The Mia Quinn Collection

by Lis Wiehl

  Eli touched a few buttons on his smartphone and turned it into a flashlight. He leaned over the engine compartment.

  “Do you mind if I ask your daughter something?” Mia asked Eli.

  “Go right ahead.”

  The girl was leaning against the Honda while Gabe made halting small talk with her. “Rachel, I was wondering, did you know Darin Dane?”

  “That boy who killed himself?” When Mia nodded, Rachel said, “I’m not even sure I ever saw him. When they put his picture up at assembly it didn’t look familiar at all. School hasn’t been going on that long.”

  “How about the football team? Have you heard anything about any of the players being involved in bothering Darin?”

  “There’re always rumors.” Her eyes slid sideways. “It’s kind of cold out here. I think I’m going to get back in the car.”

  Well, it had been worth a try. Mia went back to Eli. They both bent over the engine compartment, which was full of shadows, recesses, protuberances, belts, and miscellaneous parts she didn’t know the names of.

  “What are we looking for?” she asked Eli.

  He turned his head toward her but was silent for a long moment. Finally he said, “To be honest, I have no idea.”

  They both started to laugh. Mia lost her balance a little. For a second, Eli’s lips grazed her cheek, and then she moved her head back.

  It had been an accident. Hadn’t it?

  Charlie’s voice boomed behind them. “You got a problem, Mia?” They pulled apart and straightened up. Mia’s palms were sweaty. What had just happened?

  “Hey, Charlie,” she said, wiping her palms on her coat. “This is Eli Hall, another law professor. He’s trying to help me because my car won’t start.”

  The two men shook hands. Charlie was broader and messier-looking than Eli.

  “Tell me what happened.” After she did, Charlie said, “Sounds like you ran down your battery listening to the radio.”

  In five minutes he had his car nose to nose with hers and the two batteries hooked up. When her car started, both Eli and Charlie left her to her own devices.

  On the drive home, Mia took a deep breath. “We’ve been hearing that the kids who were the worst to that Darin Dane were on the football team. Does anything like that happen on your team?”

  “No, Mom.” He snorted. “I can’t believe you asked me that.”

  “But football is kind of a macho culture, isn’t it? So there’s no horseplay or roughness on the team?”

  “Stop it. Stop cross-examining me.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are. You’re not accusing me, exactly, but you sound like a prosecutor. Like I’m a bad guy and you’ve got me on the stand. But I’m your kid.” Gabe took a shaky breath and repeated more strongly, “I’m your kid.”

  CHAPTER 32

  In closing, let us pray,” the minister said in his soft, quavery voice that probably didn’t even reach to the last pew at this small chapel inside a funeral home. Mia obediently closed her eyes. She was sitting a few rows behind Darin’s parents. Charlie was on the other side of the room. Jeremy, Shiloh, and Rainy were here, as well as about thirty other people, most of them adults. How long had it been since Mia had been to a service? When they were newlyweds, she and Scott had attended church regularly, but as they got busier they had fallen out of the habit. And when Scott died, she had found no comfort in their pastor’s murmured platitudes.

  “God our Father,” the minister began, “we thank You that You have made each of us in Your own image, and given us gifts and talents with which to serve You. We thank You for Darin. We thank You for the years we shared with him, the good we saw in him, and the love we received from him. Now we ask You to give us the strength and courage to leave Darin in Your care, confident in Your promise of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

  “Amen,” Mia murmured and then opened her eyes. Charlie was looking at her. Correction. Charlie was staring at her. She had the feeling that he had been staring at her throughout the prayer. Had he seen Eli almost kiss her last night?

  And why did she care?

  “The family has asked that you join them in the lobby for some refreshments,” the minister said. He looked like he was at least seventy, and from the way he had spoken about Darin during the service, Mia had gotten the feeling he had never known the boy in life.

  In the small T-shaped lobby, people clustered around the food set out on a table—cheese, crackers, a vegetable platter from the supermarket, a pitcher of punch, some lumpy-looking homemade cookies. Before Mia had come here, she had gone to Colleen’s house to help Violet prepare for the gathering that would take place after her mother’s funeral. They had set up rented folding chairs and tables, shaken out pressed white tablecloths, and dispensed various nibbles, dips, and snacks from Trader Joe’s into white serving ware, which had also been rented. Then she had driven to Darin’s funeral.

  Now, from a large photo propped on an easel, Darin watched his family and friends, neighbors and teachers. He was smiling without showing any teeth. The photo had the gray background that Mia associated with school portraits.

  “Darin had a fantastic sense of color,” said a woman with a French accent and dyed black hair. “He was phenomenal.” She took a sip of the punch and made a face.

  “He helped me in the library nearly every day at lunch last year,” a woman wearing a black chenille cardigan said. “I should have asked why he was in the library instead of with the other kids. I just thought he liked to read.” Tears began to roll down her red, blotchy face, and she snatched up a napkin.

  Standing a few feet away from the adults and with their faces showing evidence of their own recent tears, Shiloh and Rainy were talking quietly to Jeremy. His suit was too small, with the pants ending above his enormous-looking shoes. On the other side of the room, Nate Dane was also wearing a suit that didn’t fit, only his was too small at the waist. He pushed past Mia, his mouth twisted around an unlit cigarette. One hand was already pulling a lighter from his pocket as he went out a side door.

  A second after he left, a loud voice broke through the quiet conversations.

  “Hey, Jeremy, what are you doing here?” All heads turned toward the front door. Electricity shot up Mia’s spine. It was Reece Jones, one of the two boys Shiloh and Rainy had said tormented Darin. Reece laughed, a showy, humorless laugh that sounded like he had practiced it.

  But he hadn’t practiced what happened next. Jeremy let out a roar while putting his head down and running straight toward Reece. He head-butted the other boy in the chest.

  With an “Oof!” Reece landed hard on his backside as women screamed and people backed away.

  Reece was up faster than Mia would have thought possible, swearing, fists jabbing the air. Jeremy swung back at him with wide, wild punches.

  A man shouted, “I’m calling 911,” but his words didn’t seem to reach either boy.

  Reece easily dodged Jeremy’s blows, dancing out of range on his tiptoes. While Jeremy was nearly as tall as Reece, Reece was at least fifty pounds heavier.

  “You don’t belong here,” Jeremy panted.

  “It’s a free country,” Reece said, not even sounding out of breath. “I’ve got as much right to be here as you do. Maybe more, if you think about it.”

  The two boys circled each other. Tears and snot were now running down Jeremy’s face, but Reece just looked intent, like he was in his element. Mia wondered if that was what he had looked like when he beat up Darin. Not angry, but nearly peaceful.

  Mia moved forward with her hands up and out, as if she could calm them with a gesture.

  “You were never his friend!” Jeremy yelled. “Never!”

  At that moment Charlie darted in between them, his arms outstretched to keep them apart, one hand resting on each boy’s chest.

  “Okay,” Charlie started to say, then his head snapped to one side as Reece caught him with a big roundhouse to the temple.

 
Mia gasped.

  Charlie dropped his hands and gave his head a little shake, a strange smile lighting his face. Something about his expression scared Mia. Turning his back on Jeremy, Charlie cocked one fist and drew it back.

  “That’s it,” Nate yelled as he burst in through the side door, a cigarette still in the corner of his mouth. “Out. Now.” His chest was puffed out, his fisted hands ready, his shoulders hunched like a boxer’s. “Both of you get out of here.”

  He shoved Reece forward so hard that he almost fell. Charlie grabbed the back of Jeremy’s jacket like a mother cat picking a kitten up by the scruff of the neck. Both boys were quickly hustled outside. Before the doors closed Mia saw Jeremy, red-faced, racing down the sidewalk. But Reece wasn’t in hot pursuit. Instead, he slowly sauntered away in the other direction. And he seemed to be smiling.

  Mia could not wait to get him in front of the grand jury.

  Two funerals in one day. Once, the summer between college and law school, Mia had gone to two weddings in one day, one in the afternoon and the other in the evening. But never two funerals. Before leaving Darin’s funeral, Mia tried to talk to Charlie about what had just happened, but she couldn’t find him before she had to leave. She would barely have enough time to pick up Gabe and get to Colleen’s service.

  At home Mia found Gabe in the middle of a wardrobe crisis while her dad looked on helplessly. She had bought Gabe a suit to wear to Scott’s funeral, but in the intervening three months he must have grown.

  “It doesn’t fit anymore!” He looked up at her, his hair falling into his eyes. In length the pants were borderline acceptable, but the waist was another matter. Even though Gabe was tugging at either end of the waistband, there was still a gap of at least two inches between the button and the buttonhole.

  “Gabe’s fat!” Brooke shouted, capering around, high on the energy buzzing through the room, even if it was negative energy. “Gabe’s fat!”

  Everyone ignored her. Mia had taught her kids not to use the “F word”—fat—or the “S word”—stupid—but she would deal with this lapse later. Right now she had to get them out the door and to Colleen’s funeral.

  “Can you still button your jacket?”

  The suit jacket was tight through the biceps, but looser through the waist. Gabe buttoned it. “Yeah.”

  “Okay, there’s a trick I used when I was pregnant.” She rummaged through the junk drawer until she found a rubber band. “Loop this through your button hole and pull one end through the other.” He unbuttoned his jacket and did as she said. “Okay, now take that loop and put it around your button.”

  “That doesn’t really fix it,” he complained.

  After watching the scuffle at Darin’s funeral, Mia’s adrenaline was still running high. She bit her lip so she wouldn’t yell. What did Gabe think she could do, buy him a new pair of pants in the next five minutes? “Just button your jacket and it will fix it long enough for the funeral. I’m bringing you back here after the service, so it only needs to last for an hour or so. Come on, we have to go.” She hustled him out to the Toyota. The first time she turned the key in the ignition, it just clicked, but the second time it caught just fine. On her never-ending mental to-do list, Mia underlined the words Get battery checked.

  The church parking lot was full. Mia finally found street parking two blocks away. When they arrived at the church, a little out of breath, the contrast with Darin’s funeral was staggering. At least three hundred people were crowded inside. Every King County prosecutor was here, as well as cops, judges, parole officers. Mia also recognized victims and even a few people she was pretty sure had once been defendants.

  When Mia had first started working for King County, Colleen had told her, “In this job you work with gangbangers, doctors, drug users, rape victims, and little old ladies. And you have to find common ground with each of them. It’s compassion first and litigation second. The unsuccessful attorneys forget compassion.”

  Colleen had never forgotten compassion. And now all the people who had been the recipients of that kindness sat shoulder to shoulder, ready to celebrate Colleen’s life and condemn her death. Scattered among them, Mia knew, were cops who were also looking for clues, looking for suspects, looking for answers. Outside, more police officers would be photographing license plates and videotaping people as they walked through the church’s doors.

  In the family pew Violet was sitting next to Colleen’s mother, Sue. And on the other side of Violet was Martin. Just Martin. Well, it probably wouldn’t do to bring your current wife to your ex-wife’s funeral. Especially when she was a suspect. He had his hand on Violet’s shoulder, and she was leaning into him. Whatever tension there had been between them because of the missed tuition seemed to be gone.

  Katrina was sitting near the back, with some free seats next to her. “Are you saving these for anyone?” Mia asked.

  “No.” Katrina patted them. “Why don’t you guys sit with me?”

  “Thanks. Oh, and this is my son, Gabe. Gabe, this is Katrina Nowell from my office.”

  He reached out his hand and shook Katrina’s. “It’s nice to meet you.” Gabe even looked her in the eye.

  Dressed in his suit, he looked nearly as grown up as Zach had when Mia met him. She felt a flash of pride. Maybe he was more adult than she thought.

  Mia scanned the room as an older couple she didn’t recognize settled on the other side of Gabe. She sucked in her breath when she saw what seemed to be a graying Stan Slavich seated not far away. He had Stan’s thick mustache, wire-framed glasses, and standard short-sleeved shirt.

  Katrina leaned over, looking concerned. “What’s the matter?”

  “That guy”—she pointed—“looks just like Stan Slavich.” The answer came to her. “It must be his older brother. I didn’t meet him because I was on bed rest with Brooke when Stan was killed.”

  The woman sitting on the other side of Mia spoke to her husband. “Why would anyone dress like that to go a funeral?” She was staring in the direction of a man who had just entered the chapel. “It’s disrespectful.”

  Her husband grunted. “He looks like the Unabomber.”

  Mia followed their stares. The man they were looking at wore the hood of a dark sweatshirt pulled over a baseball cap. She froze. That was what the man who had chased her through the university’s parking lot had been wearing. And the same hoodie and baseball cap combo had been worn by the guy who had watched her while she waited for Gabe at the football game.

  She looked more closely. Dark glasses obscured most of his face. But not all. The bright light of daytime revealed patches of red, scarred skin. Vincent Riester. He found a spot in a back corner of the room and leaned against the wall. She looked for the empty sleeve that should mark his missing arm. But even though it hung limp, it still had been plumped up with something. Mia imagined Vincent stuffing it with a rolled-up hand towel, something that would help him pass if a viewer wasn’t looking too closely.

  But Mia had been chased through UDub’s parking lot the night before she and Charlie met Riester. Although he had already known about her because of his relationship with Colleen. If it had been Riester, then why? Did he think that Mia knew more than she did? Was he the killer? With just one hand—and a damaged one at that—it would have been difficult for him to shoot Colleen. But not impossible.

  Or to shoot Mia, if it came to that.

  CHAPTER 33

  Mia checked her watch. She still had a few minutes before the service began. “I’ll be right back,” she told Katrina and Gabe, then threaded through the crowd to Charlie. Like Vincent, he was also standing in the back of the room, but on the other side of the chapel.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  Leaning close, she dropped her voice to a whisper. “See what Riester is wearing?”

  Charlie cut his eyes to the right and then back to her. “Yeah? So?”

  “Thursday night I was followed by a man dressed like that. Maybe last night too.”

&nb
sp; He pulled back to look at her. “What do you mean?”

  “Thursday night after I was done teaching, a guy in a hoodie and a baseball cap followed me through the parking lot. I thought he was after my purse. When I yelled at him to go away, he took off. And last night after the football game, a guy dressed like that seemed to be watching me.”

  Charlie’s mouth twisted. “Why didn’t you say anything last night?”

  “I thought it was a coincidence. Or that I was being paranoid. A baseball cap and a hoodie—that’s like Seattle’s version of an umbrella.”

  He shot a second quick glance in Riester’s direction, but the other man didn’t seem to be paying them any attention, just looking at the program for the service. “Did you see the guy’s face either time?”

  “No. He didn’t get that close, it was night, and with the cap, his face was in shadow. All I can say for sure is that the guy—or it could have been guys—I saw weren’t wearing dark glasses.”

  “I’ll talk to Riester again after the service.”

  “Thanks.” Mia touched his sleeve.

  He gave her a long look. “If it was him, he must think you know something.”

  “I only wish I did.” The organ began to play, and she returned to her seat.

  “What was that about?” Katrina whispered, looking intrigued.

  “I had an idea that I wanted Charlie to check out.”

  “About whoever did this?” Katrina nodded at the shiny wooden casket at the front of the room.

  “Yes.” The plain hard fact of the casket brought it home to Mia: no one was truly safe. If Colleen could be killed, so could she. Scott had asked her to stay home for two reasons. One was to be there for their kids. The other was that he felt her job was too dangerous. Until today, Mia had thought he’d been wrong to believe that.

  But maybe Mia had been wrong to believe that she was safe.

  If only Scott were still here, she could ask his forgiveness. Maybe if he hadn’t felt so shut out he wouldn’t have started drinking again, after swearing on the lives of their children that he had stopped. He would have shared the money problems with her, and together they could have found a way to solve them.