Baby Please Don't Go: A Novel (16 page)

21

Lock couldn’t sleep, so he got up and left earlier than he had planned. The drive was only an hour and a half. The storm had passed and the skies were bright as he drove south on the Pennsylvania Turnpike back to his carriage house. He was sick to his stomach.

Natalie wasn’t answering her phone. He kept getting her voicemail. She was probably at the hospital. Obviously, their rendezvous was off.

Lock arrived at his office slightly unkempt, his eyes bleary. He didn’t wear a suit. He could have used another six hours of sleep and a change of clothes, but Abby had insisted he be there. He entered his cubicle, sat down, and went through the motions of working, but succeeded only in doing a fairly good job of masking—not reducing—his anxiety. He shuffled papers around on his desk.

When Abby appeared behind him and spoke, Lock jumped.

“There you are.” Lock swiveled in his chair and turned towards him. The old man looked him over and shook his head. “You seem well rested. Anyway, take a guess who’s here.”

Lock didn’t like the question. There were countless people he didn’t want to see.

“I’m too beat to guess. Tell me,” he said.

“District Attorney Vance Jacoby.”

“Jacoby?” Lock said, slapping his palm on the armrest of his swivel chair. “What’s that pain in the ass want?”

“As much media attention as possible.”

“What’s he planning to do to get it?”

“Some Mothers Against Drunk Driving lady heard the Mannheim accident on her police scanner,” said Abner. “And when it came out there was a child involved in a DUI wreck, she went berserk. Called every TV and radio station, every newspaper and wire service, saying this sort of thing must come to a stop. The media must like the story because I’ve been getting call after call. Jacoby’s going to hold a press conference. Here.”

“He’s a lightweight headline grabber. I wouldn’t worry about him.”

Abby ignored the remark. “Apparently, the D.A.’s office has instructions out to all 911 dispatchers county-wide,” he said. “Every time they get a report of a DUI with injuries, they’re supposed to notify Jacoby’s hotline. Count on him to make a lot of noise. I’m certain that he’s the one who opened his mouth to reporters about this being a CPS case.”

“I can’t take very much of that guy,” said Lock, getting out of his chair and tugging at his sleeves and re-tucking his shirt. He stared at the floor.

“Why won’t you look at me?” Abby said.

Lock put his head in his hands and massaged his forehead and temples.

“I’m not looking at anything. I have a headache behind each eye you wouldn’t believe.”

Lock rubbed his face. “I was at Mannheim’s home. Three times. It looked like one of the parents—the father—was case-building for custody purposes. And I closed it. That’s all the press needs. We talked about it, Abby. You said close it and move on.”

“I know I did, son. Let’s not worry about that, let’s just do what we can to make this better.”

Twenty minutes later, the news conference was over. It hadn’t lasted as long as Lock thought it might, and better yet, no one had asked him any questions. And CPS, it turned out, wasn’t blamed for anything. Reporters and cameramen shuffled out of the crowded conference room.

A lone cameraman stopped and turned to record Abby. Lock took Abby by the sleeve, gently turned him around, and straightened his tie.

“Got to look good for the cameras,” Lock said.

“Yeah,” Abby said. To avoid the reporters, he feinted a move in one direction, turned, and hurried out another way.

“Abner!” Jacoby, a tall man in his fifties wearing a pinstriped suit, shouted after him. “Abner Schlamm.”

Abner stopped and walked back in, giving a camera one last shot at him. A few people remained in the room. They sat around an oversized conference table.

“I just had the bartender from Cavern Tavern dragged down to the State Police barracks,” Jacoby said. “He was the one pouring drinks for Mannheim last night.” Jacoby cleared his throat. “I was looking for a case like this. Liquor establishment complicity is the heart of my DUI enforcement campaign. If bartenders want to serve visibly drunk patrons, they can join them in the cage. Abner, I want you to stand with me at the next press conference.”

“It won’t be tops on my to-do list, Jacoby, I can tell you that,” Abby said. “Once is enough. Anything else?”

“Come on,” said Jacoby. “This Mannheim character is my poster boy. And even though most people in county government think your case managers are cowboys, we all know this isn’t a CPS screw-up. We know you’re aggressive for the sake of the children. Frankly, and off the record, I applaud that. There was nothing that could have been done to head off this accident. You couldn’t have anticipated it, Abner. Play ball with me. It’ll be good for CPS.”

“Here’s my advice to you,” said Abner. “Find someone already convicted of drunk driving to pummel. Your poster boy’s rich and probably has big lawyers. He could beat the charges and then you look like even more of a damned fool.”

Jacoby nodded. If he caught the insult, he didn’t show it.

“Really? How’s he going to beat it with that little girl in bad shape?”

“Sorry to break it to you,” Abby said. “Our call center supervisor called the hospital last night. Just a bloody lip and a little bump on her noggin. She’ll likely be home with her mama before dinner time, so, so long, Jacoby.”

Jacoby furrowed his brow.

“That’s not our understanding,” Jacoby said. “We spoke to the hospital an hour ago. Anyway, we could use your help. The solidarity of our agencies is important. I hope you’ll be with us, Abner.”

“Hope makes a good breakfast but a poor supper.” Abby turned and left, and Lock followed.

“What did Jacoby mean, ‘that’s not our understanding’?” Lock asked.

“I don’t know, but I’m going to call the hospital and find out. I’ll let you know.”

Abby offered Lock the afternoon off to rest up, as penance for dragging him back from the Poconos. Lock took him up on it and decided to go home for the day. Before he left, he called the hospital for Dahlia’s condition. Lock said he was her uncle. “Guarded,” they said.

Guarded?
he thought.
That doesn’t sound minor
. It made him sicker. He wondered how Natalie was doing, but he didn’t dare call. She was probably at the hospital, surrounded by friends.

Lock put his head down on his desk, and moments later, Abby was there.

“Didn’t I give you the afternoon off? You look terrible,” Abby said to the back of Lock’s head. Lock turned around. “I’m sorry,” Abby continued, “I had to have you here with me. You never know what questions the media will throw at us, and this was your case.”

“I know,” said Lock.

“You go home now, turn your phone off, pull the blinds down, and get some sleep. Call me at home tomorrow. Sharp pain behind the eyes could be a migraine. Rest up. Let me know how you’re doing.”

“I can tell you now, I won’t be doing great.”

“You have to remain professional, Lock. Stay at arm’s length. You can’t let yourself get too attached or you lose effectiveness, you lose objectivity, and you diminish your ability to really help the kids who need us the most.”

“But I closed the case.”

“Right. Just like any of your colleagues would have done. Just like I would have done. Now go home and go to bed.”

Lock reached out and turned off his computer monitor. “Okay, you’re right. I need to get some sleep.”

“Thanks for everything, boy. You go home. Don’t worry about a thing. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Lock returned to the carriage house, fiddled around with the two orchids, ignored the stack of mail on the table, and took out the trash from the kitchen, which had been starting to get ripe. He dropped two tablets of Alka-Seltzer into a glass half filled with water, waited a few seconds, and then downed it in a single gulp.

The moment he got undressed and into bed, his cellphone rang.

Natalie, calling from the hospital, told him Dahlia wasn’t going to be discharged. The doctors were concerned about her—they said it was a significant concussion.

Hearing this, Lock had trouble swallowing. His throat dried up. Natalie also told Lock something he already knew—Witt was being held on a reckless endangerment charge.

“I can slip away from the hospital for a few hours,” she said.

Lock sat up in bed and ran his fingers through his hair. “How can you leave your child’s side at a time like this?”

“Lock, I’m telling you, she’ll be fine. Plus, they have her sedated, so all she’s doing is sleeping.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he said.

“You’re ridiculous. I’m her mother. I wouldn’t leave if I thought it was wrong. I need to see you. I have a reservation at the Four Seasons. I’ll meet you there, and we’ll have room service bring us lunch.”

“It’s too risky. If we’re seen together now—”

“Who’s going to see us in the privacy of our room? We’ll arrive separately and leave separately. No one will notice either of us. Believe me, you need to relax, Lock. You’re freaking out over nothing. Dahlia looks great. I wouldn’t leave if I thought I shouldn’t. Take it easy.”

“But you’re her mother.”

Natalie laughed. “I have more maternal instinct in my pinkie than most women have in their whole bodies.”

“I don’t know, Natalie.”

“Get to the lobby by one. I have an early check-in. When you get there, call my cell and I’ll give you the room number.”

Lock stood up and glanced at himself in the mirror. A haggard face looked back. He knew he should stay home and rest and get his mind right, but he felt powerless to say no. He wanted to see Natalie, and he figured that if there was any news, the hospital would call her immediately. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He shook his head and, as if it was someone else’s voice, he heard himself speak. “Okay, Natalie. I want to be with you, too. But only for a couple of hours. Okay? Then you get yourself back to the hospital.”

“Call me from the lobby,” Natalie said. “Love you.”

She hung up.

Abner left the office promptly at five o’clock, something he rarely did. Usually, he could be counted on to stay behind his desk until 6:30 or 7:00 p.m., making calls and completing on-screen forms and assessment reports. But that afternoon, he was exhausted and more than a little concerned about the events of the day.

As he drove home, he noted with some pleasure that he’d had the opportunity to insult Jacoby, but that was tempered by his concern about Lock. The whole matter was exhausting everyone in the office. He couldn’t wait to get his shoes off and get his feet up on the worn recliner in his living room.

A re-run of a game show appeared on Abner’s television screen. He was glad the news didn’t pop up. He didn’t want to see any news, especially local news. He’d had enough of the media for one day.

Something gnawed at him. Something didn’t seem right about the accident, but he couldn’t identify it. He got up and went to the kitchen, put just enough water for one cup of instant coffee in a kettle, and turned on the burner. He opened a glass-doored cabinet above the stove and reached for a mug and the can of Maxwell House.

His eyes stopped for a moment on the unopened bottle of rare scotch he had kept there for over twenty years.
That would solve the problem,
he thought, knowing he’d never touch it.
That would solve this problem, but create many others.
He remembered what someone had once said at an AA meeting—
Alcoholism is the only disease that tells you you’re not sick.

He kept the bottle there as a souvenir of the war he’d fought with alcohol. He was stronger than the occasional urge to drink—an urge that still came after almost three decades of sobriety—and this was the kind of day when he needed to stay strong. He leaned against the sink and waited for the water to boil. While he waited, his mind gravitated to Natalie Mannheim. He didn’t know why, but he knew he didn’t like her. He didn’t like anything about her. He made a mental note to ask Lock more about her. After all, Lock was the one who knew her best.

Abner had another thought then—she was a manipulator, and Lock was lonely. He knew that could be a recipe for trouble. He’d definitely have to have a talk with Lock.

The kettle whistled as Abner dropped a level tablespoon of coffee crystals into the mug. He started to pour the hot water and stopped mid-pour. He mustn’t have added enough coffee, because, at first, the liquid in the bottom of the mug looked a lot like scotch.

22

The next day, Lock and Natalie sat in a nearly empty theater in the Art House Cinema in Old City Philadelphia.

On screen, in black and white, a man made a call from a phone booth. He spoke in low tones to a woman on the other end of the line.

At Lock’s insistence, Natalie had taken a seat a row behind him. She thought that was ridiculous. They had been hissing to each other in whispers since they got there.

“She’s not getting sicker, Lock,” Natalie said. “She’s getting better a little more slowly than they first thought. That’s all.”

“Abner said Dahlia’s not making the progress the docs were expecting,” said Lock. “And the hospital has her condition listed as guarded.”

“I don’t care what that old goat says. I’m her mother. I’m the one who was there all night. I’m the one who’s talking to the doctors. I’m the one worried sick.”

“Like right now?”

Natalie laughed, leaned forward, and gave him a quick one-armed hug. Lock stared off toward the screen. A man in a long coat was walking down a lane at night. Shadows from the street lamp fell over him.

Natalie looked away from the screen and at Lock.

“You seem a bit stressed,” she said. “Dare me to sit next to you and put my head in your lap?” She leaned forward. “Right now, right here?”

Lock didn’t respond. He sat stiffly upright, his fists clenched.

“Well?” she asked.

“No thanks.”

They sat in silence, turning their attention to the screen. The man in the long coat sat across from a teenage girl at a restaurant table. The girl was sobbing.

They watched for a couple of minutes before Natalie broke the lull. “How are you going to get Abner off the scent?” she asked. “You say he’s so smart.”

“It’ll be tougher now. The publicity changes everything.”

“But not us, Lock. We’re still rock-solid. Honey? Nothing’s changed with us, right?”

“Yes, we’re rock-solid,” he said. Then his expression went flat. “Why are they keeping Dahlia again?”

“The doctor said something about the bump on her head making her light-sensitive. At least that’s what he told me.”

“What kind of doctor? And what else did he say?

“A neurologist. They said she has MTBI.”

“What the hell is that?”

“Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. It’s medical double talk for a minor concussion. Nothing to worry about. And he didn’t say anything else. Nothing. I’m telling you, she’s fine,” Natalie said. “They’re being over-cautious for only one reason—so they can keep billing the insurance company.”

Lock stared off into space. “Here’s Abby’s problem,” he said. “CPS backed off a case. I was the one who closed it, and a child got hurt because of a dad we could have been monitoring. That’s a problem for Abby, so it’s a problem for us.”

Natalie sat back.

“Being together now is too risky,” he said. “We have to slow it down for a while.”

“That’s easy for you to say. Maybe I’m alone and scared and need you, and what do you do? You crawl under a rock and hide. How heroic.”

“I thought you were cool, Natalie.”

“It’s horrible at the house, even though he’s out on bail now and at the Sheraton. Edwina’s upset, and Witt calls me about the baby twenty times a day.”

“So hang up twenty times a day.”

“Oh, he’s so sorry. Oh, he’s never going to have a drink again. He makes me nauseated.”

“We have to lie low until this isn’t on the news all day, every day,” Lock said. “The only thing we have going for us is the media’s short attention span.”

“Then why the pissed-off face?”

“Abby wants a drink,” Lock said.

“Can’t that work out for us?” she said. “Him wanting a drink. Why can’t you help him to—what do you call it—
slip
? I’m sure he’s got a long way down once he starts the slide.”

A picture of Natalie’s snake tattoo rushed through Lock’s mind. In his imagination, the snake’s head came out of her throat and morphed into her head.

Lock controlled his expression.

“That would kill him, taking a drink,” he said. “He wants to drink, but he won’t, and the craving is his cue that something’s very wrong. He’ll stand there for a thousand years to figure out why he wants that drink.”

She reached forward and squeezed his shoulder.

“And I’m going to help him come to a satisfactory conclusion so he stops thinking about it,” Lock said. “I’m going to do it with a story that’s going to taste
exactly like the truth—but it will be what we need him to think. Trouble is, I’ve never been able to lie to him very well. I’ll have to succeed this time. He knows me like a father knows his son. If he had a good a reason, he wouldn’t hesitate to have himself arrested—or me.”

“You have to think of something,” said Natalie.

“I know. Cool is how we play it. No small rooms.”

“How long do we not see each other?” she asked.

“I’m going home to think about that. Then we’ll see.”

“So you’re taking the day off,” Natalie said, “while I do nothing but sit and burn a hole in my stomach.”

“You have two children to take care of.”

“You have hundreds.”

Lock couldn’t see her face.

“Dahlia will be home from the hospital soon,” he said, “and the spotlight on CPS will fade and other problems—newer, bigger problems—will pop up to distract Abby.” Lock stood up. “Goodbye, baby,” he said, so low she could barely hear him. “Wish I could kiss you.”

“Why can’t you?”

On screen, a couple argued and the man paced and made hand gestures, as if he were accusing her of something. She rushed to him.

“Stay until the movie’s over. I’ve seen it. See how it ends.”

When he left, Natalie was still sitting there, staring blankly at the couple embracing on the screen.