Alone (24 page)

“Hard to keep all the rich pricks straight?” Investigator Casella deadpanned.

Bobby sighed. He was starting to get annoyed now. Not a good thing. “Never had a bad day at the office?” he asked Casella irritably. “Never said anything you later came to regret?”

“Susan Abrahms had some concerns about your relationship,” D.D. said quietly.

Bobby forced his gaze from Casella. “Yeah?”

“She said you'd seemed distant lately. Preoccupied.”

“This job will do that to you.”

“She wondered if you were having an affair.”

“Then I wish she would've said something to me.”

“Catherine Gagnon is a beautiful woman.”

“Catherine Gagnon has nothing on Susan,” Bobby said, and he meant it. At least he thought he did.

“Is that why you were bothered by Jimmy paying attention to her?” Copley spoke up. “Jimmy had money, looks. Let's face it—he was much more her type.”

“Come on, Copley. Did I kill Jimmy Gagnon because I was jealous of his attention toward my girlfriend, or did I kill Jimmy Gagnon because I was fucking his wife? Three days of questioning later, you can do better than this.”

“Maybe it's both,” Copley said crisply.

“Or maybe I honestly don't remember ever meeting either of the Gagnons. Maybe I went to those functions simply to support my girlfriend. And maybe I have better things to do with my time than remember every random stranger I've ever met.”

“The Gagnons make an impression,” Casella said.

Bobby was already waving him off. “Find me one person who ever saw me and Catherine Gagnon alone. Find one person who ever saw me and Jimmy exchanging words. You can't. Because it never happened. Because I really don't remember either one of them, and when I killed Jimmy Gagnon Thursday night, it was purely because he had a gun pointed at his wife. Take a life to save a life. Didn't any of you ever read the sniper's manual?”

He broke off in disgust. He got up, not caring anymore how agitated he appeared, and started to pace.

“Understand you've been drinking,” Copley persisted.

“One night.”

“I thought one night was all it took for an alcoholic.”

“I never said I was an alcoholic.”

“Come on, ten years without a drink . . .”

“My body is my temple. I take care of it; it treats me right.” He looked at the ADA's definitely softer middle. “You should try it sometime.”

“We're gonna nail her,” Copley said.

“Who?”

“Catherine Gagnon. We know that somehow, some way, she was behind it.”

“She arranged for me to kill her husband? Murder by police sniper? Come on . . .”

Copley had a calculating gleam in his eye. “You know, the Gagnons used to have a housekeeper.”

“Really?”

“Marie Gonzalez. Older woman, very experienced. Worked for the Gagnons for the past three years. Know why she was fired?”

“Since I didn't know they had a housekeeper, I obviously don't know why she was fired.”

“She fed Nathan a snack. Part of her tuna sandwich. The boy—who is twenty pounds underweight, by the way—was hungry. So Marie gave him some of her sandwich. Nathan wolfed down the entire half. And Catherine fired Marie the very next day. No one other than the nanny is supposed to feed anything to Nathan. Not even if he's starving.”

Bobby didn't say anything, but the wheels were once again turning in his mind.

“We're going through the other nannies now,” Copley said, almost casually. “So far, it's a string of strange and sordid stories. How Catherine would disappear for long periods of time. How no sooner did she reappear than Nathan would be sick again. Then there were the soiled diapers she demanded be kept in the refrigerator—”

“Soiled?”

“Filled with shit, to be exact. For six months, each and every one of them went straight into the fridge. Then there were the diets—lists of things he wasn't allowed to eat, lists of things he could only eat. This, combined with strange minerals and herbs and supplements and drugs. I tell you, Officer Dodge, I've been in the business fifteen years, and I've never seen anything like this. No doubt about it, Catherine Gagnon is abusing her son.”

“Do you have proof?”

“Not yet, but we'll get it. The security camera was her first mistake.”

They were baiting him again. He still couldn't stop himself from asking, “The security camera?”

“For the master bedroom,” D.D. supplied. “It was turned off Thursday night. Except according to the security company, that's not possible.”

“I don't get it,” Bobby said honestly, finally standing in one place and rubbing the back of his neck.

“The security camera in the master bedroom was set to turn off at midnight; instead, it magically shut down at ten p.m. Catherine gave us some song and dance about the control panel messing up the time. But we talked to the security company. Tuesday, when Jimmy filed for divorce, he contacted the company directly. He told them he had a situation at home—he wanted to be able to monitor the rooms without someone manually overriding the cameras. So the security company reset the whole system, then gave him a new code. As of Tuesday, the control panel was in proper working order, and more importantly, the only person who could alter the system was Jimmy Gagnon.”

“So he shut off the camera in the master bedroom?”

“No,” Copley said. “He didn't. She did.”

“But you just said she couldn't—”

“She couldn't. Which I bet you anything she didn't know, until ten o'clock Thursday night, when her plan went into play. I bet she stood in front of that control panel for ten minutes, trying to figure out why she couldn't override the system, and slowly getting desperate. She has to be in the bedroom. You of all people should know why.”

Bobby opened his mouth to protest, but then abruptly, he got it. He got the whole sordid theory. He shut up and simply waited for Copley to finish his spiel.

“You had to be able to see them, Officer Dodge. You had to be able to see Jimmy, who has no history with firearms, suddenly threaten his wife and child with a gun. The big questions, of course, are what got him going, and what—or who—put that gun in his hand. Now that's the kind of stuff Catherine can't afford for us to see. That's the kind of stuff she
doesn't
want caught on their home security system. So it comes to her. She advances the control panel's clock two hours, and boom, her work is done. The camera thinks it's midnight, and automatically shuts off. She's clever, I'll give her that. Almost too clever for her own good.”

Copley switched gears. “Did you mean to help her, Officer Dodge? Were you just flirting a little at a cocktail party, bragging about your life with the STOP team, trying to make yourself sound good? Or did it go deeper than that? Few little rendezvous later, maybe this whole thing was actually your idea.”

“For the last time, I don't remember ever talking to her!” Bobby shook his head, frustrated, fed up. He couldn't even bring any kind of concert event into focus in his mind. Frankly, the functions bored him. He attended on autopilot, pasting on a smile, shaking hands, and counting down the minutes until the evening was done and he could go home, take off the penguin suit and get Susan into bed.

But then, all of a sudden, he did remember something.
“What's the most common kind of call for a team like yours? Bank robberies, hostage situations, escaped felons?”

“Nah. Around here it's mostly domestics. Drunk guy gets all pissed off and starts threatening his own family.”

“And that's a SWAT call?”

“If the guy is armed, you bet it is. It's called a domestic barricade, where the family members are considered hostages. We take those calls very seriously, especially if there are reports of shots fired.”

It had been a Mardi Gras party, with all the symphony patrons floating around in elaborately feathered masks. Jimmy and Catherine Gagnon had stopped by to congratulate Susan on her performance. Catherine had had her black hair piled on top of her head and was wearing a formfitting gold dress and exotic peacock mask. At first glance, Bobby had been aware of a certain visceral-level response to the stunning costume. Then he'd been too busy watching Jimmy devour Susan with his eyes to pay Catherine much attention.

He'd ended up breaking off the conversation abruptly, leading Susan away with some flimsy excuse or another. Later, they'd shaken their heads at Jimmy's obvious display, feeling that vague sense of moral superiority one couple gets when they meet another couple who is obviously more glamorous, more successful, and more fucked up.

Bobby hung his head. Ah shit, he did not want to remember this now.

“We're going to get her,” Copley repeated. “And you know Catherine's not the kind of woman to take the fall. First sign of real danger, and she's going to cry me a river. You don't want to get caught in that deluge, Officer Dodge.”

“Got a deadline?” Bobby shot back, stung. “Let me guess. It's tomorrow by five.”

Copley scowled at him. “Now that you mention it—”

“Yeah, well, there we go. Tomorrow it is. I'll give you a call.” Bobby gestured them up, off his dilapidated sofa and out his front door. D.D. was regarding him strangely. He wouldn't look her in the eye.

“One last thing,” Copley said, halting in the door frame. “Where were you last night, between ten p.m. and one a.m.?”

“I was killing Tony Rocco, of course.”

“What—”

“I was sleeping, you piece of shit. But thanks for insulting me in my own home. Get out.”

Copley was still in the doorway. “This is serious business—”

“This is my
life,
” Bobby said and slammed the door.

Chapter
22

R
OBINSON MADE THE
mistake of answering the phone. Not a good thing these days. Now Robinson had to deal with the caller, and the caller was not happy.

“His instructions were to make it look like an accident or, at the very least, random bad luck—say a carjacking. Carving someone up with a butcher knife does
not
appear accidental!”

“I told you I couldn't control him.”

“The police are crawling all over this. That's going to make things a goddamn mess.”

“I don't think he's worried.”

“Why? Because he's the world famous ‘Mr. Bosu'? What the hell does that mean?”

“It's a piece of exercise equipment.”

“What?”

“Both Sides Up ball,” Robinson supplied. “BOSU ball. It's flat on one side, domed on the other. You balance on it to do squats, or place the domed side down for push-ups. Makes for a good workout inside a confined area.”

“You're telling me I've hired a man who thinks he's a piece of exercise equipment?”

Robinson said seriously, “I'm telling you you've hired a man who doesn't mind pain.”

The caller was silent for a moment. So was Robinson.

“Is he prepared for the next assignment?” the caller asked finally.

“Working on it now. Of course, there's been a minor wrinkle.” Robinson spoke carefully.

“Minor wrinkle?”

“Mr. Bosu has some new terms: Instead of ten thousand dollars for the new job, he expects thirty.”

The caller actually laughed. “He does, does he? The man just
fucked up his very first assignment.
”

“I don't think he sees it that way.”

“Did he at least open a bank account?”

“Mmm, no.”

“No?”

“Mmm, he prefers cash.”

“Oh, for the love of God. You tell Señor Psycho a few things for me. One, I don't have that kind of cash lying around. Two, he'll get ten thousand dollars and not a penny more. Frankly, he should be happy I'm willing to pay that much, given that we both know I'm only asking him to do something he already wants to do.”

“I don't think he's into negotiation.”

“Life is negotiation.”

Robinson took a deep breath. No way around it now. “Mr. Bosu sent a note. It says if you want results, it will cost you thirty grand. It says if you
don't
want results, it will still cost you thirty grand. It says Mr. Bosu knows where you live.”

“
What?
You haven't told him anything, have you? I thought you picked him up in a rental car, gave him a stolen cell phone. There should be no way for him to trace—”

“I think he's bluffing. But I can't be positive. I have my contacts. Maybe he has his.”

The caller was quiet, breathing hard. Angry? Or fearful? It was hard to be sure.

“I would pay him the money,” Robinson said very seriously. “Or, I would get the hell out of town.”

The caller took a noisy breath. “Tell him there will be no new terms. Tell him I got him out of jail, I can sure as hell put him back.”

Robinson was silent for a moment.

“What?” the caller prodded.

“Well, to put him back in jail . . . you kinda gotta catch him first.”

Another pause.

“Shit,” the caller said.

“Shit,” Robinson agreed.

M
R. BOSU HAD
a puppy. He'd had to buy it from a pet store, not his first choice but about all that was available to him on a Sunday afternoon. The shop, with its crowded shelves, cheap linoleum floors, and vaguely antiseptic smell, had given him the heebie-jeebies. Given that just forty-eight hours ago he'd been a victim of incarceration, looking at a bunch of puppies and kitties plopped down in tiny wire cages hadn't done much for him either.

He'd planned on hanging out for a while. Pet stores on a Sunday afternoon, filled with fluffy kitties, soft puppies, and oodles of milling kids, what wasn't to love? But the dispirited air of the place made him cut and run.

Mr. Bosu bought a beagle-terrier mix. The tiny, ecstatic puppy was all white with giant brown patches over each eye, dangling brown ears, and thumping brown tail. He was the cutest little bugger Mr. Bosu had ever seen.

For his new charge, he acquired a leash, a small carrier that resembled a duffle bag, and about five dozen chew toys. Okay, so maybe he'd gone overboard. But the puppy—Patches, maybe?—had gnawed on his chin and nuzzled his neck so enthusiastically, Mr. Bosu pretty much bought anything and everything the puppy so much as sniffed.