Janice Johnson - With Child

“Any good businessman gets down in the trenches. He’d be a fool not to.”

“I wish…” Tears leaked out although she’d thought herself cried dry. “I wish somebody else had been there. But I feel guilty wishing they were dead instead.”

Dickerson covered her hand with his. “It’s natural, Mindy. You didn’t know them.”

“I do know Mick Mulligan. He’s the dispatcher.” She tasted the tears. “He’s married, and he has two little girls.”

That thought caused a lurch within her, of fear, of renewed guilt, of raw grief. Dean had really wanted to have children. She was the one to put pregnancy off.

“Let’s wait a couple of years,” she’d coaxed. “Let’s be selfish and just have each other for a while first.”

Quinn said explosively, “What if it was a setup? Goddamn it, Dickerson! Let me work this one.”

“Go home. Go to bed.”

A vast, terrifying emptiness swelled within Mindy. They’d both leave any minute. She’d be alone in the house. It was a big house, bigger than she liked, with a cavernous three-car garage and bedrooms they didn’t use, a den and a family room. She could feel those empty, dark rooms around her, echoing her inner fear.

She made a sound—a sniff, a gulp. Still engaged in their argument, both men turned their heads to look at her. She looked down at her hands, clutching the comforter.

“We can’t leave her alone.” Quinn sounded irritated. “I’ll stay.”

That brought her head up. “No! You don’t have to.” But she wanted him to stay. He made her feel safe, and tonight she was terrified of being alone.

His mouth, she’d have sworn, had a faint curl. “If you don’t have a friend you can ask to come over, I do have to stay.” He sounded as if he were talking to a five-year-old who had just announced that she could walk across town all by herself to Grandma’s house. His gaze left her; she was dismissed. To Dickerson, he said, “You’ll keep me informed?”

Mindy shrank into her comforter, wishing she had the spine to stand up, say with dignity, “No, thanks, I’d like to be alone,” and walk them to the door. She’d have been grateful for Quinn’s offer if it had come from anyone but him, or even if he’d made it more kindly. He’d always had a talent for making her feel small.

Her care settled, Sergeant Dickerson expressed his sympathy and regret one more time, then left. Quinn walked him to the door, and they stood out of earshot talking for several minutes, their voices a rumble.

Finally Quinn locked up behind the sergeant and came back to her. “Why don’t you go back to bed?”

“No!” She shuddered. “No. I can’t get in our bed.”

“The guest room, then.”

She didn’t want to go to bed at all. Did he really imagine that she’d lay her head on the pillow and fall into blissful slumber? In the dark, all she would do was imagine a thousand times what had happened to Dean. Had the shot come from nowhere? Or had he been held at gun-point, threatened, beaten? Did he know he might die? She both wanted and didn’t want to know. I’m a coward, she thought. She would lie there wondering what would happen tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.

But she also saw that Quinn wanted her to go to bed, so she nodded and put her feet on the carpeted floor. When she stood, she swayed, and he was at her side instantly, his strong hand clamped on her elbow. He walked her to the downstairs bedroom, and she felt like a child being put to bed. When she climbed in, he spread the comforter over her, then stood awkwardly at the foot of the bed.

“Can I get you anything?”

Mute, she shook her head.

Quinn came around the bed, his hand out to switch off the lamp. She shook her head violently. “No! Leave it on. Please.”

He frowned at her. “You’re sure?”

“I don’t… The dark…”

“Okay. I’ll be right out there. Call if you need me.”

“Thank you,” she said dutifully.

Seemingly satisfied, he left, switching off the overhead light and pulling the door almost closed. His footsteps receded toward the living room.

The sheets were cold, the pillow squishy. It was like being in a hotel room. But she couldn’t seem to care enough to try to bunch up the pillow or even reach for the second one. She just lay on her back and stared at the ceiling.

The house was Dean’s, not hers. The life his. One she’d put on like a borrowed evening gown. She’d felt beautiful and loved and fortunate, but not quite secure. Because, she saw now, it wasn’t hers.

A broken sound escaped her.

Dean. Oh, Dean.

The tears came again, so easily, as if only waiting to be released. But this time she cried silently, alone.

JUST AFTER SIX IN THE MORNING, Quinn’s cell phone rang.

“We got ’em,” Dickerson said without preamble. “They didn’t realize Dean had had time to call in their plate.”

“What were they after?”

“They’re nineteen and twenty-one. They were manufacturing meth in the young one’s father’s trailer. He moved it to storage without them knowing. They’d come to get their stuff, or steal the trailer. Sounds like they were still arguing about that.”

“And the guard that called in sick?”

“Had a hot girl over. Dobias said when he realized he’d be dead if he had gone to work, he barely made it to the toilet to puke.”

“He might not be dead,” Quinn said. “Maybe he’d have timed his route different. Been lazy and not gone in if the gates were closed.”

“He’ll figure that out eventually,” Dickerson said without sympathy. “Apparently, Dobias didn’t feel inclined to point that out.”

Quinn sank onto the couch and bowed his head. He swore. “A couple of goddamn punks.”

“Strung out.”

“And that’s it.” He shoved his fingers into his hair, uncaring when they curled into a fist and yanked. “Dean’s gone, and Daddy’ll probably hire a good lawyer who’ll claim they were too stoned to take responsibility for pulling the trigger.”

“You know the D.A. will try to throw the book at them.”

“Son of a bitch,” he said clearly, and pushed End, letting the phone drop to the carpeted floor.

Two shit-faced punks who’d freaked, and Dean was dead.

Quinn didn’t want to believe it. He’d dozed briefly on the couch, and in his sleep had been woken by Dean, who had punched him in the shoulder and said, “What in hell are you doing on my couch? Your own bed not good enough for you?” Quinn had met the grin with his own, and reached out for his friend’s hand. He’d woken before they touched, and opened his eyes to an empty living room.

Down the hall, a bar of light still lay across the carpet. Mindy had never turned off the lamp. He wondered if she’d slept. Wasn’t sure if he cared. She’d known Dean for a year and a half, not a lifetime.

Dean and Quinn had been flung together as roommates in a foster home when Quinn was thirteen and Dean twelve. Almost twenty years ago. They’d had a fistfight the first day, grudgingly agreed to a truce the second day, and by the third Quinn had lied to protect the younger boy from their foster father’s wrath. Wrath, both had realized as the weeks and months went by, that was more show than reality; George Howie was a good man, as kind in a less demonstrative way as his wife. The two boys had been lucky in more ways than one. They’d been able to stay until, each in his turn, they’d graduated from high school. And they’d become close friends. Brothers.

As the night dragged on, Quinn had done his grieving, as much as he’d allow himself. His mother had taught him well that he couldn’t afford to be incapacitated by fear or sadness. He didn’t even know who his father was. His mother was an addict who’d progressed during his childhood from pills and pot to shooting up. She’d disappear for days at a time. He’d scrounge for food. By the time he was eight or nine he was shoplifting when the cupboards were bare. His mother got skinnier and skinnier, the tracks on her arms and legs livid, veins harder to find. He learned how to catch her at the perfect moment to get her to cash her welfare check so he could take some money before she spent it.