When I Looked Away

by Joy Fielding

  “What are you doing?” Gail cried.

  He was suddenly more agitated than ever, moving back and forth from one foot to the other, unable to stand still. “For this,” he screamed, throwing something that looked like a thimble at her face. It hit the side of her cheek, then bounced to the floor.

  “What is it?” Gail felt her own hysteria building.

  “Don’t give me the Miss Innocent routine, copper! I know a goddamn bug when I see one.”

  “Bug? What are you talking about?”

  “You are not going to pin any goddamn child murder on me, bitch! Do you understand me?”

  Gail jumped off the bed and raced toward the door. Instantly, she felt his hands on her shoulders. “No!” she screamed, hoping someone would hear her, frantically feeling for the doorknob and twisting it, pulling it open.

  The squat man with the dark, unwashed curls suddenly stood before her, and Gail’s first thought when she saw him was that her life was over. She had been right; he had been following her. The two men were somehow connected.

  “Police!” she screamed instinctively as the man with the dark curls caught hold of her arm. Nick Rogers pushed both of them roughly against the side of the door and ran from the room. She heard his footsteps as he tumbled down the stairs. The dark-haired man led her back inside. “Police,” she whispered, looking up into his eyes as he sat her down on her rumpled bed, and she suddenly knew, even before he spoke the words, that that was precisely who he was.

  *

  “How long have you been following me?” she asked Lieutenant Cole less than an hour later. They were both sitting on the bed in her room at 44 Amelia.

  “Since you started this business,” he told her. “Oh, not right away. It took me a while to twig to what you were doing. I got suspicious when I kept calling your house and you were never there. You were so evasive when I finally spoke to you that I decided to follow you, see where it was that you disappeared to.”

  “Why didn’t you stop me?”

  “It’s a free country,” he said. “I can’t stop you from driving into Newark. But I thought that I better keep an eye out for you, so I had Peter following you.”

  “You put the bug in my room?”

  “In all your rooms,” he told her.

  “What about Nick Rogers?”

  “We checked him out right after you phoned.”

  “You knew it was me?”

  “I had a pretty good idea.”

  “And?”

  “He claims he knows nothing about your daughter’s death. Says he was in California all last April and May. We haven’t been able to verify his story yet, but we have no evidence, no evidence at all, to link him to your daughter’s killing. We got a search warrant and searched his room. There was nothing. His boot size is a good size smaller than the footprint impression we took from the mud at the scene.”

  “But he has a record. He told me he’s been in jail.”

  “For robbing a local grocery store when he was fifteen years old, and it was a reformatory, not a jail. He’s one of life’s losers, Gail. But I don’t think he killed your daughter.” Gail’s shoulders sagged as Lieutenant Cole’s arms reached around her. She buried her face in the side of his jacket, felt the bulk of his gun under his arm. “Go home, Gail. Leave the police work to us. Don’t give us any extra.”

  “Please don’t tell Jack,” she whispered.

  “He already knows.” Gail pulled back, her eyes searching the lieutenant’s. “I called him as soon as I got word about what was going on here. I felt I had an obligation to tell him. He’s waiting for you at home. I’ll drive you there now.”

  “I have my car,” Gail said, though her voice felt like it was coming from someone else. It was weak, disembodied.

  “Let me have your keys,” Lieutenant Cole said. “One of my men will bring your car home.”

  Gail did as she was told, handing over her car keys, standing when she was directed to do so, following Lieutenant Cole to the door.

  She took a final look around the desolate room.

  Lieutenant Cole was at her elbow, reading her thoughts. “Say goodbye, Gail,” he told her.

  Chapter 27

  Jack was waiting for her when she stepped inside the front door. He said nothing as Lieutenant Cole’s car pulled away from the curb and Gail closed the door behind her. He watched as she walked slowly into the living room, not bothering to remove her coat, and sank down on the sofa, staring blankly ahead of her.

  Gail heard Jack follow her into the room, was aware of him standing a few feet from her, knew he was staring down at her, waiting for her to speak, to explain. She owed him that much, she thought, but was unable to find the right words.

  It was over, she thought. Her search had ended. She had failed her daughter a second time. She had broken yet another promise.

  “Gail . . .” Jack began, his voice breaking.

  “A policeman is bringing my car back,” she told him lifelessly.

  “I don’t care about the goddamn car!” he snapped impatiently. “I’m sorry,” he said immediately. “I promised myself I wouldn’t lose my temper.”

  “You have every right to lose your temper,” she said, relieved to find that there were promises that he was also unable to keep.

  “What will getting angry accomplish?” he asked wearily, lowering himself into the seat beside her. “Are you going to tell me what’s been going on?”

  “I thought Lieutenant Cole already filled you in on everything.”

  “He told me that my wife was in a rooming house in Newark, that she had come very close to adding a few more broken ribs to her repertoire, that he was bringing her home and that he thought it would be a good idea if I were there when she arrived.”

  “Where’s Jennifer?” Gail asked suddenly.

  “I sent her to Mark and Julie’s.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Tell me what the hell’s going on, Gail,” Jack pressed.

  Gail looked directly at her husband, saw the pain etched deeply into his face and turned away again. “I’ve wanted to tell you,” she began.

  “Why haven’t you?”

  “Because . . . because I was afraid you’d try to stop me.”

  “Stop you from doing what? Tell me, Gail. I’m trying very hard to understand.”

  The whole story began spilling from Gail’s mouth. She watched as Jack’s expression changed from curiosity to alarm to outright horror as she poured detail on top of detail. “I knew I was going to have to do it, Jack,” she began. “I knew it right from that first day in the hospital, when they kept asking all those questions about Mark and Eddie. I knew that Mark and Eddie couldn’t have killed Cindy, and I knew right then that the police were never going to find Cindy’s killer; but I decided that I had to give them a chance, and I did, sixty days, Jack, I gave them sixty days to find her murderer. But of course, they didn’t, and then she sort of became old news to them. Not that I blame them. She’s just another case to them. She’s not their child. And they had so many other murders to solve. Meanwhile, the man who murdered Cindy was getting farther and farther away from them, and somebody had to try to find him. So, I started reading about sex killers and combing the newspapers for details of crimes in the area. I kept track of where most crimes were occurring around Livingston, and then I started to go there. Mostly to East Orange and to Newark. I drove out on the highway after those murders, because the suspect sort of fit the description of the man who killed Cindy. I thought maybe I could flush him out. But the police stopped me, they made me turn back.”

  Gail ignored the sudden flash of fear in her husband’s eyes. She continued, hoping that Jack would not try to interrupt. “After that MacInnes woman was found murdered, I knew I had to start doing more, I had to get right into the thick of things. I started renting rooms, following men who looked suspicious. I found a good suspect right away, a boy with a crew cut and a stack of dirty magazines hidden under his bed.” She caught
the question in Jack’s eyes. “I know about the magazines because I searched his room. I used a credit card to break in. But he must have figured out that somebody had been in his room, because by the time I got back to the rooming house the next day, he was gone. And I never saw him again, so maybe it was him. Maybe he was the one . . .” She drifted off.

  “Gail . . .”

  “Anyway, I kept looking. My car wouldn’t start one day,” she said, remembering, “and so I hitchhiked. I thought maybe Cindy’s killer might be the one to stop and pick me up, but he didn’t. Just some kid, a nice kid really, who was kind of worried about me, and then this awful man who wanted me to . . . Anyway, nothing happened.”

  “Gail . . .”

  “I went for a walk in the park on Halloween. I thought maybe there was a chance he might be hiding there. Well, you know what happened. Maybe it was him; we’ll never know. I never saw his face.” She sensed Jack’s growing impatience, knew he was about to interrupt her again, and continued, one word tumbling on top of the next. “I kept moving around. I became aware that there was a man following me. I didn’t think he was Cindy’s killer. He didn’t match the description, but then I thought the description could be wrong. I mean, why was he following me? And then I saw him, this boy who fit the description perfectly. He was even wearing a yellow wind-breaker. I took out a room in the same house he was living in. I even called the police and reported him, but nothing happened. And then suddenly he was at my door, and I asked him if he had killed Cindy and he said something like he couldn’t remember, there’d been so many, and next thing I knew, I jumped at him, and we were fighting, and suddenly, he threw something at me and said it was a bug and that I was from the police and that I wasn’t going to pin Cindy’s murder on him. I tried to get out, and when I opened the door, there was the man who’d been following me, and he was with the police—they’d been bugging my rooms, listening. They said they didn’t think this man was the killer, his shoe size didn’t match the impression they took—”

  “Gail, stop—”

  “We don’t know too much about Cindy’s killer, but we do know a few things. We know that he’s young, that he’s got dirty blond hair, that he’s slim, of average height, and that he wears a size ten and a half boot—”

  “Gail . . . for God’s sake,” Jack exploded when he could keep silent no longer, “what the hell are you telling me?” He was up and pacing the room.

  “That I’ve been trying to find Cindy’s killer!” she exclaimed. Couldn’t he see that?

  “Gail, listen to me. I want you to see a psychiatrist.”

  “Why?” Gail scoffed. “Can he tell me who killed Cindy?”

  “I’m not asking you to see a psychiatrist, Gail, I’m insisting.”

  “I don’t need a psychiatrist. This is exactly why I didn’t tell you what I was doing. I don’t need a psychiatrist. I am not crazy!”

  “You don’t think that going for drives at night alone along a highway where there’s some lunatic loose, following strange men, breaking into their rooms—what else?—oh yes, hitchhiking, and taking walks in parks after midnight and getting yourself mugged—”

  “I didn’t plan to get mugged!”

  “No, you’re right,” Jack yelled. “I don’t think you planned to get mugged! I think you planned to get killed!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Listen to yourself, Gail. Did you hear the things you just said? What am I talking about? I’m talking about a woman who repeatedly puts her life in jeopardy, who moves from one seedy room to another, from one dangerous situation to the next, waiting to be found out, begging to be found out. I’m talking about the fact that you are not looking for a killer. Goddamn it, Gail! You’re looking to get yourself killed!”

  Gail sank against the back of the sofa, the wind gone from her sails. There was no point in further discussion. There was nothing else to say.

  He was right.

  Chapter 28

  “How do you feel about being here?”

  “How do you think I feel?”

  The man behind the wide desk smiled and scribbled something on the notepad in front of him. “You’re stealing my technique,” he told her and waited for her to smile. Gail stared at him in resolute seriousness.

  Dr. Manoff was young. (Everyone was young, Gail decided. Certainly everyone was younger than she was.) He had black hair on either side of his head but he was completely bald in the middle and made no attempt to hide any of his bald spot. Gail liked him for that. She also liked it that he didn’t wear a white jacket, or a jacket at all, for that matter. In fact, he was remarkably casual for a doctor. He wore a pink checked shirt with a navy tie, slightly open and loose at the neck. The pink shirt was probably designed to show his lack of concern for his masculine image, his security with his own maleness. She wasn’t sure what the navy tie signified, why it wasn’t done up properly. Was he trying to tell her that he was just one of the boys? Gail found herself wishing that he had worn the white jacket after all. It would have been less complicated.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

  “My childhood,” she lied.

  “Your childhood?” He leaned forward, interested.

  “I had a crazy mother.”

  “Do you want to tell me about her?”

  “Not especially.”

  “How was she crazy?”

  Gail shrugged. This was fun. And very easy. No wonder the mentally ill were out wandering the streets long before they were ready.

  “Tell me about your mother,” Dr. Manoff repeated. “How was she crazy?”

  “She liked being a mother.”

  “That made her crazy?”

  “In today’s world it made her crazy. She didn’t realize that children were supposed to drive her nuts, that she would have been much happier working at a job outside the home, that her children were a nuisance and an outright pain in the neck.”

  “Didn’t most women of your mother’s generation stay at home and look after their children?” Gail found herself drawn to his eyes. “Who are we really talking about here, Gail?” Dr. Manoff asked.

  So, it wasn’t quite that easy, she thought, giving the good doctor some extra points. She would have to be more clever. Gail withdrew her eyes from his and looked into her lap.

  “How old are you, Dr. Manoff?” she asked.

  “Thirty-five,” he told her.

  “I’m forty.” She paused. Each waited for the other to speak. “You’re supposed to say ‘Really? You don’t look it.’ ”

  “How do you feel about being forty?” he asked instead.

  Gail shrugged. “Age never mattered to me.”

  “You’re the one who brought it up.”

  “It was something to say. I’m supposed to say things, aren’t I?”

  “If you want.”

  “I don’t want. I don’t want to be here at all.”

  “Why are you?”

  “Because Jack insisted.”

  “You did it for Jack?”

  “I didn’t feel I had any choice after what happened in Newark. I thought that if I agreed to see you, he might leave me alone for a while.”

  “You want to be left alone?”

  “That’s exactly what I want.”

  There was silence.

  “I can’t help you if you won’t let me,” Dr. Manoff said when it became obvious she wasn’t about to continue.

  “I won’t let you,” Gail told him.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want to be helped. I want to die.”

  She saw the frown that passed over Dr. Manoff’s face. “I have two sons,” he said softly. “One is five, the other is almost three. I have nightmares sometimes about something happening to one of them. I can’t imagine anything worse. I don’t imagine there are many parents who can.” He swallowed, and Gail sensed genuine emotion lurking behind his words. “We’re trained to accept all sorts of losses. Friends go
away; parents die; entire nations disappear. But nothing on earth, I’m convinced, can prepare you for the death of a child. And when a child dies the way your daughter did . . . I can’t begin to fully comprehend the depth of your sorrow. I won’t try to fool you. I can put myself in your shoes, but only to a point. I believe you when you say you want to die. I think I would probably feel the same way.”

  “Then how do you think you can help me?” Gail asked, thankful for his honesty.

  “By listening,” he said simply.

  Gail searched his eyes with her own. “What am I supposed to say?” she pleaded. “I’ve gone through all the prescribed stages. I’ve been angry; I’ve been disbelieving; I’ve bargained with God; I’ve denied any of it happened; goddamn it, I’ve even accepted it. And I still want to die.” She let out a breath that trembled into the space between them. “I appreciate your being here, Dr. Manoff. I am thankful that you are here to listen to people who want to talk. Who need to talk. But I’m not one of those people. I have nothing to say to you.” Gail looked around the room, searching for words which would carry her to the exit door. “The only time in the last eight months that I have felt any spark of life in me at all was when I was out trying to get myself killed! And you can sit here and tell me about my husband who loves me and my daughter who needs me, and I’ll tell you that I know all that, that I love them too, but it doesn’t help me. It doesn’t change the way I feel. I used to be a happy person, Dr. Manoff. If you showed me a half-empty glass of water, I’d tell you it was half full. I really used to believe that each day was the first day of the rest of my life.”

  “I used to have hair,” Dr. Manoff said gently, and Gail found herself laughing, then suddenly crying. She wiped quickly at her tears.

  “I have a friend,” she began again, erasing the final tear from under her eye. “Her husband left her a few years back. He left her for the woman who used to manicure his nails. Anyway, when he left, he told my friend, my ex-friend, well, she was never a friend, really, just someone I used to know. Anyway, when he left, he told her he was leaving because he was tired of all the hassles. He didn’t want any more hassles.” Gail smiled at Dr. Manoff. “Do you know what my friend, this woman I knew, what she told him?” Dr. Manoff watched her expectantly. “She said, ‘You don’t want any hassles? Then die.’ That’s what she said to him. That was probably the most profound thought she ever uttered,” Gail said with growing amazement. “I just never realized it until now.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why I told you that story.”