Never Look Back

by Alison Gaylin

  Reg thought, Why can’t she take a hint? But then a memory flickered in his mind: a little boy. Chubby cheeks. Thick glasses. Black hair flopping like a puppy’s ears. Pleath can I have a doggy oh pleaaatttth? The funny way he used to talk, that kid. But no. Reg was wrong again. It wasn’t Kate’s son with the funny voice. It was. Oh, it was . . .

  “Mr. Sharkey, are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine.” Reg swiped at his eyes, at the wetness on his cheeks. Tears. Mortifying. The way the body betrays you at this age. Reg thought of that song Kate used to blast when she was a teenager, about only the good dying young. Wasn’t that ever the God’s honest truth . . . He looked at his neighbor. “Run along, Corinne,” he said.

  She blinked again. “Remember, Mr. Sharkey, if you ever need me, I’m just right over—”

  “I know where you live.”

  Corinne started to say something, then stopped. “All righty then.” She turned on her heel and huffed away. Those pistonlike legs of hers, just like her mother’s.

  With some effort, Reg was able to back away from the memory. So many things he’d destroyed in his life, that little boy being only one of them.

  He looked through the rest of his mail: an ad for a home security device, a book of coupons from Vons, a postcard from his dentist, telling him he was due for a cleaning, his Social Security check, a brochure about the world’s most comfortable shoes. At the bottom of the pile was a letter, addressed to Mr. Reginald Sharkey in neat capital letters. A man’s handwriting, Reg decided. A professional man. He looked at the postmark, turned the envelope over. Strange. The return address was South Pasadena, but the postmark said New Jersey.

  He waited to open the envelope until he was back in his own house. It had been written on nice stationery, a watermark and everything. Hotel stationery, as it turned out. Garden Suites embossed on the bottom. It was two single-sided pages long and it began, “Dear Mr. Sharkey” and ended with, “Your grandson, Quentin,” and though Reg wasn’t sure he had any interest in reading it (That boy and his mother. Always up to some scam . . . ) he did anyway:

  First of all, I want to apologize for my behavior at your house the other day. I had no right to speak to you like that. It was very unprofessional.

  “Okay,” Reg said to the letter. “That’s a pretty good start.”

  Second, there is something you need to know.

  Reg read on. A group of sentences he would never be able to read again. “Oh God,” he whispered. “Oh Katie.”

  He made it through the rest of the letter, the talk about how difficult life was, and how everyone had done the best they could, Reg included. It’s all just a matter of surviving. I know that now. I’m not sure that Mom ever wanted to survive. But you are a survivor, and I’m like you that way. He read about how Quentin still saw his mother’s face in dreams, and how he’d live the rest of his life wondering if he could have said or done anything to ease her sadness and heal her addiction. I don’t think either one of us was the right man for that job. He read too about the podcast Quentin was making—how Quentin now felt that it had been a mistake, lifting all those rocks just to look underneath, disrupting so many lives in the process. He said the only reason why he’d decided to make the podcast in the first place was that it seemed like a way to better understand Kate and Reg—the huge parts of them that had been stolen by April Cooper and Gabriel LeRoy. It’s not your fault, Mr. Sharkey, Quentin had written. We all make our own choices in life. My mother made hers. Please stop blaming yourself for everything. The only thing you did was go to a gas station.

  Reg’s face was wet again, and he was sobbing, convulsing.

  Katie, his Katie. All of his children, gone. And Quentin was wrong. It was Reg’s fault. All of it. From the very beginning.

  Once Reg caught his breath, he picked up the kitchen phone. Called the number Quentin had given him, back when he’d first set up their interview. I’ll tell him, he thought. I’ll explain everything. But then Quentin’s voice mail was full, and Reg’s brain got the best of him, that gnawing, ever-present fear. I can’t do it, he thought, the secret staring him in the face, baring its sharp, yellowed teeth. I’m not strong enough. I can’t.

  He hung up, pulled his bottle of Dewar’s out of the kitchen cupboard, poured himself a glass. Reg drank a toast to Katie. Then another, to everyone he’d ever loved and ruined, from that little boy on. “May they all rest in peace,” he said.

  Twenty-Seven

  Robin

  IT WAS ROBIN’S fourth day of scrambled eggs and wheat toast in the hospital cafeteria. She’d ordered it her first morning here because it had seemed like a safe choice, and since she’d barely touched it at breakfast, she ordered it again for lunch. It had gotten to the point where the women behind the counter gave her a plate of scrambled eggs without even asking, and she didn’t want to be rude by correcting them. Like any safe thing, the plate of scrambled eggs and toast had begun to get oppressive with time, and now Robin could barely stand the sight of them. Luckily, the coffee wasn’t bad.

  The cafeteria was close to empty—just a few members of the hospital staff grabbing a quick bite between shifts. But Robin had a long table all to herself—the better to be alone with her thoughts. She’d been sitting here for a good half hour, maybe longer, thinking about her mother, how she’d snapped at her in the hospital room, then recovered, thinking about what she’d said as she was drifting off, about her father being an anchor and not knowing where she’d go.

  She wondered if this was something she might have to get used to, these sudden bursts of rage and worry. Renee had lost a lot of blood in the shooting and had been on life support long enough that it could have affected her brain chemistry. Anxiety and anger issues weren’t uncommon for survivors of traumatic attacks, and the very fact that she couldn’t remember a good portion of the night she was shot seemed like proof—at least to Robin—that she’d been changed in ways that the doctors here hadn’t taken into account. Therapy, that’s what she needed . . .

  Interestingly, Renee had never gone in for analysis when Robin was growing up. Despite the fact that she’d obviously had a sad, bleak childhood, Robin’s psychiatrist father discouraged her from talking to anyone about it. Robin could distinctly recall the topic coming up—her mother mentioning a friend of hers, a fellow volunteer at Tarry Ridge Hospital, who’d been going to group therapy and loving it. You don’t want to do that, Renee. Her father had said it as though it was a fact he was reminding her of. Which was strange, now that Robin thought about it. She’d gone for therapy herself as a high school student. And Dad too saw an analyst for a while. But not Mom. Maybe she’d suffered for it. Maybe it was time to change things, to find out who Renee Bloom truly was without that anchor holding her in place.

  Last night, Robin had woken up from a dream that felt more like a memory. Her mother sobbing behind her parents’ closed door, and her father urging her on. That’s it, Renee. That’s it. Let it out. Don’t run from it . . .

  Had that really happened?

  “Mind if I join you?”

  Robin glanced up from her eggs and into those sharp blue eyes. “Nikki.”

  “They told me your mom was resting, so I thought I’d grab a little bite.”

  Robin gestured to the seat across from her and Nicola Crane eased into it, setting her tray down. Like Robin, she had a cup of coffee, along with a donut that looked like a reconfigured version of Robin’s wheat toast. She took a delicate bite. “I should have stopped at Dunkin’.”

  Robin smiled. “Tell me about it.” She took a sip of her coffee. “So I remember you now.”

  “You do?”

  “Why didn’t you introduce yourself as CoCo?”

  “Oh, I practically forgot about that nickname,” she said. “Only you called me that, you know.”

  “Really?”

  “I mean, I came up with it, of course, but you were the only one nice enough to call me by it. Everybody else thought it was silly. Your mother i
ncluded.” She smiled, her teeth white against her tanned, lined skin. She wore jeans and a plaid shirt, rolled up to the elbows, revealing muscular arms, a long scar on one of them. To Robin, she had the look of a farmer or a rancher or maybe a lifelong surfer.

  “How did you know my mom?” Robin said.

  Her bright eyes shimmered. “We were in a foster home together, years ago,” she said. “And then we reconnected once she’d settled down. She saved me from a terrible situation. Gave me money for my education. Got me on my feet.”

  “So you were friends,” she said, “when you both were kids.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Robin took another sip of her coffee. She leaned forward, wanting to ask the question, but fearing the answer at the same time. “What was she like?”

  “She was the kindest person I’d ever known.”

  “Oh thank God.” Robin exhaled, relief spreading through her.

  “Like there was ever a question?”

  “It’s just . . . Someone asked me about her past recently. They thought she . . . Well obviously they had her confused with someone else.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Robin swallowed. “They thought she’d associated with some unsavory types when she was a teenager.”

  “Well,” Nicola said, winking, “they must have been talking about me.” She laughed—a startlingly loud, shrieking laugh that seemed to pop out of nowhere, far too hearty for the situation or the surroundings. Whereas Nicola’s smile was disarming, her laugh was downright off-putting, and Robin could feel people staring at them. Her face flushed a deep red. I am having breakfast in a hospital cafeteria with Robert De Niro from Cape Fear.

  After a time, Nicola calmed herself. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But that just tickled me. The idea of your mom, hanging out with some criminal . . .”

  Robin relaxed. “It is kind of ridiculous.”

  “I mean, what? Was she pals with a drug dealer? I mean . . . could you even imagine your mom smoking a joint?”

  Robin giggled. “Not a drug dealer, just—”

  “A prostitute?”

  They were both laughing now.

  “Numbers runner? Carjacker? Hired killer?”

  “Okay,” Robin said, laughing harder. “Okay, I see your point.” They laughed together for quite a while, Robin growing used to Nicola’s shrieks, along with the other cafeteria patrons. It did something, laughing with another person like that. It bonded you.

  Once their laughter died down, Robin leaned in close and said it. “I spoke to this guy. He was making a podcast about these killings in the ’70s.”

  “Quentin.” Nicola said the name like it was a rotten piece of meat in her mouth.

  “You know him?”

  “Met him. Don’t like him.” She leaned in. “Don’t trust him. At all.”

  “Yeah?”

  She glanced around the cafeteria and nodded slowly. “He said something, Robbie. It made me very suspicious.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Something about being in your parents’ neighborhood the night they were shot.”

  “What? Are you serious?”

  “I mean, he could have just been snooping, like journalists do, but—”

  “Did you tell the police?”

  She smiled. “I am the police.”

  Robin stared at her. “You are?”

  “Don’t look so surprised. Gray-haired ladies can be cops too. And yes. I spoke to an irritating detective from the Tarry Ridge Department.”

  “Baus.”

  “Bingo.”

  “Try Morasco next time.”

  “Thank you. That Baus is a jackass.”

  Robin forked some scrambled eggs into her mouth and choked them down. She took in the tanned face. “I can’t believe you’re the same CoCo,” she said.

  Nicola took a bite of her donut. “Life rides some of us harder than others.”

  “No, no. I didn’t mean that,” Robin said. “I just can’t believe you’ve been in touch with my mom, after all these years.”

  “I’m good at tracking people down,” she said. “And I’d never have let your mom slip away.”

  Robin thought of her father, the anchor. “I’m sorry you couldn’t stay with us.”

  “Listen, I never had any hard feelings over your dad not letting me, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Well . . .”

  “If Mitchell hadn’t said no, I’d never have gone to the Police Academy, never would have made detective or met my darling ex-husband or seen as much of the world as I have,” she said. “Hell, if he’d said yes, he’d probably be long gone, and your mother and I would be in that house, pulling a Grey Gardens and . . .” She shook her head. “I’m an idiot,” she said quietly.

  “What?”

  “I’m so very sorry about your dad.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not. I speak before I think sometimes.”

  Robin took a swallow of her coffee. Nicola’s hands were folded on the table, and Robin placed one of her hands over them, squeezed. “I’m glad you’re here with us now,” she said.

  THE NAP SEEMED to have done Renee a world of good. Robin and Nicola spent more than an hour with her, reminiscing over old times, the two of them embarrassing Robin with childhood stories, Nicola’s maniacal laugh erupting sporadically. From time to time, Renee would get quiet or teary and Nicola and Robin would simply sit with her, holding her hands, waiting for the moment to pass. Nicola cracked terrible jokes with the nurses and showed pictures of her three dogs to Robin and Renee, Renee in particular cooing over them—a yellow lab, an Australian shepherd, and a standard poodle. Renee who’d spent her entire adult life with an allergic husband, longing for a dog. She seemed to love the lab especially.

  When Dr. Wu came in to run some tests on Renee, Robin and Nicola kissed her good-bye and promised to come back in a few hours—at which point, she’d hopefully be well enough to be released. Walking down to the parking lot together, Nicola and Robin made small talk, complaining about the heat and the food in the cafeteria, and sharing restaurant recommendations in the area. Once they reached Robin’s car, they hugged and Robin’s mind returned again to Quentin Garrison, what Nicola had said about him earlier. “Do you think he might have done it?” Robin said, her hand on the door.

  “Let’s put it this way,” she said. “I have no idea who else would have done it.”

  It wasn’t until Robin was driving away that she realized she’d never said Quentin Garrison’s name or what she thought he’d done, but she hadn’t needed to. Nicola had known.

  DRIVING HOME, ROBIN listened to the news on NPR, all those dumb grief clichés running through her head—doors closing and windows opening, silver linings and brand-new days. She’d never get over the loss of her father. It was a pin stuck in her forever, one that hurt only marginally less if she didn’t look at it directly. But her mother was going to be okay, and that was her window opening, her silver lining. Renee was going to live, and she had a dear old friend that Robin had never known about to help her pull through.

  Robin was starting up her car and thinking about getting a yellow lab for Mom when her phone rang. She answered it, Eric’s voice coming through the Bluetooth. “Guess what?” Robin said. “I spent the whole morning with Nikki the babysitter. Did you know she’s a cop now? How bizarre is that?”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “How’s your mom?” Eric said finally. His voice sounded strange. Hollow.

  “Um. Fine? They’re probably going to release her soon.”

  “That’s great,” he said.

  “What’s going on with you?” she said. “Shawn didn’t fire you, did he?”

  “No.”

  “So . . .”

  “Listen, Robin. I got a call from Detective Morasco. He’d been trying to call you, but I guess your mailbox is full.”

  “And?”

  “Quentin Garrison confessed.”
<
br />   “What?”

  “He said he shot both your parents during a dispute at their house. It’s all on tape. Morasco says he’s going to let you listen to it. And he wants to talk to your mom again.”

  “Oh my God,” she said. “Well . . . is he in custody? Has he been officially charged? Are there going to be a shitload of reporters at my mom’s house when I go to get her clothes?”

  “Well, see, Robin, this is the thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “They have his confession on tape because he emailed the audio files to the cops,” he said. “But Garrison’s not at the station. He isn’t at his hotel. Nobody knows where the hell he is.”

  Twenty-Eight

  Robin

  “WHEN DID YOU talk to him?” Morasco said.

  Robin pulled out her phone, checked her recent calls. Found the one with the 213 area code and read out the time. “9:13 A.M.,” she said. They were sitting in the waiting area on her mother’s floor, Morasco having met her here about twenty minutes after she’d spoken to Eric. He’d agreed to be the one to break the news to Renee about Quentin Garrison and question her again, free of Baus, plus he’d agreed to do it with Robin present. Morasco’s priority was finding Quentin Garrison, while Robin’s was making sure her mother wasn’t traumatized into a relapse—and those two priorities didn’t need to be at cross-purposes.

  Plus, from what Robin could gather, she had been the last person to have any contact with Garrison.

  “Why did you call Quentin Garrison?” Morasco said. It was for the benefit of his voice recorder. She’d told him already.

  “I wanted to know why the hell my father had his phone number and his name, and his mother’s name written down,” she said.

  “And what did he say?”

  “He said he couldn’t talk. Which really made me angry. He said he’d meet me in an hour, anywhere I wanted.”

  “Where were you going to meet?”

  “The cafeteria at St. Catherine’s. Downstairs from my mom’s room.”

  “And he agreed to that location.”

  “Yes,” she said. “But he sounded weird. Nervous. And you know . . . he never showed up.”