Alone

by Lisa Gardner

  He rounded a left-hand corner sharply and gained a better view of his tail when the man belatedly tacked out wide. Long trench coat, beige, nicely tailored. Black dress pants, perfect cuff. Lawyer, Bobby thought. Then suddenly . . .

  He drew up short, ramming his back against a storefront and catching his follower off guard. The man, older, heavy-set, with a scrap of neatly combed silver-brown hair brushing the top of his ears, promptly stopped, threw up his hands, and offered a beaming smile.

  “Ah, you caught me.”

  “And now's the part when I throw you back.” Bobby took a menacing step forward, but the man merely smiled again.

  “What are you gonna do, Officer Dodge? Assault me in the middle of a street filled with people? We both know you're not the type to go head-to-head. Now, give you a rifle, fifty yards' distance, and a darkened room, on the other hand . . .”

  Bobby grabbed the lapels of the man's coat. Three pedestrians noticed the byplay; they promptly scattered. “Try me,” Bobby said.

  “Now, Bobby—”

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “A friend.”

  “Well, friend, start talking, or in thirty seconds, I'm going to rip off your nuts.”

  The man laughed nervously. He'd tried calling Bobby's bluff once. He didn't look so certain about trying it a second time. “Just want to talk,” the man said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I know things you should hear.”

  “Lawyer?”

  “Investigator.”

  “For whom?”

  “Come on, Bobby, you know for whom.”

  Bobby thought about it, and then he did. “James Gagnon.”

  “Technically, Maryanne Gagnon; the lawsuit's in her name. I'm Harris, by the way.” The man tried offering his hand. Bobby ignored it. “Harris Reed, with Reed and Wagner Investigations. Perhaps you've heard of us?”

  “Not a word.”

  “Touché. Would you mind letting go of my coat for a moment? Perhaps we could take a short walk. You look like a man who appreciates exercise. Then again, I imagine your meeting with Catherine Gagnon has already left you short of breath.”

  Bobby slowly released the man's collar. “You've been following me.”

  “More like taking an intense interest in your activities. Shall we?”

  Harris gestured down the sidewalk. Bobby thinned his lips, but after a moment, grudgingly resumed walking. He was curious and they both knew it.

  “She's beautiful, isn't she?” the investigator observed.

  Bobby didn't reply.

  “Would it be easier if she were ugly?” Harris asked. “I imagine it has to be disconcerting to meet the wife of the man you killed and already be fantasizing about fucking her.”

  “Get to the point.”

  “You've been asking questions, Officer Dodge. As long as you're asking questions, I thought you should hear all of the answers. May I?”

  Bobby didn't protest; the investigator launched into his spiel.

  “She was working at the perfume counter in Filene's,” Harris began. “Did she tell you that? Yes, the fine, beautiful Mrs. Gagnon was a perfume spritzer for a living. She'd not only flunked out of college, but she had no marketable skills to her name. She peddled perfumes and lived in a rat-infested apartment in East Boston, wearing the same dress every other day. Until she met Jimmy, of course.”

  “Was Jimmy eighteen?”

  “Actually, he was twenty-seven at the time.”

  “Then he was a big boy. He knew what he was doing.”

  “You would think so,” Harris agreed mildly. “But with a woman like Catherine, looks can be deceiving.”

  “She's the devil in angel's clothing, yada, yada, yada. Get on with it.”

  “Jimmy Gagnon was a bit of a playboy. I'm sure you've heard stories. He was a good-looking man, fun-loving, free-spirited, and of course, extremely generous. Lots of women had come and gone in Jimmy's life. His parents, I confess, were actually starting to worry a little, wonder if he'd ever settle down. Then he met Catherine. He grinned, she spritzed, and the rest, as they say, was history.

  “My employers, James and Maryanne, were delighted at first. Catherine seemed lovely, quiet, perhaps even a little shy. Then, of course, Jimmy told them all about her tragic life.”

  “Some sadness,” Bobby muttered.

  “Pardon?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You should look up Catherine's name sometime. See 1980, any listings under Thanksgiving Miracle. That's what they called Catherine back then. After she'd been kidnapped by a pedophile and held as his personal sex slave for twenty-eight days in some pit he'd dug in the ground. Hunters found her by accident. Otherwise, God knows what would've happened to her.

  “Jimmy found this story riveting. You had to see Catherine six years ago, when they first met. A little too thin, hollow-eyed, in a threadbare dress. She was not only beautiful, she was tragic, a regular damsel in distress. She told Jimmy he was the only chance at happiness she'd ever had, and Jimmy ate it up, hook, line and sinker. In a matter of months they were engaged, then married. Catherine Gagnon came, she saw, and she conquered.”

  They'd already covered one city block and were rapidly eating up the second.

  “So Jimmy gained a beautiful wife and Catherine gained a bank account.” Bobby shrugged. “Sounds like half the marriages of the rich and famous. What's the problem?”

  “Their son. Catherine and Jimmy had Nathan just a year later, and Catherine literally had a nervous breakdown. Frankly, she just couldn't cut it as a mother. And for the first time, James and Maryanne grew afraid. Not just of what Catherine was doing to Jimmy, but of what she might do to Nathan.”

  Harris abruptly switched gears. “Catherine was only twelve years old when Richard Umbrio snatched her off the street. I used to be a cop, you know, worked homicide in Baltimore. No matter how many cases you've seen, child kidnappings are the worst. Here's this poor girl, just walking home from school. Next thing she knows, she's being yanked into a car, probably screaming at the top of her lungs, but nobody hearing a thing. And Richard wasn't a small guy, not one of those sissy-looking child molesters you often see, the type who have to victimize children because they obviously couldn't handle anyone their own size. No—at the tender age of twenty, Richard Umbrio was six foot four, weighed two hundred twenty pounds. His neighbors were already in the habit of crossing to the other side of the street just so they didn't have to make eye contact with him. Catherine, on the other hand, probably weighed eighty pounds. What was a little girl like her gonna do against a guy like him? Let me be the first to say, there isn't a hell big enough for some of the assholes we have walking here on earth.

  “Richard took her out to the woods not far from his house. Set her up underground, where he could visit her as much as he liked and no one would hear a thing. She got a coffee can to use as a toilet, a jug of water, and a loaf of bread. That was it. No flashlight, no cot, no blanket to keep her warm. He kept her down there like an animal. And then for nearly a month, he did to her whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

  “You have to wonder what that level of systematic abuse does to a child. You have to wonder how she must have felt. Left alone in the dark for long periods of time, then to finally have companionship in the form of a serial rapist. Makes you mad just to think about it, doesn't it?”

  Bobby still didn't reply, but his jaw had gone tight and his hands were fisted at his sides. He had a feeling Harris hadn't gotten to the bad part yet. This was merely foreplay; Harris was still warming up.

  “Maybe Catherine got lucky when she was found,” the investigator said now. “Or maybe not. How does a person really recover from something like that? Is it ever possible for a girl to put all that behind her, to return to normal?”

  Harris waited a heartbeat. Then he announced, “Catherine stopped sleeping the minute Nathan was born. Jimmy would find her pacing the house, frantically turning on lights. He'd bring her to bed, she'd
spring out the other side. He'd turn off lights, she'd hunt them down again, including the one in the oven. And it wasn't just her strange compulsions. When she went to pick Nathan up, she'd hold him stiffly, away from her body. The more the baby screamed, the more she carried him around like a soup can she didn't know where to set down. The third day, Jimmy found her standing over the crib, holding a pillow. When Jimmy asked her what she was doing, she said Nathan had told her he was tired and needed to sleep. Jimmy called his parents, panicked. The Gagnons agreed he shouldn't leave Nathan alone with Catherine anymore, and they went to work finding a nanny.

  “Now, granted, things calmed down a little once the nanny was hired. Mostly because Catherine handed over her son and never looked back. Literally. The nanny took the baby and Catherine headed for the local spa. Jimmy got a little frustrated, as you can imagine. He'd thought he'd married this lovely young lady, rescued her even, and this is how she repaid him, abandoning their child, jetting around Europe and consorting with a bunch of guys she liked to call her ‘fellows.' For the sake of honesty, maybe Jimmy wasn't the most faithful of husbands, but this sure as hell isn't what anyone would call a happy marriage.”

  “So why didn't Jimmy just leave her?” Bobby asked. “Or was beating her much more fun?”

  “Ahh, the infamous beatings. So you've already heard. Well, let's just say rumors of spousal abuse can be greatly exaggerated. Find me a police report. Find me a safe-deposit box filled with photos, or at least one corroborating witness. Stories are easy to tell; let's stick to the facts.”

  “Fact one.” Bobby ticked off a finger. “If Jimmy was so unhappy in his marriage, why didn't he get out?”

  “He did. That's the first time Nathan became ‘sick.'”

  “What?”

  “You got it. Jimmy tried to leave Catherine, and Nathan became magically ill. Nathan was very sick, Catherine claimed. He needed special tests, he needed medical attention. She lined up the best experts money could buy, and Jimmy immediately returned home. His son was deathly ill, for crying out loud. He couldn't leave his wife at a time like that.

  “And that was the pattern. Catherine would get caught sleeping with Jimmy's tailor, he'd get mad and Nathan would wind up back in the hospital. Sick, definitely—vomiting, feverish, malnourished—until the minute Jimmy toed the line. Then, Nathan would make a miraculous recovery. As you can imagine, James and Maryanne grew very concerned. Not only was Jimmy becoming a nervous wreck, but they couldn't bear to think what was going on with their grandson.”

  “And they started alleging child abuse,” Bobby filled in. He stopped walking, looking Harris in the eye. “Got any facts to back up that story, Harris? Because Nathan's own doctor insists there's a medical basis for what's going on.”

  “Dr. Lancelot?” Harris snorted, also coming to a halt. “Ask him to say hello to his wife and kids. Catherine's got that poor sap so wrapped around her finger, he'd say the moon was made out of blue cheese if he thought it would make her happy. Six months ago, Jimmy found out she'd been sleeping with the fine doctor. And that's when I entered the picture. To start keeping tabs on Catherine. To try to figure out what was really going on with Nathan, and better yet to protect Nathan Gagnon, if it came to that. Because Jimmy had had enough. Six months ago, he started making plans for divorce.”

  They were at a street corner. Traffic picked up, the noise becoming loud. But all of a sudden, it didn't matter. All of a sudden, Bobby knew exactly what Harris was going to say next.

  “James and Maryanne were right to be suspicious,” Harris told him quietly. “Unfortunately, they underestimated how clever Catherine can be. They focused their attention on Nathan, never worrying about poor Jimmy.

  “Tuesday morning, Jimmy Gagnon formally filed for divorce from Catherine Gagnon. And just, what, sixty hours later, he was dead. You tell me, Officer, is that too much for coincidence?”

  “Come on, Harris. It was a domestic disturbance call. She had no way of knowing what would happen next.”

  “Did you watch TV Thursday night, Officer Dodge? Hear the reports of how the Boston PD were already called out on a job, the same Boston PD officers who knew Jimmy and Catherine and might have shown a little more finesse in handling the situation? It makes me wonder if Catherine watched TV that night, too.”

  “She still couldn't have known that Jimmy would come home drunk, that Jimmy would get mad, that Jimmy would grab a gun—”

  “Really? Because I know a lot of wives who know exactly how to push their husbands' buttons, the best way to pick a fight, the fastest way to burn his balls. Surely you've seen it before, Officer Dodge. There isn't a wife out there who can't make her husband fit to kill.”

  Harris gave him a meaningful look. This time, Bobby wasn't so quick to reply.

  “She's going to call you again,” Harris stated. “She's going to tell you her son is desperately ill. She's going to tell you that you're the only hope she has left. She's going to beg you to help her. It's what she does, Officer Dodge; she destroys men's lives.”

  “You honestly think she'd kill her own child just to get back at her husband?”

  Harris merely shrugged. “Men may be violent, Officer Dodge, but let's face it—women are cruel.”

  T HE MAN SAT at a table outside a coffee bar at Faneuil Hall, frowning first at his double mocha latte, then at the scenery around him. What the hell had happened to this place? The Faneuil Hall of his memory had cutsey little boutiques, old Irish pubs, and lots of cheesy souvenirs. Now he was staring at The Disney Store, Gap, and Ann Taylor. The historic market had become a fucking suburban mall. There was progress for you.

  The man grunted, sipped his double mocha latte, and promptly grimaced. For the record, he'd been waiting a decade to try this drink—watching TV characters, rock stars, and movie actresses sip double-soy this or tall nonfat mocha that while hanging out in chic little coffee shops. You wore tight clothes, sipped your super-caffeinated beverage, then drove off in your Eddie Bauer SUV, Jennifer Aniston–looking wife sitting next to you, golden retriever panting in the back. Welcome to the American Dream.

  Well, all these years of wondering later, the man had his answer—double mocha lattes tasted one step above cat piss. He was not picturing SUVs, soccer games, or perfectly mowed lawns. He was thinking how the hell had he gotten suckered into paying so much money for something that tasted so positively bad? It was tempting to return to the coffee counter. He would stand right in front of the black-haired cashier with her numerous facial piercings and sullen attitude. He'd never say a word. Just stand. Stare. She'd give him his money back in sixty seconds or less.

  Then she'd hustle out back for a desperately needed smoke, rattled without being one hundred percent certain why.

  He would like to see her face then. More than anything else in the past quarter century, he'd missed the look of a young girl's face filling with fear. The way her eyes would dilate, pupils growing dark as the rest of her face turned to ash. And then that moment, that sublimely erotic moment, when the true horror would wash across her features, when she would realize it was no longer a vague, unidentified sense of fear. When she would realize that he really was going to kill her. That she belonged to him now and there was nothing she could do.

  The man had been locked up eight thousand three hundred and sixty-three days. He'd gone into the slammer barely a day over twenty. Sure, he'd been oversized, freakishly strong, and, as his neighbors had testified at his trial, “frighteningly strange.” But, he'd still been a kid.

  Now, as of a few hours ago, at the ripe old age of forty-four, he'd become a bona fide civilian again. He knew the parole board assumed that age would mellow him, just as quality time within concrete walls had supposedly eradicated his baser instincts. Surely, after nearly twenty-five years in prison, he'd be a good boy now.

  He thought about it. Nah. Truth be told, he mostly felt like killing someone.

  Two girls walked by. Eighteen, nineteen years old. One of the girls caught him wat
ching. She flipped him off, then gave a little twitch of her hips as she sauntered by, jeans so low and tight they appeared painted on her ass. He muttered a single word under his breath, and the girl suddenly picked up her pace, dragging her startled friend behind her. Smiling, the man let them go. It almost made up for the bad coffee.

  He'd started his Walpole stint in PC, protective custody, for “snitches and bitches.” It was a double-bunked dorm-room–like situation, technically medium security. “Don't screw this up,” his court-appointed attorney had told him sternly. “For a guy like you, this is as good as it's going to get.”

  First night, his bunk mate had curled up in the corner and begged him not to rape him. The man had stared at the sniveling mass in disgust. He did not jitterbug.

  Second night, the bunk mate started crying and the man gave in to his baser impulses and beat the little shit unconscious. That at least shut him up. It also gained the man an infraction. And a reputation.

  He didn't know it then, but the hawks were already watching, the prison scuttlebutt working overtime. His act of hostility got him kicked into general pop, then the real adventure began. A white guy had two choices in prison: join the Aryan brotherhood for protection against the blacks and the Hispanics or find God. God's protection was a little less certain inside the cement walls of Walpole. The man (boy) became a neo-Nazi.

  He got an education. How to poke holes in the drywall of his cell, then patch them up with toothpaste and modeling paint to hide the drugs. How to pass off cigarettes, cocaine, heroin, you name it, using the rolled cuffs of his pants. How to fasten razor blades to the metal frame of his bunk, or inside the tank of his toilet, to catch the fingers of inexperienced guards.

  How to live surrounded by dirty, filthy, angry men. How to piss in front of an audience. How to take a dump in front of an audience. How to sleep through certain half-realized screams, while knowing to wake for others. How to pass day after excruciating day inhaling stale, overprocessed air that stank of urine and Windex.

  He still didn't learn quite enough. They caught him the second year. Boston Red Sox were trying to make the World Series and the guards were glued to the TV. The Hispanics came out of nowhere and “bungled” him good. Guards said they never saw a thing. So did his two fellow neo-Nazis, who never took their eyes off the game.