Never Look Back

by Alison Gaylin

  “Okay, no worries,” Summer said. “I’m going to go back to Duarte and try and get George to reconsider going on record.”

  “Do you think there’s any hope in that?”

  She smiled. It tracked weirdly on his screen, a slow-motion grimace, an image out of a dream. “There’s hope in everything, Q.”

  He cleared his throat. “Listen,” he said. “I don’t think there’s a real story here.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes.”

  “But the postcard from New York . . .”

  “Lots of students loved Mrs. Brixton. That postcard could have been from anyone.”

  “Come on. You don’t believe that.”

  “I don’t know what I believe.”

  “Quentin, the ticket stub—”

  “Do you know what I was just doing, Summer? I was reading Hamish Garrison’s obituary.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I found it here at the library. All these years, researching murderers and their victims, I never bothered tracking down my own origin story. I rely on my mother—the most unreliable source on the planet. If I was interviewing her for a podcast, I’d fact-check every word out of her mouth. But here she tells me this random British guy was my dad, and I believe her without question. Isn’t that strange?”

  “This conversation is what’s strange.”

  “I mean it, Summer. What if Hamish Garrison being my father is just a lie I’ve been living with all these years? The same way Pollard’s been living with the idea that April Cooper is still alive.”

  “Hey, Q . . .” That tinge of worry in her voice. He closed his eyes.

  “Or, hell . . . I don’t know. Maybe Robin Diamond is the one who’s been living with a lie. Maybe her mother really was a murderer, and she’ll never know it. What difference does it make? We all believe whatever bullshit we want to, don’t we? We suck up whatever pretty stories we can, just to help us get through the day without throwing ourselves in front of a train.”

  He opened his eyes to Summer’s face in his hand—a mask of concern, eyes bigger than ever. For an awful moment, he wanted to break the screen.

  “You need to get some sleep,” she said.

  “You have no idea what I fucking need.” Quentin said it louder than he should have. He was aware of a group of young kids and their parents on the library steps, stopping their conversation, gaping at him.

  “I’m sorry, Summer,” he said. “I just . . . Hell, you know how I can get sometimes.”

  “I care about you.”

  “I know.”

  “I mean . . . Your mom. It’s only been six months, and we’ve barely talked since—”

  “I don’t need to talk,” he said. Then, “I swear, I’d tell you if I did.”

  Summer touched her fingertips to the screen. Quentin did the same. Tried to smile. “I probably shouldn’t have looked up the Hame-ster’s obit,” he said. “I don’t even know why I did. What was I expecting?”

  “It would be nice,” she said, “if it mentioned a son in L.A.”

  For a moment, Quentin flashed on Mitchell Bloom—the air-conditioned comfort of his office, the professional concern in his eyes. Do you really think April Cooper and Gabriel LeRoy were to blame for all your mother’s troubles? he’d said. For all your troubles too? Like a father. Like a shrink. He’d learned not to trust either. “I’ve just had a bad couple of days,” he told Summer. “I’ll snap out of it. Promise.”

  “Quentin?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I really hope you find your sunglasses.”

  He smiled, his throat clenching. “Thank you.”

  After he ended the conversation, Quentin went to his recent calls and scrolled through them. Most all of them over the past twenty-four hours were from Dean and Summer, but there was one that was unfamiliar, with a Westchester County area code. Could be Robin Diamond.

  He thought about calling back, and it made him feel tired and hopeless, as though he’d been treading water for too long.

  He slipped his digital voice recorder out of his pocket and turned it on. He’d been doing this ever since Dean had dropped him off at LAX—recording thoughts and observations that might make it into the podcast, a type of personal diary as he journeyed to the heart of the murders that so deeply affected his own life. It had been Summer’s idea initially, but he’d taken to it quickly. Probably too quickly. Recording his own thoughts was, after all, basically the same thing as talking to himself.

  He cleared his throat and spoke into the recorder, the mic catching his voice along with the roar of traffic on Fifth Avenue, the bleat of horns. “All parents lie. That’s just a fact. For some of us, the lies are designed to preserve our innocence: Santa is real, for instance. Trying for a baby means praying really hard. Other times, the lies are deeper, more material. Parents tell us those lies not to protect us, but to protect themselves. They don’t want us to know who they really are.”

  Quentin’s phone chimed. He looked at the screen. Another unfamiliar number. Another Westchester County area code. And when he answered the call, he heard a man’s voice he was certain he’d never heard before. “Hello,” the man said, “can you tell me who I’m speaking to, please?”

  “Only if you tell me first.”

  “This is Detective Nick Morasco, from the Tarry Ridge Police Department,” he said. “Now it’s your turn.”

  He swallowed. “Quentin. Quentin Garrison . . . Um . . . Is anything wrong?”

  “Mr. Garrison, do you know a man named Mitchell Bloom?”

  Quentin had the strangest sensation—as though he were outside the conversation, as though he were his future self, listening in. “Why? What happened?”

  “Answer the question please, sir.”

  Quentin thought about lying, but only for a second. He needed to tell the truth. He knew that. But first, he needed to be able to breathe. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I know him.”

  Mitchell Bloom. When he’d spoken to Robin the previous day, Quentin had managed to pry one piece of information out of her—her father wasn’t retired. And as it turned out, he’d found a listing for a psychiatrist named Mitchell Bloom with a private practice in Tarry Ridge and paid him a visit there, during working hours.

  “You went to his workplace?” Detective Morasco said. “To talk to him for your podcast? You didn’t call first?”

  “It hadn’t worked out so well when I’d called Robin,” Quentin said. “I thought if I went in and saw him, and explained everything, it wouldn’t be as easy to turn me away.”

  “And you wanted to talk to him for a true crime podcast.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “About the Inland Empire murders. My aunt was a victim.”

  “And Dr. Bloom is an expert in criminal psychiatry,” he said. “That’s why you wanted to talk to him.”

  The detective said it like a statement, not a question. Quentin decided it was best to agree.

  “You didn’t speak to Dr. Bloom after that one conversation in his office?”

  “Detective Morasco,” Quentin said. “Has . . . has something happened?”

  He didn’t answer right away. Quentin leaned into the silence, his heart pounding. “Detective?”

  “He’s dead, Mr. Garrison.”

  Quentin felt numb. “Oh . . . Oh my God.”

  “Do you think you may be able to come by the station? Or we can meet you in the city, if it’s easier.”

  “What about Mrs. Bloom? Is she all right?”

  “I’d prefer to talk more about this in person.”

  “I can come by the station,” Quentin heard himself say. “I have a rental car.”

  “That would be great. It won’t take long.”

  Quentin said good-bye and hung up, both hands trembling. The phone started pulsing like a beating heart and he looked at the screen. An app he’d downloaded on the plane: news alerts for Westchester County. He clicked on one of them. Read the article all the way through. Noted psychiatrist
Dr. Mitchell Bloom and his wife, Renee, had been shot in what was thought to have been a home invasion. Renee Bloom was in critical condition. Mitchell Bloom was dead.

  MITCHELL BLOOM, MD. Gold letters on clouded glass. Dr. Bloom had no receptionist, just a small waiting room and he’d stepped out into it—a big man, a few inches taller than Quentin and with a kind, owlish face. A double take, once he saw the stranger in his waiting room. I thought you were my four o’clock, Dr. Bloom had said. And then Quentin had told him why he was there.

  They’d talked for around half an hour, with no tape recorder running, Dr. Bloom playing psychiatrist. Quentin trying to play interviewer.

  Closure. That’s an interesting name.

  It was my coproducer’s idea.

  Do you think closure is possible for you, Mr. Garrison?

  Huh?

  For all intents and purposes, you’re the survivor of a murder that happened nearly twenty years before you were born. Don’t you believe it might be wishful thinking for you to think that type of pain can be fixed?

  As I said. My coproducer thought of the name.

  Your coproducer?

  Actually, my coproducer and my husband. They thought of the name together.

  Do you think it might be wishful thinking on their part, then? Your coproducer and your husband? Do you think they might care for you so much, they’re hoping for the impossible?

  Quentin, trying to play interviewer and getting angrier and angrier . . .

  As he made his way down the library steps, Quentin’s skin flushed even hotter than the stale humid air around him, images flashing through his mind from that same night . . . of the Blooms’ Tudor home, the lush green lawn and the big bay window, the TV flickering from the upstairs window, the hum of cicadas outside, the heavy scent of lilies planted along the edge of the yard. That lovely home, that loving family.

  How long had Quentin stood outside Dr. Mitchell Bloom’s house, remembering that half hour in his office, simmering over the way Dr. Bloom had pried his way into Quentin’s darkest thoughts without answering a single one of his questions? Mitchell Bloom, MD, with his lovely, gold-lettered life and no need for closure.

  Watching the house from the window of his rental car, Quentin had slipped his recorder out of his pocket. Mitchell Bloom can sleep at night, he had said into it, his voice tight with anger. Whether his wife is a murderer or not.

  Stop thinking like that. Stop thinking. As he reached the parking garage where he’d left his rental car, Quentin told himself that as soon as he could, he needed to find all the recordings he’d made last night. All those observations he’d spoken into his mic, his thoughts burning and popping. Everything he had said. Everything he had done. It needed to be erased.

  Eleven

  Robin

  IN THE DAYS following her father’s death, Robin moved through life as though she were navigating her way through a dark cave, the air around her dank and hard to breathe, the potential for danger beneath every footfall, every brush of the hand, no light to guide her.

  She wasn’t sure exactly how much time had passed since the shootings. In this endless cave, one hour was the same as the next and the next. She took pills to sleep but it didn’t feel like sleeping. Waking up was just an opening of eyes.

  There were things to do, though, in Robin’s waking hours and so she did them. She signed autopsy reports and answered the cops’ initial questions and put off the follow-ups. She spoke to poker-faced doctors about her mother’s chances at survival. She met with funeral directors and chose a coffin for her father and signed many, many checks and put flowers into vases. She answered emails she barely read. Typed “thank you for your kind words” over and over and over.

  Eric was around. He stayed home from work and talked to people on the phone, telling them, “She’s sleeping now. Can I have her call you back?” And, “I know she will appreciate that. Thank you.” He cooked Robin meals that she couldn’t bring herself to eat and sat by her side in intensive care as she held her mother’s cool, dry, mannequin hand. He put his arm around Robin’s shoulders and stroked her hair, and he asked her questions like, “What can I do?” and “How can I help?”

  It made Robin feel guilty, all the attention her husband was paying her. She’d been longing for just a fraction of it over the past several months, wishing for it, really. And a part of her worried that she’d wished too hard, that she’d brought this on herself, on her family.

  Had she?

  She probably shouldn’t have been entertaining thoughts like these, sitting now in the bright of her kitchen, talking to the two detectives in charge of her parents’ case. Their names were Nick Morasco and Ehrlich Baus (“Pronounced Boss,” he had told her, as though she gave a damn) and while she really didn’t have anything against either one of these men—well, Morasco anyway; Baus was pretty annoying—her main goal was to get them out of her house as quickly as possible. Her father’s funeral was this afternoon.

  Robin would have preferred not to be talking to them at all, not the way she was right now, with her head all jumbled from grief and worry and the remnants of last night’s sleeping pills and the Xanax she’d taken this morning. But at this point, she had no other choice. She’d been putting them off for so long, and, as Baus (“Boss”) had explained it to her, if they had to wait any longer to question her in full, it could hinder the investigation. You do want to find out who did this, don’t you? he had asked, and Robin could have sworn she detected a hint of suspicion in that smirk of his, those beady green eyes, like shards of glass. When she’d asked if Eric could stay in the room while she was questioned, he’d shaken his head as Morasco had said yes. Yeah, pretty annoying was putting it mildly.

  Baus was smiling at her now. Smiling. Gulping the glass of lemonade that Eric had brought him and smiling pleasantly, like it was a church social in here and the square dancing was about to start. “Your husband makes an awesome glass of lemonade,” he said. Robin had no idea how to respond to that. She glanced at Eric.

  “It’s . . . uh . . . a mix,” he said.

  She turned to Morasco. “Did you look into the Femme Seven column?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Morasco, far as she could tell, was his partner’s opposite. Where Baus was short, meaty, and florid, Morasco was tall and sinewy, with a pale cast to his olive skin. Where Morasco was polite and laconic, Baus seemed to be in love with the sound of his own voice. Morasco wore a wedding ring and spoke frequently of his private investigator wife, while Baus seemed like a guy who hadn’t gotten laid in at least half a decade and hated all women as a result. Morasco seemed intelligent. Baus . . . did not. Maybe it was all just an act. A good cop/bad cop kind of thing. Robin hoped so, for Morasco’s sake.

  Morasco said, “We’ve looked into the accounts you received the tweets, texts, and emails from. No red flags yet.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “You’d actually be surprised at how many of them are bots from foreign countries and twelve-year-old boys.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s funny, you know, the things that get us worked up into a lather and keep us up at night. It’s words on a screen. And when you pull away the curtain, and you look at who or what is actually typing those words . . . Go onto one of those private threads with all those frustrated teenagers on it. Tell ’em you’re a cop. It’s like turning on a light and watching the cockroaches scatter.”

  “She shouldn’t impersonate a police officer,” Baus said.

  “I wasn’t literally telling her to do that.”

  “The lady might not have known you were kidding.”

  “Oh my God,” Robin whispered. She wondered if Baus was some kind of punishment from the police chief. Maybe Morasco had shown up late for work one too many times.

  “Anyway,” Morasco said. “We’ll let you know if any of these trolls turns out to be a potential suspect.”

  Baus said, “Tell us about your parents’ marriage.”

  Robin blinked. “Excuse
me?”

  Morasco gave him a sharp look and took out a notepad. “Your dad was a forensic psychiatrist, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “About how long ago did he go into private practice?”

  “Ten years, I think. Maybe more.”

  “After you left home, though.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know why he quit his job at Wards Island?”

  Robin closed her eyes. Tried to remember. Her mom’s voice over the phone. We have some good news to announce. Dinner with Eric and her parents at their favorite restaurant—a French place in White Plains they’d just discovered. Cake brought to the table and wineglasses raised. Just the four of them. It had always been just the four of them for dinner. Just the three of them before Eric. When Robin was a kid, her mother had an active social life during the day, with her volunteer work and her PTA friends and her walks in the park. That baby bird. She’d tried bringing home a dog once—a sickly old thing from the shelter. But Dad was allergic, so she’d found it another home. And then there was another time—a babysitter of Robin’s, a girl named CoCo who’d come from a bad home. We have room, Mom had said, her voice cracking. She deserves a chance. It wouldn’t be forever. God, Robin hadn’t thought of that girl in years . . .

  Always taking in strays. Dad always making her take them back. Mom’s days were busy, but the nights were reserved for her family. That was the way Robin had looked at it. Her vision blurred. A tear slipped down her cheek. Maybe Dad was jealous of the strays. Maybe he wanted Mom all to himself.

  “Ms. Diamond?” Morasco asked.

  “I’m sorry. What was the question?”

  Baus said, “Why did your father decide to leave Wards Island?”

  “I think he just . . . I think he wanted to spend more time at home.”

  “Did he ever mention feeling threatened?” Morasco said.