Never Look Back

by Alison Gaylin

  Robin threw her arms around her mother’s neck, Mom’s lips against her ear. “It wasn’t like that,” Mom said, in a voice so weak and quiet, it was more pressure than sound. “He never hit me. He cared about me,” she whispered. “Jenny . . . was trying to . . . hurt you . . .”

  Robin kissed her mother’s forehead, the skin burning her lips. “Don’t leave me,” she said. “Please, Mom. Please stay.”

  “I killed a cop. Shot him. He had a family. Two little girls. I . . . I didn’t . . . deserve a life like . . .”

  “Sssh.”

  “Daddy was a good doctor, Robbie. He was a good man. And he loved you so much.”

  Her mother’s body went still. Robin put a hand against her neck, her wrist. She put her head to her chest and heard nothing. She screamed, wailed. Her throat scraped raw from it, mingling with Nicola’s cries . . . “April, no, no, no . . .”

  She heard footsteps above her. Eric’s voice calling her name, but she couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. She wanted to die.

  Across the floor, she saw the gun—the heavy dark threat of it, smoke lifting from the barrel. She started to reach for it, but Nicola grabbed it first. Grabbed it off the floor, her mouth wrenched open. “April.”

  Behind her, Robin heard Eric’s footsteps on the stairs. She heard her name again. This time from Nicola. “I’m sorry, Robin,” Nicola said. “I ruined everything.”

  And then she put the barrel to her chin and pulled the trigger.

  Forty-Two

  Eight months later

  Summer

  DEATH VALLEY HAD a perfume to it—sand and baked earth and at this time of the year, the strawlike sweetness of desert spring. Back when Quentin had told Summer about his dream podcast—Reg Sharkey and himself, making peace with the spot that had once been the Gideon compound—she’d had one response: You couldn’t pay me enough money to fry in that sweatbox.

  But as she saw now, Quentin had been right. As usual. She wished he were here now. But in a way, she liked to think, he was. She was sitting in the back of a rented convertible Mustang, the sun heavy and warm on the back of her neck. Robin Diamond was beside her. They were recording the eighth and final installment of the Closure podcast, Robin having described the series of events that ultimately brought her here, to Southern California, where she planned on living indefinitely, even though her estranged husband tried, on a weekly basis, to reconcile. “He says we’re each other’s only family,” Robin was saying now. “But after everything that’s happened, I don’t know that that’s such a selling point.”

  Robin wasn’t anything like what Summer had expected. She was tanned and easygoing and didn’t seem traumatized at all. Grief hit everyone in different ways, Summer supposed. And when the people you’re mourning are as complicated as Robin’s parents, moving three thousand miles away from the scene of the crime is probably the healthiest thing you can do. Robin was smiling now, a perfect California girl, her big sunglasses glinting. “I have a dog—a yellow lab that used to belong to my aunt. I think that’s pretty much all the family I need.”

  “What about your mom?” Summer said. “How do you feel about her now?”

  “I feel like she was someone who did a lot of bad things. But she knew it. And she spent her whole life trying to make up for them. I mean, you compare that to my ex-husband, who . . . okay, he didn’t kill anybody but he did a really shitty thing. And all he says is, ‘I’m going to quit my job soon.’ You think that poor woman who lost her entire livelihood because of him gives a shit whether or not he’s adding to his 401(k)?” Robin took a breath. “Wow. Let’s make that last bit off the record.”

  “Sure.” Summer took a swig from her thermos of water, and Robin did the same, composing herself. “After she married my dad,” she said, “my mom spent close to ten years, and with two different private investigators, trying to track down her little sister. Did it without his knowledge, apparently. And when she finally found her—a deeply unhappy kid, on her third or fourth foster home—she flew her out to New York, took her in, and tried to convince my dad to let her live with us.”

  “But he said no,” Summer said.

  “Dad was a shrink,” she said. “Apparently, he knew crazy when he saw it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Still, though. He paid Jenny’s rent for more than five years out in Los Angeles. Recommended her to the Police Academy out there.” She picked at a nail. “Jenny never told me that.”

  “They did some good things, your parents.”

  She nodded.

  “People are complicated.”

  “Families are complicated.”

  Summer smiled a little. It reminded her of Quentin. After his body was discovered, the police had found a pen stashed in one of his pockets that was actually a tiny voice recorder he’d bought at a spy shop. He’d recorded his own murder—Jenny, aka Nicola Crane holding him at gunpoint, forcing him to confess to the shooting of the Blooms before placing the gun in his own hand and making him shoot himself. Summer had eventually been able to obtain a copy of the recording from a police source and while there were many parts she still couldn’t bring herself to listen to, there was one that stuck in her mind. When Nicola had asked him if he had any last words, Quentin had said, “I’m looking forward to seeing my mom again.” Families were nothing if not complicated.

  “So,” Summer said. “You ready for the letters?”

  In Renee’s will, she’d left Robin a sheath of letters she’d written to her “future daughter” when she was April Cooper. She’d been keeping them in a safe deposit box since Robin’s birth, unbeknownst to anyone, including her husband. “Share them with whoever you want,” she had instructed her. And so Robin had agreed to read them aloud, the letters interspersed throughout the podcast. “Is it okay if someone else reads them with you?” Summer had said.

  Robin had agreed, and now he was driving up in a red minivan: George Pollard. Or, as Robin insisted on calling him, “The Easter Parade man.”

  Pollard stepped out of the van, smiling, his black eyes glinting in the sun. Robin took off her sunglasses and looked up at him with the same black eyes and Summer wished, not for the first time, that radio was a visual medium. A series of taglines ran through her mind—about mirror images and missing pieces and nothing staying hidden forever. About how you can’t move forward without ever looking back. And about how family can spring up anywhere, at any time, whether you want it to or not.

  Forty-Three

  August 30, 1976

  2:00 A.M.

  Dear Aurora Grace,

  Things aren’t too bad right now. Jenny and I are living in a place called Brittlebush, Arizona, with a couple called Bill and Mary Grumley who are nice (even though I hate their pet fish). Their sons are pretty annoying, but they’re all terrified to talk to a girl, so they don’t bother me very much at all.

  Bill and Mary believe Jenny and I ran off from the Gideon compound because I took Elizabeth’s name. And since they think the Gideons were a bunch of weirdo cult members, they’re taking care of us, feeding us, sending us to school. They’ve even helped us to change our names. Mine will be Renee, which means reborn in French. Jenny’s will be Nicola, after her favorite doll. There’s lots of good food in this house. And Mary lets me have my favorite whenever I want—cinnamon raisin toast, cream cheese, and strawberry jam. My mom used to make it for me. It reminds me of her.

  Here’s the thing, though, Aurora Grace. I’m not going to be able to stay here for very long. I’m trying to tell Jenny that she’ll be fine without me. Better off without me, probably, if anyone ever finds out who I really am.

  I’ve told one boy who I am, but I’m never going to see him again. And I think he’ll keep my secret. He is sweet and kind and funny and gentle. And he is, after all, your father.

  Aurora Grace, you have decided to show up in my life a lot sooner than I thought you would. So here is my plan: Buy a bus ticket to Tucson. Lie about my age. Get a job at the university and do it
fast—before I start showing! Use my new name. Make new friends. Start a new life as a new girl. A new woman. I’ve been thinking about going to night school at the university. I’d like to study to be a psychiatrist, but that could always change.

  I leave later this morning, my growing daughter. Are you ready for our future? I know I am.

  Love,

  Mom

  Acknowledgments

  My gratitude as ever, to my wonderful agent Deborah Schneider, as well as to the brilliant Lyssa Keusch, Mireya Chiriboga, Maureen Cole, and everyone at William Morrow, the amazing Francesca Pathak and everyone at Orion, and also Alice Lutyens at Curtis Brown, who is truly the best.

  Thanks also to James “My Main” Conrad, Jackie Kellachan, and my favorite bookstore, The Golden Notebook. I couldn’t write these things without the support of friends and family, including (but not limited to) James (again) and Chas Cerulli, Paul Leone (who answered many vital questions), Wendy Corsi Staub, the everlastingly never-ever-all-uncool FLs, Sheldon and Marilyn Gaylin, Ronald LeBov, my terrific mom, Beverly LeBov Sloane, and of course Mike and Marissa, without whom . . . Well let’s just say I’m #blessed.

  P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*

  About the Author

  * * *

  Meet Alison Gaylin

  About the Book

  * * *

  Note from the Author

  Five True Crime Podcasts That Will Keep You Up All Night

  Reading Group Guide

  About the Author

  Meet Alison Gaylin

  ALISON GAYLIN is the author of the Edgar-nominated thriller Hide Your Eyes and its sequel You Kill Me, the Edgar-nominated stand-alones What Remains of Me and If I Die Tonight, and the Brenna Spector series: And She Was (winner of the Shamus Award), Into the Dark, and the Edgar-nominated Stay With Me. A graduate of Northwestern University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, she lives with her husband and daughter in Woodstock, New York.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  About the Book

  Note from the Author

  The Murder Spree That Inspired Never Look Back

  If April Cooper and Gabriel LeRoy seem at all familiar, it could be because of the case that inspired me to create the characters—or because of the numerous other writers, from Terrence Malick to Bruce Springsteen, who derived inspiration from the same case.

  In December 1957, nineteen-year-old Charles Starkweather murdered the family of his fourteen-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, escaped with Caril, and embarked on a month-long killing spree that took the lives of eleven people in Nebraska and Wyoming. The pair was eventually captured, with Starkweather receiving the death penalty. Caril became the youngest person ever to be tried for first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison as an accomplice—a decision based largely on testimony from Starkweather himself.

  What fascinated me most about the case was not so much Starkweather, but Caril—who by many accounts was not an accomplice but a kidnapping victim and, in my own reading of the story, tragically misunderstood.

  In Malick’s marvelous Badlands, Sissy Spacek’s Holly is a guileless romantic who willingly runs off with troubled Kit (Martin Sheen) after he offs her cold-hearted, dog-murdering stepfather. In Springsteen’s bleak “Nebraska,” a brooding Starkweather hopes the “pretty baby” who abetted his murder spree is “sitting right there on [his] lap” when he goes to the electric chair. In movies like Kalifornia and Natural Born Killers, the Caril Fugate–based character is portrayed as a psychotic Lady MacBeth–in-training, for whom senseless murder is a type of turn-on.

  But are any of those depictions close to reality? By all accounts, Caril was a shy, sweet girl and a loving daughter until the day Starkweather killed off her entire family—three-year-old sister included—before she returned home from school, hiding their bodies in outbuildings on her property. Throughout her seventeen years of incarceration, Caril Fugate insisted that Starkweather had lied to her, claiming her parents and sibling were being held captive by mysterious associates and would survive only if she ran off with him, cooperated with his plans, didn’t attempt to escape.

  In the book The Twelfth Victim: The Innocence of Caril Fugate in the Starkweather Murder Rampage, authors Linda M. Battisti and John Stevens Berry paint a horrific scene of the couple’s capture by police, describing how Caril was vilified in the press and grilled by prosecuting attorneys without being told she had a right to counsel. The book tells of the young girl’s overwhelming, dizzying exhaustion, of screaming hordes outside the courthouse, of flashbulbs popping and hurled epithets, and the slowly dawning revelation that her entire family was gone, that she was being charged rather than rescued, that she was, for all intents and purposes, completely alone in the world . . .

  It’s a narrative that sadly makes more sense than the darkly romantic one I’d come to know through movies and song—one more in keeping with the fate of the real Caril Fugate, who went on to marry and lead a quiet life after being paroled in 1976, finding work as a janitorial assistant and medical technician before retiring. And it was a narrative that felt too hopeless and pointless and unfair for fiction.

  In creating April, I saw a girl around the same age as Caril but in most other ways very different. While April too is robbed of her family and kidnapped by a boyfriend she no longer loves, I saw her as someone who might adapt to her captivity more quickly than the real-life girl, finding hope wherever she could—in the pages of the Bible, in the idea of a future child, in her own simmering rage, and in the chambers of a gun. I saw her as someone who could find within herself the capacity for murder, someone who can—and does—kill. I saw her as a furious survivor—someone who emotionally (and, in a way, physically) goes to hell and back.

  In writing the rest of the book, I thought to myself: How would I feel if I knew this girl?

  And then, I thought: How would I feel if she were my mother?

  —Alison Gaylin

  Five True Crime Podcasts That Will Keep You Up All Night

  I’ve been a true crime addict for years, and a commuter for nearly as long. Put both of those things together, and you’ll understand how happy I am that true crime podcasts have become so popular in recent years. As someone with a degree in journalism, I appreciate the way these producers do a deep-dive into the subject matter, combining research, deft interviewing skills, suspenseful structuring—and often a touch of memoir—to provide an immersive experience, much like the Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, and Hunter S. Thompson New Journalism pieces I fell in love with when I was younger. There are many of these podcasts I could recommend, but here are a few to start out with . . .

  Dirty John: This one has all the makings of a great noir movie: a glamorous protagonist whose thirst for love gets her into deep trouble at the hands of a dangerous man. But rest assured, it’s a lot more than that. Brilliantly structured, it kicks off with a shocker of a police scene and repeatedly throws you off balance, culminating in a final episode that’s a true jaw-dropper. The interviewing is wonderful too: I felt as though I knew all the people involved in this shocking story—and often wanted to shake some sense into them.

  You Must Remember This: Charles Manson’s Hollywood: I’ve long been obsessed with old Hollywood, so this podcast—which explores Tinseltown tales like nothing else—is one of my favorites. And this season, which devotes itself to the con-artist-turned-cult-leader, is, in my opinion, the best one of all. Specifically, the thirteen-part season focuses on Manson as a music business wannabe, the surprising connections he made among Hollywood’s elite, and how all of it led to some of the most horrific murders the town has ever known. It’s completely absorbing, and completely terrifying.

  S * T o w n : This utterly original podcast kicks off in classic true crime fashion: producer Brian Reed gets a call from a man by the name of John McLemore, asking him to investigate a murder in his hometown of Woodstock, Alabama (which he less than aff
ectionately calls Shittown). Though the murder itself is questionable, McLemore himself turns out to be a fascinating and brilliant character, full of secrets and contradictions. His life story— and Reed’s exploration of it—proves to be as mysterious, twisted, and heartbreaking as any work of crime fiction.

  Happy Face: How would you feel if you found out your father was a serial killer? This twelve-part podcast from How Stuff Works answers that question as it follows Washington state writer Melissa Moore—who learned, as a teenager, that her truck-driver father, Keith Jesperson, was the notorious Happy Face Killer. Brutally honest about her difficult upbringing and the traumatic revelation that’s taken her years to process, Moore provides listeners with unique insight as to how violent crime affects the families of everyone involved.

  Serial (Season One): The mother of them all. I’ll be the first to admit that Serial doesn’t always deliver on its promises. I personally found the structure to be a bit meandering, with a letdown of an ending, and I would have preferred a bit more focus on the victim. But listening to it (and I did, every week, when it was first released by This American Life) may be one of the most addictive experiences I’ve ever had. Producer Sarah Koenig’s growing obsession with Adnan Syed—who was convicted for the 1999 murder of his onetime girlfriend Hae Min Lee—is contagious, to say the least. And if you’re wondering why true crime podcasts have become so popular, look no further than the first episode.