I Am Quinn

by McGarvey Black

  ‘Thanks for saving it, we’ll give it a good look down at the station.’

  ‘How come you want to see it now, after all these years?’

  ‘We got a tip. Figured we shouldn’t leave any stone unturned.’

  McQuillan took the video back to the station and popped it into a player. He saw Quinn Roberts standing at the register talking to Kenny while two construction workers were nearby talking to each other. They must be the guys Kenny told him about who spoke Polish, McQuillan thought. A third guy was in front of Quinn paying for his things. It was hard to make him out because of the quality of the video. That guy paid and left. Another man stood behind Quinn but again, it was impossible to get a good visual on him. Kenny was right, the pictures were poor and grainy. One thing the detective was sure of, unless Alec Roberts was standing inside Kenny’s Kwik-Mart that day, this video showed him nothing he could use to nail anyone. So much for the psychic, he thought.

  Chapter 78

  Erin figured it would happen one day, but when it did, it hit her hard. Hannah had called to tell her the news. Quinn had been dead for more than three years but hearing that Alec was getting married again, that he was happy, while her sister was in the ground, knocked Erin on her ass.

  Hannah said her father was marrying a woman named Melissa who was in her twenties. Alec’s soon-to-be new wife was practically the same age as Hannah. He always liked them young, thought Erin. That was my sister’s fatal error; she got older. How careless of her.

  ‘How do you feel about your dad getting married?’ Erin asked her niece.

  ‘It’s weird,’ Hannah said, ‘but he’s happier, so I guess it’s a good thing for all of us. She’s nothing like Mom. She thinks my father is the greatest guy in the world. That’s a joke.’

  Erin tried to get Hannah to explain what she meant, but as soon as she pried, Hannah clammed up and said she had to go. It happened whenever Erin tried to talk to either Hannah or Jack about their father.

  The cops never told the Delaneys precisely what the cause of Quinn’s death was. According to them, only the killer would know the exact way Quinn Roberts died and they wanted to keep it that way. Mike and Erin tried to read between the lines. From the bits and pieces they had gleaned from countless conversations with law enforcement, they believed Quinn had been beaten and strangled. In their research, they also learned that the leading cause of death from domestic violence was strangulation. At least that was their theory.

  ‘Do the math,’ Mike said to his wife. ‘Two plus two equals four.’

  ‘But what about the psychic? He said it wasn’t Alec.’

  ‘But he said Alec knew about it. Whether Alec did it himself or he got someone else to do it, he’s behind it. He’s a killer and now he’s marrying some other unsuspecting person.’

  ‘Why would any woman go out with Alec?’ Erin said. ‘If I met a guy whose wife was murdered, I’d run in the other direction. Quinn’s case was all over the news. All you have to do is Google “Alec Roberts”, and hundreds of articles come up that ask a lot of unanswered questions.’

  ‘Maybe Alec getting married is a good thing,’ said Mike. ‘I hate to say it, but with all the time that’s passed, the only way we’re going to get him is if he hurts someone else.’

  Chapter 79

  QUINN

  My husband, Alec, has a brand-new wife. Didn’t take him long. He got over me pretty quickly. Now that I think about it, he had plenty of girlfriends even before I died. The new wife, what’s her name? You think I don’t know? I know a lot. It’s Melissa, and she looks like she’s about fourteen. That’s my husband for you, always going for the teenagers. The younger, the better, as far as he’s concerned. He stopped looking at me as a sexual being around the time I turned thirty. Well, Miss Melissa, you’ll get older, too. Better start watching your back around your twenty-ninth birthday, if you make it that far. Does he slip pills into your wine too? Tickety-tock.

  Chapter 80

  Candace Burrows called Erin to let her know about the arrest of Ronny Hemmerly, the landlady’s son. The police had just picked up and charged Ronny with assault and rape. Allegedly, he beat up a woman and then sexually assaulted her in her apartment. They said he nearly killed her.

  Because of this, the police were taking another look at Hemmerly for Quinn’s murder, but Candace warned Erin not to get her hopes up.

  ‘They did look at Hemmerly when they began the investigation,’ said Candace, ‘but ruled him out. Given what just happened, the police are going to give him another look. But it’s a long shot.’

  ‘Do you think we were wrong? That Alec is innocent?’ Erin asked her husband that night.

  For the first time, Mike wasn’t sure about anything. Was it possible that maybe his brother-in-law wasn’t guilty after all?

  Chapter 81

  When she signed up for Alec’s class, Melissa D’Souza had no idea the kids at school called him ‘Dr. A’. She heard the rumors later on but she didn’t believe them. The buzz on campus was that Dr. Roberts was an outstanding teacher and was very popular with the students. Melissa D’Souza was an Accounting major, and History was a requirement, so she had to take his class.

  Not particularly fond of history, she deliberately sat in the front of his classroom because her mind wandered when she wasn’t interested in a subject. She figured if she sat in the hot seat, she’d be forced to focus. The first day of class, Dr. Roberts walked into the room carrying a leather backpack. Right away she found him attractive in an older, mature, dashing professor sort of way.

  ‘Good morning, everyone,’ he said. ‘Hope you all had a nice summer. I’m Dr. Alec Roberts, and this is History 210, Effects of Twentieth-Century Politics on the Twenty-First Century. Everyone in the right classroom?’ he said, grinning. One red-faced student stood up, collected his things and left as Dr. Roberts and the rest of the class chuckled.

  ‘There’s always one,’ said the professor. ‘Let’s get started. The year is 1917…’

  That first class was still vivid in Melissa’s mind. She’d seen Alec walking on campus before, but she hadn’t connected the name with the face. He was old but not ancient. He was cute, not classically handsome but appealing, unusual-looking, exotic even. He looked like he might have been South American or Italian. She later learned he was half Korean and half English; the Korean was the exotic piece. What she found most appealing was his curious mind and his self-assuredness. She was intrigued by the unique way he examined the world and found his confidence really sexy, probably because she had so little of it herself.

  From then on, Melissa always sat in the front of the room. Midway through the semester, Alec assigned a term project that was worth seventy-five percent of their grade. Wanting to ace the class, Melissa approached him at the end of the lecture after everyone else had left the room.

  ‘Dr. Roberts,’ she said. ‘Do you have a minute? I wanted to discuss the theme for my project with you.’

  He looked up at her and smiled knowingly.

  ‘Sure, Melissa,’ he said. ‘I was about to get a coffee so I don’t fall asleep in my next class. If you’re free, why don’t you join me and we can talk about it.’

  They walked across the quad to one of the coffee bars on campus. He asked a lot of questions like where she grew up, how many brothers and sisters she had, and so on. Melissa was surprised by all the personal questions but didn’t mind. His interest made her feel special and she was flattered.

  ‘You’re an Accounting major. Graduating next spring?’ he asked.

  Melissa nodded.

  ‘So, what are you, twenty-one, twenty-two?’

  ‘Twenty-one,’ she said. ‘I’ll be twenty-two in March.’

  ‘That’s a great age. Believe it or not, I was twenty-one once,’ Alec said with a wink.

  ‘About how long ago was that?’ she asked, vaguely aware that she was flirting.

  He grinned at her and cocked his head as if he had picked up a signal she hadn’t realized she ha
d sent.

  ‘It was a long time ago,’ he said with a rueful smile.

  ‘Exactly how long?’

  He grinned and shook his head.

  ‘If I tell you, I might have to kill you. I was twenty-one about twenty-six years ago.’

  Melissa thought for a few seconds. ‘That would make you forty-seven.’

  ‘Bravo, Melissa, it appears your Accounting classes have indeed paid off,’ he said, winking again. As they laughed, she was vaguely aware that something was happening between them.

  They talked for almost an hour until they both had to leave for their next class. Two days later, he invited her for coffee again. Coffee led to lunch and lunch to dinner. Within a week, it led to bed. They were a couple. She’d never dated a man as old as Alec before. It was exciting, and of course, the fact that it was a secret, made it more intoxicating. During the school day, Melissa was his student, and he, her professor. After school, she’d drive to his place, and they were lovers.

  He never tired of telling her she was beautiful and frequently complimented her body. Melissa worked out regularly and taught Pilates part-time. If her body looked good, she figured she earned it. Alec also took care of himself and was in great shape for someone his age. She thought he had the body of a much younger man. Truth be told, she thought Alec looked better than most of her male peers in their twenties who didn’t exercise and consumed nothing but junk food and beer. Age is just a number, she told herself.

  When the semester ended, Melissa got an ‘A’ in Alec’s class, but she wasn’t in the relationship for the grade. She really liked him and before the end of the term, like turned into love. Only a few of her friends knew about the relationship with Alec. She didn’t tell a lot of people, but she did tell her two best friends. One thought Alec was ‘decrepit’ and the other thought he was cool and a little bit hot.

  It wasn’t until the semester was over that Melissa first heard the rumors about Alec. People said his wife died, that she had been murdered and that maybe he had something to do with it. She didn’t believe any of it. Alec was the kindest man she knew.

  ‘If you knew him the way I do, you’d know it couldn’t be true,’ she said to one of her friends who cautioned her. ‘I’ve read every article online that I could find. There wasn’t a single thing that proved Alec had anything to do with his wife getting killed. He told me all about it.’

  ‘But, aren’t you just a little concerned?’ asked her friend.

  ‘He and his wife were getting divorced. Why would he have killed her if they were already getting divorced? Besides, it was so many years ago. If he did it, the police would have arrested him by now. He told me the cops only questioned him one time. If he had done it, they would have talked to him more than once.’

  The Alec she knew was playful, charming, thoughtful and treated her like a princess. He was always telling her how smart and sexy she was. He’d regularly bring her little gifts and buy her clothing and jewelry. There were always little surprises waiting for her. The sophisticated professor was so different from the guys her own age who spent their weekends playing drinking games. Alec treated her like a lady and taught her about photography, fine wine and art. She fell for him hard, and they got married the summer after she graduated.

  A couple of years later, when Melissa reflected on their relationship, she realized Alec started to change right after they got married. Until then, she was ‘perfect, beautiful and hot’. Once she’d fallen for him, he very subtly started to chip away at her self-esteem. She didn’t notice it at the time, but now she could see it clearly for what it was. What do they say, she thought. Love is blind, and hindsight is twenty-twenty. So true. I should have had my eyes checked.

  Chapter 82

  Mike walked into the house with three overflowing bags of groceries, barely making it to the counter before he dropped one of them on the floor. Erin came racing into the kitchen when she heard the commotion.

  ‘You’re not going to believe this. McQuillan just called,’ Erin said breathlessly. ‘Alec may not have done it. We may have been all wrong about him.’

  ‘What happened?’ Mike asked, picking up a loose apple on the floor. ‘Last time you wanted to give Alec a pass when we thought it could have been the landlady’s son. When that didn’t pan out, I moved Alec back to the top of my list.’

  ‘There's this serial killer named Wayne Carden,’ said Erin. ‘Carden was in upstate New York the year Quinn was killed. The cops are checking right now to see if Carden was anywhere near Rochester or Newbridge.’

  ‘A serial killer might have been in upstate New York the year Quinn was killed? Do you know how big the state is?’ he said. ‘Where’s Carden now?’

  ‘In jail,’ said Erin. ‘They’re going to check his DNA against the samples they took from Quinn’s apartment. Mike, we might have been wrong about Alec.’

  ‘I know you don’t want to believe Alec killed your sister,’ said Mike. ‘It would be better for the whole family if it wasn’t him, especially his kids. But look at the facts. He was abusive and refused to give her any money when she moved out. He only sent her checks when he felt like it. Your parents had to buy her food a few times, remember? We even sent her money. Did you forget that the cheap bastard left her in an unmarked grave because he didn’t want to pay the fifty dollars for a freaking cemetery marker?’

  ‘That crushed my parents.’

  ‘We bought Quinn’s headstone. Everything with him is always about money,’ said Mike. ‘You think a random stranger appeared out of nowhere and for no reason arbitrarily killed Quinn?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Alec is mean to the bone, and he had a motive,’ said Mike. ‘I predict there won’t be a match with the serial killer’s DNA.’

  ‘It would be so much better for our whole family if Alec was cleared,’ Erin said. ‘My parents haven’t spoken to Quinn’s kids since she died because they stuck by their father.’

  ‘I know. The whole thing sucks,’ Mike said quietly.

  ‘Things will never be the same,’ said Erin. ‘When Quinn died, our whole family disintegrated. There’s almost nothing left of us.’

  Part VII

  FIVE YEARS AFTER MY MURDER

  Chapter 83

  From the first day of the Quinn Roberts investigation, McQuillan never wavered on who he thought the guilty party was. He remembered how his inner truth meter went nuts the first and only time he interrogated Alec Roberts. His intuition always pointed towards her husband even though there were other possible players on the board.

  There was the son, Jack Roberts; one angry kid. In shock when he found out his mother had been killed but also looked relieved. His mother had been leaning heavily on him for emotional support, and the kid didn’t like her hanging around him and his friends. He wanted to party at college, not babysit for Mommy. Sometimes he wanted her gone, and the more he pushed her away, the clingier she got.

  The police had looked at Jack Roberts from every angle. They ran his prints, checked his DNA, and talked to all his friends and girlfriends. They put the squeeze on him but ultimately decided he was a dead end. The kid was a bundle of raw nerves. He was damaged goods who couldn’t get out of his own way. They ruled him out.

  Next, there was the high school boyfriend, Mark Miller. For a while, he was number two on the cops’ hit parade right behind the husband. Miller was an interesting character. Some of his old high school friends remembered Romeo being too possessive of Juliet when they were teenagers. Some of their classmates said Miller still carried a torch for Quinn Delaney after all the years. People who attended their reunion said Miller was practically on top of her that night, and wouldn’t leave her alone. He acted like the two of them were a couple again, and people saw them exit the party together. Miller was definitely a person of significant interest.

  At first, the cops thought the Mark Miller theory had legs if they expanded the scope beyond the husband. Old boyfriend meets up with the love of his life and puts it all on the
line. He goes for broke and then she cock-blocks him. Things get out of hand, and someone ends up dead. Also, the cops discovered Miller’s wife once called the local Cranbury police on him during a domestic dispute. Turns out Miller had a bit of a temper, too. It was looking interesting until they learned Miller had an airtight alibi for the week Quinn Roberts was killed. He was on vacation in Hawaii with the wife he wanted to dump for Quinn. He had the plane ticket and time-stamped photos of he and the Mrs. drinking mai tai’s on a beach in Kauai. Aloha.

  A couple of years into the investigation, the police got a tip on a serial killer named Wayne Carden currently doing life for the murder of a man in Buffalo. Carden was bad news and over a ten-year period had left a string of bodies up and down the east coast. He had no discernible pattern, except that they were usually young men in their twenties, but not always. He strangled, stabbed, smothered and caught people by surprise. Carden didn’t know his victims and seemingly killed for sport. Some aspects of the Roberts’ murder were a fit with him. Carden’s methods were so random and diverse though, almost any murder could be his handiwork. When the cops learned that the serial killer might have been in the Rochester area around the month Quinn Roberts was killed, he made it onto their list.

  McQuillan personally called Erin, to give her a heads-up. He wanted to provide her with some good news for a change.

  ‘You really think it’s possible this Carden is the one who killed my sister?’ Erin asked.