairs foyer as if she wasn’t impressed. The investigator, on the other hand, was already taking notes.
“I think we’d be more comfortable having a seat.” The ADA invited them all to enter the parlor to the left-hand side of the foyer. Catherine finally let go of her purse, shrugged out of her coat. She was watching the ADA most carefully; he was the one in charge.
She wondered what he thought of grieving widows. Then she caught his glance again. His expression was hard, calculating, a predator sizing up prey. So that’s the way it was then. For as long as she could remember, Catherine had brought out only the extreme in the male of the species. Men who lusted after women lusted after her more. And men who hated women …
She would do better, she decided, focusing her energies on the man dressed for the funeral.
“I’m glad you stopped by,” she said firml
y, shoulders back, sailing into the room. “I contacted the medical examiner’s office yesterday. I confess I was quite startled to learn that I still can’t claim my husband’s body.”
“In these kinds of situations, it takes time.”
“Do you have children, Mr. Copley?”
He simply stared at her.
She said quietly, “This is a very difficult time for my son. I would like to finish planning the funeral, so we can both get this behind us. The sooner my son gets closure, the sooner he can begin to heal.”
Copley and his crew said nothing. Catherine took a seat across from them all in an antique wooden chair. She crossed one leg over the other, clasping her hands around her knee. She’d chosen her clothes with care this morning: a tea-length black skirt with a heather-gray cashmere turtleneck, belted at the waist. Pearl studs in her ears, her wedding band on her finger, her long black hair knotted at her neck. She was every inch the dignified, grieving widow, and she knew it.
If these people were really going to gang up on the dead man’s wife, it would be up to them to start.
“We have some questions about Thursday night,” the ADA said finally, clearing his throat and breaking the silence. “Could you review some things for us one more time?”
She merely regarded them expectantly.
“Uhhhh, all right.” Investigator Casella had his notebook out and was flipping through the pages. Catherine didn’t watch him anymore; she studied the blonde. The DA’s office investigated police shootings, not the BPD, so why was the blonde here?
“In regard to the videotapes from the security system … we seem to be missing the one from the master bedroom.”
“There’s no tape.”
“There’s no tape? It’s our understanding from the security company that a camera is installed in your master bedroom.”
She regarded Investigator Casella evenly. “It wasn’t on.”
“It wasn’t on?”
“Convenient,” the blonde murmured.
Catherine ignored her. “That camera is meant for when we are out. Jimmy had set it up to shut off automatically from midnight to eight a.m.”
“That’s interesting,” Investigator Casella said. “Because according to your earlier testimony, Jimmy came home at ten p.m., so the camera should’ve still been on.”
“True, but it turns out the control panel can’t tell time.”
“Pardon?”
“Check it,” Catherine said. “You’ll see that the control panel is currently running two hours ahead, so what it thinks is midnight is really ten p.m.” She shrugged. “Jimmy’s not very good with electronics. All that ‘spring forward, fall back’; I guess he must have messed up the time.”
“The security company never mentioned this.”
“I don’t think he ever told them.”
The two men and the blonde exchanged glances.
“You said you and your husband had gotten into an argument,” Investigator Casella said finally. “What was it regarding?”
Catherine eyed him coolly. They had covered this before, Friday morning when the blood in her bedroom had still been fresh. She resented the fact that they were making her say it again.
“Jimmy could be jealous, particularly when he’d been drinking. Thursday night, he started in on me about Nathan’s doctor. I wanted to take Nathan in to see Dr. Rocco, as Nathan wasn’t feeling well. Jimmy thought that was just a ruse so I could see my old lover.”
“You were seeing Dr. Tony Rocco?” The ADA again, striving to sound surprised by the news when they all knew he was faking it. The police had their theatrics, she had hers. Which made this whole conversation—what, a Greek tragedy, or a hopeless Shakespearean farce?
She was suddenly more tired than she had ever been in her life. She wanted to see Nathan. She needed to know that her son, at least, was safe.
She answered evenly, “Yes, Tony and I had a relationship. It ended months ago, however, and as I reassured Jimmy, it was solely in the past.”
“And where was the nanny, Prudence Walker, when this discussion was taking place?” Investigator Casella picked up the questioning.
“Thursday night is Prudence’s night off. Thursday nights, Sunday days.”
Casella frowned at her. “But it was pretty late when your husband returned home. You’re sure Prudence still wasn’t back? Maybe upstairs, sleeping in her room?”
“I believe she spent the night with a friend.”
“A boyfriend?” For the first time, the blonde spoke up. She was regarding Catherine sharply. “She often spend Thursday night with him?”
“She’s often out all night,” Catherine conceded.
“Convenient,” the blonde murmured.
Catherine ignored her.
“And your son?” Investigator Doomsday said. “How did he end up being part of the altercation?”
“Nathan had awakened shortly after ten from a nightmare. I had just gone into his room to comfort him, when I heard Jimmy downstairs. I could tell … I could already tell that it wouldn’t be good.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I could tell he’d been drinking. By the way he slammed the door. By the way he started shouting my name. Nathan, of course, immediately became more frightened.”
Not that he said anything. Nathan never said anything. He’d simply stared at her with those too-solemn blue eyes, his thin young body already braced, waiting. Jimmy was home, Jimmy was drunk. Jimmy was bigger than both of them.
She had wanted so much more for her son. That’s what she’d been thinking on Thursday night, when Jimmy slammed the door, when Jimmy started yelling, when Jimmy headed for the stairs. She had looked down into Nathan’s eyes and been terrified by the sight of her own hopeless gaze reflecting back at her.
“When did Jimmy get the gun?” the ADA was asking.
“I don’t know.”
“Where did he get the gun?”
“I don’t know.”
“He came up the stairs with it?”
“Yes.”
“He waved it at you and Nathan?”
“Yes.”
“And what did you do, Mrs. Gagnon?”
“I told him to put the gun away. I told him he was scaring Nathan.”
“And what did he do?”
“He laughed, Mr. Copley. He said he wasn’t the threat to Nathan in this house, that I was.”
“What did he mean by that?”
She shrugged. “Jimmy was drunk. Jimmy didn’t know what he was saying.”
“And what was Nathan doing when all of this was going on?”
“Nathan was …” Her voice snagged, she forced herself to continue. “Nathan was in my lap. He had his head pressed against my shoulder so he wouldn’t have to see his father. He had his hands over his ears. I told Jimmy I was going to put Nathan to bed in our room. I asked him to please calm down, he was frightening our child. Then I walked past him to our room. The minute I got inside, I locked the door and called nine-one-one.”
“Is that when Jimmy fired the gun?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Neighbors reported two shots fired.”
“Did they?”
Copley’s eyebrows rose. “You’re saying you’re not sure if your husband fired the gun?”
“I wasn’t focused on Jimmy at that time. I was focused on Nathan. He was scared out of his mind.”
Mommy, are we going to die? Turn on the lights, Mommy. We need lights.
“Did Jimmy ever hurt you or your son before this?”
“Jimmy threw stuff when he was angry. Sometimes … We had some troubles in our marriage.”
“Troubles in your marriage?” The blonde again, sounding sarcastic. “Uniformed patrols were coming here every other week to respond to complaints. Except things were finally reaching the point of no return, weren’t they, Mrs. Gagnon—Jimmy had filed for divorce.”
Catherine regarded her coolly. “True.”
“He had the m
oney,” the blonde pressed. “He had the power. First the guy had been abusing you, now he was setting things up to screw you royally. Frankly, no one here can blame you for being a little pissed off.”
“We had issues. It didn’t mean we were beyond help.”
“Puuuhhhllleeez. This guy beat you. This guy yelled and threw things at your kid. Why would you even want to work it out?”
“Obviously, you never met Jimmy.”
“Obviously, it didn’t matter once you did, because you were still willing to play hide-the-stethoscope with your son’s doctor.”
Catherine flinched. “That’s crude.”
“You did see Dr. Rocco in the end, didn’t you?”
“Nathan had an attack of acute pancreatitis on Friday. Of course I saw Dr. Rocco.”
“Did the doc miss you? Want you back? Jimmy’s gone now.…”
“I’m insulted by that insinuation. My husband’s body is barely cold—”
“Barely cold? You helped get him killed!”
“How? By being used as target practice?”
The blonde moved to the edge of the sofa. Her questions shot out rapid-fire. “Who started the argument Thursday night? Who first brought up Dr. Rocco?”
“I did. Nathan wasn’t feeling well.”
“So you decided to mention your past lover to your jealous husband?”
“He was Nathan’s doctor!”
“You kept your past lover as Nathan’s doctor when you had a jealous, abusive husband?”
Catherine blinked her eyes, faltered, and tried frantically to regain footing. “Nathan doesn’t like new doctors. New doctors mean new tests. I couldn’t put him through that.”
“Oh, I see. So you kept seeing your old lover as a favor to your son?”
“Dr. Rocco is a good doctor!”
“Is a good doctor?”
“Is a good doctor,” Catherine repeated, feeling bewildered.
“Then you must be disappointed he won’t be your doctor any longer.”
“It wasn’t his fault. James Gagnon wields a lot of power. Tony was just doing what Tony had to do.”
For the first time, the blonde broke off, frowning. “When did you last see Dr. Rocco?” the blonde asked.