Baby Please Don't Go: A Novel (19 page)

27

As five o’clock on Thursday approached, Lock sat at his desk, organizing papers, checking the weather online, and stealing glances to monitor the end-of-day departure of his colleagues.

After a half hour, Lock couldn’t sit there any longer, so he took a quick walk around the office, noting who remained. He spotted one last person—the front desk receptionist, who was putting on her coat and forwarding the phones to the night-shift coordinator, whose office was situated on the third floor. Not much chance she’d come down to the main office where Lock was. He returned to his cubicle, and by five forty-five, everyone else, even Abby, was gone.

Abby’s private office was next to the break room. Lock got up and slunk in that direction. He paused at the closed but unlocked door of the office, furtively looked around, and let himself in. He stood at the threshold and his eyes fell on a silver-framed photograph of a dusty old elephant with long yellowed tusks. The photo hung on the wall behind the desk.

Abby, in infrequent displays of humor and when he was in the mood, liked to tell visitors that he had taken the picture in Zambia at the Nsumbu National Park animal preserve. When they’d praise Abby and say they didn’t know his was a big game photographer, he’d chuckle and tell them the truth—he had taken the picture at 34
th
and Girard, inside the Philadelphia zoo.

Lock closed the door behind him and immediately took a seat at his boss’s desk. He pressed the button and the computer screen lit up.

With a sweaty palm, he gripped the mouse and clicked on Abby’s inbox. The program asked for the password, and Lock entered it. A long list of messages filled the screen. He scanned the subject lines of each one, and about twenty emails down, found a message titled “Confidential – Lock Gilkenney / Mannheim matter.”

It was the email Jacoby had sent—at 12:55 p.m. that afternoon—to Abby.
“I know you have great confidence in the professionalism of your staff,” Jacoby wrote, “and so do I. But candidly, I am concerned about Mr. Gilkenney’s handling of this file. It appears that he may have jumped to conclusions too quickly, and with too much certainty. My preliminary information indicates he is a single man and currently without a girlfriend. It is not lost on me that Mrs. Mannheim is an attractive woman. Those facts can sometimes lead to a conflict of interest, and this troubles the District Attorney’s office more than a little. Given the implausible circumstances of the motor vehicle accident on Creek Road, I am keenly interested in Lock’s whereabouts for the hours before, during, and after the accident—if that’s what it was. That said, I am curious about your thoughts on this. This matter is my number one priority. Please reply as soon as possible.”

Abby’s reply was sent ten minutes later. “First of all, I object to your insinuation that Lochlan Gilkenney is somehow involved in any illegal activity whatsoever, or has exhibited even the slightest dereliction of his professional duties. His hunches regarding complex cases have proven correct 100% of the time. Lock is my best investigator. He is a keen observer of human nature. He genuinely loves all children. This Creek Road incident is not likely to be an exception to any of the above. Additionally, we have reviewed the file extensively and find nothing outside of our standard operating procedures—nothing at all. Furthermore, and more to the point, I have known Lock—both professionally and personally—for many, many years. I find him far above suspicion, and find your suggestion of his direct involvement in an array of felonies to be insulting, offensive, and obnoxious. I think we share the belief that attorney Jerome Freel is a bad actor, mixed up in this to some degree. Why you are suddenly focusing on Lock is a mystery to me. And to top it all off, on the evening and hours in question, Lock and I happened to be dining at Foster & Zandt’s restaurant in Red Cedar Woods. I enjoyed a rib-eye, well done, with a baked potato. I recall that Lock ordered grilled salmon. I cannot remember what else he ordered. Perhaps you should charge me with obstruction of justice for withholding information about side orders. Lock picked up the check and so I cannot tell you how much of a tip he left. Perhaps your detectives can interview the wait staff and determine the amount of the gratuity and see if it meets with your approval. Respectfully yours, Abner Schlamm.”

When Lock finished reading, he sat there, staring at the screen, amazed at getting a break—Abby had gotten confused. He was mixed up about the dates. Their dinner at the restaurant hadn’t been the night of the crash, but the night before.

Finally, something other than bad news. But that didn’t stop him from feeling horrible that he had betrayed Abby’s trust. Even good news was ruined by the truth. He felt like he couldn’t win.

That evening, Lock and Natalie lay in his bed, exhausted, their backs to each other, both half asleep. Neither of them wanted to be there, and Lock regretted having allowed her to invite herself over. She was just trying to keep him wound around her finger. He had known that, but at the time he thought it was Natalie or a drink tonight.

Lock got up to use the bathroom and returned a minute later. Instead of getting back into the bed, he pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. Natalie didn’t move.

When he sat on the bed to put on his shoes, Natalie rolled over and looked at him.

“We planned the whole thing meticulously,” he said, “but we didn’t figure on what happened next. Since then, we haven’t been as careful. We’ve been reacting, not planning. That’s where we can get into trouble.”

“Like planning for what?” she said.

“Like preparing for tough questioning from the police or the D.A. Like your whereabouts on the night of the collision.”

“So what?” said Natalie. “Who’s going to check with the Orchid Society to see if I was really there? This isn’t a murder investigation, Lock. Besides, I could have changed my mind and gone somewhere else. I don’t have to answer for what I told Candice. Even if they find out I didn’t get to the meeting, it will prove nothing.”

“If not the Orchid Society, where else might you have gone? You’re still without a solid alibi. Maybe your boyfriend could vouch for you.”

“I told you, he doesn’t know a thing—and things with him are through.”

“Yes, Natalie, you told me already. Words are nothing but sounds that come out of your sweet mouth. You’ll say anything.”

“And what about you? You’ll do anything to get what you want—a family. What did you say? Attempted murder, assault, abduction, fraud? More?”

Lock rose from the bed and pressed his palms against his temples, as if to massage away a headache. Natalie rolled away, again showing her back to Lock.

“If I would have known then—” he said, turning to her.

Natalie grabbed the first solid object she could reach, and a phone sailed across the bed, hitting Lock on the forehead. Drops of blood trickled down. He was speechless.

Natalie jumped out of bed and hurriedly pulled on her clothes. “So what am I doing here, then? I knew you weren’t much,” she said. “You live in fear of your boss and you’re afraid of almost everything. You never grew up and now you’re trying to bring us both down. You’re not tough enough to live with what you’ve done. You’re like a weepy little schoolgirl, Lock.”

Lock felt the blood dripping; he wiped some off with his palm and looked at it. “You’re deranged,” he said, moving across the room and hurriedly grabbing items to pack for the Poconos, the only place he seemed to be able to clear his mind.

“You have no idea what I’m capable of,” she said. “No idea.”

“Yes, I do. Now Abby’s not the only one I’m scared of. I’m scared of you, too.”

“Pathetic. You coward.”

Natalie finished dressing and left without saying another word. Lock stood there with a white sock pressed against his forehead and watched her walk out.

28

Lock had been at the cabin since just before it got dark. He brought in enough firewood to last a several days and lit a fire. The heat began warming the cabin immediately. The smoky scent filled his nostrils, and for the first time in a week, he felt a bit of calm. Apparently, his demons were as exhausted as he was.

He looked around for his overnight bag and realized he’d left it in the car. He went out to get it and took a moment to stare up at the starry sky through the topmost branches of the pine, oak, fir, and spruce trees. Normally, he might have put his things away and then walked in the woods, trying to find something new or maybe just spending time with the trees he had become familiar with over many years. But he was ashamed, as if the trees he loved might judge him for what he had done.

After a few minutes, he retrieved his bag from the trunk and climbed the three steps to the cabin’s front door. He shrugged off his overcoat, put a kettle on the stove, and added just enough water for a single cup of tea. It was late, but caffeine never seemed to affect him at night.

He sat down in a rocker near the fire and closed his eyes. He waited for the water to boil. Then he changed his mind, got up, turned the stove off, and sat back down. He took long, deep breaths and consciously began to relax his body. Natalie had taught it to him, something she had learned at yoga. First, the scalp, then the forehead, the jaw, and so on. He had gotten as far as his lower back when the phone rang.

He rose and walked across the cold, wooden planks of the floor to answer it.

“Hello?”

“Lock, this is Tom, from CPS. Sorry to reach you so late. Couldn’t find you earlier. There’s some terrible news.”

Lock’s chest constricted. “What happened?”

“I just heard from the D.A.’s office. That Mannheim kid—the little girl? She suffered a cerebral hemorrhage a couple of hours ago. She died.”

Lock exhaled sharply. “What? No, Tom, that’s impossible. It was only a minor concussion. They’re discharging her.”

“Lock. Don’t take this too hard. You have nothing to do with this. You did your job. Any one of us would have closed that case, too. I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you.”

“Okay,” Lock said, almost inaudibly. “I got it.”

Then he hung up and fell to his knees, trembling. He leaned forward and pounded his already-bruised head into the floor.

Without packing or locking up, Lock jumped into his car and headed back. To where, he wasn’t sure.

Lock walked into Foster & Zandt’s and sat at a table close to the bar. He glanced in a mirror on the wall and saw that his face was drawn, his eyes hollow, his expression blank. The lone bartender, a new employee Lock didn’t know, was cleaning up for the night.

“It’s going on two o’clock,” the bartender said. “We close in ten minutes. What can I get you that you can drink fast, sir?”

“You have Glenmorangie?”

“Glen what?”

“Glenmorangie. Single malt scotch. Never mind. Get me a double of the best scotch in the house.”

“That’d be Highland Park Thirty Year Old. It’s the boss’s favorite. Forty bucks a shot. You still want it?”

“A double,” said Lock.

The bartender shrugged. A moment later, he poured the drink, walked around the bar, and set it down in front of Lock.

“Drink up, sir. Savor it. They say it’s delicious.”

“Not as delicious as Glenmorangie.”

Lock stared at the drink and handed the bartender a one hundred-dollar bill.

“And a glass of water.”

After the bartender delivered the water, Lock picked up the two glasses and walked them back to the furthest table from the bar. The lights in that part of the bar were already dimmed, and Lock sat in the near dark. He reached into his pocket and took out a vial of the same sleeping pills he’d slipped into Witt’s beer. It was half full and held thirty or forty pills. A couple scattered to the floor when he opened the cap.

The bartender found Lock and gave him his change. Lock held the vial out of sight under the table.

As soon as the bartender walked away, Lock swallowed most of the pills. He washed them down with half the water, paused to swallow again, then emptied the rest of the vial down his throat, and finished the water. He had done research online and knew he had about twenty minutes until the drug would start to kick in. And maybe another fifteen minutes after that before he’d be unconscious.

Lock sat there, back upright, the double scotch in front of him. He stared at it, picked it up, and held it in front of his face with an outstretched arm. The low light from the ceiling fixture shone through the shot glass. He regarded the amber liquid affectionately. Only the glass separated him from the scotch.
What’s in that liquid that’s so damn alluring?
he wondered. He’d learned from others in AA that there were a million excuses to drink, but no valid reasons. He looked at it for a moment longer, then whipped his wrist forward and splashed the scotch out onto the floor.

He thought of Dahlia and pictured her in the morgue at the hospital. He imagined her lifeless little body on a stainless steel table in a refrigerator. Lock thought of Hannah, and wondered what she was like now, so many years later. Had she ever known there was a man named Lochlan Gilkenney who had loved and adored her and wanted to hold her hand as she grew up? Lock thought about his mother and how he missed her, how she’d always known the right thing to say when things were hard on him. And finally, he thought about Natalie—but her image was too painful to contemplate, and he booted her out of his mind’s eye, the same way he’d learned to boot a craving. Lock realized how much he hated himself for what he’d allowed to happen.
Allowed?
he thought. No, he wasn’t a passive participant, he was the star of the show, and the writer and director and producer, too. At his lowest low of drunkenness and drug addiction, he hadn’t repulsed himself as he did now.

Dahlia was dead, and he and Natalie had killed her.

At first, it had been possible for him to rationalize his actions. Witt was bad news. He drove drunk with the kids, ignored his parental duties, and abused and battered his wife. Taking things into Lock’s own hands had seemed like a good idea. At the time.

Maybe Natalie had planted the seed in his head, but that didn’t matter, because he was the one who’d set it all up—the idea to put the two-year-old in the car, driving the car into the tree, the doping up of Witt, the whole catastrophe.

Last week, he had been a dedicated advocate for children in jeopardy. Today, he was a child murderer. But in an hour, it would all be over. He had no family who would mourn his passing. His only regret was how much all of this would hurt Abby.

One or two minutes passed and Lock hoped he’d soon feel the initial effects of the sleeping pills, but his mind was too active and that energized him. Until then, he’d be on his own, alone with his memories and self-judgments. He rested his forehead on the table.

Another minute passed. The bartender appeared. He saw what he assumed to be a slightly drunk Lock. He put his hand on Lock’s shoulder and Lock looked up.

“Up we go, sir,” the bartender said, starting to help him to his feet.

Lock shrugged to the side to shake off the bartender’s grip.

“We’re closing,” the bartender said, backing off. “I lost you back here in the shadows. You almost got locked in.”

The bartender stepped further back and stood there, glowering at Lock, waiting for him to get up and leave. A moment later, he stood up deliberately and headed to the door.

“What time is it?” he asked the bartender.

“Two twenty, friend. You okay to get home?”

“That’s where I’m going,” Lock said, and he left.

The cold November night air hit Lock in the face. He began walking, but he had no destination. He was still alert enough to know that if he collapsed on the street, it would be likely that someone would notice him and he’d be rushed to a hospital where he might be revived. He knew he needed to get someplace where no one would find him.

He looked up and down the street, looking for a place to go. Then, for some reason, the storage closet in Bill’s Café and Hang-About popped into his head. That would be the perfect place to wait for the inevitable. It was in the middle of the night, but that wouldn’t stop Lock from getting into the clubhouse. One of his AA compatriots would find him later that day. It would be a terrible scene, and a terrible thing for him to do, but did that matter at this point? He took a deep breath and kept walking—he was already headed in the general direction of the café.

He had no reason to rush, but he picked up his pace anyway. Then it hit him—he was scheduled to be the guest speaker at that morning’s 6:30 AA meeting at the Hang-About. It was his responsibility to set up the room and make the coffee. People usually began arriving at the café around 6:00 a.m. In his confusion and grief, Lock thought he might be able to honor his AA commitment, or at least part of it. And he knew deep down he needed to come clean, to tell his story, to ease his conscience, to speak the truth.

But he wasn’t thinking clearly—long before 6:30, the pills would have done their job.

A couple of minutes later, in the middle of a block of shops, Lock arrived at the AA club house. He needed to get in but didn’t have the key. He hesitated a moment, then smashed his elbow through a small plane of glass in the door and reached through to release the dead bolt.

The door opened.

“Well,” Lock said to the imaginary Abby in the audience, “I told you you wouldn’t like hearing the truth, but that’s what happened, and that’s how I got here, half dead, and that’s why I’m dying now. I’m a child killer, among other things, and I don’t deserve to—”

The illusory crowd disappeared upon Lock’s sudden awareness that real people had entered the room.

Abby had arrived.

He stood in the back, flanked by Ivan. Abby ambled forward slowly, his face blank. He eased himself into his regular seat, eyes steady on Lock.

“Hello, Abby,” Lock said, not bothering with the microphone and sounding drunk. He spoke softly, his words barely audible.

Lock straightened up as best he could and strained to put on a smile.

“I was rehearsing what I need to tell you,” he said. “‘A searching and fearless moral inventory.’ Isn’t that what AA says? Full disclosure, kind of. And what I came up with is pure ugly. Pure evil.”

Lock took another gulp of water. The effect of the pills was pronounced. He was losing his grip on the podium. “I’m so sorry.”

“You’re breaking my heart, son,” Abby said. “I pray I’m home in bed having a terrible dream.”

“I wish that’s what’s happening,” he said, his speech nearly beyond recognition. Lock took another sip of water. “But it’s not. Do me a favor.”

“What, Lochlan?” Abby said.

“Don’t call the police, at least not yet. Give me a few hours to be by myself.”

“Too late,” Abner said. “An ambulance is on its way. And you want a few hours? You don’t have a few minutes. I need to know what you took.”

Abby rose and took a step forward.

“Don’t worry about me,” Lock said. “Everything will take its natural course, I need a little more time.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

“Let me go, please. This is the best idea I’ve had in a long time.”

“Your best idea? Your best thinking got you right here, mixed up in a serious crime. Now it’s time to let me do your thinking for you.”

“An hour then. One hour is all I need.”

“I don’t think so,” Abby said.

“You’re picking a hell of a time to get tough with me.”

“It’s always a hell of a time.”

Lock couldn’t stand any longer. He slid to the floor, losing his grip on the podium. He tried to rise.

“Don’t get up, Lochlan. Just sit there,” Abby said. Lock watched him run his tongue over his teeth. He looked away from Lock. With a trembling hand, he took off his cap. His eyes welled up. “They’ll be here in a minute,” he said, moving to Lock and touching his face.

Lock struggled to get himself upright. He managed, with tremendous effort, to get to his feet. Once up, he stumbled toward the rear exit, shoved the door open, and fell out into the brick-lined dark alley and the frigid air.

Abby followed. “What are you going to do?” he asked. “Make a run for it?”

“Try to stop me.”

“Run down the alley and hide behind a trash bin so you can’t be found? Then curl up and die like a dog? Is that how your mother raised you?”

“Karma, Abner. You can’t get away with anything.”

“You have plenty coming to you, but this? Dying here? No.” Tears welled in Abby’s eyes.

“Dying won’t get you out of this,” he said. “Mannheim’s been released and Natalie’s been arrested. And you. You’re going to get yourself patched up and face yourself and the charges against you. Then you’re going to stand trial or take a plea, and they’re going send you to prison for a little while. You’re going to take what’s coming to you. Can you hear me?”

“A little while? I’ll go to prison forever. Forever. I killed a child.”

Abby grimaced. “No, you didn’t kill her. That story was the D.A.’s invention. He made that up for you to hear. He thought it would unnerve you, and he was right. That trick could work only on a fundamentally decent man, mind you. The child is fine, home with her father. I heard about Jacoby’s ploy late tonight but couldn’t find you. Thank God for Ivan. He saw you, thought something wasn’t right, and called me. I figured you heard the phony story and would do something foolish. And here you are.”