Baby Please Don't Go: A Novel

by Frank Freudberg

  18

  The Cavern Tavern was hopping. The crowd at the bar was two deep. On a stage behind the bar, dancing girls gyrated and teased each other. Customers shouted, jeering and daring them.

  One of the loudest was Witt Mannheim, holding a mug of beer. Natalie had told Lock that her husband would be there, and she was right. A curvaceous woman stood behind Witt with her arm around his shoulders. She was sloshed. He was too.

  Standing a few feet away was Lock, chomping on an unlit cigar. A baseball cap was pulled down over his forehead and his jacket collar was turned up. He wore thick-framed glasses. He stole glances at Witt from under the brim of his cap and watched him in the mirror over the bar.

  “Hey!” yelled the woman. “Hey, bartender!” An exasperated bartender arrived and asked for her order.

  It was Lock’s chance.

  With the folded straw positioned carefully in his palm, Lock held a hundred-dollar bill in his fingers. He started to reach across the bar—and over Witt’s mug—to ask for change. He was moments away from opening one end of the straw and dumping the powdered sleeping pills into Witt’s beer.

  Two rowdy customers jostled Lock, almost knocking him to the floor.

  “Sorry about that, Chief,” one of the men said. Lock didn’t respond, and by the time he repositioned himself, the bartender was nowhere to be seen and Witt had picked up his beer.

  Lock checked his watch.

  Natalie, wearing black slacks and a yellow blouse instead of her usual cut-offs and t-shirt, shouted up to Candice.

  “Candice,” she said, “give Dahlia a dropperful of the medicine on her dresser. Be exact. One dropperful. Then close the bedroom door.”

  “I didn’t know she was sick.”

  “Well, you’re not her doctor. Give her the medicine.”

  Candice rolled her eyes.

  “She’s, like, totally asleep, Mrs. Mannheim.”

  “Then, like, totally give her the medicine anyway. Wake her.”

  Natalie tiptoed up the carpeted stairs, almost to the top, and craned her neck around the corner to watch. She saw Candice give Dahlia the medicine. Candice left the room and entered the hall bathroom. Natalie stepped up to the landing and heard water splashing in the shower.

  Natalie checked her watch. In the bathroom, Candice’s cellphone rang. Candice reached out of the shower and answered and said something unintelligible. Moments later, she hung up.

  Natalie went back to the landing and shouted down the stairs, trying to give Candice the impression that Witt had returned home.

  Louder than necessary, Natalie said, “Witt, what are you doing? What did you break?”

  In the bathroom, Candice’s soaking head popped out of the shower curtain.

  “What? I’m in the shower.”

  “Not talking to you, Candice. Talking to Witt.” Shouting downstairs again, Natalie said, “And look what you’re doing with your fucking shoes!”

  While Candice showered, Natalie quietly entered Dahlia’s room, wrapped a blanket around her, and picked her up.

  She checked to see if Edwina was asleep. She was.

  With Dahlia in her arms, Natalie left the bedroom, careful to close the door behind her. She walked down the stairs, crossed the foyer, and purposely elbowed an empty wine glass from the kitchen counter, shattering it on the floor.

  In the garage, Natalie grabbed a car seat from a workbench and belted it onto the backseat of the loaner car Lock had told her to arrange for from the Mercedes dealership. Natalie had reported a strange sound emanating from the rear axle of her own car to the service manager, knowing that they’d need to keep her car overnight. Natalie put Dahlia in the car seat.

  As she was about to get into the driver’s side, she heard something, a sound like something brushing up against a cardboard box. She listened for a moment, heard nothing further, and forgot about it.

  She checked her watch.

  Eight thirty-nine.

  Natalie hurried back into the house, glancing at the shards of the wine glass shattered on the kitchen floor as she made her way up the stairs.

  She walked to the bathroom door. Candice was still singing. She knocked once. Candice went silent.

  “I’m late for the Orchid Society meeting,” said Natalie. “I should have left an hour ago.”

  Candice shouted from the shower, “Okay. Will you still be back by ten? Carlo’s picking me up.”

  “Watch out,” Natalie said. “Mr. Personality’s home. Drunk. He broke a glass in the kitchen, so take care of that.”

  A pause.

  “Did you hear me?” Natalie asked.

  “Yeah. Clean up his mess.”

  “If he’s not passed out,” Natalie said, “you can leave at ten. If he is out of it, that’s no different than leaving the kids alone, so Carlo has to wait. And keep the baby monitor on.”

  Natalie went back downstairs. She looked at the wall clock in the kitchen. She needed to leave in four minutes, no sooner.

  Natalie walked into the solarium and began to stretch. She raised her arms straight up and, bending slowly from the waist, reached down and placed her palms flat on the floor. She stayed in that position and took three deep breaths, inhaling and exhaling, then, just as slowly, stood up.

  The bar was more crowded and louder now.

  Witt spoke in whispers to the woman draped over him. He followed her to a line formed at the ladies’ room. The woman was trapped between the wall and his arm resting on top of a wall-mounted payphone. She laughed at whatever it was he said.

  Lock watched and moved closer.

  Witt set his mug on the shelf beneath the phone. Lock, cigar in his mouth, leaned forward and pretended to stumble up against the phone between him and the woman.

  In a low mumble, Lock said, “Whoa. Sorry. Cell phone’s dead. Trying to call home.”

  Lock picked up the receiver. He was closer to Witt’s beer than Witt was. In an instant, he withdrew the folded straw from his pocket, flicked the tape off one end, and dropped the powder into the mug.

  The beer in the half-empty mug foamed slightly. Most of the powder dissolved as it sank.

  Lock had wanted to get the drug in while the mug was still full—it would be less noticeable that way. From a sideways glance, it seemed to be undetectable. No residue was apparent.

  A moment later, to Lock’s nervous delight, Witt reached out and retrieved his mug and, as if on cue, raised it high and drained it in one long, sloppy gulp.

  Natalie lurched out of the garage in the loaner car. The baby’s car seat jostled in the rear.

  A light, cold rain sprayed the windshield. She turned on the car radio. Rap. She changed the station.

  She craned her neck to see if the radio had woken Dahlia, but she was still sound asleep.

  As Natalie drove, she looked at herself in the mirror. In the subdued light of the car interior, she looked a good five years younger than her thirty-five. Maybe even more.

  She was in a cheerful mood, not nervous at all, and her mind ran through several upbeat thoughts. She had a right, she told herself, to look younger than her years—she ate right, worked out, improved her mind through reading, and took her yoga practice seriously. When she was inspired, she thought, she was a wonderful mother to the girls.

  And the best part, she thought smugly, is that I’m about to be one huge step closer to winning everything I deserve.

  Witt and his companion, bundled in their heavy coats, made their way across the parking lot with labored steps, like they were trudging through ankle-high mud. Witt’s gait suggested he was beginning to feel the drug, not to mention the alcohol he had been drinking for more than two hours. The woman was drunk, too. They were all over each other, alternately holding one another up, laughing, stumbling, and talking loudly.

  Lock stood outside, waiting in the slee
t.

  Witt and the woman supported each other across the icy asphalt. Lock moved closer and followed them. He could hear their slurred conversation.

  “You’re not driving,” Witt said.

  “Yes I am.”

  She was so drunk she could barely stand.

  “At my drunkenest, I drive infinitely better than you can stone-cold sober,” Witt said.

  “How do you know how I drive? You don’t even remember my name.”

  “Cindy.”

  “Sandy,” she told him.

  “Doesn’t matter. You’re still too drunk.”

  The woman leaned close and spoke into his ear as they approached his car. He leered at her.

  “In that case, you leave me no choice,” he said.

  Whatever she’d told him had convinced him that he should let her drive.

  As Witt held his keys out to the woman, Lock’s hand appeared out of nowhere and snatched them from Witt’s fingers.

  “I don’t think so,” Lock said.

  Lock stood half-turned away so neither of them could see him dead-on. By now, Witt was so out of it that all he did was laugh belligerently. The woman, without provocation, threw a weak punch at Witt and hit him in the arm.

  “Settled,” she said. “Your friend can drive us.”

  “I don’t even know him. He might be drunker than you, sugar.”

  Witt looked ill, as if he was going to vomit. A rivulet of saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth. The woman saw it.

  “That is disgusting,” she said.

  With drunken impetuousness, she marched back to the bar, teetering in her heels on the slick ground. As she reached the entrance, she slipped on the ice. She fell on her face, picked herself up, and lurched back inside. Lock breathed a sigh of relief. The story he had cooked up to get rid of her wasn’t very good, and now he didn’t have to use it.

  Witt slumped against his car. Lock surveyed the scene. No one was there, except, at the far end of the parking lot, a running car with headlights on. Thanks to the precipitation, there was almost no visibility.

  In a gruff voice, Lock asked Witt, “What’s her problem?”

  “Probably thinks I’m too drunk to do anything to her. She’s so wrong.”

  “Her loss.”

  “And here I’m standing out in the snow with you,” Witt bellowed. He half nodded off while standing there.

  Lock eyeballed the path around the car to the passenger side, sized up Witt’s bulk, then thought better of trying to escort him around to the other side. It would be easier to slide him into the driver’s seat than to walk him to the passenger door. Once in the driver’s seat, Lock would be able to shove him across to the passenger side.

  He opened the driver’s door and was about to heave Witt in. He stopped abruptly. The car from the far side of the parking lot eased up and stopped. It was a taxi. Lock closed the car door quickly.

  “Your buddy there is out of it,” the driver said to Lock. “You want me to take him home? Friends don’t let friends drive drunk as hell.”

  “Uh...” Lock said, averting his face.

  “If he doesn’t live too far,” the taxi driver said, “it’ll be twenty bucks. Off the meter. This weather’s getting bad. Pretty soon you won’t be able to get a cab.” The guy certainly wanted a fare.

  “Nah,” Lock said. “He says his brother-in-law’s coming over to take him.”

  Witt looked up from his stupor.

  “No brother-in-law of mine!” he said.

  The driver shrugged, put the taxi into gear and drove off, windshield wipers moving wildly back and forth.

  Lock looked around. He checked his watch again. A few people exited the bar, but they headed the other way.

  He walked over to Witt and propped him up with one hand as he opened the driver’s door with the other. Lock dropped him into the driver’s seat, took hold of the car frame above the door, and with both feet, pushed a practically unconscious Witt onto the passenger seat.

  Lock leaned in and buckled the man into his seat.

  En route to meet up with Natalie, the roads were dark and slippery. Lock eyed Witt’s sleeping body and smiled inwardly.

  He knew that what was about to happen was the riskiest part of the whole enterprise, but he felt confident everything would go as planned. The part in the bar had gone perfectly. And it was almost over. If other drivers went by when Lock was setting up the scene a few minutes from then, they wouldn’t know what they were seeing. If anyone stopped, they wouldn’t be able to identify him. Natalie’s Mercedes SUV might have been a problem, and that was why Lock had wanted her to use a loaner. And the bad weather was a good cover. Everything was going right. And as soon as the task was completed, he’d head straight to the cabin in the Poconos and take a long, hot shower. He was cold to his bones.

  Natalie arrived at her destination on the curve at precisely 8:50.

  The temperature had dropped several degrees, and a hard sleet pelted her car. She pulled off the road near a couple of picnic tables. No other cars were in sight. She killed the engine.

  Around the bend, headlights appeared. It was hard to see. Natalie flashed her high beams. The oncoming vehicle hit its brakes. She could see it was a FedEx truck. It drove by slowly but never stopped.

  Soon after, Lock arrived driving Witt’s car. He slowed down. Natalie blinked her high beams again.

  He stopped alongside Natalie’s car and squinted through his icy window. He opened his door, got out, and walked toward her. He took off his leather jacket. When he reached her car, Natalie lowered her window. Lock threw her his jacket.

  “Overkill,” she said, studying the cigar, glasses, and ball cap.

  Lock tossed the cigar into the bushes. He crouched beside her and handed her his ball cap. She handed him his trapper hat, flaps down.

  “This wardrobe stuff is silly,” she said.

  “I play the percentages,” he said.

  Natalie wriggled around and leaned back so she could reach the car seat holding the sleeping Dahlia. She unbuckled it and started to hand the car seat and Dahlia out through the window.

  “No,” said Lock. “Keep her until after I hit the tree.”

  “But it’s only going to be a little fender-bender,” she said. “She’ll be fine.”

  “After I hit the tree,” Lock said. He dashed back to Witt’s car. He got in, buckled his seatbelt, and looked over at the semiconscious man in the passenger seat.

  He backed up five yards and stopped. He checked the rear-view mirror. No one was coming.

  From her car, Natalie had a view of the other bend, the one Lock couldn’t see. She signaled with her lights. All clear.

  Lock stomped on the gas pedal and drove deliberately into the mighty oak tree there—he hated to hurt the tree—slightly harder than intended. Inside the car, the front airbags burst open. Lock sustained a bloody nose and dabbed at the blood with a napkin he found in his jacket pocket. Witt appeared to be okay. There was moderate front-end damage to the car—the bumper and grille were crumpled, a headlight was smashed, and the hood had buckled.

  Witt groaned. Lock released his own seatbelt, opened his door, and jumped out, keeping an eye on his passenger. Witt, in a stupor, mumbled but did not move. Lock unbuckled Witt’s seatbelt and tried to lug him over into the driver’s seat. He was able to move him only partway, but that would be good enough.

  Lock looked over his shoulder. Natalie’s car pulled up and stopped alongside her husband’s car. Lock left Witt sprawled on the front seat. He turned toward Natalie.

  “Don’t forget to put the flashers on,” he said.

  She did it and then passed Dahlia, secured in her car seat, to Lock who had opened the driver’s door. He adjusted the blanket to cover her exposed stomach.

  Lock had anticipated that both front airbags would i
nflate upon impact, and he knew that would be a red flag to the police. He placed Dahlia on the passenger seat. Her weight would explain the front passenger airbag inflating, and it had the added bonus of being an unsafe place for her—another strike against Witt. He watched her as she slept soundly.

  Lock straightened up and took another look at Dahlia. I don’t want to do this.

  “You’ll be fine, baby,” he said. “We’ll be right down the road.”

  He shut the rear door quietly.

  Lock next closed the driver’s door, took a deep breath, and checked the road in both directions. He saw nothing. He hopped into Natalie’s car, nodded at her, and they drove off.

  “Nice and slow,” he said.

  He took a new prepaid cellphone from his pocket and dialed 9–1–1 to report the crash.

  19

  The bulk of Witt’s now damaged car was on the shoulder, pressed up against the tree. Only the rear remained on the roadway. The car’s single working headlight illuminated a swath of the thick woods. Steam rose from the cracked radiator.

  Moments after Natalie and Lock drove off, another vehicle, a late model pickup—weaving and with windshield wipers snapping back and forth—bore down on the curve where Witt’s car was.

  The teenage driver’s girlfriend unbuckled her seatbelt and slid closer to him. She switched on the radio. Music blared. She put her arm around him and leaned in playfully to kiss his neck. These distractions occurred at precisely the wrong moment. The pickup’s right front end didn’t clear the corner of Witt’s car that jutted out onto the road, and they collided with a powerful impact, spinning it violently up against another tree. The pickup skidded off the road, bounced off a fieldstone wall and flipped over, landing on the passenger side.

  Both driver and passenger lay there unconscious, the passenger ejected into a pile of sleet-covered gravel and the driver restrained by his seatbelt. The truck’s rear wheels spun in the sleet. Steam hissed from the engine.

  20

  Natalie pulled into a train station parking lot about a mile up the road. The sleet came down hard. Visibility was almost zero. A couple of cars were there, waiting to pick up commuters. Lock got out. The sleet stung his face.