phoned me. She said she . . .” His voice faded away again.
“You know what, Mr. Gudgeon . . . I mean, Walt,” Rosco set his pen down on the desk and leaned in toward his visitor. “Why don’t you describe your relationship to Ms. Davis? No notes on my part, okay? But I have to know what I’m dealing with if I’m going to help you.”
Gudgeon put his head in his hands and all but groaned. “I just want to find her, that’s all. I just need to know that she’s alive. That she’s not in any trouble. That she came through everything all right.”
Rosco didn’t like playing the psychiatrist; he preferred a more direct approach. But direct didn’t work with everyone, and it sure wasn’t working at the moment. He decided to nibble away at Gudgeon’s edges in the hopes of gathering more concrete data. “When did you come to this country, Walt?” he asked.
Gudgeon looked up and smiled. “I like to think I’ve lost the accent. Foolish thought, huh? I came over from Scotland fifty years ago. I was fifteen when we sailed into Boston Harbor.”
“And you’ve done well for yourself.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Damn straight, I have. I’m the top electrical contractor in the city.”
“And your son now runs the company?”
Gudgeon chortled. “He tries to.”
“Any other children?”
“Four daughters. That’s enough to drive a man insane, I’ll tell you that much. I don’t recommend it to anyone.”
“And your wife?”
“She passed away a year and a half ago.” Gudgeon said this without taking a breath. The statement seemed to bear no emotional weight. Sensing that Rosco was aware of this dearth of grief, Walt followed with a quick, “She was a fine woman. Raised five solid children; may she rest in peace.”
“And getting back to Dawn Davis, when did you meet her?”
“That was about two months ago. Out at the Harbor Mall . . . In the food court.”
Rosco waited for more, but Gudgeon had again lapsed into silence. Rosco slid his chair back from his desk and made a show of leaving his notebook and pen untouched. “If you truly want to find Ms. Davis, you’re going to have to tell me everything about her. Including her relationship to you.”
Gudgeon made no reply, and so Rosco continued, “Let’s start with the moment you met her. But first: Do you want a coffee or something? I can phone down to Lawson’s. They’ll send it right up.”
“No. No, I’m fine.” He inhaled deeply and let the air out slowly. Finally he said, “Okay. Back in early August I was at the mall doing my laps—”
“There’s a pool at the Harbor Mall?”
“No, no, I go there every morning at eleven and do laps around the mall; on foot, for exercise. I circle the mall at a good pace for an hour, then go to the food court for lunch. I know, it’s a dumb time to go. It’s always jammed by then, but I like seeing all the people, the kids running around, teenage couples hanging out—especially in the summer when there’s no school. I live alone now, and it gets pretty dull. Anyway, one day, I think it was a Saturday, because the court was packed and all the tables were filled, Dawn came up to me with her lunch and asked if she could share the table. Of course, I said yes. She was a polite young woman, and there weren’t any empty spots. We had a nice chat; hit it off really well, actually . . . and that was that.”
“That’s all you saw of her?”
“No, no. A few days later I saw her again at the food court. I waved, and I asked her to join me.”
“She didn’t approach you; you called her over? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I don’t even think she saw me sitting there till I called her name. Anyway, she seemed a little out if it. Her eyes were puffy, like she’d been crying. She’s got these really soft green gold eyes, but they were all pink and sore-looking. It really broke my heart. I asked her what was wrong, but she refused to talk. She said her problems were her own and she wasn’t about to get a stranger involved. I pushed her for information, but she refused to say anything more. We then kind of finished our lunches in silence, but I could see that she was on the verge of tears the entire time. I gave