Alone (Detective D.D. Warren, #1)(13)

“Perfect. Glad we got that covered.” Her voice sounded drier than she intended, but at least he smiled. He had a decent smile. It softened the hard lines of his face and put bracket lines around his eyes. She was slightly surprised to realize that when he smiled, he was one very handsome man.

“Maybe instead of talking about last night, we can talk about today,” she said.

“Today?”

“Today is the first day of your life after you've shot someone. Surely that's noteworthy. Have you slept?”

“A little.”

“Eaten?”

He had to think about it, then seemed genuinely surprised. “No, I guess I haven't. I went out to fetch coffee when I woke up this afternoon, but then I saw the Boston Herald and . . . I never got the coffee.”

“Did you pick up the Herald?”

“Yeah.”

“Read the article?”

“Enough.”

“What'd you think?”

“Massachusetts State Police officers don't target civilians, not even if they're judges' sons.”

“Good piece of fiction?”

“Yeah, based on the three paragraphs I read, I'd agree with that.”

“You didn't read more? I would've thought you'd be more curious.”

“About what happened? I don't need some reporter's account, I had box seats.”

“No. About the victim. About Jimmy Gagnon.”

That drew him up short. She gave him credit. She'd caught him off guard, but he took the time to consider her point. “Information is a luxury tactical units don't have,” he said finally. “When I pulled the trigger last night, I didn't care about the man's name, his neighborhood, his father, or his history. I didn't know if he beat his dog or gave money to orphanages. All I knew was that the subject had a gun pointed at a woman's head and his finger on the trigger. I had to base my actions on his actions. So I did. Now none of the rest matters anymore, so why torture myself with it?”

Elizabeth smiled again. She liked Bobby Dodge. She hadn't seen so many layers of denial and rationalization in years, but she liked Bobby Dodge.

“Exercise?” she asked. “Have you worked out today?”

“No. I thought about going for a run, but with my photo plastered everyplace . . .”

“I understand. Okay, this is your assignment for the weekend. You need to start taking care of yourself physically, so you can then tend to yourself emotionally. Is there anyplace you can go, maybe your father's, maybe your brother's, where you can escape and get some rest?”

“My girlfriend's.”

“And she's doing okay with this?”

“I don't know. We haven't exactly had time to chat about it.”

“Well, given what's happened, you're going to need a good support network, so if I were you, I'd talk to her about it.” Elizabeth leaned forward. “Last night was a big thing, Bobby. It's going to take more than twenty-four hours for you to wade through it, so first things first. Eat three well-balanced meals a day and try to get a good night's sleep. If you're feeling tense and wired, engage in some light exercise to blow off steam. Be careful, though. There's a fine line between running six miles to help yourself relax and running fifty miles to grind your thoughts into dust. You don't want to cross that line.”

“I promise not to run more than forty-nine miles,” he said.

“All right, then. Have a nice weekend.”

“That's it? Eat, sleep, work out, and I'm cured? I can go back to work next week?”

“Eat, sleep, work out, and we'll talk more later,” she corrected mildly. “But not tonight; it's too late and maybe it's even too soon for you to know everything that's on your mind. I'm going to give you my phone number. You can call me if you do feel a sudden urge to talk, otherwise I'll see you on Monday. How does three sound?”

He shrugged. “They won't let me work, so I guess my day's kinda open.”

“Perfect.” She rose. He rose. He didn't bolt for the door right away, like she thought he might. Instead, he just sort of stood there, looking adrift.

“Sometimes,” he said abruptly, “sometimes when I think about what happened, I get really angry. Not with myself, but with the subject, for going after his wife and kid. For making me shoot him. Is that weird? To kill a man and hate him for it?”

“I'd say that reaction falls within the normal category.”

He nodded, but didn't lose that unsettled look. “Can I ask you another question? A general psychobabble sort of one?”

“By all means, allow me to babble away.”

“We get called out for domestic disturbances a lot. Seems three, four times a week I'm standing in someone's yard while the wife yells at the husband or the husband screams at the wife. One thing always strikes me—that we're gonna be back. That no matter how much these people pound on one another, they always stay together. And if you do get a little rough with the boyfriend while you're loading him into the squad car, nine times out of ten, the woman, the same one who called nine-one-one and is wearing the imprint of the guy's fist, will attack us for hurting her man.”

“Domestic abuse is very complex,” she agreed, wondering where this was going.