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“Your mother says they made you a house out of a cardboard box.”
“That was great. They put in a pile of blankets for a bed and they cut windows along one side so I could look out. That’s where I slept, though I didn’t do much of it. They kept coaxing me into drinking lemonade laced with something. I’d get sleepy for a while, but I didn’t stay down long. Whatever it was, it had the opposite effect. Instead of tired, I’d get wired. The more they gave me, the more amped I got.”
“But no aftereffects?”
“None.”
“What about the box? Was it a carton an appliance might have come in?”
“I guess. Not big enough for a refrigerator or a stove. I was little, but even then the box didn’t seem gigantic. I’d say more or less the size of this table. Longer, but about as wide.”
“You didn’t miss your mom?”
“Some, but they told me my mother wanted me to be a good girl, just for a little while, and then they’d take me home.”
“And they stayed with you the whole time?”
“One or the other did. Usually not both. I think that’s why they wanted me asleep-to make their job easier. One would keep an eye on me while the other one left, probably to call my folks.”
“Did you have nightmares afterward?”
“Nope. Honestly, there was nothing traumatic about it. Weird as it sounds, I had a lot of fun.” Her expression shifted when she caught sight of my face. “What?”
“I have trouble reconciling your experience with Mary Claire’s disappearance. Clearly, these guys weren’t thugs or hardened criminals. I can’t believe they were kiddie-killers either, at least from what you’ve said. It sounds like they wanted money and not very much of it at that. Somehow they were spooked into abandoning the twenty-five thousand dollars, which was more than they got for you.”
“You think something went wrong?”
“I can’t imagine any other explanation for the fact that you were released while she vanished forever.”
“I feel guilty about that and I have for years. If there’s anything negative in the aftermath, it’s knowing I escaped with my life. She wasn’t as lucky and look at the price she paid.”
24
Walker took a seat near the back of the small conference room at the city recreation center. There was a separate door on the side of the building, its purpose to promote privacy. The furnishings were plain-folding chairs set up in ordered rows, a lectern that had been removed from its stand and placed on the floor. Wooden tables had been herded into a corner where they’d be out of the way. There were maybe twenty people in attendance, most keeping a chair or two between themselves and others. This was the third AA meeting he’d sat in on. The air smelled like construction paper and library paste. As an after-school project, the kids had cut out a number of tree silhouettes that were pi
His sponsor was a guy named Leonard whom he’d met through the Episcopal church he and Carolyn attended sporadically. He’d been aware Leonard didn’t drink. They had few acquaintances in common, though they ran into each other at the occasional di
He had to admit alcoholism was democratic, encompassing every age, race, social status, and financial standing. So far he hadn’t run into anyone he knew, but he was braced for the possibility. After his release from the hospital, he’d gone down to the police station with his attorney and surrendered himself to the authorities. The booking process had been matter-of-fact, for which he’d been inordinately grateful. He’d been more than cooperative, thinking to demonstrate that he was a cut above most of those who passed through their hands. It was a mark of how low he’d sunk that he deemed their opinions relevant. Later, at his arraignment, he’d pleaded not guilty and now he was waiting for a court date. When the cops caught up with him after the accident, he’d been forced to surrender his driver’s license, so he’d had to hire a car and driver to ferry him around town.
Betty Sherrard, the bank vice president and portfolio manager, had offered a solution to the transportation problem. Her son, Brent, was living at home until school started in the fall. He was twenty and worked part-time stocking shelves at Von’s supermarket. He needed the extra money and he was able to tailor his hours to accommodate Walker ’s needs. Walker paid him fifteen dollars an hour, plus mileage on his mother’s spare car, a 1986 Toyota. It was all a pain in the ass, but he had no choice.
The woman standing up in front was speaking about the trajectory of her drinking woes, a spiral as relentless as a toilet being flushed, according to her report: First, the family intervention, which had shocked her into good behavior. She’d been one year sober and then her mother died and she’d begun to drink again the day of the funeral. Three months later, she swore off alcohol again, but there were countless falls from grace, each one more degrading than the one before. Her husband divorced her. She lost custody of her kids. She was a mean drunk and her friends had taken to avoiding her. One morning she woke up in her car, which was parked at a shopping mall a hundred miles from home. She had no idea how she’d gotten there. Her purse had been stolen and she’d had to hike to the nearest service station, where she bummed enough money to call and beg her ex-sister-in-law to pick her up. Waiting, she’d finally accepted the fact she couldn’t do it on her own. Now she was fifty-one days clean and sober, which netted her a big round of applause.
Walker thought his circumstances were tame by comparison. True, Carolyn had forced him to leave the house, but he was confident she’d relent. He still saw his kids every chance he got and he still had a job, for god’s sake. He’d messed up badly, but his problems didn’t hold a patch on some he’d heard here. This was a bump in the road, a wake-up call. He’d stumbled off course and now he’d righted himself. All these stories about people losing everything and living on the streets? He sympathized, but his situation was entirely different. One guy had made it clean and sober for five years, two months, and five days. The best Walker could offer up was seven days, not even worth one hand clapping. He’d have felt like a fool if he’d stood up and shared that. Belatedly, he flashed on the fact that while he’d been busy patting himself on the back, he’d forgotten about the girl he’d killed.
Sitting there, he could feel his demons stir. It wasn’t that he wanted a drink as such. It was the option to drink that he found hard to renounce. At some point in the future-five years or ten, he was unclear on the time frame-he wanted to believe he could enjoy a cocktail or a glass of wine. How many special occasions would come and go with him sipping soda water or a Diet Coke, detached and disengaged? Not drinking for the remainder of his life was too extreme a penalty. Surely, he’d regain the privilege once he learned to moderate his intake.