Page 35 of Code 6
“Apparently, you were right. She had a stash.”
Gamble took a seat on the white railing. “Exactly how drunk is point-two-nine?”
“Blackouts happen, so a person might have no memory of the things she did or the people she did them with. Last year, we had a college student who choked to death on his own vomit because his gag reflex was so impaired. Basically, we’re in the territory where really bad things happen.”
Like suicide,Gamble was about to say, but he went in a completely different direction. “Is it possible Elizabeth fell over the railing? She didn’t jump?”
“People who accidentally fall off a balcony don’t leave suicide notes.”
“Not everyone who writes a suicide note intends to go through with it. Sometimes they want to be saved, right?”
“Sometimes.”
“And sometimes they get drunk and take it too far, don’t they?”
“Do you really believe that’s what happened here?”
“I’m just trying to understand. Maybe she wanted Kate to walk into the apartment and see her leaning over the rail. Maybe she wanted to be saved. Maybe she wanted her daughter to save her.”
“Mr. Gamble, this is a sad case, but the law requires us to put a label on it. I sympathize that it may be easier for a family to cope with an accident, but this was no accident. That whittles down the choices to suicide or homicide. I’m leaning suicide—unless there’s something you’re not telling me.”
The detective’s question had put him on the defensive. “Do you think there’s something I’m not telling you?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s something you’re just not ready to admit to yourself. Either way, now’s your chance to tell me.”
The voice of Abigail Sloane was suddenly in the CEO’s head, and while her delivery was more colorful—“Shut the fuck up”—it was the same advice he would have received from any good lawyer.
“There’s nothing,” he said. “Nothing I can think of.”
The detective’s response was slow in coming, and even though they were on the phone, Gamble could almost feel his stare, the penetrating gaze of an inquisitive detective who could discern the truth better than any polygraph machine.
“All right, Mr. Gamble. We’ll leave it at that. Have a good day, sir.”
“You as well,” he said, and the call ended.
Kate walked from the athletic facility to Building C, where Patrick worked.
Kate had texted him after dinner with her father and said she knew“Project Naïveté” was fake, that she could take a joke, and that all was cool between them. But he hadn’t answered. She chose not to text him again. Creepy old babysitter texting the precocious little boy who’d grown up to be a twenty-two-year-old blond and blue-eyed Adonis was not cool. But she was curious to know why he hadn’t answered her.
Kate went inside, and there was yet another security checkpoint in the lobby. The guard recognized her as the CEO’s daughter and apologized for having to put her through the same routine they followed for all visitors.
“Rules are rules,” he said.
Building C was a more modern design than the law department. The multitiered workspace was accessible by ramps instead of stairs, with shiny chrome railings, wide-planked floors of white oak, and perfect ambient lighting that made Kate feel as though she were entering MoMA. All interior offices had glass walls so that you could see all the way through from one exterior wall to the other. Patrick’s office had his nameplate on the glass door, but Kate would have guessed it was his even without the nameplate. The assortment of junk food on the desk was classic Patrick. In all her years of babysitting, Kate had never seen him eat anything but McDonald’s fries, pizza, the occasional pizza pocket for variety’s sake, full-sugar sodas, and giant Icees. He’d obviously not outgrown his eating habits.
A coworker emerged from the neighboring glass box. He was wearing a colorful Hawaiian shirt, which seemed to be the unofficial uniform among Buck engineers. “Patrick’s not here,” he said.
“Do you know when he’ll be back?”
“Not sure.”
“Okay. I’ll leave him a note.”
“Well, he won’t be back anytime soon,” he said. “They sent him away.”
“What do you mean, ‘sent him away’?”
“It’s like an outward-bound program. He’s camping in the wild on some kind of survival exercise.”