by M. O. McLeod
Knock, knock, and knock. Quinn, flipping channels on the television and sitting next to her infant daughter, heard the light raps on the door. She usually didn’t have company this late. She glanced over at the wall clock: half past ten. Santino, her son, should have been home by then. Maybe he had lost his keys.
“Chandra, get the door,” Quinn told her six-year-old daughter. The girl hopped off the dining room stool where she sat and rushed to the door. Quinn rose from the couch with her baby as Chandra swung open the front door and hid behind it. Carrboro peeked in.
“Next time, Chandra, ask who it is first,” Quinn instructed. “May I help you?” she asked Carrboro.
“Yes. I’m with the South Alexandria police force. My name is Detective Carrboro,” Carrboro said.
“Um, do you have a first name at least?” Quinn asked.
Carrboro seemed taken aback. Women usually had a thing for him. “My first name is Smith,” he replied. “What’s your name, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Well, I do. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on first?” Quinn put her baby down on the couch and turned to face Carrboro. She placed her hands on her hips and got into a comfortable stance. When it came to the police, she needed to be prepared for anything. They only came knocking after something happened. Quinn thought it had better not be anything about Santino or that girl.
Carrboro stood in the middle of the living room staring Quinn up and down. He didn’t mind a little spice from time to time, and this lady was definitely fiery. Carrboro liked his women petite and short like Quinn, so he could pick them up and toss them around a little bit. Big women weren’t his thing at all. He noticed her dimples, which didn’t need a smile in order to show up. Her eyes were light brown, and stood out against her jet-black hair. Carrboro thought she looked too young to have so many kids.
“Sir, you were saying something.” Quinn spoke up so Carrboro would stop ogling her. She hated men who stared. He probably was married anyway; married men stared, and that was a fact.
Carrboro focused in and remembered why he had come downstairs in the first place. “This can go a lot easier if I could just have a name to start off with.”
“Quinn. Just call me Quinn,” she said quickly, then thought, ‘and get to the damn point’.
“Okay, I can work with that. Quinn, when was the last time you saw your son?”
Quinn screwed up her thick eyebrows and thought for a moment. “This morning, when I left for work. He was taking his brother and sister to school as usual. Is Santino in trouble? He hasn’t shown up here yet.”
“No, ma’am, I don’t believe he is in trouble as of right now. We do need him for questioning, however.”
“Questioning for what? Do I need to call my lawyer?” asked Quinn.
This was what Carrboro had been trying to avoid. As the case progressed, the facts became even more distorted. When he had gotten the call for a homicide incident, he had no idea there would be this many twist and turns. At first one body had been found dead, and witnesses had said a man had fallen from a window. Carrboro figured these two were one and the same. Later he learned the dead man wasn’t the one who had fallen from the window. Then Carrboro had received another call stating that the man who had fallen from the window—some fifteen feet—had somehow gotten up and killed two men. This man was still on the run, and had kidnapped two more men in the process. And there could have been another incident involving police officers.
Carrboro didn’t know what else would pop up on his scanner, and didn’t know how to tell this mother exactly why her child was wanted. Carrboro wanted to see—to actually physically witness—Santino for himself, and talk to him before charging him, getting lawyers involved, and bringing in the media.
He said, “There’s a lot of speculation going on regarding your son. Supposedly there was a chain of events this evening that caused three deaths, a possible assault, and a kidnapping.”
If her son had done all those things, Carrboro would need her to talk the boy into giving himself up. He would have to tread lightly with Quinn.
“All I want to do is talk to him. When he gets in, please have him give me a call.” Carrboro retrieved his card from inside his jacket in one smooth flip. “My office number is on the front. My personal number is on the back. This case seems to be getting thicker and thicker. It would be wise of you to instruct your son very carefully on his next move.”
“And if he doesn’t come home anytime soon?” Quinn asked.
Carrboro looked around the living room. He saw how the family pictures were lined up in rows on the shelves and tables. He noticed how the little girl had come from behind the door and held her mother’s hand. What he saw was a young family in need of their oldest son, who, Carrboro knew, stood in for the father of the house.
“He will come home. If he doesn’t show up in two days then we’ll put a warrant out for his arrest.” Carrboro’s voice was flat and grave. Whatever he had to do, however he had to twist a threat to get results, then that was what he was going to do. He backed out of the room, and left Quinn and her little girl staring in shock.
“Mommy, I want Santino here,” little Chandra said in her tiniest voice.
Quinn held on to her daughter’s hand as she let the detective’s words sink in fully. Whispers, shouts, and questions all swirled around in her head. She didn’t want to believe her first-born son would be anything like his father. Quinn didn’t have the heart to go through it again. All the police questions, the letters, the lawyer fees, the visits—she had done this already. And she had done everything right. She had gotten rid of her husband and his bad ways. So why did it seem as if history was repeating itself?
“Chandra, baby, go take your little sister in your room,” Quinn said. She looked down at Chandra, who was staring up at her with an angelic face. “Mommy is going to come in there and tuck you in.”
Oblivious, Chandra smiled and ran to pick up her baby sister gently. The baby’s coos echoed as Chandra left Quinn to herself.
Quinn had never needed Santino’s father for anything. Every time he’d said he was going to do something and didn’t do it, Quinn had never said a thing. Every time Santino’s father had promised his son something and it had never come, Quinn had covered for him. Now it was time for Santino’s father to show and prove. Whatever this detective was talking about, whatever trouble Santino could be in, Quinn did not have the power to deal with it. The rest of her strength went into her other three kids; she had to leave them with something.
Santino’s father had never been there—ever. Quinn prayed that just this one time he could be the father Santino had never had. She dreamed about a day where she wouldn’t have to deal with every turn and obstacle life threw at her by herself.
Quinn found the pink, cordless phone and dialed the number. On the fourth ring, a man’s voice came on the other end of the line.
“Hello?”
“It’s me. Quinn.”
“What brings you to call me?”
“It’s about your son, Santino.”
There was a minute’s pause as the man shifted the phone’s position near his mouth. Quinn could hear him better after that.
“Santino isn’t over here.”
“I know that, Darius. He’s in trouble and I can’t find him, and I know you haven’t seen him.”
“Yet, you’re still calling me.”
Quinn bypassed Darius’s attitude and continued with the conversation. “I’m saying that you need to find him.”
“Me? Find him? I don’t know where he could be.”
“I’m going to tell you like this. Either you find him, or the police will find him. It’s your choice.”
The line went silent for a while.
The man replied, “Damn.”
The line clicked dead.
