The Detective D. D. Warren Series 5-Book Bundle

by Lisa Gardner

  I still couldn’t read her face, but caught a faint tremor down her spine. I realized suddenly this meeting was costing her as much as it was costing me.

  She turned briskly to the dark wooden table that dominated the room. “Shall we?” She gestured to the leather chairs, then to an older, gray-haired gentleman I’d just now realized was sitting in the room. “Detective Dodge, Sergeant Warren, please meet my lawyer, Andrew Carson, whom I’ve asked to join us.”

  “Feeling guilty?” D.D. asked lightly.

  Catherine smiled. “Just Catholic.”

  She took a seat. I chose the one across from her. Something about the way she tossed her hair, slightly defiantly, right before she sat down, gave me a flicker of déjà vu. And then in that instant, I got it. She honestly did look like me.

  Bobby took out a recorder, placed it in the middle of the table. Catherine glanced at her lawyer, but he didn’t protest, so neither did she. D.D. was also getting herself in order, arranging piles of paper around her like a small fortress. The only people who did nothing were Catherine and me. We simply sat, guests of honor for this strange little party.

  Bobby started up the recorder. Announced the date, the location, and the names of those present. He paused on my name, started to say “Annabelle,” then caught himself in time to switch it to “Tanya Nelson.” I appreciated his discretion.

  They began with the preliminaries. Catherine Gagnon confirmed she had once lived in Boston at such and such address. In 1980, she had been walking home from school. A vehicle had pulled up beside her, a man calling out from the window, “Hey, honey. Can you help me for a sec? I’m looking for a lost dog.”

  She described her subsequent abduction, rescue, and finally the trial of her kidnapper, Richard Umbrio, in May of 1981. Her voice was toneless, almost bored, as she ran swiftly through the chain of events; a woman who has told her story many times.

  “And after the conclusion of the trial in ’81, did you have occasion to see Mr. Umbrio again?” D.D. asked.

  The lawyer, Carson, immediately raised a hand. “Don’t answer.”

  “Mr. Carson—”

  “Mrs. Gagnon graciously agreed to answer questions related to her abduction in October through November of 1980,” the attorney clarified. “Whether she saw Mr. Umbrio after 1980, therefore, does not fall under the scope of your interview.”

  D.D. appeared highly annoyed. Catherine merely smiled.

  “When you were with Mr. Umbrio, in October and November 1980,” D.D. added for emphasis, “did he ever talk to you about other crimes, abductions, or assaults on other victims?”

  Catherine shook her head, then added belatedly, for the sake of the tape recorder, “No.”

  “Have you ever visited Boston State Mental Hospital?”

  Carson held up his hand again. “Mrs. Gagnon, did you ever visit the Boston State Mental Hospital in the fall of 1980?”

  “I’ve never even heard of the Boston State Mental Hospital, before or after 1980,” Catherine conceded graciously.

  “What about Mr. Umbrio?” D.D. persisted.

  “If he had, he obviously didn’t mention it to me, or I would have heard about it, wouldn’t I?”

  “What about friends, confidantes? Umbrio ever mention anyone he was close to, or perhaps bring a ‘guest’ to the pit?”

  “Please, Richard Umbrio was a teenage version of Lurch. He was too big, too cold, and just plain too freaky even at the age of nineteen. Friends? He had no friends. Why do you think he kept me alive so long?”

  This elicited slightly shocked expressions. Catherine simply spread her hands, regarding the rest of us as if we were idiots. “What? You think I never figured out that he was going to kill me? I can tell you for a fact, he tried to kill me every other day. He’d wrap his big sweaty fingers around my neck and squeeze like he was wringing a chicken. Liked to look me right in the eye as he did it, too. But then, at the last second, he’d let me go. Kindness? Compassion? I don’t think so. Not from Richard.

  “He just wasn’t ready for me to die yet. I was the perfect playmate. Never argued, always did as I was told. Like he was going to get that lucky in real life.”

  She shrugged, the very flatness of her voice making her words that much more cutting.

  “He’d strangle you?” D.D. pressed. “With his bare hands? You’re sure of that?”

  “Very.”

  “Never brought a knife, used a ligature, played around with a garrote?”

  “No.”

  “You said he tied you up. Rope, handcuffs, other?”

  “Rope.”

  “One kind of rope, different kinds of ropes? Favorite knots?”

  “I don’t know. Rope. He had a whole coil of it. It was thick, maybe half an inch. White. Dirty. Strong. He would pound stakes into the wooden ground, then tie my limbs to the stakes. I will confess that at the time I didn’t notice the knots.” Her voice remained remote.

  “Did he ever bring trash bags to the scene?”

  “Trash bags? What do you mean? Like a Hefty bag?”

  “Like any kind of trash bag.”

  Catherine shook her head. “Richard favored plastic grocery bags. He’d have supplies and/or food in them. You’d be proud of Richard, he was a conscientious camper, carried in, carried out. A regular Boy Scout, that one.”

  “Mrs. Gagnon, do you know why Mr. Umbrio kidnapped you?”

  “Yes.”

  D.D. momentarily faltered, as if not expecting this answer, though she was the one who asked the question. “You do?”

  “Yes. I was wearing a corduroy skirt with knee-high socks. Turns out, Richard had a fetish for Catholic schoolgirls. Took one look, decided I was it. No one else was around, so lucky me.”

  D.D. and Bobby exchanged glances. Bobby had been taking furious notes while D.D. asked the questions. Cataloging the details of Catherine’s attack to compare to the victims found at Boston State Mental, I would suspect. But this bothered them. Now both stared at Catherine.

  “Catherine,” D.D. asked quietly, “had you met Richard before that afternoon?”

  “No.”

  “Had he by any chance noticed you? Mentioned following you home from school before or watching you on the school playground, that sort of thing?”

  “No.”

  “So, that afternoon, when his car turned down the street. That’s the first time you and Richard met?”

  “Like I said, lucky me.”

  D.D.’s frown deepened. “After you got into his car, what happened?”

  “The door was jammed, locked, I don’t know. It wouldn’t open.”

  “Did you scream, did you struggle?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “No. I remember getting into his car. I remember growing … confused, uneasy. I think I tried the door handle and then … I don’t remember. Police and therapists have asked me for years. I still don’t remember. I would guess I screamed. I would guess I fought. But maybe I did nothing. Maybe my lack of memory is my cover for shame.” Her lips curved slightly, but the self-conscious smile never reached her eyes.

  “What do you remember?” D.D.’s voice was gentler now. It seemed to put the steel back in Catherine’s spine.

  “Waking up in the dark.”

  “Was he there?”

  “Ready to rock and roll.”

  “In the pit?”

  “Yep.”

  “So he’d already prepared the pit, before he’d spotted you and decided to make his move?”

  Bobby and D.D. exchanged that look again.

  Bobby spoke up this time. “According to what you said earlier, Umbrio grabbed you on impulse, based on your outfit. So how could he have known to be so prepared?”

  Catherine looked at him. “The pit wasn’t new. He’d found it one day exploring in the woods. Turned it into a sort of secret hideaway for himself, where he could stash his weenie-whacking magazines and get away from his parents. And, of course, maintain
his own personal sex slave.” She shrugged again.

  “But do I think he grabbed me on impulse? No. He said that, but I never believed him. He had rope, material for gagging my mouth, covering my eyes. What normal kind of person has that kind of stuff lying around in his car? Richard was a bondage freak. Every single fucking porn magazine he had was pretty much Bind That Bitch or Smack Her Ass. You’re the experts, you tell me, but I would guess the idea of his own little rape kitten had been growing in his mind for some time. He had the physical size to do as he pleased. And he had the perfect location. All he lacked was the unwilling subject. So one afternoon in October, he went shopping.”

  “Shopping—your word or his?” D.D. asked sharply.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes.”

  Catherine arched a brow. “I don’t remember.”

  “Catherine”—Bobby spoke up, earning an annoyed frown from D.D., who clearly planned on running the show—“how experienced do you think Umbrio was when he abducted you? Were you number one, number three, number twelve?”

  “That’s asking for speculation,” Carson interjected.

  “I understand.”

  Bobby kept staring at Catherine. She had placed her hands on the table. Now she flexed and curled her fingers as she considered his words.

  “You mean sexually? Was he a virgin?”

  “Yes.”

  For a moment, she didn’t answer. “I was twelve,” she said at last. “Not experienced enough myself to be any judge of those things. However …”

  “However,” Bobby prompted when she didn’t continue.

  “As a woman looking back? He was overeager in the beginning. Climaxed before he ever penetrated, then grew flustered and beat the shit out of me to cover his own embarrassment. That happened frequently those first few days. He would arrive with elaborate plans for what he wanted to do, but be so overexcited he’d ejaculate before we ever got going. With time, however, he settled down. Grew less eager, but more imaginative.” Her lips twisted. “He learned to be cruel.

  “So, if you ask, as a woman looking back, I would guess that he was inexperienced in the beginning. Certainly, his fantasies grew more complex and demanding with time, if that is any indication.”

  Her gaze suddenly pounced on me. “Did you know him?”

  “Who?” I asked, slightly bewildered to have all eyes on me.

  “Richard. What did you think of him?”

  “I didn’t … I haven’t … I don’t know him.”

  She frowned, turning once more to Bobby. “I thought you said she was a survivor.”

  “She is. She survived being stalked by an unknown white subject in the early eighties. Who that subject was—e.g., was he Umbrio—is what we’re trying to determine now.”

  She frowned at me again, clearly skeptical. “And you’re basing this on what, the fact you believe she looks like me? Honestly, I don’t think we bear that much of a resemblance.” She flipped back her glossy black mane, managing to jut out her breasts in the same motion. I thought that made it clear just what she considered our key differences to be.

  “Have you seen her before?” D.D. prodded Catherine, trying to get us back on track. “Does Tanya look familiar to you?”

  “Of course not.”

  D.D. stared at me. “I haven’t seen her before either,” I confirmed. “But do the math. In the fall of 1980, I was five. What are the chances of me remembering a twelve-year-old girl?”

  I turned back to Catherine on my own. “Did you live in Arlington?”

  “Waltham.”

  “Go to church?”

  “Hardly,” she said.

  “Visit any friends or family members in Arlington?”

  “Not that stands out in my mind.”

  “What about your parents, what did they do?”

  “My mother was a homemaker. My father worked as an appliance repairman for Maytag,” she provided.

  “So he traveled.”

  “Not into the city. His territory was the outlying suburbs. Yours?”

  “My father was a mathematician, MIT,” I offered.

  “Different.” Catherine frowned, more speculatively now. “Suffice it to say, in 1980, I doubt our paths crossed, at least not in any memorable kind of way.”

  “What about other relatives?” Bobby spoke up. “Given the, uh, family resemblance.”

  Catherine merely shrugged. “You and D.D. are reading too much into this. We both simply look Italian. There must be hundreds of other women in Boston who could say the same.”

  Everyone looked at me. I had nothing more to add. Frankly, I agreed with Catherine. I didn’t think we looked all that much alike. She was much too skinny, for one. And I had better legs.

  The interview was petering out. D.D. had a perplexed scowl on her face. Bobby was staring hard at the tape recorder. Whatever they had been looking for, they weren’t getting it. MO, I thought. They were trying to compare Richard Umbrio to my stalker; except, according to Catherine, Umbrio had snatched her as a crime of opportunity, whereas the person who had left little gifts for me …

  The victims may look alike. But the crimes themselves were different.

  When no new questions materialized, Catherine planted her hands on the table as if to push back.

  “One moment,” Bobby said sharply.

  “What?”

  “Think very hard. Catherine, how sure are you that the man who abducted you was Richard Umbrio?”

  “I beg your pardon!”

  “You were young, ambushed, traumatized, and most of the time you were with him, you were trapped down in the dark—”

  “Mrs. Gagnon,” the lawyer started to say nervously, but Catherine didn’t need his help.

  “Twenty-eight days, Bobby. Twenty-eight days Richard was the only person who occupied my world. If I ate, it was because he brought me food. If I drank, it was because he deigned to give me water. He sat beside me, he laid on top of me. He fucked me holding my head between his massive hands and screaming at me not to turn away.

  “To this day, I can picture his face as he stared out the car window. I can see him haloed by the light each time he appeared at the opening of my prison and I knew I’d finally get fed. I remember how he looked by the glow of the lantern light, sleeping just like a baby, my wrist tied to his so I couldn’t escape.

  “There is no doubt in my mind that Richard Umbrio kidnapped me twenty-seven years ago. And there is no doubt in my mind that each and every day I’m thankful that I stuck the barrel of the gun inside his mouth and blew out his brains.”

  Carson, the attorney, grew wide-eyed at the end of his client’s statement. Bobby, however, merely nodded. He reached across the table, snapped off the recorder.

  “All right, Cat,” he said quietly. “Then you tell us: If Richard Umbrio went to prison in ’81, then who was left to build an even larger underground pit at the site of an old lunatic asylum? Who kidnapped six more girls and stuck them beneath the earth?”

  “I don’t know. And honestly, I’m a little offended that you think I do.”

  “We have to ask you, Cat. You’re as close to Umbrio as we’re going to get.”

  That clearly pissed her off. This time she did push away from the table, rising to her feet. “I believe we’re done here.”

  “You were alone with him in the hallway,” Bobby continued relentlessly. “He talked to you in the hotel suite. Did he mention a friend? A pen pal? Someone he met while in prison?”

  “He mentioned exactly how he was going to kill me!”

  “What about Nathan? Richard kidnapped him first, maybe while they were alone—”

  “You leave my son out of this!”

  “Six dead girls, Catherine. Six girls who didn’t make it up out of the dark.”

  “Goddamn you!”

  “We need to know. You have to tell us. If Richard had a friend, an accomplice, a mentor, we have to know.”

  Catherine was breathing hard now, her eyes locked on Bobby
’s. For an instant, I wasn’t sure what she was going to do. Scream? Slap him across the face?

  She placed her hands on the edge of the table. She leaned forward until she and Bobby were nearly nose to nose.

  “Richard Umbrio had nothing to do with your crime scene. He was in prison. And while he was a homicidal son of a bitch, he was also, blessedly for your purposes, a loner. He had no friends. No accomplices. Once and for all, we are done here. Any other questions you have can be delivered to my attorney. Carson.”

  Carson obediently whipped out business cards.

  Catherine straightened. “Now, if you’ll excuse us, Annabelle—or Tanya, or whatever her name is—and I have business to attend to.”

  “We do?” I spoke up rather stupidly.

  “Wait a minute—” Bobby started.

  “Absolutely not,” D.D. echoed, rising from the table.

  It was the very vehemence of their response, its implied possessiveness, that made me follow Catherine.

  “Don’t worry, darlings,” our hostess tossed over her shoulder at Bobby and D.D. “I’ll have her back before midnight.” She shut the library doors behind us and headed down the hall.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, having to hustle to keep up.

  “Oh honey … Obviously, I’m taking you shopping.”

  Catherine’s retail-therapy location of choice was Nordstrom. Her limo driver dropped us off out front. Catherine breezily informed the chauffeur she’d call him again when needed. He drove off to do whatever it is limo drivers do in between being summoned by their mistresses. I followed Catherine into the store.

  She started off by suggesting that we eat. Since my stomach was growling audibly, I didn’t protest.

  It was after six, and Nordstrom’s café was growing crowded. I waited in line for grilled chicken and pesto on focaccia. Catherine ordered a cup of tea.

  She glanced at my enormous sandwich, the side of Terra sweet potato chips. She arched a brow, then returned to sipping her green tea. I ate the entire sandwich, the bag of chips, then went back for a piece of carrot cake, simply out of spite.

  “So what do you think of Detective Dodge?” she asked, when I was halfway through the cake and presumably so blissed-out on sugar I wouldn’t notice the fine hint of longing that had entered her voice.