The Other Daughter (48 page)

Yeah, November was a funny kind of month. Wired people up, left them with no defenses against the oncoming gloom of winter. Left even guys like Bobby doing all they could do just to hold the course.

He finished his nachos. He drank his Coke. He settled his bill, and just as he had convinced himself it really was a good idea to go home, the beeper suddenly activated on his belt. He read the screen in one instant and was bolting out the door the next.

It had been that kind of day. Now it would be that kind of night.

Catherine Rose Gagnon didn’t like November much either, though for her, the real problem had started in October. October 22, 1980, to be exact. The air had been warm, the sun a hot kiss on her face as she walked home from elementary school. She’d been carrying her books in her arm and wearing her favorite back-to-school outfit: knee-high brown socks, a dark brown corduroy skirt, and a long-sleeved gold top.

A car came up behind her. At first she didn’t notice; but dimly she became aware of the blue Chevy slowing to a crawl beside her. A man’s voice. “
Hey, honey. Can you help me for a second? I’m looking for a lost dog
.”

Later there was pain and blood and muffled cries of protest. Her tears streaking down her cheeks. Her teeth biting her lower lip.

Then there was darkness and her tiny, hollow cry: “Is anyone out there?”

And then, for the longest time, there was nothing.

They told her it lasted twenty-eight days. She’d had no way of knowing. There was no time in the dark, just a loneliness that went on without end. There was cold and there was silence, and there were the times when he returned. But at least that was something. It was the sheer nothingness, endless streams of nothingness, that could drive a person insane.

Hunters found her. November 18. They noticed the fresh dirt, poked around with their rifles, and were startled to hear her faint voice. They dug her up triumphantly, unearthing her four-by-six earthen prison and releasing her into the crisp fall air. Later she saw newspaper photos. Her dark eyes oversized, her head thin and bony, her body curled up on itself, like a small brown bat that had been yanked harshly into the light.

The papers dubbed her the Thanksgiving Miracle. Her parents took her home. Neighbors and family paraded through the front door with exclamations of “Oh, thank goodness!” and “Just in time for the holidays,” and “Oh, can you really believe …?”

She sat and let people talk around her. She slipped food from the overflowing trays and stored it in her pockets. Her head was down, her shoulders hunched around her ears. She was still the little bat and for reasons she couldn’t explain, she was terrified of the light.

More police came. She told them of the man, of the car. They showed her pictures. She pointed at one. Later, days, weeks — did it really matter? — she came to the police station, stared at a lineup, and solemnly pointed her finger.

Richard Umbrio went on trial six months later. And three months into that, she took the stand in her plain blue dress, polished Mary Janes, and pointed her finger once again. Richard Umbrio went away for life.

And Catherine returned home with her family.

She didn’t eat much. She liked to take the food and put it in her pocket, or simply hold it in the palm of her hand. She didn’t sleep much. She lay in the dark, blind bat eyes seeking something she couldn’t name. Often, she held very still and saw if she could breathe without making a sound.

Sometimes her mother stood in the doorway, her pale white hands fluttering anxiously at her collarbone. Eventually, Catherine would hear her father down the hall. “
Come to bed, Louise. She’ll call if she needs you
.”

But Catherine never called.

Years passed. Catherine grew up, straightening her shoulders, growing out her hair, and discovering that she possessed the kind of strange, potent beauty that stopped men in their tracks. She was all pale white skin, straight black hair, and oversized navy eyes. Men wanted her desperately. So she used them indiscriminately. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t their fault. She simply never felt a thing.

Her mother died. 1994. Cancer. Catherine stood at the funeral and tried to cry. Her body had no moisture and her sobs sounded papery and insincere.

She went home to her barren apartment and tried not to think of it again, though sometimes, out of the blue, she would picture her mother standing in the doorway of her room. “
Come to bed, Louise. She’ll call if she needs you
.”

“Hey, honey. Can you help me find a lost dog?”

November 1998. The Thanksgiving Miracle curled up naked in her white ceramic tub, her thin, bony body trembling from the cold, as she clutched a single razor in her fist. Something bad was going to happen. A darkness beyond darkness. A buried box from which there would be no coming back.

“Come to bed, Louise. She’ll call if she needs you.”

“Hey, honey. Can you help me find a lost dog?”

The blade, so slender and light in her hands. The feel of its edge, kissing her skin. The abstract sensation of warm red blood, lining her skin.

The phone rang. Catherine roused herself from her lethargy long enough to answer it. And that single call saved her life. The Thanksgiving Miracle rose again.

She thought about it now. As the TV blared in the background:
An armed suspect has barricaded himself in his home after taking numerous shots at his neighbors. Boston SWAT officials consider the situation highly volatile and extremely dangerous
.

As her son sobbed in her arms. “Mommy, mommy, mommy.”

And as her husband bellowed from below: “I know what you’re doing, Cat! How stupid do you think I am? Well, it’s not going to work. There’s no way in hell you’re going to get away with it. Not this time!”

Jimmy stormed up the stairs, heading for their bedroom.

The phone had saved Catherine Gagnon before. Now she prayed it would save her once again. “Hello, hello, nine-one-one? Can you hear me? It’s my husband. I think he’s got a gun.”

BOBBY HAD BEEN a member of the Massachusetts State Police Special Tactics and Operations Team (STOP) for the past six years. Called out at least three times a month — and generally every damn holiday — he thought very little could surprise him anymore, but tonight he was wrong.

Roaring through the streets of Boston, he squealed his tires taking a hard right up Park Street, heading for the golden-domed State House, then threw his cruiser left onto Beacon, flying past the Commons and the Public Gardens. At the last minute, he almost blew it — tried to head up Arlington straight for Marlborough, then realized as a guy who generally drove around Boston and not through it, that Marlborough was one way the wrong way. Like any good Masshole driver, he slammed on his brakes, cranked the wheel hard, and laid on his horn as he cut across three lanes of traffic to remain on Beacon. Now his life was tougher, trying to pick up the right cross street to head up to Marlborough. In the end, he got it right the first time — he simply followed the white glow of floodlights and the flashing red lights of the Advanced Life Support Ambulance.

Arriving at the corner of Marlborough and Gloucester, Bobby processed many details at once. Blue sawhorses and Boston PD cruisers had already isolated one tiny block in the heart of Back Bay. Yellow crime scene tape was strewn across several brownstone houses and uniformed officers were taking up position on the corners. The ALS ambulance was now on scene, and so were several vans from the local media.

Things were definitely starting to rock and roll.

Bobby double-parked his Crown Vic just outside a blue sawhorse, jumped out the door, and jogged around to his trunk. Inside he had everything a well-trained police sniper might need for a party. Rifle, scope, ammo, black and urban camo BDUs, Ghillie hood, body armor, changes of clothing, snacks, water, a bean bag, night vision goggles, binoculars, range finder, face paint, Swiss Army knife, and flashlight. Local police probably kept spare tires in their trunk; a state trooper could live out of his cruiser for days.

Bobby hefted up his rucksack and immediately started assessing the situation.

In contrast to other SWAT teams, Bobby’s tactical team never arrived en masse. Instead his unit consisted of thirty-two guys located all over the state of Massachusetts, from the fingertip of Cape Cod to the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains. Headquarters was Adams, Mass., in the western half of the state, where Bobby’s lieutenant had taken the call from Framingham Communications and made the decision to deploy.

In this case, a domestic barricade with hostages, all thirty-two guys had been activated and all thirty-two would arrive. Some would take three to four hours to get here. Others, like Bobby, made it in less than fifteen minutes. Either way, Bobby’s lieutenant prided their team on being able to get at least five officers anywhere in the state in under an hour.

Looking around now, Bobby figured he was one of those first five officers. Which meant he needed to hustle.

Most SWAT units were comprised of three teams — an entry team, a perimeter team, and snipers. The perimeter team had the primary job of securing and controlling the inner perimeter. Then came the snipers, who took up position outside the inner perimeter and served as reconnaissance — appraising the situation through their scopes or binoculars, and radioing in details on the building as well as all people and movement inside. Finally, the entry team would prepare for last resort action — if the hostage negotiator couldn’t convince the suspects to come out, the entry team would storm in. Entries were messy; you prayed it didn’t come to that, but sometimes it did.

Bobby’s STOP team brought all those bells and whistles to the table, but they didn’t specialize. Instead, given that they arrived piecemeal, they were cross-trained on all positions so they could get up and running the moment boots hit the ground. In other words, while Bobby was one of the team’s eight designated snipers, he wasn’t looking at taking up sniping position just yet.

First goal — establish the inner perimeter. The inner perimeter was the area looking in at the scene. Establishing a good inner perimeter solved 90 percent of any tactical unit’s headaches. You controlled and contained. It took at least two guys to form a perimeter, each standing on opposing corners, monitoring the diagonals.

Bobby was one guy. Now he was looking for a second. He spotted two other state police cruisers parked across the way, then noticed the white van set up as command center. He hefted his rucksack on his shoulder and resumed running.

Bobby climbed into the command center. “Trooper Bobby Dodge,” he announced, setting down his gear and thrusting out a hand.

“Lieutenant Jachrimo.” The CO took his hand, handshake tight but quick. The thin-faced lieutenant wasn’t from the state police, but from BPD. That didn’t surprise Bobby; the scene was technically BPD jurisdiction, plus his own state police commander was probably still two hours away. The state police often assisted other jurisdictions, and secretly prided themselves on playing well with others.

Jachrimo already had a white board up in front of him and was making a Gant chart in the upper left-hand corner. “Position?” the man barked.

“Sniper.”

“Can you hold a perimeter?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Great, great, great.” A Boston uniform was walking by. Lieutenant Jachrimo broke away from the white board long enough to stick his head out of the van and yell, “Hey, hey you.” Jachrimo flagged down the uniform. “I need the phone company. Understand? Use your radio, call into dispatch, and get the goddamn phone company, ’cause nothing in this van is working, and you can’t really have a command post if it doesn’t command. Got it?”

The uniform went flying, and Jachrimo returned his harried attention to Bobby. “Okay, so what do you know?”

“Domestic barricade, male subject believed armed with a gun, wife and child also on the premises.” Bobby repeated the message he’d received on his pager.

“Suspect’s name is James ‘Jimmy’ Gagnon. Mean anything to you?”

Bobby shook his head.

“Just as well.” Jachrimo finished his Gant chart, then started an overhead sketch of the neighborhood on the lower part of the white board. “So here’s where we’re at. Woman called nine-one-one shortly after eleven-thirty. Claimed to be Catherine Gagnon, Jimmy’s wife. Said her husband was drunk and threatening her and their son with a handgun. The nine-one-one operator tried to hold her on the line, but there was some kind of disturbance and the call was disconnected. About four minutes later, nine-one-one received a call from a neighbor reporting sounds of gunfire.

“The call came into headquarters, but our guys are already out on a situation in Revere, so I kicked it to Framingham Communications, who contacted your lieutenant. Your unit’s serving as the primary, maybe for the whole show, maybe until our guys wrap up the party in Revere. Don’t know. As of this moment, we have uniforms already securing the external perimeter. There are men posted here, here, and here, and cars positioned here and here to block off the connecting streets.” Jachrimo made a series of X’s on his sketch, and that quickly one block of brownstones was cordoned off from the surrounding neighborhood.

“The Gagnons occupy the top three levels of unit number four-fifteen. Uniforms have already evacuated the residents below their unit, as well as the residents of the brownstones on either side. We haven’t had contact with anyone inside the residence yet, which frankly doesn’t make me happy. As far as I’m concerned, we should’ve had the inner perimeter secured ten minutes ago, and the hostage negotiators here eight minutes ago. But hey, that’s just me.”

“Manpower?”

“Troopers Fusilli, Adams, and Maroni are already on scene. They’re scoping the building now, looking to form a very tight perimeter, probably inside the building. I got one officer tracking down blueprints and another — hopefully — getting me the goddamn phone company.”

“Intel from the neighbors?”

“According to the downstairs unit owner, the Gagnons did significant work on the place in the past five years. Top level was converted into cathedral ceilings, eliminating the attic. There’s one main elevator, serving three floors. Stairs go all the way to the top, one set inside the building and one set of fire escapes on the side. He’s not sure about crawl spaces or how many rooms per floor. It’s an old building, though, so there’s bound to be a few surprises.