by Lis Wiehl
“Well, don’t forget to pick up Brooke at preschool before six.”
He didn’t answer her.
“Gabe?”
“All right, all right, I didn’t say I wouldn’t.”
“And remember I’m teaching tonight. I should be home by seven thirty. Eight at the latest.” She reached for her purse. “Let me give you some money so you can order a pizza from Pagliacci.” That was another reason she had to go to the store. Frozen pizzas cost less than half of what delivery would, even though Pagliacci’s were far better. Maybe there would be leftovers she could bring to lunch tomorrow. She handed him some bills along with his sack lunch.
He made a face. “I don’t want to bring my lunch to school anymore. No one does that. It’s for babies. I want to buy my lunch like everyone else.”
Mia bit her lip. Couldn’t he have said that while she was making his lunch? She still had her wallet in one hand. “How much do you need?”
He shrugged. “Five dollars.”
Five dollars times five days equaled twenty-five dollars a week. But she had vowed to treat the kids the same as she would have if Scott were alive. Which meant handing out lunch money, if that’s what Gabe wanted.
Since she had gone back to work, Mia had been brown-bagging her own lunch, begging off when co-workers suggested they go out to eat. Pinching pennies while the dollars slipped through her fingers.
Gabe started to leave the room.
“Aren’t you forgetting to put away your bowl?”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m not done eating yet. I’m getting something I keep forgetting to give you.”
He pounded upstairs and then came back down with a piece of paper. “It’s due today.” He thrust it into Mia’s hand. “It’s the bill for my school fees. Sorry. I forgot to give it to you last week.”
Her eyes dropped to the total. $767.79. She blinked. “Why is this so much?” How much money did she have in checking? “That’s ridiculous. You’re supposedly in a public school.”
He shrugged, not meeting her eyes. “It’s extra money for lab fees and art supplies and field trips. Stuff like that.”
Mia looked closer. Those expenses were on there, sure, but most of it was actually for football. The helmet was $248, the shoulder pads and the uniform were around $150. Each. A year ago she would have grumbled but paid the bill.
A year ago she might have fund-raised to help parents who couldn’t afford to let their sons play football. Now she was almost one of them.
Not meeting her eyes, Gabe sat back down again and poured another bowl of cereal. His teeth, she saw, were sunk into his lower lip. He was afraid she would say no. It wasn’t that he had forgotten about the fees. Instead he had dragged his feet, not wanting to ask her. She tried not to talk about money in front of the kids, but it was always in the back of her mind and sometimes on the tip of her tongue.
Brooke and Gabriel were getting Social Security survivor’s benefits, and Mia made pretty good money at King County, but the amount that went out every month was mind-bending. Scott had always handled their finances. After all, he was the one with the undergraduate degree in accounting as well as an MBA. Mia had paid for groceries and other things she needed with a credit card that gave them airline miles, and Scott had then paid all the bills. She hadn’t balanced a checkbook in years.
Going back to work meant that her costs had increased too. Brooke was in preschool full-time, plus before- and after-care. Mia had had to buy new work clothes. Gabe was starting to eat like he had two hollow legs. And it cost over sixty dollars just to fill the Suburban’s tank, and sometimes she had to do it twice a week.
Even the funeral had been expensive. Just the catering for the gathering afterward had been over four thousand. But of course Mia had wanted trays of appetizers, and wine and beer, and servers old enough to serve the wine and beer, and a liability policy to cover anything that might go wrong because of the serving of the wine and beer.
Gabe had poured the milk on his new bowl of cereal, but he still hadn’t taken a bite. “Just let me get my checkbook,” she said, and he finally started eating.
She wrote what she was sure was a bad check. But their bank would pull money over from savings to cover it. Mia made a mental note to sit down and draw up a budget. Even though he had handled the money, it turned out Scott had not been organized at all. She was still getting a handle on where they stood.
As she handed over the check, Mia caught a glimpse of her watch. Time, like money, was slipping through her fingers. “We have to hurry.” She took Brooke’s full bowl away and set it in the sink. “Come on upstairs with me and I’ll help you put on your shoes.” She lifted Brooke from the table and set her on her feet. “I need everyone dressed and in the car in ten minutes.”
“That’s okay,” Gabe said. “You don’t need to drive me.”
Brooke was already going up the stairs, but Mia turned back. “What? You’re going to walk?”
“Nah. I’ll skateboard to school.”
Mia mentally traced the route, gauging how busy the streets were. It was at times like this that she missed Scott most acutely. It took the voices of two adults to outweigh the voice of one teenager. “I don’t know, Gabe.” His mouth opened in protest. Something inside her said she had to give him some freedom sometime. And she was asking so much of him lately. “Okay, but wear your helmet. And I want you to walk across that last intersection.”
“Walk?” he protested. “That’s just lame.”
“It may be lame, but it’s safe. It’s so busy there. People barely pay attention to other drivers. In rush hour they might not see you until it’s too late.”
“I’m not three feet tall, Mom.” His neck reddened. She knew he hated being shorter than all of his friends. His tone was scathing. “You’ve got to stop babying me.”
She touched his arm and he spun away, then pushed past her up the stairs. More slowly, Mia followed.
CHAPTER 8
When Mia hurried into the office, it was oddly empty. Only the secretary, Judy Rallison, was at her normal station. Her eyes were red-rimmed and she clutched a crumpled, mascara-stained tissue in one hand. She was scribbling on a yellow message pad while the console in front of her blinked with a dozen red lights.
“Of course I’ll give Frank the message, Mayor,” she was saying into her headset. “I’m sure he’ll return your call as soon as he can.” After pressing a button to disconnect, she looked up at Mia. “They’re all in the conference room. Frank called a meeting about ten minutes ago.” Judy pushed one of the dozen blinking lights on her phone. “King County Criminal Division,” she said in a singsong voice. “How may I direct your call?”
Of all days to be late, this clearly wasn’t one of them. But Brooke’s teacher had wanted to talk to Mia about two “accidents” Brooke had had recently.
Without stopping to put down her raincoat or purse, Mia hurried down the hall to the conference room. Hoping to slip in unnoticed, she chose the door at the back of the room.
She could barely squeeze inside. All the seats around the long table were full, and around them people stood crowded shoulder to shoulder. Anne Rutter stepped to one side to let Mia crowd in between her and Katrina Nowell. All three of them had worked in Violent Crimes with Colleen. When Frank caught sight of her, he stopped midsentence.
“Mia,” he said, and the room fell silent. “We understand you were talking to Colleen on the phone when she was shot.”
All eyes turned to her. She took a shaky breath. The room smelled of coffee and morning breath, but underneath she caught something sharper and more primal—the rank smell of fear.
“We were just having a normal conversation, and then someone . . . someone . . .” Mia stumbled, still shocked by it all. Anne put a comforting hand on her shoulder. Mia swallowed hard and managed to go on. “And then I guess someone shot her.”
“Did you know what had happened?” Leslie Yee from Domestic Violence asked.
“Not at first. We
were just talking about a case when there was this loud noise, and then Colleen dropped the phone. It took me a second to figure out what was going on, and even then I wasn’t sure. I tried to talk to her, but she, she”—Mia decided not to say anything about Colleen’s labored breathing—“really couldn’t talk after that. And then I called 911 and drove over to her house, but by the time I got there it was too late.”
DeShauna Mundy shook her head, setting her silver earrings swinging. She worked in the Sexually Violent Predator unit. “It’s just like what happened to Stan,” she said. “Somebody is gunning for King County prosecutors.”
This assertion was met with murmurs and nods.
Jesse Sanchez raised his voice. “Until they catch whoever did this, none of us is safe.” Jesse, a plump guy in his midfifties, worked in the Involuntary Treatment unit, which meant he spent his days focusing on the potential for poor outcomes.
“People,” Frank said, “let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Stan’s and Colleen’s deaths were separated by more than four years. We don’t know that they are linked.” A few people muttered in protest, and he held up his hands. “I’m not saying there aren’t similarities. But right now it’s too soon to say. If any of you has received threats, I want to know about them immediately. Or if you know anything about Colleen or Stan that you think might pertain to their deaths, come talk to me. And of course we should all remain alert and take reasonable precautions. If something makes you nervous, don’t be afraid to ask for a patrol car to swing by your house or a security guard to walk you to the parking lot. Keep the doors locked in your car and at your home.”
“A locked door didn’t do Stan or Colleen any good.” Tracy Lowe from the Juvenile Unit stabbed the air with a red fingernail.
“Folks, I promise you that we are going to get to the bottom of this. The Seattle police are going over the crime scene with a fine-toothed comb. We will be devoting every resource until we find the person or persons responsible for Colleen’s death. We’re already working with Crime Stoppers to put out the word of a ten-thousand-dollar reward for any tip leading to the arrest of a suspect.”
Mia wondered if they should have waited. Rewards cut both ways. They encouraged the crazy, the lonely, and the vengeful as well as—perhaps—someone with real information.
Frank looked at his watch. “I know a lot of you have court dates this morning, so I’m going to end by saying that my door is open, and if you know something or have concerns, please come and talk to me.”
Several people turned toward Mia. But before anyone could frame a question or ask for more details, Frank was by her side. “Mia, would you mind coming down to my office?”
“Of course,” she said, feeling oddly guilty. Surely he wasn’t going to get mad at her for being late? She followed his straight back, clad in one of his tailored suits, down the hall.
Frank was tall and fit, with black hair touched with silver at the temples. As Colleen had often joked, he looked like an actor who had been cast to play the part of district attorney—or president.
And who knew what heights he dreamed of scaling? Frank was a rising political star. He was campaigning hard, and it seemed likely he would be reelected. After that, there were rumors about what office he might run for next—attorney general, governor, even U.S. senator.
Once they were in his office, he closed the door behind her. Frank’s furniture wasn’t standard government issue, but instead made of cherrywood, a red so dark it was almost black.
Without saying anything, he waved at the visitor’s chair as he walked around his desk. Photos of his two children were lined up along the credenza. The nearest showed his dark-haired son in a Little League uniform, his blond daughter in a gymnastics leotard. It was rumored that these photos were about as close as he ever came to actually seeing them. And now the son was a sophomore in college and the daughter a senior in high school.
Over the fifteen years Mia had known Frank, he had changed from being just one of her co-workers to being a brand that was as carefully managed as Colgate or Chevrolet. Only his brand was no-nonsense. Law and order. The man who kept you and your family safe.
Even speaking one-on-one, Frank still looked camera-ready. He took off his jacket, revealing sleeves already rolled up to show that he meant business. Despite the absence of a microphone, his words were still a crisp collection of sound bites.
He leaned across the desk to pat her hand. “Last night must have been terrible for you.”
“It was. I didn’t see her. After I got to her house, I mean. I didn’t see Colleen after she was dead.”
“Maybe that’s better.” Frank took his hand back. “You wouldn’t want to remember her like that.”
Mia wished she could forget about Colleen’s labored breathing. “I have to talk to Charlie Carlson later today. He’s the lead homicide detective, and I guess I’m a witness.”
“A witness?” Frank sat back in his chair. “But you weren’t there when it happened.”
“I’m an aural witness.”
“Oral?”
“Aural. You know, someone who hears something. But it’s not like Colleen said anything. About all I can do is pin down a five-minute window when the shooting occurred.”
Frank nodded, looking preoccupied. Finally he said, “I have a question for you, Mia, but I don’t want you to answer it right away. Take the night and sleep on it.”
“What is it?” Was he going to ask her to pick up Colleen’s cases in addition to her own? Because Mia had only been back at the job for a couple of months, she probably had the lightest workload of anyone in Violent Crimes.
“You have the lightest caseload,” Frank said, echoing her thoughts. “And that big case you had pled out on Friday.”
Mia nodded. Nodded and waited.
“And you knew both Colleen and Stan. A lot of the district prosecuting attorneys who work here now came on after Stan died.”
Mia wanted to protest she hadn’t known Stan that well—she wasn’t sure anyone had—but she kept quiet and just listened. She was beginning to have a feeling she might need to save her counterarguments.
“I’m going to need someone to head up the investigation into their deaths. If you say yes, I want you to team up with Charlie, figure out who did this, and get them convicted. If you take this on, I want you to hand off all your remaining cases. This will be your top priority.”
Mia noted that Frank said will, not would. She had no doubt that in his mind, she had already said yes.
Talk about a blessing and a curse, all in one package. Visibility. Responsibility. And high probability for failure.
“Like I said, I want you to think about this,” Frank continued. “I won’t kid you, it’s going to be challenging. You’re going to need to give it everything you’ve got. But, Mia, I think you are absolutely the right person for the job. Remember when you came to me and asked to come back to the office?”
It had felt more like begging, but Mia nodded.
“You told me that losing Scott not only made you tougher, but it also gave you an even greater appreciation of what it’s like for the people the victim leaves behind. I want you to bring that same determination and human touch to this assignment.”
Mia’s gut reaction was no. No, no, no. This case would eat her alive.
But it was an honor to be asked. And if she said no, she would look like a prima donna. Of course, if she said yes, half the office would resent her, wondering how she had managed to waltz back in and be handed such a big case.
But if she said no to Frank, how would he take it? Could he make things so bad for her that she would be forced out? Since the economy had tanked, even lawyers were having a hard time finding jobs.
“What about Darin Dane?”
“Who?” Frank’s eyebrows drew together.
“Darin Dane. The kid who killed himself after being harassed. That’s actually what I was talking to Colleen about when she was shot.”
“That’s very sad, but
there’s always going to be some kid who can’t handle reality. Teasing comes with the territory when you’re talking about teenagers. Kids will be kids.”
“Frank, that’s what they used to say about men who groped or harassed women. Boys will be boys. Now it’s settled case law that it’s assault.”
He made a face. “I’m not sure we can make a case for going after those kids. This office has to set priorities. And you know what our number one priority is. It’s finding whoever killed Colleen and, if we can, the same for Stan. That’s what’s most important. We can’t let ourselves be distracted.”
“But, Frank—”
He held up his hand. “I would feel the same way even if you decided not to help find justice for Colleen. And, Mia, I want to reassure you that if you do decide not to take on Colleen’s case, I will understand completely.” The words were right, but there was a dissonance with Frank’s expression. “No matter what you decide, please keep this in confidence. I don’t want anyone thinking they’re my second choice”—he flashed her a conspiratorial smile—“even if they are. Katrina has already hinted that she’s interested, but I think you’re the best fit for the job. But it’s still your choice, Mia. Sleep on it. And then give me an answer tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 9
When Mia walked out of Frank’s office, her head was spinning. He had just offered her what could be the coup of her career.
It could also possibly be the end of her career, at least at King County. If she took this on and failed, Frank might hang her out to dry.
Even if she was successful, how could she handle the immense amount of work it was sure to mean? She was away from Brooke and Gabe too much now as it was.
Her thoughts skipped back and forth. If she said no, what would her next performance review look like? And once word got out that she had turned it down, people would lose respect for her. They would whisper behind her back that she thought she was too good to get her hands dirty. Some of the men and the childless women would complain that the moms always took the easy way out.