A Necessary End (36 page)

He is, however, innocent of murder.

What Leah said last night about me, that I killed Gabe's brother, Michael—it's something I've thought about before. But I've gone on to be a better person. I teach little kids, and that's penance for Michael, my way of doing good in the world. That has to erase my mistakes. That's all it really was, a mistake. I was sixteen. I hadn't grown a conscience yet.

But what's my penance for Patty? Is it losing baby Michael?

It's possible that I can't hang on to him unless I make it right somehow. I can't let an innocent man take his chances with some crappy public defender. I can't just hope he'll go free.

But if I turn myself in, I lose Michael anyway. And unlike Gabe's brother, Patty deserved to die. Summer Jackson might even agree with me, if she knew Patty's past.

If I got that part of the story to Summer, that could make a difference for Brad. It would certainly cast some reasonable doubt. If Summer knew that Patty pretended to be pregnant time and again, then it would follow that she had lots of enemies. She had five Facebook pages that I knew about, but there were probably others that she'd already taken down. Those were just the pregnancy scams. Didn't she say something about a windfall coming? There's motive right there, for someone.

I could call in an anonymous tip. I'd just need to figure out a way to do it that wouldn't lead the police to my door.

That might be enough to tip the scales in my favor and keep Michael in my life.

I look down at the remote control and a cold wind blows through me. Could it really be . . . ? I blink again. There, straddling the number 2, is a white cat hair.

S
o if I can get you three hundred dollars a month for thirty-six months, we've got a deal?” I say.

It's bullshit, of course. Three hundred dollars a month wouldn't even fly for the CT, and we're talking about an ES. But I feel like I can work this guy. Dwight's got an overbite and a receding hairline; there are pit stains on his dress shirt. He's just left his wife and kids for another woman, Lucy, who's not good-looking but she is young, and Lucy wants that red ES. Her hand keeps creeping higher on his thigh.

“I'll take it to my manager right now,” I say. “I just need to know if that's what will make you happy. Three hundred dollars for thirty-six months. What do you say?”

“I say, take it to your manager.” He leans back in his seat, trying to look like a master of the universe, but really, he's just exhausted.

I'm going to break that asshole. I need this sale, like he can't begin to know.

Sure, there's the monthly quota that I gave Ray, my job in the balance, but that isn't even it. It's about mano a mano, hand-to-hand combat. Me versus Dwight, the man who chose freedom over family, young pussy over old. I'm getting this sale.

I walk into Ray's office and say, “Dwight wants two hundred fifty dollars a month for the red ES.” I'm giving myself some wiggle room for the financing, and there's still the trade-in to be negotiated.

“Get outta here,” Ray tells me, like I knew he would.

“Hey, I said I'd try.”

Ray grins. “Good to see you trying, Gabe.”

It goes on this way for another hour: Me going back and forth between Dwight and Ray, with progressively and incrementally higher numbers, and finally,
finally,
Ray gives me the nod. I go back to Dwight, ready to close.

Dwight's on his cell phone, walking in slow concentric circles, and I give him a thumbs-up. He nods distractedly and does one more loop. Then he hangs up and rejoins Lucy and me at the desk.

“Ray hates to let it go for this price—” I begin.

“Good news, then,” Dwight says. “He doesn't have to.”

I stare at Dwight and his stupid, shiny forehead—so much forehead—and I know I've been had. “You were talking to another dealership.”

“Identical car. Also red.” He says this last bit for Lucy's benefit, and she smiles in appreciation. “Better price, better financing, better trade-in. All of it.”

“How much better?”

“Sorry about this, but it's just better, all around. They're working on the paperwork right now and will have it waiting for us. We need to go.” He stands up and holds out a chivalrous arm to Lucy. “It's just business.”

I stand up, too. “I understand business. But there's a little something called decency. I've spent how long with you? Then you leverage all my hard work to get a slightly better deal with someone who hasn't done shit.” I'm moving closer to him as I speak.

He isn't about to back away, not with Lucy there. That's fine by me. I feel like kicking his ass right here, in the middle of the showroom floor. “It's not about the price,” he says. “I don't like you.”

“Oh, you don't? Is that because she does?” I gesture toward Lucy with my chin. The truth is, I haven't registered any particular interest
on her part, but he doesn't know that. Insecurity is rolling off him in waves, as copious as his sweat.

Lucy gets in between us. “Let's just go, sweetie,” she says. “He's not worth it.”

Dwight makes a show of backing away slow, like Lucy has to drag him out. The other salesmen and customers are watching.

“I'm not worth it?” I ask Lucy. “Because this whole time, you've looked ready to suck my cock.”

Dwight comes at me, and I stand my ground. He's shoving me and calling me names; I'm calling him names right back. I don't plan to actually throw a punch, not until he does. I'm hoping he does. He has it coming, trying to screw me like he did.

Ray's on the floor now and he pulls me back with surprising force for a near-geezer. He barks into my face, “You take a walk. I'll handle this.”

He's right, I do need a walk. I head for an empty bay in the service station and take a couple sips of bourbon from my flask. The testosterone is fast draining out of me. Dwight's beside the point, I know that. What is the point anymore?

Time to face the music, and it's going to be a funeral dirge.

Inside Ray's office, he starts giving me a speech about how he's always liked me, how he hates to do this, but I've given him no choice, no choice at all, and I tell him to skip the wind-up and throw the pitch. Is it effective immediately?

“Yeah,” he says with a heavy sigh. “You need to get out of here now. I'll mail your final check.”

“Just don't contest unemployment. That's all I ask.”

“I'll have to run that past the higher-ups, but I'll try. I'll tell them you've been sick. Cancer's been eating your brain. I'll think of something.” He looks more upset than I feel.

“Don't worry about it,” I say. “You did all you could.”

He frowns. “What's wrong with you, Gabe? That's what I don't get.”

“I'm a father now.”

“You pulling my leg?”

“I wish I were. We adopted a boy two months ago. Well, not exactly adopted. It's complicated.” I head for the door.

“Congratulations,” he calls after me, both mystified and sorrowful.

“See you around,” I say, though I know I'm not welcome on the floor again after what I just pulled. Ray and I have never seen each other anywhere else.

There's no going home. I can't explain this to Adrienne. She doesn't need one more thing, not one more Gabe screw-up.

I autopilot to the Pyramid. I don't think I've ever played at noon on a weekday before. It'll be good for me to hang out with a new crowd. The unemployed, my new brethren.

I go in and lean against the rail, surveying the tables. The mood seems more somber at this time of day. The room's full of people who are taking themselves (and the game) way too seriously. Maybe they're grim because they're down to their last dollars. Or maybe they're trying to make a small-time living; this is a day at the office.

Then I see a familiar face—well, familiar hair. Leah, with that same low ponytail, the way she wore it when we came here together. With a large mound of chips in front of her, she's looking perfectly at home. Content. In my home. Well, my home away from home.

Does she have to take over everything? When she goes, there'll be nothing left of me, or of Adrienne. She's destroying our lives and she doesn't have a care in the world. Was that her goal all along?

If that's it, then mission accomplished. She's damn near ruined my marriage. Adrienne won't speak to me, she won't even glare; she looks through me.

The Fixer is on Leah's left. His head is down, as usual. He's not blinded by Leah's looks; she's just another poker player. He's equal opportunity: He'll lose his money to anyone, same as he'd kill them. What a refreshingly simple worldview.

I envy the guy.

M
el's already at a table, and she starts waving at me with puppy-dog exuberance. I've never been that happy to see anyone in my life except Michael (and Gabe, once upon a time), but I imagine Mel experiences the feeling with some regularity.

This was a mistake. I'm energetically unsuited.

We hug, and I take the seat across from her. She's been trying to pin down a lunch date for weeks, and I happened to cave at just the moment when she could be useful to me. Go figure.

“What's good here?” I ask, scanning the menu. The restaurant is light and airy, white and cobalt blue (Greece's national colors, I presume), with lots of large, open windows, but it's loud, too. The people occupying the slate-topped tables around us seem carefree and buzzed.

“The moussaka's my favorite. Maybe we can start with the dolmas?”

“Sure,” I say. I try to catch the eye of a white-shirted waiter. “I could definitely use a glass of wine.” I've practically been a teetotaler ever since Michael came along, as if I'm the one breast-feeding. At the
thought of breast-feeding—something Leah might be doing right now—my hands involuntarily clench.

When the waiter shows up a minute later, I order a Manhattan instead. “Dolmas for an appetizer,” I add, “and I'll have the moussaka.”

“Oh, I didn't know we were ordering yet!” Mel laughs, but ever the good sport, she gets a glass of house white and the souvlaki plate. As the waiter recedes, she turns to me with sudden concern. It's like she's been listening to her own radio station—Sunny Lite FM—and just realized I'm occupying another frequency. “Everything okay?”

“Not even close.”

She scoots her chair over and lowers her voice. “What is it?”

“Leah says she's going to take Michael. Trevor's been staying with us. Did you know that?” She shakes her head. “He's Michael's birth father. I wouldn't trust him to house-sit, let alone to parent a child. It's insanity.” I push my hair back from my face. “But what about you? What's new?”

“That's awful! How are you holding up?”

“I just need to get him alone, that's all. He's in love with her, so he's feeding into her delusion about being the family she never had. Her parents were drug addicts; she's been in the system since she was three. She's got no parenting skills, she had no role models, you know? And he's an underage drinker with no sense of responsibility. This isn't going to happen. There's just no way.” I take a deep breath and smile. “So there's no point in talking about it, really.” Press me, I urge her silently. Force me to keep talking about it.

“How can . . . I mean . . .” She seems genuinely flustered. “We have to talk about it. You have to do some”—she feels around for the expression—“anticipatory grieving.”

Ick. I hate pop psychology, with rumination substituting for action. Why grieve for something that's not going to happen? Something Mel is going to prevent from happening? She just doesn't know it yet.

Our drinks arrive. I take a generous sip of mine, more of a swig. Too much vermouth, but it'll do.

“Do you think, maybe, you're in denial?” she asks delicately. “Isn't that one of the stages of grief? It might even be the first one, I can't remember.” Her brow is furrowed. She's clearly trying to remember, sweet girl that she is. She was a psych major in college.

“I'm not in denial.”

“But wouldn't one of the signs of denial be denying that you're in it?”

I let out a sigh, like she just might have me there. She hasn't touched her wine yet, I notice.

“Tell me about you,” I say. I'm buying some time for her to drink. I'm going to need her inhibitions lowered. “Tell me how the online dating is going. Please? I need you to take my mind off everything.”

Still looking troubled, clearly feeling she's supposed to do more to facilitate my anticipatory grief, she starts to tell me about a back-and-forth she just had with a forty-five-year-old dentist. Then she really warms to it, and the anecdotes begin to pour out of her, pooling on the table between us.

Don't think about Michael, don't imagine where he is right now. Don't picture him smiling at his new parents.

This lunch is part of the long game, I remind myself. Wind Mel up and watch her go.

My brain wanders to Brad Ellison. Summer Jackson is still railroading him with a vengeance. Yesterday, her show featured a woman who lived in Joy's apartment building. The interview wasn't via satellite, but in the studio. That meant Summer had flown the woman in just so she could say that she heard arguing around the time Joy was likely killed. My heart sped up at that, but then the neighbor clarified that she'd heard a male voice in Joy's apartment. She couldn't swear it was Brad's, but when Summer played a bit of Brad's interview, the woman couldn't swear it wasn't him.

Joy's apartment building was a half step above a crack house. That neighbor must have been given an all-expenses-paid trip to L.A. and
the chance to be on TV. Summer practically seduced her. She's building a case for the prosecution, using her star power and perks.

Summer's got her teeth in Brad, and she's not letting go.

The neighbor might not even know she's lying. Witnesses are notoriously unreliable. I learned that from Summer herself. It's what she says when she wants to discredit a particular witness, and I noticed she didn't say it before (or after) interviewing the neighbor. Summer wants her audience to believe. She wants Brad convicted in the court of public opinion.

I finish my drink in one swallow. “Aren't you going to drink your wine?”

She pushes it toward me. “Go ahead.” Her brow furrows anew. “I feel like you're not even really here.”

She could never tell during all those lunches in the break room. But I wasn't tossing back Manhattans then.

“Sorry,” I say. If she's forgoing wine anyway, then there's no use stalling. “I just keep thinking about Michael, and about the kind of life he'll have with Leah and Trevor, if it comes to that.”

“Of course you do!” Her face is suffused with compassion. Good. We're on our way.

“It's not right for Michael to suffer because of their selfishness, you know? Gabe and I are equipped to be his parents. We can give him a stable, loving home.” Fortunately, I've never badmouthed Gabe to Mel so she has no reason to doubt what I'm saying. All she's seen is the love I have for Michael.

She must be thinking of that, because her eyes fill with tears. Perfect.

“It's not like they're child abusers, Leah and Trevor. But it's not far off, is it? Taking Michael away from Gabe and me to live in squalor, when they barely know how to change a diaper, when they've hardly done a night feeding. What are they going to do when he's crying uncontrollably and I'm not there to step in? I feel like,” I nearly whisper, “there's just real capacity for violence there.”

“With Leah? Or with Trevor?”

“Honestly? With both of them.”

She stares at the tablecloth, obviously troubled.

“But what can I do? If I call CPS, they won't substantiate the report. They're about what's actually happened, not what could very well happen. They might think I'm making it up for my own gain. It is just a hunch. But, Mel”—I reach out and touch her arm—“it's a strong hunch. You know how sometimes you have kids in your class and you see their parents, just for a minute, and you know? You
know
something's wrong there. It always turns out to be true, doesn't it? I'm not just seeing Leah and Trevor for a minute. I've been watching them for weeks. In her case, months.”

“I wish I knew what to tell you,” she murmurs. As if I'm here for advice. Oh, sweet, naïve Mel.

“I don't want to wait for something bad to happen to Michael, and then someone calls in a report. Like an upstairs neighbor, once they've already taken him away from me and moved out. Or someone at the park. I wish someone could see them right now and call in.” I study her face. Nothing. “They take him to the park alone sometimes now.” Still nothing. “If someone trustworthy saw them there, someone who could call in to CPS, I feel like it could change Michael's life, you know?” Finally, the light begins to dawn.

“Call in and lie, you mean?” Her tone is wary. Why couldn't she have taken just one sip of wine?

“See into the future, and then call.”

She looks at me with a directness I've never seen in her before. “Is this why you wanted to go to lunch?”

“No! I'm just thinking out loud. I'd never want you to do anything that went against your conscience. I know you're a deeply moral person.” Above reproach, really, which is why CPS would trust her as a concerned citizen who happened to witness abuse at the park.

She nods slowly, her eyes back on the tablecloth. I never expected her to say yes instantly. She needs to let it marinate for a day or two,
imagine the terrible life Michael has in store for him if she doesn't act, and then let her conscience be her guide. I'll let her call me, and then I could tell her when Leah and Trevor would next be at the park. CPS would never catch on to the connection between Mel and me; they're harried civil servants.

“I'm going to the restroom,” she says. She still won't look at me.

But she leaves her purse behind, with her phone in it. That allows me to enact the other part of my plan, the more immediate one. Making sure an innocent man isn't tried for murder—that will improve my karma substantially.

I reach into my own purse. It feels wrong, not having a diaper bag. It's wrong not to have Michael with me. But there's no time to linger on that just now.

I drain her wineglass, and then I yank my phone free. I have all the Facebook pages bookmarked, all of Patty's alter egos, plus the tip line for Summer Jackson. I'd call the police, but I assume they can trace calls. There's no guarantee an anonymous tip will stay anonymous. Summer Jackson wouldn't have that capability.

I grab Mel's phone and block her number, for good measure. I call Summer's tip line and, thankfully, get a recording. “Joy Ellison was a true con woman,” I say. “Brad might have killed her, he might not have. But look at her Facebook pages.” I reel off the aliases. Fortunately, the Facebook page she used for Patty is gone; she took that one down herself. “There might be more to the story than you realize.”

The dolmas arrive, and I pop them in my mouth, one after the other. My heart is racing. What if they can trace that call? What if it leads them to Mel, and then she leads them to me? But she doesn't know anything about Joy, doesn't know I was ever scammed. As far as she's concerned, Leah is my first birth mother. That's the benefit of never really having confidants; they can't rat you out, even if they want to.

The phone's back in her purse by the time she returns to the
table. “Hey,” she says, “you ate all the dolmas!” She's trying to sound playful and failing. I can tell that she wants to forget our recent conversation ever happened. But hopefully, her conscience won't let her.

“Sorry. I haven't been eating much lately. Grief, you know.” I force a brave smile, and I see her melting. Or at least trying to. She likes to believe the best in people. Hey, she has that in common with the Patty I thought I knew. How come I never realized that before? But with Mel, it's all real. “I'll order you more dolmas. Lunch is on me.”

“No, that's okay. I can stand to skip an appetizer.” She looks down at her midriff self-deprecatingly.

“You look great.” I flag down the waiter and place the order.

“A free lunch is kind of appealing right now. Technically, I'm unemployed.”

“You haven't been hired back yet? You will be, don't worry.”

She smiles, her natural optimism reasserting itself. For a second, I feel it, too, that this is all going to turn out just fine. I'll free an innocent man, Mel will call CPS, and Michael will be mine for good.

I reach for my wine—well, Mel's wine—and startle. I notice something clinging to the condensation. A wet, white cat hair. I want to ask Mel if she sees it, too (I've had a Manhattan and half a glass of wine), but I can't afford to have her doubting me, not now.

Is it true that you only know you've been in a state of denial once you've left it?