‘That’s when she started playing pharmacist, mixing up pills instead of what the doctors prescribed,’ said Kelly. ‘We never knew what version of Quinn we were going to get after that; happy and feisty or suicidal and depressed. None of this is our fault.’
‘You’re right,’ said Viv, fighting back tears. ‘We were good friends to her. We did try to help her all the time, didn’t we? It wasn’t our job to fix her. She had her own family. It wasn’t our responsibility. Still, it’s really sad. I’m going to miss that crazy girl.’
Chapter 5
QUINN
I got to know a bunch of moms in Avon, and we formed a little ‘party posse’. Those girls filled the gaping hole created years before when I had to leave my own sisters and friends back in New Jersey, another sacrifice I made.
As our kids grew older and required less hands-on mom attention, this group of Avon women invited me to join their book club. We met once a month at one person’s house for wine, cheese and gossip. After a few years, we moved the meetings to a local bar. Eventually, we did away with the literary component entirely and rebranded our meetings, ‘Avon Ladies’ Night Out’. Monthly book club turned into a weekly party night, and the Avon Ladies knew how to rock it. Those girls were my salvation, for a while.
Considering all the nights out we spent together, their lack of interest in my death and finding out what happened has been surprising and a huge disappointment. For seven years, I spent nearly every Wednesday night with those four women and regarded them as my closest friends. They had opinions on everything and let you know it. That was one of the reasons I liked them so much. Viv, Margot, Nina, and Kelly. We had each other’s backs. Didn’t we?
Now, it appears they didn’t have my back at all. Not even Viv, who was never afraid to tell you where she stood on any issue. They all got busy with their own stuff right away. I get it, people have to get on with their lives, but these women moved on within days of me going into the ground. Not one of them called my husband, sisters, or the police. They never tried to find out what happened to me. Once, Viv texted my sister, Erin. One text hardly counts.
When my family put up a Facebook memorial page, the Avon Ladies all joined. Occasionally, they’d write platitudes about how much they missed me and how much they loved me and ‘what a beautiful person’ I am – was. Whenever my sister posted a new picture of me, the Avon Ladies would ‘like’ it or post a little crying emoji. In my opinion, Facebook words are cheap and emojis even cheaper. A little sad face isn’t going to find out why I died. How about using your outside voices to make some noise, ladies? I’ve seen all of you start a riot when you thought your wine glasses hadn’t been filled up enough. How about raising a little hell to find out what happened to me? How about that, bitches?
Chapter 6
Detective McQuillan called the coroner to let him know a body was on its way over and he needed an autopsy, fast.
‘McQ,’ said a weary Dr. Metz, ‘You’re killing me. My son is playing in a soccer game this afternoon. It’s the finals. I was going to leave early. Can it wait until tomorrow?’
‘Unfortunately, Doc, it can’t,’ the detective said. ‘We’ve got a situation, and I need to know what I’m dealing with.’ Metz sighed and said he’d stay. A few hours later, he called McQuillan.
‘According to your police report,’ said Dr. Metz, ‘the deceased kept her apartment very cold and used multiple dehumidifiers because of a mold problem. The cold condition in the apartment, combined with closed windows and doors and multiple dehumidifiers could possibly slow decomposition. Makes time of death harder to pinpoint. It may have happened much earlier than we thought. Or not. Hard to tell.’
‘So how many days are we talking about?’
‘Don’t know exactly, we have a swing time of somewhere between three and five days,’ the coroner said. ‘From the looks of her, rigor mortis set in several days ago.’
‘Several days? That’s a big time window, Doc,’ said McQuillan.
‘Also, something funny, her right arm was frozen in an odd position not consistent with the police notes and pictures. I made a memo to myself to ask you if the body had been moved.’
‘Unfortunately, that would be a yes, Doc,’ McQuillan said, getting angry at Yancy all over again. ‘Apparently, one of her neighbors moved her arm and covered her up.’
‘That explains it,’ said the coroner. ‘Here’s what I’ve got. The deceased was a forty-four-year-old female who otherwise appeared to be in good physical health.’
‘So, it was either an accidental overdose or a suicide?’ McQuillan said.
‘I didn’t say that,’ said Dr. Metz. ‘Blotches in her eyes and on her face told me she didn’t die from a drug overdose. I checked her vertebrae and windpipe and confirmed my suspicions. This woman didn’t commit suicide or accidentally take too many pills. Someone strangled her. Quinn Roberts was choked to death. The lady was murdered.’
‘Shit,’ said the detective as he hung up the phone. He walked upstairs to the forensics lab. The big open room was buzzing like a beehive with half a dozen officers working silently on computers. This was where all the evidence was examined, parsed, re-examined and eventually labeled and sent to storage. McQuillan tapped one of the guys on the shoulder.
‘Branson, you cataloguing the stuff we collected this morning from Brookside?’ he asked. The officer nodded.
‘We’ve got a little wrinkle,’ said McQuillan. ‘Just heard from Metz. Not suicide. The lady was murdered.’
‘No shit,’ said Branson. ‘You’re kidding? We were only focused on evidence to support suicide.’
‘I know. Now, I need you to take a team back over to Brookside and do another sweep, tonight,’ McQuillan said. ‘Every surface gets swabbed again. Every follicle collected. Every speck of paper bagged. And, Branson, no one besides police enters the place. Clear?’
Branson was already on his feet.
‘Open up every book and magazine and shake them out. Maybe the lady kept a diary or a calendar,’ the detective said. ‘We need to catch a break. Right now, we’ve got a mess.’
Chapter 7
QUINN
I’m pretty sure it was the baby thing that made me fall for my husband. We met on one of those gorgeous, warm, sunny spring days where temperatures were well above normal for New Jersey in May. The guy on the news predicted it might go over eighty and, for once, he was right. The sudden break from the cold and rainy spring threw us head first into summer, and everyone was in a good mood.
It was nearly four o’clock when the wedding guests arrived for the cocktail hour. They were ravenous and practically feral. I straightened my gray and white waitress uniform and pushed open the door from the kitchen with one arm while balancing a huge silver tray of jumbo-sized shrimp cocktail with the other. All eyes were on me as I made the twenty-yard walk towards the hungry crowd. In seconds I was surrounded by ‘food paparazzi’, and my tray was picked clean. With the appetizers gone, my popularity vanished as quickly as it had come. I turned to go back to the kitchen to refill my tray and start the dance all over again. On my way, I passed another waitress heading out to the crowd carrying a full plate of little hot dogs.
‘Be careful out there,’ I yelled with a laugh, ‘or you’ll lose a hand. You’d think all those people had never eaten before.’
As I got closer to the kitchen, the intoxicating salty smell of pigs in blankets heating in the oven surrounded me. That’s when I met Alec for the first time. I couldn’t see his face, but from behind, I could tell he was tall and kind of skinny, with thick black hair and tan skin. I had never seen him before.
‘Hey, new guy,’ I said, ‘I need a refill, pronto.’
He turned around slowly. A single shrimp stuck out of each of his ears and two more protruded from his nostrils curling upwards. He looked like he had a pink handlebar moustache and hoop earrings. I’m not sure if it was the fish in his nose, the deadpan expression on his face or what he said that cracked me up the most.
‘Bond, James Bond,’ he said with a straight face.
I laughed so hard I nearly fell over and dropped my tray on the floor. Who was this crazy guy?
When the reception was over, we cleaned and packed up the equipment. I walked with some of the other kids to the parking lot, and suddenly Alec was right beside me. One by one the other servers got in their cars and left, but Alec and I continued talking for two more hours. I noticed he wasn’t half bad-looking, now that he had no shellfish on his face. Not classically handsome, but there was something exotic and kind of cute about him. And he made me laugh, hard.
We talked about the bride, the groom and the wedding we had just worked – shop talk.
‘When I get married,’ he announced, ‘I’m going to have a have a house full of kids. I’d like at least five, maybe six.’
I’m not going to lie; that comment was like catnip for me. A young guy wanting kids was like finding a unicorn. Most of the college guys I knew were busy partying and hanging out with their bros. If you asked them what their future looked like, none of them would have mentioned children. But he did, and I was hooked.
We dated until we graduated from college and got married the following fall. We had a formal wedding mass at St. Gabriel’s. My older sister, Erin, was maid of honor. My younger sister, Colleen, and my best friend, Liza, were my bridesmaids. They were all dressed in blue, to match my eyes. The reception was at the best country club in town, in a room filled with cascades of white roses. We had champagne toasts and three choices of entrée. The eight-piece band played the entire night, and people danced until after one in the morning. We were both twenty-two and madly in love. Was I too young? Maybe, but I didn’t think so at the time. Now, if my daughter, Hannah, told me she wanted to get married at twenty-two, I would be completely against it. Do what I say, not what I do.
Alec treated me like a queen, like the Quinntessa I was meant to be. I could do no wrong. I was perfect. Maybe that should have been my clue but I liked being up there on that pedestal, it was nice, it felt good. I didn’t see any of it then. Maybe I didn’t want to.
Chapter 8
Sitting in the back seat of Grandpa George’s car as it sped along the highway, Hannah was vaguely aware her grandmother was talking but couldn’t process a word she said. Every few minutes the older woman would tear up, reach for another tissue and ask her granddaughter if she wanted one. Hannah didn’t. She had no tears. She was numb.
‘I don’t know how this could have happened,’ said Grandma Linda, her voice breaking. ‘This doesn’t happen to people like us. Your poor mother. Dear, sweet Quinn. It’s all so awful.’
‘You doing okay back there, Hannah?’ her grandfather asked, looking at his granddaughter in the rear-view mirror.
Hannah couldn’t answer. She couldn’t find where her voice was and only nodded her head. She wasn’t doing okay. She wasn’t even in her own body.
Two hours earlier, she had been in her dorm room painting her toenails orange. She and her roommate, Meredith, had been getting ready for an off-campus party at one of the frat houses. Meredith had put an avocado mask on her face and was doing a yoga pose when the Resident Advisor from their floor softly knocked on their door. Whenever the RA showed up, it was usually because Hannah and Meredith were up to no good; playing their music too loud or the hallway outside their room smelled of weed even though the girls had shoved towels under the door saddle, opened the windows and turned on their fans. Hearing the RA’s voice when they weren’t committing a crime took them by surprise.
‘Hannah, you in there?’ said the RA as she turned the knob slowly and walked in. Hannah noticed immediately that the student leader had a strange look on her face.
‘There are some people here who need to speak with you,’ she said.
Grandma Linda and Grandpa George stepped awkwardly into the small dorm room. A police officer was behind them waiting in the hall. Grandma Linda’s eyes were red. Without speaking, her grandmother gave Hannah a hug.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Hannah.
Grandma Linda started to cry. That was the cue for Hannah’s roommate. She grabbed a towel, wiped the green mask off her face and left the room.
‘Why are you here?’ Hannah said, starting to panic. ‘Did something happen to Dad? Did he have a heart attack?’
Then they told her. Her mother was dead.
‘No, she’s not,’ said Hannah. ‘My mother’s not dead. I would know if she was.’
Hannah’s mind sifted through a million thoughts. Mom had been depressed. Sometimes she talked about killing herself, but she wouldn’t have done it. She was just sad and wanted attention. She wouldn’t have left me. She loved me. My mother would never leave me. I know that for sure.
‘Hannah, there’s more,’ said her grandfather, taking her hand. ‘The police think someone killed your mother, that maybe someone bad got into her apartment somehow. Might have been a drug addict looking for money or something like that. We don’t know yet.’
Hannah stared at her grandparents. None of what they said made sense. She was sure her mother wasn’t dead.
‘Where’s Dad?’ Hannah asked. ‘Why didn’t Dad come?’
‘He went to get Jack,’ Grandma said. ‘We’re here to bring you home. Your father and brother are going to meet us at our house.’
The police officer asked Hannah a few questions as they walked to the parking lot. Later, she had no memory of what he had asked her or what her answers were.
The hour drive back to Avon wasn’t long or short. Hannah had no sense of time or her surroundings. She repeatedly tried calling her mother’s phone, but it only went to voicemail. When her mother answered, Hannah would prove to her grandparents that they were wrong.
As the car sped along the highway, Hannah stared out the window trying to make sense of it all. She needed to see her brother, Jack. He would straighten everything out, she told herself. My grandparents are wrong. They’re old and confused and they never liked my mother.
Chapter 9
He didn’t want anyone to touch him but people kept hugging him. He wanted to be left alone and go to sleep and stay asleep, forever. Everything around him was spinning out of control. Jack Roberts couldn’t feel his torso, arms or legs. He was just a giant head filled with horrible thoughts.
They told him his mother was dead. He felt a mixture of grief and relief. Sometimes he hated her, but she was still his mother. He had said some mean things to her, and now he couldn’t take them back. He wished he could do things over. Let it be yesterday, Mom was still alive; crazy, but breathing.
In one day, his whole life had changed. His father had showed up unannounced at his college apartment just as he was coming back from lacrosse practice. He was carrying his sticks and a gym bag when he saw his father standing in front of his building talking to his roommate. When Jack approached, his roommate punched his arm gently and walked away.
‘What’s going on?’ Jack asked. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Let’s go inside, Jack,’ his father said.
‘What’s happening?’ Jack asked again as he closed his apartment door. Then his whole life blew up.
His father said, ‘something bad had happened’ and ‘he was there to take him home’. Grandma Linda and Grandpa had gone to get Hannah.
‘I’m just going to say it, Jack, because there’s no way to sugar-coat this. Your mother’s dead.’
‘No, she’s not. She wouldn’t have done that. I know her,’ said Jack. ‘She just wanted attention.’
‘You don’t understand. The police don’t think it was suicide. Someone killed your mother. I don’t know much more than that. We have to go to Newbridge later and talk to the cops,’ said his father. ‘I promise you, Jack, we’re going to find out who did this.’
‘Why do they want to talk to me?’ Jack asked. ‘I don’t know anything.’
‘Of course, you don’t,’ his father said. ‘Neither do I. They talk to everyone. That’s the w
ay it works.’
His father’s girlfriend, Alison, was waiting in the front seat of the car. She got out and gave Jack a hug, and they started for home. The rest of the ride was a blur.
In the back seat by himself, he looked out the window as the world streaked by. His father didn’t say much during the trip back to Avon. Jack’s face and shirt collar were wet from the constant stream of tears. He wanted it to be last week when his mother was alive, and everything was normal – or at least, normal for them. Nobody was in trouble, nobody was dead. He looked at the back of his father’s head. Was it his imagination or did his father not seem that upset? Dad didn’t look like he had even cried. That pissed Jack off. He needed to be mad at someone, and decided it might as well be his father.
‘You act like you don’t give a shit that Mom is dead,’ Jack blurted out from the back seat.
‘That’s unfair,’ Alec said, taking his eyes off the road for a second to look at his son in the mirror. ‘Your mother and I were getting divorced, but you know I still cared about her. We just went in different directions. It happens. That’s life.’
‘That’s bull,’ Jack said. ‘The minute she got sick you bailed on her. You might be able to fool everyone else, but I know the real truth, not the shit you spin.’
‘Hey, I don’t need this kind of crap from you right now,’ his father said, raising his voice. ‘I’m going to let it go because I know you’re in shock.’
The remainder of the ride was in stony silence. When they arrived at his grandparents’ house, several cars were parked out front on the street. Grandpa George’s car was in the driveway. That meant Hannah was inside and Jack wanted to see his sister more than anyone. She was the only person in the world who knew exactly how he felt.
I Am Quinn Page 3