PART 5 – I Had Trusted My Experience for Decades, but Nothing Had Prepared Me for What the Locked Door Meant to My Family

The officer stopped working on the lock long enough to speak to his colleague.

I could not hear the words.

I watched the two of them exchange a brief look, then turn their attention back to the garage.

I wanted to ask what they were discussing.

I did not.

There was a difference between needing information and needing reassurance, and I was no longer certain which one was driving me.

My phone felt heavy in my pocket.

I kept thinking about Nolan's calls.

Three times, he had tried to reach me.

Three times, I had watched his name appear and disappear without answering.

I had made that decision because the dispatcher told me to concentrate on the emergency.

It had been the right decision.

That did not mean I felt comfortable with it.

I had spent years telling people that a reasonable decision could still leave you with an outcome you never wanted.

I understood that principle better than I wished to.

The officer returned to the lock.

I watched him work.

The door remained closed, and I remained outside.

For a few seconds, I thought I heard something from within the garage.

I could not identify the sound.

It might have been movement.

It might have been the rain.

I waited for it to happen again.

Nothing followed.

I wanted to call Rachel's name, but I held back.

I had already told the officers what I heard.

If there was someone inside, I hoped they knew help had arrived.

I tried to imagine what Rachel might be thinking.

Perhaps she was frightened.

Perhaps she was too weak to speak.

Perhaps she had heard the officers and was waiting for them to open the door.

Every possibility led me back to the same helpless place.

I could not know.

The officer shifted his position.

His colleague remained close enough to assist.

I looked at the padlock again.

It was wet, dark, and ordinary.

I had never paid much attention to locks before that day.

Now I could not stop looking at one.

I wondered who had put it there.

I wondered when it had been secured.

I wondered whether the person who had closed it had understood what might happen to the person left inside.

Those were questions.

They were not answers.

I reminded myself of that.

A prosecutor who began with an answer and searched for facts to support it was already in trouble.

A mother could make the same mistake.

I could not afford to do that now.

The officers continued working.

I stayed where I had been told to stand.

My shoes made a faint sound when I shifted my weight on the wet concrete.

I stopped moving.

I wanted to hear everything.

I wanted to hear Rachel.

I wanted to hear the lock give way.

I wanted to hear something that would tell me the worst possibility had not come true.

Instead, I heard the steady drip of water from the roof.

I heard a car moving somewhere beyond the alley.

I heard the officer say something to his colleague.

Then I heard the metallic sound of equipment being repositioned.

I looked at the door.

The lock still held.

I had prosecuted cases in which a few minutes had changed everything.

I had also seen people assign meaning to a delay when the delay had an ordinary explanation.

I knew that the officers had reasons for taking care.

I knew that forcing a door was not simply a matter of pulling harder.

I knew all of that.

I still wanted them to hurry.

I looked toward the alley entrance, then back at the garage.

I could not decide which direction frightened me more.

The entrance represented the possibility of someone arriving with an explanation.

The garage represented the possibility of discovering what that explanation would have to account for.

I thought about Rachel again.

I tried to remember the last time we had spoken without either of us being distracted.

The memory would not settle into a clear picture.

I remembered conversations in pieces.

A question asked while I was working.

An answer given while one of us was on the way somewhere.

A promise to talk later.

I had always assumed that later would come.

Now I found myself searching those ordinary moments for signs I might have missed.

That was unfair to both of us.

I knew it was unfair.

I did it anyway.

I had been trained to look backward and identify the point at which a situation began to go wrong.

That skill could be useful in a courtroom.

It could also become cruel when turned on your own life.

I could not change what had already happened.

I could only remain available for whatever came next.

The officer looked in my direction.

I straightened without meaning to.

He did not speak.

He simply returned his attention to the door.

I let my shoulders drop.

I felt foolish for reacting to a glance as though it might contain an answer.

Then I remembered how many families I had seen waiting outside courtrooms, reading every movement from a person who might know something about their loved one.

I had once believed their attention was excessive.

I understood it now.

When the truth is out of your reach, you begin looking for it in places where it may not exist.

I took another breath.

The rain had left my hands cold.

I rubbed them together, then slipped them into my coat pockets.

My phone was there.

I did not take it out.

I could still see Nolan's name in my mind.

I wondered whether he had left a voicemail.

I wondered whether he would call again.

I wondered whether I would have the strength to speak to him calmly when the time came.

I had no answers.

For the moment, the garage had to come first.

The officers resumed their work.

I watched them without moving.

The padlock remained the one thing separating me from the answer I needed.

I could not open it myself.

I could not make the officers work faster by staring at them.

And I could not turn fear into certainty just because uncertainty was unbearable.

So I waited.

Click here to continue reading: PART 6: Three Missed Calls Sat on My Phone While I Tried to Keep My Mind on the One Person I Could Not Reach