When he entered the house, he was surrounded by teary faces and arms that wrapped themselves around him like vines. It didn’t register who the arms belonged to, and they kept coming, touching him, engulfing him. He didn’t deserve their love. Every touch felt like a burn. He only wanted to see his sister. He spotted Hannah standing in the kitchen, leaning against a wall looking the same way he felt. Their eyes locked and he went over to her. They hugged and sobbed for a long time. Her touch was the only one that felt right.
‘We’re going to find out who killed Mom, Han,’ Jack said to his sister. ‘I promise.’
‘I just want her back,’ Hannah said through her tears. ‘I want Mommy.’
A few hours later, Alec and Jack walked into the red brick building that was home of the Newbridge Police Department. An officer ushered them into separate rooms. A lanky homicide detective in his forties introduced himself to Jack as Detective Crews, one of lead detectives assigned to Quinn’s case. He told the kid he was sorry for his loss. Yeah, okay, whatever, thought Jack, save it.
Crews asked him a bunch of basic questions like his name, age and address. Then there were a whole lot of questions about where Jack had been over the past week and how he got along with his mother.
‘My mother hadn’t been well. She had good days and bad,’ he said. ‘Sometimes she embarrassed me when she’d drive up to my campus and wander around saying crazy shit. I’d get mad at her, but I still loved her.’
‘How long ago did your father and mother separate?’ the detective asked. ‘Did they get along? Your mother ever express concerns about your father?’
‘My dad can be a pontificating jerk,’ said Jack, ‘but he wouldn’t kill anyone. He’s a talker, a college professor with a PhD in History. He rebuilds antique cars, takes pictures of butterflies and has a vegetable garden in our backyard with a compost pile. He grows tomatoes and zucchini. Give my father a minute, and he’ll give you a thesis on almost any subject. He can be annoying and suck all the air out of a room, but he wouldn’t kill my mother. He would never do something like that.’
Jack answered all of the detective’s questions, mindful of how his answers sounded. His father could be an asshole, but he was still his father and the only parent he had left.
He didn’t dare mention the times his mother was off her meds, and his father screamed at her and locked her out of the house. Sometimes, Jack thought, when she was like that, she kind of brought it on herself. His mother knew exactly how to push his father’s buttons. His father didn’t know what else to do but lock her out when she got crazy and combative. He and Hannah used to hear them fight from their bedrooms.
Jack knew he probably should have gone in and helped his mother, but he never did. He didn’t want to get in the middle of whatever was going on. He just shut his bedroom door, turned up his music and closed his eyes.
Chapter 10
QUINN
Six months after my wedding, surprise… I was pregnant. Sure, it was sooner than we had planned, and maybe I wasn’t so careful with my birth control. Maybe I ‘accidentally on purpose’ forgot to take my pill for a few months. Alec and I had agreed we’d wait for three years before having a baby. That seemed like an awfully long time to me. The plan was, I was supposed to work while he went to grad school. He wanted to get his masters and then his PhD in History and teach at a university. He had big plans, but I had my own ideas.
The arrival of our son, Jack, changed everything. Alec wound up going to grad school at night so he could work during the day and I could stay home and take care of our baby. It took him a little longer to get his degree, but it was worth it because we had our beautiful son. A year later, our daughter, Hannah, arrived. Oops, again.
Before Hannah was born, Alec received an offer to teach at Pondfield College which was just outside of Rochester. More than six hours by car from all my family and friends in New Jersey, I had to leave everything I knew to be a supportive wife. We packed up and moved to a small community called Avon. Alec promised we’d return to New Jersey within a year.
Why do I only have two kids if I wanted tons of babies so badly? There were complications during Hannah’s birth. There was a C-section, lots of blood, detached uterus. Hysterectomy. The doctors said it couldn’t be helped. I found out I couldn’t have any more children moments after they placed my new baby girl in my arms. For weeks, I was depressed. What’s that saying? When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I decided to focus on the two kids I had and be the world’s best mother possible.
I baked and sewed, volunteered at their schools and put a homemade hot meal on the table every night. Dinner was always ready right after Alec arrived home and we ate together as a family. That was important to me, to us. The kids’ Halloween costumes were made from scratch. I taught them how to ice skate and ski in the winter and in the summer, I took them on nature walks in the woods pointing out plants, trees, and birds. And, of course, I sang to them from the minute they were born. My kids were mostly happy, and I was proud and fulfilled being their mother until things started to change.
Chapter 11
Erin Delaney Danzi was taking an afternoon nap when her husband, Mike, turned on the lights in the bedroom and gently woke her up. She looked over at the clock.
‘Why are you waking me up now?’ she said, confused and annoyed her sleep had been disrupted. ‘I could have slept for a few more minutes.’
‘I need to talk to you, sit up,’ Mike said.
Something registered in a remote part of Erin’s brain that her husband looked funny. Something was wrong.
Before he could speak, Mike started to cry. He tried to get the words out, but they kept catching in his throat.
‘Mike, you’re freaking me out, what’s going on?’
‘There’s no good way to say this,’ he said, his voice cracking. ‘Quinn is dead.’
Something hard hit her stomach and knocked all the air out of Erin’s lungs. She couldn’t breathe and started to fall over as her husband caught her. They had been dreading something like this for close to a year. Quinn went up and down, and when she was down, it was almost impossible to reach her. Once, Erin even called some radio psychologists to see if they had any answers. They didn’t and now, it didn’t matter.
‘She finally got her way,’ said Erin, as tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘My sister said she was going to kill herself all the time, but I thought she just wanted attention. I didn’t think she would really do it.’
‘Her landlady found her,’ Mike continued.
‘She didn’t use a gun, did she?’
There was a long pause as Mike silently cried and stared at his wife.
‘Quinn didn’t commit suicide, Erin. She was murdered.’
It took Erin nearly a full minute to respond to the new information. The initial shock of learning her sister was dead was devastating, but murder took it to a whole new level. Murder happens in the movies, she thought, not to my family, not to Quinn.
‘How did she die?’ Erin asked barely able to get the words out between sobs.
‘The police think someone strangled her.’
Chapter 12
QUINN
Erin, why can’t you hear me? I’m right next to you screaming into your ear. I’m here! Promise you’ll look after my kids. Watch out for them and for Alec. He’s hurting, too. He was still my husband, and I didn’t tell you this, but he was seriously thinking about the two of us getting back together. I was planning to surprise him and cook him his favorite dinner to celebrate his birthday. I think everything was going to be okay between us and we’d go back to the way it used to be.
I don’t know where I am, Erin. I see people, but no one sees or hears me. Sometimes, I find myself at the playground, the one we used to go to when we were little, down the street from Mom and Dad’s. I like to go on the swings because it feels good. I’m not sure why; maybe because it’s familiar. Back and forth, up and down. Like flying. Remember, Erin, how we used to swing for hours? We’d
try to see who could go the highest? We soared like birds, remember? We always went higher than everyone else.
There are others like me here at the playground. They go on the swings, too. We each wait for our turn. When you see empty swings moving by themselves, it’s not the wind. It’s us trying to fly up to the sky.
Chapter 13
When McQuillan arrived at work the next morning, he knew they had to scramble. Precious time had been wasted documenting a suicide and now that the tables had turned, they were a full day behind the eight-ball. Statistically, there was a far better chance of catching a killer within the first seventy-two hours of the crime. After that, each day that passed, each hour even, made solving it more unlikely.
He called the Chief and apprised him of the new development and officially moved the suicide over to homicide on the war room whiteboards. His team would have to pull an all-nighter to play catch-up on the investigation. From a preliminary phone interview with the victim’s brother-in-law, Mike Danzi, McQuillan learned that Quinn Roberts and her husband had been in the middle of a contentious divorce. When it came to murder of a woman, ninety-six percent of the time, it was the husband or the boyfriend who was good for it. Of course, there was still the possibility that the son could have been involved or a yet to be identified stranger. They had to rule everyone out. McQuillan had one, and only one, objective that day: he had to get the husband to talk and rule him in or out. If it wasn’t the husband, he and his team needed to get busy real fast.
Six hours later, Alec Roberts was seated in one of the police interview rooms. A cold cup of coffee sat on the table in front of him. He appeared relaxed, like he was waiting for a movie to start. McQuillan peered at him through the video monitor down the hall and then walked briskly down the corridor to meet Roberts in person. After five minutes in the same room with the victim’s husband, McQuillan had formed his opinion. He had seen Roberts’ type before but had to remind himself that just because the guy was an asshole, didn’t mean he was a killer.
Gaining Alec Roberts’ confidence was critical. The detective let Roberts think he was on his side and offered just the right amount of support and sympathy. If Roberts was guilty, his own arrogance would do the detective’s work for him. Perps always forgot that cops interrogated criminals for a living. Detectives did it every day, all day, and they were good at it. Alec Roberts, on the other hand, had probably never been interrogated by a police officer in his life. The professor was in uncharted waters but so convinced of his own intellect, he didn’t know his ship was way off course.
‘Mr. Roberts,’ McQuillan said. ‘Where were you last week?’
‘It’s Dr. Roberts,’ Alec replied. ‘I have a PhD in History.’
‘My mistake, Doctor. May I call you Alex?’
‘It’s Alec, with a “c”, not an “x”,’ he said.
‘My apologies again,’ McQuillan said, looking down at his papers. ‘Got it, Alec, with a “c”.’
‘It’s okay, officer, everyone makes mistakes,’ said Alec.
McQuillan’s inner cop radar was blinking red, and his ears were hot and itchy.
‘So, Alec,’ McQuillan said, with an emphasis on the ‘c’, ‘let’s start with where you were last Monday.’
‘It’s always the husband, isn’t it, Detective?’ Alec said. ‘You can be more imaginative than that.’
Piss me off a little more, you arrogant little jerk, thought McQuillan, and I’ll nail you to the wall.
‘You’re not a suspect,’ McQuillan said politely. ‘We’re talking to everyone. It’s extremely early in the investigation. You want to find out who killed your wife. My job is to get all the facts and eliminate people, so we can find your wife’s killer and put him or her in jail.’
‘I know how this goes,’ Alec said, still smiling. ‘Let me save you some time, Detective. I didn’t touch my wife. If you’re acting all chummy with me hoping I’ll confess to something, you’re going to be waiting a long time.’
‘Is there something you want to confess?’ McQuillan asked.
‘My wife and I were getting divorced, that’s no secret,’ Alec said. ‘We didn’t live together any more. I don’t know what happened to her. I haven’t seen her in months.’
‘Let me go back to my original question,’ McQuillan said. ‘Where were you last Monday?’
Alec stared at the detective with cold, dark eyes and smirked.
‘Where I am every Monday; at the University of Rochester.’
‘UR? My older sister went to UR,’ McQuillan said, ‘but before your time, good school.’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘There would be people who could confirm that you were teaching that whole day, correct?’ McQuillan said.
‘About two hundred. I have a full load of classes on Mondays,’ Alec replied. ‘I also chair the History department meeting every Monday at five.’
‘Can you give me the names of some of those people?’ McQuillan said, as he passed Alec a yellow legal pad and pen. Alec nodded and wrote down a few names and numbers. ‘How about Monday night?’ the detective asked. ‘Where were you Monday night?’
‘At my house,’ Alec said. ‘I usually stop in at LA Fitness on my way home from school and work out. I like to stay in shape, you know what I mean?’
‘Oh yeah, that’s very important,’ McQuillan said, looking down at his own expanding gut hanging over his belt and promising himself he’d start working out again. ‘Is that the LA Fitness near Avon?’
‘I go to one near the university,’ Alec replied.
‘About what time did you leave LA Fitness on Monday? Did you go directly home?’
‘My workout usually takes about ninety minutes,’ Alec said. ‘My department meeting went until a little before six, and I got to the gym by six fifteen. I worked out until about seven forty. Then I went directly home.’
‘About what time did you arrive home?’ McQuillan asked.
‘I don’t know. Maybe eight fifteen.’
‘And then?’
‘I watched a game,’ he said. ‘Monday night football.’
‘I saw that too, good game.’
The police still didn’t know the exact time or day Quinn Roberts had been killed. It could have been Sunday, Monday or even Tuesday. The wide window on time of death presented McQuillan with an unwieldy playing field.
‘Did I forget to mention,’ said Alec with a cocky expression on his face, ‘my girlfriend, Alison Moore, was with me Monday night? We had lobsters.’
McQuillan wanted to slap the smug look off the professor’s face but kept his cool and just nodded, making a note of the girlfriend’s name, address, and phone number.
‘Would Ms. Moore verify that?’
‘Why wouldn’t she?’ Alec said, visibly proud of himself.
‘Did you see anyone on Tuesday night?’ McQuillan asked.
‘Actually, I did,’ Alec replied. ‘First I went to the gym until about eight thirty. You can check the time clock at LA Fitness. Later, my girlfriend Alison came over. She stopped by to drop something off around nine thirty but only stayed about two hours.’
‘She drove to your place late at night and then left? According to your written statement, you said she lives all the way over in Milford. That’s a long drive late at night.’
‘I left a work folder at her place and desperately needed it for an important presentation I had the next day. She offered to bring it to me.’
‘She must be a nice person to make that long drive so late at night when I presume she also had to work the next day.’
‘She is very nice, Detective, that’s why she’s my girlfriend. We usually get together only on weekends. For some reason, last week we saw each other every day,’ said Alec, pausing to think for a moment. ‘Guess that’s lucky for me.’
‘Very lucky. So, you’re saying you were teaching each day and that Ms. Moore was with you every single night last week,’ McQuillan continued.
‘That’s what I’m saying.’
The questioning went on for another hour. Alec thought he was running the table and the detective let him believe that. If McQuillan needed to stroke Alec to get him to crack, he’d gladly do it. No skin off his nose. That was how the game was played.
‘Tell me how you felt about your wife.’
‘You ever get divorced, Detective?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How did you feel about your wife?’ he asked.
‘She was a bitch.’
‘Exactly,’ he said, with a smile on his face.
He may have been in the middle of a divorce, thought McQuillan, but Alec Roberts was just too freaking cheerful, given that his wife and the mother of his kids had just been murdered. Something was off.
An hour and a half after their session started, Detective Jimmy Crews walked into the room. Crews, a division one guard back when he played college basketball, was tall, lanky and sharp as a tack. He and McQuillan had partnered on a lot of cases over the years and knew each other’s every thought. It was apparent Crews had a chip on his shoulder when he sat down and introduced himself, spitting out a slew of insinuating questions in rapid fire. Alec’s body language changed and he began to bristle.
‘Hold on there, Detective,’ McQuillan said. ‘Dr. Roberts has been through a lot today, and so far, he’s been extremely cooperative.’
‘Sounds to me like you’re stonewalling, Roberts,’ said Crews. ‘We don’t have time to waste with bullshit. Every minute that passes, the killer gets further away.’
‘You’ve got it all wrong. Dr. Roberts has provided a lot of good information.’
Alec’s head cocked slightly, and there was a glimmer of recognition in his eyes. He smiled and began to clap slowly.
I Am Quinn Page 4