Baby Please Don't Go: A Novel

by Frank Freudberg

  From his pocket he retrieved the prepaid phone, put it in front of a rear tire, and motioned for Natalie to drive over it, crushing it flat. He scattered the splintered pieces with his shoe and got back into the car. Natalie noticed a tiny trickle of blood below his nose.

  She found a wad of tissues in her bag and began to blot up the blood.

  “Airbag got me. Your husband’s scratch-free. It’s almost over.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” said Natalie. “And don’t fret about Dahlia. She’s fine.”

  “Not if I don’t see the police,” he said. “I told them there was an injury. They’ll come even faster and they’ll dispatch an ambulance. Dahlia’s alone in the back of that car.” Lock checked his watch. Eight fifty-four.

  “Like they’re not going to come,” she said. “Let’s go, Lock. We can’t be seen together. We’re so close to being safe. Besides, how do you know which direction the police will come from? How do you know we’ll even see them from here?”

  “This is Kennett Square jurisdiction,” he said. “They’ll be coming from Route 1. At least, the ambulance will.”

  They both sat, staring ahead. She turned the radio on.

  Lock snapped it off.

  “I need to hear,” he said.

  He looked ahead and checked his watch again. Eight fifty-six.

  A police car, red and blue emergency lights piercing the falling sleet, sped past silently, heading in the direction of Witt’s car.

  “Satisfied?” she asked.

  “There should be an ambulance any second now.”

  Natalie started the car.

  Another police car zipped by.

  “Good enough?”

  “I guess.”

  Natalie put the car into gear.

  “Nice and easy,” he told her.

  Natalie was about to pull onto the road. She heard a siren and saw more flashing lights.

  “Brake!” Lock shouted. Natalie stopped short. An ambulance sped toward and then past them.

  “Damn sirens will wake Dahlia,” he said. “But thirty seconds from now she’ll be safe and warm, in the arms of a paramedic.”

  “So what if the sirens wake her? She won’t be telling them anything.”

  Lock gave her a hard look. She didn’t seem to understand how serious this was. He wondered if living a wealthy lifestyle for so long had made her forget the world wasn’t all yoga classes and orchids, but then he felt guilty for the thought. She was probably more stressed than he was—it was her daughter alone in the car.

  Another ambulance passed, then another police car. Moments later, yet another police car, all moving fast in the direction of the accident.

  “Five or six of them for one drunken son-of-a-bitch,” she said. “And you were worried they wouldn’t show.”

  It took Lock and Natalie almost twenty minutes along icy and circuitous back roads to get back to a convenience store several blocks from the Cavern Tavern where Lock had parked his car earlier. He had refused to let her drive back the way they came. He did not want to pass the accident scene.

  Natalie stopped the car.

  “You need to go straight home,” Lock told Natalie, “so you’ll be available when the police call about the accident.”

  “I’d rather go home with you to celebrate. I have my cell and Candice will call me if the police phone the house. Plus, I already set it up with Candice. She thinks I’m going to be with my sister in New Jersey.”

  “No, not a good idea. Plus, I’m already packed and I’m going directly to the cabin for the weekend. I’m taking tomorrow off as a vacation day.”

  “You don’t want to be at the office when Abby learns about the crash,” Natalie said. “If he learns about it.”

  “Oh, he’ll hear about it one way or the other. No doubt about that. And you’re right. There are lots of places I’d rather be tomorrow when the news breaks.”

  “So you drop down into a rabbit hole and I’m stuck here all alone. I won’t see you for three days. That sucks.”

  Lock thought for a moment and checked the roads for any oncoming emergency vehicles.

  “Okay,” he said. “I have an idea. I was going to come home Sunday night, but I don’t want to go three days without you, either. I’ll come back Saturday afternoon. You find a way to break away from your house and we’ll get together at the carriage house.”

  Natalie reached over and squeezed his hand.

  “That’s a good boy,” she said. “I’ll bring all the ingredients for my famous vegetarian chili. You relax and I’ll make us an early dinner. How’s that?”

  “You never let me cook for you.”

  “Next time,” she said. “I have us covered for Saturday.”

  Natalie gave him a quick kiss before he jumped out and got into his car. She waited while he started the engine and cleared the snow off his windshield. Like synchronized swimmers, each car drove away at the same moment and headed in opposite directions, leaving nothing but tire tracks in the snow.

  A sign on the turnpike read, “Blakeslee and Mt. Pocono, 34 miles.”

  Lock drove, his expression grim, and he gripped the steering wheel tightly. He felt the cold night air trying to penetrate the car’s windows. He had the heat on full blast but he shivered in his seat. Leafless trees flashed by as snow fell.

  On Lock’s way up to the mountains, he ran instant replays of everything through his mind. It was not enough of a crash—basically a one-car fender-bender—to warrant accident investigators. And anyway, it was late on an icy night and the accident scene was probably cleared already. They’d figure Witt went home in a stupor and for some drunken reason decided to take the two-year-old with him. Lock knew it made no sense for him to do that, but it didn’t need to. He was a blackout drunk. They’d find the Ambien in his blood work. So what that he’d deny it? According to Natalie, Witt had a prescription. No one had seen Natalie, and only people in the bar—and the taxi driver—had seen the guy with the cigar, but who was he? Lock knew all along that as soon as the police found Dahlia and took care of her, it would all be over.

  And in case they needed it, there was Candice. She would say Witt had come home, messed the place up, and broken a wine glass. She would believe what she was saying—even Witt, knowing he’d blacked out, would probably assume it was true.

  Lock arrived at the small log cabin a little before midnight. The snow, which had already accumulated seven or eight inches, fell harder. Inside the dark cabin, the chill hit him. He flipped a light switch and a lamp came on. He shivered. His first order of business was to load logs into the fireplace and get a blaze going. He opened a bottle of fruit juice and took a swig. The fire warmed the cabin quickly. A half hour after arriving, Lock got into bed and was asleep in ten minutes. His conscience was clear. He had done the right thing.

  As dawn began to break through the pines, firs, and junipers that surrounded the cabin, Lock’s cellphone shrilled loudly in the cold air, waking him.

  It was Abby. “I have calls from reporters,” he said. “There’s been a drunk driver accident and one of our kids was a passenger. Of course the driver is uninjured. And you know how the media is all over us whenever something bad happens and they can link it to CPS.”

  “Was it one of mine?”

  “Yeah, it was your case,” Abby said. “Before you closed it. The Mannheim case, son, out in Red Cedar Woods.”

  “Shit, which one of the kids was it?”

  “The younger one.”

  “Dahlia?”

  “I think that’s it, yes.”

  “God dammit,” Lock said. “I couldn’t find anything to keep the case open, but I had that feeling. I should have looked harder. I swear, Abby, there was nothing there.”

  “Well, there’s not nothing there now. Come on home. With the media all over this—well, you know, it’
s always CPS negligence. Always our fault.”

  “We’ll weather it, we always do. As long as the little girl’s okay, we did the best we could do.”

  “Well, your pal Mr. Mannheim was uninjured. It’s icy and he meets up with a bad curve on Creek Road. A tough spot even if it’s dry, sunny, and you’re sober. He hits a tree. Minor damage. But his tail is sticking out on the highway, and now here comes another DUI around the same bend. Hits hard. See? The driver and the passenger in the second car—a pickup truck—were left unconscious. They’re both critical. The little girl in Mannheim’s car, the two-year-old, caught a very bad bump on her head. And a nasty gash. At least a concussion, if not worse.”

  Lock turned white. “Wasn’t she in a car seat?”

  “She was in a car seat,” Abby said, “but the ass never buckled her in. And what possible difference can that make? She’s injured, son.”

  Lock swallowed hard and tightened his grip on the phone. His knuckles turned as white as his face. He inhaled rapid, shallow breaths.

  “Give this one to McHugh, could you? I’m so tired I can’t see. And there must be a foot of new snow on the roads. I practically just got up here. I’ll fall asleep and get killed driving all the way back home.”

  “I suppose that’d be CPS’s fault, too. So, you be here by noon. Press conference is at one. They’ll be all over us as to why that child was in a car with a known drunk. In the meantime, get a little sleep and remember, be here by noon.”

  Lock hung up. He stared blankly as the dying flames of the fireplace glimmered and flashed upon his face.

  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. “Guar
ded,” 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.