Alone (Detective D.D. Warren, #1)(44)

“Get in,” Harris said.

“No.”

“My employers would like to talk to you.”

“Tell them to file another lawsuit.”

“They're very powerful people, Officer Dodge. The right conversation with them, and all your troubles could go away.”

“How wonderfully patronizing of them.” He picked up his step. “Still walking.”

Harris changed tactics. “Come on, Officer Dodge. You killed their son. Surely you can give them ten minutes of your time.”

Bobby's footsteps slowed. Harris braked the car. “That's not fighting fair,” Bobby said with a scowl. He reluctantly opened the car door. Harris grinned like an *.





T HE GAGNONS WERE ensconced at the Hotel LeRoux, a new, high-end hotel across from the Public Garden. Apparently there were too many reporters at their multimillion-dollar Beacon Hill townhouse, so they'd been forced to retire here. Mrs. Gagnon, Bobby was informed, could barely eat or sleep. Judge Gagnon had booked a luxurious penthouse suite, with round-the-clock masseuse, to help ease her nerves.

Harris was chatty about his employers. How the Gagnons were originally from Georgia, so don't be surprised by their Southern accent. Mrs. Gagnon had been a real, genuine debutante, complete with satin dress and bouffant hair, when she'd met James Gagnon back in '62. The money came from her side, actually. But the judge was an ambitious law student even back then. Her family had approved the match and her daddy was preparing to set up Jimmy at his own law firm.

Sadly, Maryanne's entire family—mother, father, younger sister—died in a fiery car crash a week before the wedding. Needless to say, Maryanne had been devastated. In an attempt to comfort his shattered fiancée, Jimmy had whisked her away from the state. They'd moved to Boston, tied the knot in a small civil ceremony, and made a fresh start.

In the good-news department, they'd gotten pregnant right away. In the bad-news department, their baby, the original James Jr., was born sickly. The infant had died in a matter of months, and James and Maryanne had returned to Georgia for one more funeral, burying their son in the family plot in Atlanta.

Two years later, young Jimmy had arrived, and James and Maryanne hadn't looked back since.

Bobby thought it was creepy they'd name the second child the same as the first. The first boy was Junior, the second, Jimmy, Harris told him. Bobby still thought it was creepy.

Entering the penthouse suite, Bobby's first thought was that the Gagnons knew how to make an impression. The space boasted Italian marble floors, expensive antiques, and a vast bank of windows draped in enough silk to exhaust a worm farm. The high-end hotel suite provided the perfect backdrop for its high-end occupants.

Maryanne Gagnon appeared to be in her mid-sixties, trim but slightly stoop-shouldered, with tight-set platinum blonde hair that was now more platinum than blonde. She wore a triple strand of knuckle-sized pearls around her neck and a rock the size of a golf ball on her finger. Sitting in some dainty French provincial chair in a cream-colored silk pantsuit, she nearly blended in with the draperies behind her.

In contrast, Judge Gagnon dominated the space. He stood slightly behind his wife's right shoulder, tall, in a single-breasted black suit that probably cost more than Bobby made in a month. His hair had turned the color of slate with age, but his eyes remained bright, his jaw square, and his mouth hard. You could picture this man ruling a courthouse. You could imagine this man ruling the country.

Bobby had a flash of insight: Weak-willed Jimmy Gagnon had most likely taken after his mother, not his father.

“You don't look that big,” Maryanne Gagnon spoke up first, surprising all of them. She turned her head to look up at her husband, and Bobby saw her hands trembling on her lap. “Didn't you think he'd be somehow . . . bigger?” she asked the judge.

James squeezed his wife's shoulder and there was something about that quiet display of support that unnerved Bobby more than the clothes, the room, the perfectly posed sitting. He studied the marble floor, the zigzag patterns of gray and rose veins.

“Would you like something to drink?” James offered from across the room. “Maybe a cup of coffee?”

“No.”

“Anything to eat?”

“I don't plan on staying that long.”

James seemed to accept that. He gestured to a nearby sofa. “Please have a seat.”

Bobby didn't really want to do that either, but he crossed to the cream-colored sofa, sitting gingerly on the edge and fisting his hands on his lap. In contrast to the Gagnons' perfectly groomed appearance, he wore old jeans, a dark blue turtleneck, and an old gray sweatshirt. He'd crawled from his bed in the middle of the night to view a crime scene, not face grieving parents. Which, of course, the Gagnons had known when they'd sent Harris to pick him up.

“Harris tells us you've met with Catherine.” James again. Bobby had a feeling it was his show. Maryanne wasn't even looking at Bobby anymore. Bobby realized after another moment that the woman was crying soundlessly. Her face, carefully angled away, was covered in a glaze of tears.

“Officer Dodge?”

“I've met Catherine,” Bobby heard himself say. His gaze was still on Maryanne. He wanted to say something. I'm sorry. He didn't suffer. Hey, at least you still have your grandson. . . .