Janice Johnson - With Child

“So you just took over.”

A headache began to bore into his skull. “I took over when you decided to spend the day napping.”

She rose to her feet, looking anguished, furious and completely grown-up. “When I spent the day grieving! Instead of worrying about whether somebody Dean played golf with once in a while found out in the first twenty-four hours that he was dead!”

The doorbell rang.

Quinn shook his head and went to answer it. He half expected that by the time he got back to the kitchen, she’d have retreated to the bedroom. Instead, she stood at one of the French doors looking out, her back to Quinn.

Quinn wondered, though, how much she could see through her own reflection in the glass. Maybe nothing; maybe she was studying her own haunted face.

“Dinner,” he said, lifting the sacks.

“I did love him, you know.”

Pain squeezed his chest, roughened his voice. “I know.”

He hadn’t been sure, not when Dean was alive. Now, he was beginning to believe she did.

“Just so you believe that much.” Sounding incredibly weary, she turned from the view of the garden and came to the table.

He got plates and silverware and dished up. She waited docilely, her head bent as if she found the weave of the place mat fascinating. He wondered if even the slight effort of spooning moo goo gai pan and kung pao beef onto her plate would have stopped her from eating. But once he put food in front of her, she picked up her fork and took a bite.

Like this morning, neither of them ate much. But they tried. When she pushed her half-empty plate away, he did the same.

“Why,” he said, trying to understand, “won’t you call your mother?”

She gave a seemingly indifferent shrug. “We’re not that close.”

“Doesn’t she live around here?”

“Issaquah.”

Fifteen, twenty minutes away.

Mindy stood. “Excuse me. I have to…” She fled.

Staring after her, Quinn wondered what he’d said wrong. Or did she just hate Issaquah, the mecca of up-scale shopping with the chic shops that made up Gilman Village? Mama, he concluded, must have money to live in Issaquah. Somehow that didn’t surprise him. He added spoiled to Mindy’s list of sins.

He turned on KOMO news and watched as the camera panned “the storage business where in the early hours of this morning a former Seattle Police detective was struck down, allegedly by two young men trying to steal this travel trailer.” The camera focused on the white pickup truck with Fenton Security emblazoned on the door, then zoomed in on the Fleetwood. When Quinn was gravely told that “a source informs us that the young men may have been manufacturing methamphetamine in this trailer,” he used the remote to turn the damn TV off.

Quinn’s stomach roiled. Too vividly he saw Dean’s body sprawled on the pavement, the blood in his mouth, the glazed eyes. Why had Dean decided to confront the two punks? Why in hell hadn’t he waited for the cops?

Quinn’s fist hit the table so hard the dishes jumped and a shockwave of pain ran up his arm.

He heard a small sound and looked up through the blur of tears to see Mindy staring at him from the doorway. He knew what he must look like, his lips drawn back from his teeth in an agony of anger and grief.

After a moment, she turned and left him to mourn alone.

Quinn let out a harsh sound. The two people who Dean had loved most couldn’t stand each other. Pretty goddamn sad.

ON A SUNNY MAY DAY, hundreds watched Dean Fenton be laid to rest at the cemetery. Endless tears rolled down Mindy’s face. Struggling with grief that balled in his throat like a jawbreaker that was trying to choke him, Quinn remained rigidly conscious of his dignity. Mindy, apparently, didn’t care.

She looked inappropriate for her role as grieving widow to begin with. With a suspicion she’d have nothing to wear, Quinn had suggested a couple of times over the week that she go shopping or order something online. She’d ignored him, of course, and now wore—well, he guessed it was a business suit for a twenty-something, which meant the skirt hugged her butt and left a long expanse of leg bare while the jacket was form-fitting over what seemed to be a camisole, the lace showing at the V. It wasn’t even black, but rather white. Call him old-fashioned, but in his opinion a widow shouldn’t go to her husband’s graveside wearing clothes that advertised her body.

Naturally, she hadn’t thought ahead enough to bring tissues, and had turned to him with wide-eyed desperation earlier at the church when tears and snot had begun to run down her face. Wasn’t that a mother’s job? he’d wondered, but he could already see that she was right: she and her mother weren’t close.

Mom had shown up today, he had to give her that, but had seemed annoyed at the necessity of missing a luncheon for some club she belonged to. From the minute she’d arrived, Mindy looked sulky and even younger than usual.

The Howies were here, too, of course, Nancy looking much as she had at the wedding except for the sadness on her sweet, soft face, and for the tremor that affected not just her voice but her hands. Every time Quinn looked at her, she held them clasped together, as if one could control the other. Parkinson’s?

George, in contrast, seemed to have aged ten years in one. A thick head of graying hair had turned white and fine, a dandelion puff instead of strong sod. His shoulders stooped, and his knuckles had become gnarled. Quinn had felt the difference, when they’d gripped hands in greeting and grief.

Now the first clod of dirt was flung atop the casket. Quinn shuddered and felt Mindy do the same beside him. A cry escaped her lips. He laid a hand on her back and she gave him one wild look before turning back to the raw earth and shining cobalt-blue casket. Her mother had somehow managed to be standing on the other side of Sergeant Dickerson, who had been heavily paternal in response to her dabbing a tissue at the corner of her eye.

As the crowd broke up, she turned immediately and took in her daughter’s ravaged face. Her own froze. Laying a hand on Dickerson’s massive arm, she turned toward the parking lot without waiting for Mindy. The Howies hesitated, then started on their own toward the cars.

Quinn had no objection to hanging back, although he frowned at the few scattered rhododendrons rather than letting himself look again into the hole.

Finally Mindy let out a deep sigh and turned in a confused way as if unsure where to go. He took her elbow, pointed her in the right direction, and they followed the stream of mourners returning to their cars. Unfortunately, they still had to face the reception to be held in a hall at the church, where everyone would want to say a few words.

She lurched and almost went down. Quinn’s grip saved her. He hoisted her upright.

“I’m sorry! My ankle turned.”

He looked down at her spiky white heels.

“You could have worn flat shoes.”

“These are the only white ones I have,” she said, as if that was any kind of answer.

“Black is traditional, you know.”

“But Dean hated black. Didn’t you know that?”

In fact Quinn, who wore black much of the time, hadn’t known that. The minute she pointed it out, though, he realized Dean had tended to wear bright colors and chinos rather than dark slacks.

“He…” Her voice faltered. “He’d have rather seen me in white than black.”

All right. So she meant well. Her appearance still wouldn’t play well with the older cops and much of the viewing public, who—thanks to the ever-present news cameras—would see a sprite who appeared to dress out of the Victoria’s Secret catalog weeping at graveside and flashing a hell of a lot of leg on tonight’s local news.