by Lisa Gardner
“Would you like to start at the beginning?”
He whirled away from her desk. “Beginning? What beginning? I don’t even know what the hell that is anymore. Was the beginning Thursday night, when I shot Jimmy Gagnon? Or was the beginning nine months ago when I randomly met Jimmy and Catherine at a cocktail party? Maybe it was Tuesday, when Jimmy filed for divorce, or maybe it was twenty-odd years ago when Catherine was abducted by a pedophile. How the hell should I know?”
“Bobby, I would like to help you—”
“But I sound like a fucking psycho?”
“I wouldn’t use those words—”
“Gagnon would. Copley would. Christ, it’s only a matter of time.” He ran his hand through his hair, then looked wildly around her office, like an animal sizing its cage. At the last minute, just when she was beginning to fear the worst, that he would do something rash and hurt himself, or do something dangerous and hurt her, he suddenly took a deep breath and exhaled it long and slow.
Wordlessly, Elizabeth got up and fetched a glass of water. When she returned, he gratefully accepted it and downed it thirstily. She took the empty glass, refilled it, and he drank it again.
“Life has gotten complicated,” he said softly. The edge had gone out of his voice. He sounded almost flat now, monotone.
“Tell me.”
“Jimmy’s father is suing me for murder. But he’ll drop those charges if I lie about what I saw on Thursday night and implicate his daughter-in-law. The ADA doesn’t think he needs me to implicate Catherine—he’s sure she had something to do with the shooting, now he’s just trying to decide if I’m in on it, too. At least I had support from my fellow officers, but I sort of screwed the pooch by seeing Catherine, so now they don’t trust me either. Oh—and I did have a loving girlfriend, but I dumped her tonight. Told myself I was doing what needed to be done. But honest to God, the whole time, I kept thinking of the dead man’s widow.”
“You have a crush on Jimmy Gagnon’s widow?”
“A crush is feeling tender toward someone. I don’t feel tender toward her.”
“How about guilt, then?”
He immediately shook his head. “No. She’s not exactly a woman who’s grieving her dead husband.”
“Lust?” Elizabeth’s voice was quiet.
“Okay.”
“Do you think she needs you, Bobby?”
He took more time to consider this answer. “Maybe. I think she wants me to think that she needs me. But I can’t decide how much of that is an act, and how much is the real thing.”
“Explain.”
“She’s a player. She lies, she manipulates, she cheats. According to her father-in-law, she married Jimmy for his money. According to the ADA, Copley, she’s abusing her kid for attention. According to her, she’s the victim. And according to me … sometimes I think they’re all right. She’s self-centered, dangerous, and unpredictable. But she’s also … she’s also sad.”
“Bobby, do you think it’s smart for you to be in contact with her right now?”
“No.”
“But you’ve seen her. Why?”
“Because she calls.”
Elizabeth gave him a look, and he finally had the grace to flush. He pulled the wingback chair closer to her desk. Then, at long last, he sat down. And without having been aware that she’d been holding it, Elizabeth released one very strained, pent-up breath.
“It’s not what you think,” he said.
“What do I think, Bobby?”
“That this was a run-of-the-mill shooting.” He added dryly, “As if there really is such a thing. Look … I didn’t contact her. I didn’t go looking to her for answers. She came to me. And then …” He scowled. “Something is going on. The doctor that’s been seeing her kid was murdered last night. Tonight, I get called to her house only to find the nanny hanging in the master bedroom. Jimmy wasn’t the end, Doc. Jimmy was just the beginning.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“That makes two of us. Everyone around this woman is dying. And now my life is getting sucked into the void. Catherine Gagnon either has the worst luck in the world, or she needs help more than any woman I know.”
“So you’re helping her? Why, Bobby?”
He frowned, not seeming to understand the question. “Because she needs help. Because it’s what people do.”
“Bobby, every time you have contact with this woman, it jeopardizes your career. And every time you have contact with this woman, you make it more difficult to put distance between yourself and the shooting. In effect, you jeopardize your own mental health.”
“Maybe.”
“But whenever she calls, you come. Why do you answer her calls, Bobby?”
He was still frowning. “I’m a cop.”
“You’re a cop. Which means you know plenty of other people—professionals—you could direct her to, or personally ask to help her. You don’t have to be the one offering assistance. Isn’t that correct?”
He obviously didn’t care for that assessment. “I suppose.”
“Do you truly believe Catherine Gagnon is in trouble, Bobby?”
“Yes.”
“So certain? You said that she was a liar.”
“Look, she needs help, I’m trying to help. I don’t see how that’s so wrong.” He stood up again, leg starting to bounce on the floor.
“When was the last time you slept, Bobby?”
“Last night. Three hours.”
“When was the last time you ate?”
“I had some coffee earlier.”
“Food, Bobby.”
His reply was more sullen. “Breakfast, early this morning.”
“You went for a run, didn’t you?”
He didn’t answer this time.
She forced herself to be quiet, calm.
“Fifteen miles,” he blurted out at last. Then, he started to pace.
“You’re imploding, Bobby. I know you’re imploding, you know you’re imploding. I have to ask again: Do you think it’s such a good idea to be seeing Catherine Gagnon?”
“It’s not her,” he said abruptly.
“It’s not her?”
“No. I think it’s my damn mother.”
“We don’t talk about it,” he said at last. “Every family has its topics that are off-limits, you know. In my family, we don’t talk about her.”
“Who’s we?”
“My father. My older brother, George.” Now Bobby stood in front of one of the framed diplomas on her wall, staring blankly at the glass. “My father used to drink.”
“You mentioned that.”
“He was a violent drunk.”
“He beat your mom and you and your brother?”
“Pretty much.”
“Did anyone in your family try to seek help?”
“Not that I know of.”
“So your father was an abusive drunk. And your mother left him.”
“I didn’t see it,” he said quietly. “I just heard my brother George yell at my father one night. But I guess … My father had gotten really loaded. Then he’d gotten really mad. And he’d grabbed a leather belt and he’d just whaled on my mother. Just … whipped her like a dog. I guess George tried to interfere, and my father went after him, too. Knocked him cold. When he came to, my father had finally passed out and my mother was packing a bag.
“She told George she couldn’t do it anymore. She said maybe if she left, Pop wouldn’t get so mad. She had family in Florida. Together, they picked my father’s pockets, then she was gone.
“Later, I heard my father and George arguing about it. My father got so mad, he threw George against the wall. George crawled to his feet and he stood in front of my father and he said, ‘What the fuck are you gonna do now, Dad?’ He said, ‘I’ve already lost my mother.’ He said …” Bobby’s voice grew quieter. “He said, ‘What’s left?’ ”
“What did your father do, Bobby?”
“He went after my brother with a knife. He
stabbed George in the ribs.”
“And you saw this, didn’t you, Bobby?”
“I was in the doorway.”
“And what did you do?”
He said, “I did nothing.”
Elizabeth nodded. Bobby had been six or seven years old. Of course he’d done nothing.
“George went to the hospital,” Bobby said. “My father swore that if George would lie, say he was mugged, then he swore he would never drink again. So George lied, my father went to rehab, and none of us ever mentioned my mother again.”
“Did that work?”
“Eventually. There were some relapses, some hard times. But my father, he really worked to make it work. I don’t know. Maybe my mother’s leaving scared him. Or maybe attacking George scared him. But he started to get his act together. He did his best.”
“Have you ever heard from your mother, Bobby?”
“No.”
“Are you angry at her?”
“Yeah.”
“Your father was the one who beat you.”
Bobby finally turned, looked her in the eye. “We were just kids. And he was a violent drunk who thought nothing of using belts and knives. How could she have just left us with him? What the hell kind of mom leaves her kids alone with a man like that?”
“Bobby, can you tell me now why you keep seeing Catherine Gagnon?”
He closed his eyes. She saw the shudder that racked his frame. “Because she was holding her son. Because even when Jimmy pointed a gun at her, she didn’t give up Nathan.”
Elizabeth nodded. She had read his statement from Thursday night. She saw now what he had seen then, and she reached the next logical conclusion, the one he wasn’t yet ready to face.
“Oh, Bobby,” she said softly. “You are in such a world of hurt.”
Chapter
29
The police were winding down their work in Catherine’s house. The female detective had left. Bobby, too. Now she saw only a random uniformed officer here and there, doing God knows what.
The space was emptying out, trying to become her home again. She thought she’d feel grateful. Instead, as she watched each crime-scene tech disappear out the door, she felt increasingly anxious, vulnerable. Her home wasn’t her home anymore. It had been penetrated, violated in a horrible manner. She wanted to run away. Instead, she stood a lonely watch in the front parlor, desperately trying to earn Nathan a few hours at least of slumber.
He thrashed in the pillows now, his lips mumbling words from an unhappy dream. An outsider may have thought the front parlor was too bright, but she knew the truth. The two burning lamps didn’t offer enough radiance for her and her light-obsessed son. At the rate things were going, soon there would not be enough bulbs in the world to grant either of them a respite from the shadows.
She didn’t know what to do.
So of course, her father-in-law arrived.
James Gagnon strode into the foyer with his thousand-dollar cashmere coat and impeccably polished shoes. Three in the morning, for God’s sake, and he looked like he’d just stepped out of his courtroom.
The young uniformed officer standing in the foyer took one look at him and snapped to attention.
Stand strong, Catherine told herself. Oh God, she was tired.
“Catherine,” her father-in-law boomed. “I came the moment I heard.”
Catherine moved into the foyer, purposely putting distance between him and Nathan. James rested his hands on her shoulders, the picture of fatherly concern. He kissed both of her cheeks, his gaze already moving hungrily past her, searching for his grandson.
“Of course you and Nathan must come with me immediately. Maryanne and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“We’re fine, thank you.”
“Nonsense! Surely you can’t want to spend another night at the scene of a hanging.”
Catherine was very aware of the uniformed officer standing fifteen feet away and listening openly. “Funny, I don’t remember calling you with the news.”
“No need. One of my colleagues let me know. Dreadful business, of course. I’ve always said I didn’t think it was a good idea to go with foreign nannies. Poor girls. They simply can’t handle the pressure. Nathan must be horribly distraught. Let me talk to him—”
He made a move to step forward; she blocked his advance. “Nathan’s sleeping.”
“Amid all this chaos?”
“He’s very tired.”
“All the better reason to let him come with me. We have a positively gargantuan suite at the LeRoux. Nathan can have his own bed; he’ll get plenty of rest. Maryanne will be delighted.”
“I appreciate the offer. However, given that Nathan’s already asleep, I think it would be a shame to disturb him.”
“Catherine …” James’s voice remained kind, patient. He said, as if speaking to a very small child, “Surely you’re not considering letting your son spend the night at a homicide scene.”
“No. I’m considering letting my son spend the night in the comfort of his own room.”
“For heaven’s sake, there is fingerprint powder everywhere. How are you going to explain that to a four-year-old boy? Let alone the smell!”
“I know what’s right for my son.”
“Really?” James gave her a smile. “Just as you knew what was right for Prudence?”
Catherine thinned her lips.
There was nothing she could say to that, and they both knew it.
“I hate to state the obvious,” James said now, “but perhaps you don’t know what’s going on in your own household as well as you think. Prudence was obviously deeply upset about what happened to Jimmy. God only knows how Nathan is feeling.”
“Get out.”
“Now, Catherine—”
“Get out!”
James still wore that horribly paternal smile upon his face. He tried to clasp her shoulder; she whirled on the policeman still in attendance.
“I want this man gone.”
“Catherine—”
“You heard me.” She pointed a finger at the officer, who was blinking his eyes in shock at being dragged into the middle of this scene. “This man is not welcome in my home. Escort him out.”
James was still trying. “Catherine, you’re upset, you’re not thinking clearly—”
“Officer, do I need to call your superior? Escort this man from my home!”
The young man pushed away from the wall, belatedly springing into action. As he stepped forward, James’s voice dropped to a low octave, heard only by her ears.
“I’m running out of patience, Catherine.”
“Out!”
“Mark my words, things for you are only going to get much, much worse. I have so much power, Catherine. You have no idea …”
“I said get out!” She was screaming. The noise woke Nathan. He started to cry.
The officer finally crossed the room. He put his hand on James’s elbow, and the judge had no choice but to comply.
He said out loud, for the officer to hear, “I’m dreadfully sorry to have upset you, my dear. Of course, Maryanne and I only want what is best for our grandson. Perhaps in the morning, when you’re thinking more clearly …”
Catherine pointed stiffly toward the open door. James tilted his head forward in chilly acknowledgment. A moment later, she stood alone, listening to the sobbing hiccups of her hysterical son.
One battle at a time, one battle at a time …
She entered the parlor and picked Nathan up from the pile of pillows. He flung his thin arms around her neck, gripping hard.
“Light, light, light,” he sobbed. “Light, light, light!”
“Shhh … shhh …”
The foyer wasn’t going to work anymore. Too dark, too strange. Her son needed deep, undisturbed sleep in an overly bright room where all the lamps could chase the demons away. Where he could finally relax. Maybe she could, too.
The police officer had already returned. No doubt James had told the m
an there was no need to walk him out. He’d go, not make any trouble. He was merely trying to help his family. His daughter-in-law was not quite stable, you know.…
Catherine took a deep breath. With her arms wrapped tight around Nathan, she looked the officer in the eye and announced, “I’m taking him to his room. I’m closing the door. He’s going to sleep. I’m going to sleep. Whatever else you people need, it can wait until morning.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the officer said, sounding only slightly sarcastic.
Catherine turned away from him and, before she could lose her courage, mounted the stairs.
The smell was dissipating now, probably carted off with Prudence’s body; she had seen the girl’s corpse roll out the door on a metal gurney. Her mind hadn’t come to terms with it yet, hadn’t reconciled the image of Prudence sitting on the floor reading to Nathan with Prudence zipped up in a black body bag. The concept of Prudence dead remained abstract to her. It seemed more like the girl had gone out on her day off and had simply chosen not to return.
It was easier for Catherine this way. Not so much because she was attached to the girl—in all honesty, she’d cared for Prudence no more and no less than the others. But the nature of the killing—neck snapped, body hanged from the rafters of Catherine’s bedroom—led to horror beyond imagining. It implied an intruder in Catherine’s home. It implied a man targeting her and the people around her. It implied that if she didn’t surrender Nathan as her father-in-law demanded, she would be next.
She thought of James’s soft-spoken threat. That he would make life miserable for her. That he had all the power. That she was nothing.
She thought, almost bitterly, he should tell her something she didn’t know.
Right before she’d met Jimmy, she’d sunk so, so low. Her mother was dead, her life empty. Day after day she spent standing in a department store, spritzing perfume and trying not to flinch as man after man hit on her. She would study all the male faces, wondering which ones touched their children inappropriately and which ones beat their wives. Then she’d go home to her cockroach-infested apartment and dream of a darkness without end.