by Lisa Gardner
So she’d gotten a husband, she’d had a child.
And now here she was, thirty-six years old and still terrified of the dark.
Catherine pulled out her cell phone. She dialed a number. It rang for the longest time, then a male voice came on the line.
“Please,” she whispered. “We have no place else to go.”
“Do you think Catherine Gagnon was abused by her husband?” Elizabeth asked.
“Yeah.”
“Do you think she deserved it?”
“What the hell do I know?”
“Come on, Bobby. You have anger toward your mother, you have anger toward Catherine. Part of that anger is the belief these two women could’ve done something differently. That they should’ve kept themselves from being victimized.”
“I watched her,” he said abruptly. “Some nights, my father would walk through the door, obviously already liquored up, and I’d watch her start in on him. Been drinking again? Jesus, just one night couldn’t you be a decent man and think about your family.… Come on, we all knew what was going to happen next.”
“He’d hit her?”
“Yeah.”
“Did she fight back?”
“Not physically.”
“But he’d hit her. And then?”
Bobby shrugged. “I don’t know. He’d get mad, then eventually he’d pass out.”
“So if he started out by getting mad at your mother as you say, he’d take his aggression out on her, then pass out.”
“I guess.”
“So he wouldn’t hit you or your brother?”
“Not if we stayed out of the way.”
“Do you think your mother knew this?”
He paused, appeared troubled. “I don’t know.”
“A woman’s love for her husband is a very complicated thing, Bobby. So is her love for her children.”
“Yeah, she loves us so goddamn much she just can’t wait to call.”
“I can’t comment on that, Bobby; I’ve never met your mother. For some women, however … some women might feel too ashamed.”
“I thought we were talking about Catherine,” Bobby said.
“All right. Do you think Catherine provoked her husband?”
“She’s capable of it.”
“And Thursday night?”
He resumed pacing again. “Maybe. It doesn’t make sense. But then again …” He looked at Elizabeth. “It’s the fact that we had met before, that we had spoken, that bothers me. Sure, I didn’t remember her, I’m confident of that. But she asked me questions about the job, questions about how and when a tactical team would be deployed. Why those questions? What was she thinking?”
“You said she’s manipulative.”
“Exactly. But at the same time … could she have pulled it off ? I sure as hell wouldn’t have gone anywhere near the trigger if Jimmy hadn’t been holding a gun. So she’d have to engineer a scenario that would make him get a pistol, and then she’d have to risk herself and her son in a standoff with an armed drunk.”
“Dangerous,” Elizabeth observed.
“Ballsy.” Bobby shook his head. “If it was just her in that room, I could see it. But I don’t think she’d risk her son.”
“You don’t believe Catherine is abusing Nathan?”
“No.”
Elizabeth arched a brow. “You sound very certain of that.”
“I am.”
“Would it bother you to know that I’m not as certain? In fact, the more I learn about Catherine Gagnon, the more I’m deeply concerned about the relationship between her and her son.”
“You and everyone else.”
“She’s self-centered, you’ve said that yourself. And she’s a victim of abuse, and we know these things tend to have patterns.”
“I’m a victim of abuse, too,” Bobby said stiffly. He added almost defiantly, “And we just established that I like to lie, too.”
“Bobby, look me in the eye. If Catherine Gagnon felt herself at risk, if Catherine Gagnon felt herself or her lifestyle seriously in jeopardy, do you honestly believe there’s a line she wouldn’t cross? A person she wouldn’t sacrifice to save herself ?”
He stared at her mutinously.
But Elizabeth wouldn’t drop it. For his sake, she couldn’t drop it. “You don’t believe it, Bobby. That’s another reason you can’t let Thursday night go. Because, deep in your heart, you believe Catherine is capable of engineering the shooting of her husband. You’re just not sure how she did it.”
“He was an abusive asshole!”
“How do you know?”
“She said—”
“She lies.”
“Dr. Rocco saw the bruises!”
“Who is Dr. Rocco?”
He flushed, chagrined. “Her ex-lover.”
Elizabeth let that sink in. Then, abruptly, she switched gears. “Why did you see Susan tonight?”
Bobby was clearly startled. “Because I felt like I owed it to her. After two years together … I should at least say goodbye in person.”
“What did she say?”
He shrugged. “Not much. I mean, we’d already broken up. What was left to say?”
“Did that disappoint you?”
“I don’t understand.”
“When you went to meet her tonight, did you really want to finalize the end of the relationship, Bobby? Or did you secretly wish for something else? Did you wish that she would fight for you? Did you wish that she would beg you to stay? Did you wish, deep down inside, that she would love you so much she would not let you go?”
“I would never …” But he couldn’t continue the protest. Caught off guard, stripped of his own defenses, he finally couldn’t tell a lie. He whispered, “How did you know?”
“Someone you loved once left you and never looked back. Now, all these years later, you’re still waiting for people to leave, Bobby. In fact, the longer a woman stays, the more anxious it makes you. So you engineer little scenarios, little tests. The woman will either fight for you or she’ll leave you. Either one eases your anxiety. At least temporarily.”
“Jesus,” he said quietly.
“When Catherine calls, you tell her to leave you alone, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“But she doesn’t go away. She fights to see you. She tells you she needs you. She reminds you of her poor, sick son, and when you do show up, she makes sure you see her and Nathan together. For some men, I imagine she plays the sex card. But your female fantasy isn’t a woman in black lace. Your fantasy is a woman who would never—ever—abandon her child.”
Bobby closed his eyes. She could see the dawning realization in his face, because slowly, but surely, he appeared horrified.
Elizabeth leaned forward. “One more time, Bobby: Do you think Catherine Gagnon may have caused her husband’s death?”
He murmured, “Yes.”
Elizabeth nodded slowly. “Then you have to let her go, Bobby. You have to stop seeing her. Because if Catherine Gagnon is a predator, then surely you realize now that you make the perfect prey.”
It was three a.m. when Bobby finally made it home. No lights were on in his unit. Just his answering machine blinked a frantic red dot in the night.
He slumped into one of the hard wooden chairs in his kitchen. He felt wrung out, drained, not an ounce of emotion or intelligence left. For the longest time, he simply sat there and watched the message light blink.
Slowly, he reached out and hit Play.
His lieutenant. A guy from the EAU. A hang-up. His father. Two more hang-ups. Silence.
Bobby leaned forward onto the kitchen table and used his hands to pillow his head.
Three hang-ups on the message tape. Catherine, he thought.
He squeezed his temples. Get her out of his head, get her out of his head. Don’t let her mess with him like this. Sitting in Dr. Lane’s office, it had all made perfect sense. Yet here he was, an hour later, alone in the dark, and already thinking of Catherine.
Was she all right? How was Nathan holding up, and where would they go? Not to her in-laws, that much was clear.
Maybe she had another lover. Why not? She’d certainly wasted no time coming on to him. Woman like that, not the type to go at it alone. Probably had a sugar daddy in every port. Maybe she was already lining up another doctor. Or, more likely, a lawyer. Yeah, she needed a big gun to take on Judge Gagnon.
He bet she could find someone pretty quick. Right clothes, right time, right twitch of the hip.
He wished he could hate her. But he didn’t. Catherine was doing what she needed to do to survive. And he understood that too well.
If someone else had taken the call on Thursday night, a sniper whose father had never smacked his mother, a sniper who’d never grown up watching that look of hopelessness bloom on another person’s face, would Jimmy Gagnon still be alive?
Would Catherine Gagnon now be dead?
None of them would ever know.
Bobby buried his head deeper into his arms. His breath exhaled as a broken, exhausted sigh.
He did his best not to dream.
Chapter
31
Mr. Bosu was trying hard to be a better employee.
Currently, he was watching the faintly lit home of a fifty-thousand-dollar man. No doubt about it, this job was going to be tricky.
For starters, the house sat in the middle of a densely populated neighborhood. Secondly, a sticker on the front window advertised the ADT security system. Third, a light was on in the house, which surprised Mr. Bosu. Given the late hour, he’d assumed the occupant to be asleep.
No way around it, for this job, Mr. Bosu was going to need some help.
He eyed Trickster, who was curled up fast asleep in the front seat of the stolen car. As if sensing his look, the puppy opened one eye and yawned mightily.
“I need an accomplice,” Mr. Bosu said.
Another puppy yawn.
“Do you think you could play dead? Just hang around looking half asleep. Yeah, like that.”
Trickster had already dropped his head back into his paws and had closed his eyes. Mr. Bosu stroked the puppy’s ears meditatively, his sausage fingers delicate on the puppy’s small head.
Briefly, the thought came to him: Faking wasn’t foolproof. If he really was striving to be a dedicated employee, he shouldn’t take unnecessary chances. One small twist and he could snap Trickster’s neck. It would be swift, painless, the dog would never feel a thing. And with fifty thousand dollars, he could get a lot of new puppies.
His hand stilled on the back of Trickster’s head. He felt his fingers dig into the scruff of the dog’s fur. Soft. Silky. Fragile. Everyone had to die sometime.
He pulled his hand away. He slid the knife from the strap at his ankle. He looked at Trickster one last time, then shoved up his linen shirtsleeve above his elbow and slit his forearm.
Blood gushed forth, a dark, red welt. Mr. Bosu wiped the blood onto his fingers, then smeared it onto Trickster’s white haunch.
“It’s okay,” Mr. Bosu told him. “I’ll give you a bath as soon as we get home. Now hang on. Things are about to get interesting.”
He put the car into reverse. He eased down the block, lights off. Then his hand returned to Trickster’s head, steadying the dog, steadying himself.
“One, two, three!” Mr. Bosu flipped on the car’s headlights. His foot slammed down on the accelerator and the car shot up onto the curb in front of the target home. Mr. Bosu drove straight onto the lawn, screeched the brakes, and let out a giant “Holy crap!” just for good measure.
He grabbed Trickster and bolted out of the car, leaving it parked in the middle of the yard, its headlights pointing into thin air.
“Oh no,” he groaned loudly. “Oh no, oh no, oh no.”
Mr. Bosu scrambled across the lawn and knocked furiously on the fifty-thousand-dollar man’s front door. Mr. Bosu was breathing hard, sweat rising on his brow. He’d pulled his sleeve back down, but drops of blood were leaking through the fine linen fabric. Excellent.
He banged again, hard, insistent, and the porch light abruptly snapped on.
“Help, help, help,” Mr. Bosu said. He glanced down at Trickster, pleased with the matted, bloody look of the dog’s white fur.
The door finally cracked open, stopped by a metal chain. The guy was careful, Mr. Bosu would give him that.
“Sir, sir, so sorry to disturb you,” Mr. Bosu exclaimed in a rush. “I was just driving by when a dog darted in front of my path. I tried to avoid him, I swear I did, but I nailed him pretty good. Please, I think he’s hurt.”
Mr. Bosu held up the bloody bundle.
The fifty-thousand-dollar man’s reaction was instantaneous and admirable. It would also be his downfall.
“Quick!” the man said. “Bring him in.”
The chain was dropped, the front door opened. The man wasn’t wearing a robe as Mr. Bosu would’ve expected, but apparently was dressed for work.
“I thought I heard a commotion,” the man said, already leading the way into the house.
With a slight kick of his foot, Mr. Bosu had the door shut securely behind him.
“Are you a vet, do you know a vet?” Mr. Bosu babbled. His eyes swept the home, getting the lay of the land. He followed the man to the back of the house, where a light blazed. They entered a narrow kitchen, circa 1950s. It boasted a small breakfast nook where an old table was totally covered in stack after stack of paper.
“I was up late working,” the man commented absently. “Must’ve dozed off.”
“What do you do?”
“ADA. Here, let me look at the dog, see how bad it is.”
Mr. Bosu finally relinquished his hold on Trickster. It made it easier for him to reach down and grab his knife. When he straightened, the man had Trickster propped up on the counter and was inspecting him thoroughly for damage.
“I see blood,” Rick Copley reported. “Funny thing is, I can’t find a source.”
“Really? Maybe I can help with that.”
Mr. Bosu was big, Mr. Bosu was heavily armed. Copley was fast, however, and seemed to know plenty of fancy footwork.
First time Mr. Bosu lunged forward, Copley dodged left. The ADA let go of Trickster. The puppy bounded onto the floor, scampering across the linoleum and disappearing into the family room.
Neither man paid any attention to him. Copley was already up on the balls of his feet, not wasting any time with denial. Mr. Bosu was pleased. After the day he’d had, he was in the mood for a really good fight.
The ADA was a thinking man. A thinking man would want a phone, so he could notify his colleagues of his distress. Sure enough, Copley dove for the cordless receiver on the edge of the table. Mr. Bosu flashed forward and had the satisfaction of drawing first blood.
Copley danced back, now holding his sliced forearm. The ADA was starting to sweat.
“What do you want?” he demanded.
“Peace on earth.”
“You need money? I have three hundred dollars in my wallet.”
“Please, you’re worth a hundred times that dead.”
“What?” The ADA was taken aback by the news. He lost focus. Mr. Bosu lunged again. Copley whirled at the last minute, but was a hair too late; Mr. Bosu nicked his ribs.
The ADA ran for the family room. And Mr. Bosu gave chase.
It was a small house. Not many places to run, not many places to hide. Copley found a lamp, a bookend, a sofa cushion. He danced, he whirled, he dodged.
Mr. Bosu had fifty pounds on him and a much longer reach. For him, the end was never in doubt. Copley hit and tossed and ran. And Mr. Bosu kept coming, herding the man away from the front door, forcing him deeper into his own home, where he slowly but surely became trapped by the very walls that were supposed to protect him. A man’s home was his castle. For Rick Copley, it became his execution chamber.
Mr. Bosu finally got the smaller man cornered in his own bathroom, trapped against the tub. After tha
t, it went quick.
In the aftermath, when the bloodlust finally stopped thundering in Mr. Bosu’s head, when his breathing eased, when his heart decelerated, he finally became aware of many things at once: His shin hurt. His shoulder where he nailed a doorjamb, the side of his head where Copley finally got lucky with a lamp.
His left forearm also throbbed. Pain from his own self-inflicted wound. It occurred to him now that the cut was still bleeding, possibly leaving splatters on the floor as he’d moved. He tried to look for telltale spots, but given the mess …
The house was destroyed. Books and paper and gutted pillows and, well, blood, lots and lots of blood, just plain everywhere. If he had bled onto the floor, it was now so mixed up with other fluids maybe the lab guys would never be able to sort it out. Honestly, he didn’t know. Forensics wasn’t his strong suit. He only knew what he’d seen on TV.
He retreated to the kitchen, carefully washing his hands and arms. His five-hundred-dollar leather dress shoes were now slick with blood. He took them off, made an attempt at rinsing them, then grimaced at the results. Note for the future: blood ruins dress shoes.
He went in search of the laundry room.
On top of the washer, he found a bottle of bleach. He carried it back into the kitchen, where he poured half the bottle down the sink. He’d seen an episode once where blood had gotten trapped in the drainpipes, then been traced by the savvy crime tech.
Mr. Bosu was a registered sex offender. That meant his prints, his blood, and his DNA were all on file.
He applied the rest of the bleach to a dish towel, then went to work on the blood trail winding through the house. He couldn’t get all the blood up, so he worked on smearing it instead, obliterating tread patterns and, in some cases, paw prints. In hindsight, he should’ve grabbed more surgical scrubs from the hospital. Those had been handy.
Mr. Bosu finished up in the bathroom. Helluva mess there. He threw the towel in the bathtub, on top of Copley’s body.
Four-thirty in the morning. Mr. Bosu was officially tired. And, come to think of it, hungry.
He went in search of Trickster, finding the puppy huddled beneath the bed.
“It’s okay,” he told the quaking dog. “All done now. All done.”