Alone (Detective D.D. Warren, #1)(46)

“In truth, you don't really know much about what was going on in that room Thursday night, do you, Officer Dodge? You don't know if Jimmy had a loaded gun. You don't know if he had the safety on or off. Why, for all you know, Catherine started the argument that night. Catherine may have even threatened to harm Nathan. Why, for all you know, Jimmy went into the family safe and got out that gun only as a last resort—so he could fight for the life of his child. Couldn't that well be the case?”

“You would have to ask Catherine.”

“Ask Catherine? Invite my daughter-in-law to lie? How many cases are you called out to a year, Officer Dodge?”

“I don't know. Maybe twenty.”

“Ever fire your weapon before?”

“No.”

“And the average length of engagement for those call-outs?”

“Three hours.”

“I see. So on average, you're deployed twenty times a year for three hours each episode, and you've managed in all that time to never fire your weapon. On Thursday night, however, you showed up and shot my son in less than fifteen minutes. What made Thursday night so different? What made you so convinced that you had no choice but to kill my son?”

“He was going to pull the trigger.”

“How did you know, Officer Dodge?”

“Because I saw it on his face! He was going to shoot his wife!”

“His face, Officer Dodge? Did you really see it on his face, or were you thinking of someone else's?”

In Bobby's heightened state of agitation, it took him a moment to get it. When he finally did, the world abruptly stopped for him. He suffered a little out-of-body experience, where he suddenly drifted back and became aware of the whole sordid scene. Himself, sitting on the edge of the silk-covered sofa, half leaning forward, his hands fisted on his knees. Maryanne, slumped deep into a cream-colored chair, lost in her grief. And Judge Gagnon, finger still punctuating the air with a prosecutorial flourish, a triumphant gleam in his eyes.

Harris, Bobby thought abruptly. Where the hell was Harris?

He turned and found the man lounging in a dark wooden chair in the foyer. Harris delivered a two-fingered salute: he didn't even bother to hide his smugness. Of course he'd dug up the information. That's how this game worked. The Gagnons paid, Harris dug, and the Gagnons got whatever they wanted.

For the first time, Bobby began to truly understand how helpless Catherine Gagnon must have felt.

“If there's a trial, it's going to come out,” Judge Gagnon was saying now. “This kind of thing always does.”

“What do you want?”

“She's the reason Jimmy is dead,” James said. There was no need to define she. “Acknowledge it. She cajoled you into firing.”

“I'll say no such thing.”

“Fine then. Revisionist history. You showed up, you heard my son and his wife arguing, but it was obvious she started it. She was threatening Jimmy. Better yet, she was finally admitting what she was doing to Nathan. Jimmy simply couldn't take it anymore.”

“No one in their right mind will believe I heard all that while sitting in another house fifty yards away.”

“Let me worry about that. She murdered my son, Officer Dodge. As good as if she pulled the trigger herself. There is no way I'm going to stand by and let that woman harm my grandson too. Help me, and I'll let your little lawsuit slide. Resist, and I'll sue you until you're a broken old man with no career, no home, no dignity, no self. Consult any lawyer. I can do it. All it takes is money and time.” James spread his hands. “Frankly, I have plenty of both.”

Bobby rose off the sofa. “We're through here.”

“You have until tomorrow. Just say the word and the lawsuit is gone and Harris's little research project is ‘forgotten.' After five p.m., however, you'll find I'm no longer as forgiving.”

Bobby headed for the door. He'd just gotten his hand on the brass knob when Maryanne's soft voice stopped him.

“He was a good boy.”

Bobby took a deep breath. He turned around, asking as gently as he could, “Ma'am?”

“My son. He was a little wild sometimes. But he was good, too. When he was seven, one of his friends was diagnosed with leukemia. That year for his birthday, Jimmy had a big party. Instead of asking for presents, he asked people to bring money for the American Cancer Society. He even volunteered at the suicide hotline while in college.”

“I'm sorry for your loss.”

“Every Mother's Day, he'd bring me a single red rose. Not a hothouse rose, but a real rose, one that smelled like the gardens of my youth. Jimmy knew how much I loved that scent. He understood that, even now, I sometimes miss Atlanta.” Maryanne's gaze went to him, and there was a pain in her eyes that went on without end. “When it's Mother's Day,” Maryanne murmured, “what am I going to do? Tell me, Officer, who will bring my rose?”

Bobby couldn't help her. He walked out the door just as her grief finally broke and her sobs began in earnest. James's arms were already going around his wife and Bobby could hear the man as the door shut behind him: “Shhhh. It's all right, Maryanne. Soon we'll have Nathan. Just think of Nathan. Shhhhh. . . .”





W HEN CATHERINE GOT up, Prudence was already gone for the day. Sundays were the nanny's day off and Prudence didn't like to waste a minute. Catherine thought it was just as well. The sun was out, an almost unbearably bright blue sky yawning above, looking the way only a New England sky could look during the crisp days of November. Catherine went from room to room, turning on lights anyway. She thought she might be going a little mad.