The Mia Quinn Collection

by Lis Wiehl

  Shiloh ticked things off on her fingers. “They shoved him into lockers. They kicked his books down the hall. They left him these terrible notes. They squirted maple syrup and ketchup through the vents in his locker. They called him names.”

  “They talked about him, like, right in front of him?” Rainy contributed.

  Their words were setting off echoes in Charlie. His hand was starting to shake, but he told himself it was simply a reaction to a long day and little sleep. He rested the coffee cup on his knee.

  Bright red spots of color had appeared on Shiloh’s cheeks. “And I’ve seen people push him and trip him, but I know when I wasn’t around it was worse. I already told you about that one time last spring. And I heard it was really bad in PE, that they even punched him. I’ve seen bruises on his arms when he forgot and pushed up his sleeves.”

  “And this all happened in school?” Mia sounded horrified.

  “It wasn’t in class so much,” Rainy said. “It was, like, you know, in PE or hallways or in the bathrooms, or waiting at school for the bus.”

  “Who do you think the main offenders were?” Charlie asked in a colorless, just-the-facts voice.

  Rainy and Shiloh looked at each other, and then Shiloh said, “Two of the guys on the football team were always going after Darin. It was bad in eighth grade, but it’s gotten a lot worse since school started. It’s like they figured that now they’re in high school they had something to prove. Brandon Shiller and Reece Jones. I’ll get my yearbook and show you their pictures.” She jumped to her feet.

  “Reece is just, like, really bad?” Rainy said. “He likes to beat people up and call them Reece’s Pieces.”

  Shiloh came back with the yearbook and handed it to Mia. Charlie looked over her shoulder as she found the two boys. Brandon had wide-spaced eyes and light brown hair that had been gelled straight up so that he looked like the cartoon character Tintin. Reece Jones had blue eyes, dark hair, and a smile that hovered on the border of a smirk.

  Charlie winced. That smile brought back memories. Looking away from the yearbook, he caught sight of his reflection in the flat-screen TV. He looked like a ghost, a shadow, a frightened boy. As if the specter of who he used to be had been summoned back to this room.

  Abruptly he got to his feet, desperate to get some distance from his old self. Only then did he remember the half-empty cup of coffee—just as it splashed on the formerly pristine rug.

  Charlie had offered to scrub the rug clean, but Shiloh’s mom had insisted it was fine, fine, fine. When it was clearly not, not, not.

  Twenty minutes after their very awkward exit, they were sitting in Jeremy Donaldson’s living room with a tray of Ritz crackers topped with cheddar cheese. Jeremy’s mother had offered it to them before scurrying from the room.

  Jeremy had close-cropped, dirty-blond hair that emphasized his high forehead and long face. He looked unfinished, like modeling clay that needed some sharp edges cut into it.

  “So we understand you and Darin used to be close?” Mia slipped a Ritz cracker into her mouth.

  He looked down at his oversized feet. “Yeah, we were friends in grade school, but in middle school we kind of grew apart. I mean, you can’t really base a friendship on your last names starting with the same letter of the alphabet.”

  “Were you aware of Darin being harassed at school?” Mia asked.

  After a moment he nodded. “I tried to tell him if he just changed a few things it would get better. Like you don’t show up on the first day of high school wearing a rainbow-striped scarf. I mean, didn’t he want to have a life?” His knees began to bounce. “To do that, you’ve got to fit in. You don’t want to be noticed, at least not for something like that. But Darin wouldn’t listen.”

  Everything was rawer when you were a kid. Your terrors, your joys, your humiliations. You hadn’t learned how to put a good face on things. You hadn’t learned the importance of plodding forward, of ignoring even the deepest wounds. You hadn’t learned that no one was paying as much attention as you thought. Not even you.

  “What kinds of things did they do to him?” Charlie asked.

  “Once they locked him in the supply closet with a girl and said he couldn’t come out until he’d gotten to second base. That was last year. This year from day one they’ve been going after him in PE, you know, teasing and pushing him in the showers. Pinching his chest and twisting. The PE teacher just stays in his office, so he doesn’t see what happens. But then he heard Darin wasn’t taking showers, and Darin got in trouble.”

  Jeremy took a shaky breath. “The day before he died, I saw Darin at the end of a hallway after school. He was down on his knees and crying, and blood was coming out of his nose and dripping onto the floor. Two guys were standing in front of him. They had their backs to me.”

  “Who were they?” Charlie asked.

  His eyes swung from Mia’s face to Charlie’s.

  “Jeremy, we need you to help us,” Mia said. “Do you know the kids who did these things to Darin?”

  He bit his lip.

  She added, “We also heard that someone might have beaten up Darin after school on the track last year. Do you know who that was?”

  Jeremy swallowed. His knees were still going.

  After a long moment Mia said, “We heard it might be some boys named Brandon and Reece.”

  She gave Jeremy a long look. Charlie wondered if it had been practiced on her own son. It would be hard to hide much from those blue eyes.

  “Maybe . . . ,” Jeremy said slowly. “If I say anything, will you tell them who said it?”

  “Don’t worry,” Charlie said. “We can keep your name out of this.” They certainly didn’t need another victim.

  “But how much trouble can they really get in?” Jeremy twisted his hands together. “It’s not like they killed Darin. What if it was like a joke?”

  “It’s a joke to hurt people? To mock them and hit them and say those terrible things on Facebook? It’s not a joke,” Mia said fiercely. “What it is, is harassment and cyberstalking and assault, and Washington State has clear laws about it. Don’t you worry, Jeremy, we can take care of these bullies so that no one will ever be tempted to do what they did.”

  With every word of Jeremy’s, Charlie had felt his muscles getting tenser. He could picture what had happened to Darin so well.

  He could picture it because he had lived it.

  CHAPTER 26

  Today I’m going to bring you two cases,” Mia told the grand jurors, who were seated at three long tables set up in a U-shape. As she spoke, she caught sight of a spot on her navy blue skirt. “The first is that of a fourteen-year-old boy named Darin Dane who committed suicide last Thursday. We want to find out if cyberstalking, harassment, and/or a violation of his civil rights contributed to his death. The second is the murder of a King County prosecutor, Colleen Miller. She was shot to death at her home on Monday night.”

  Tomorrow the grand jurors might hear about a burglary ring or domestic violence. Their purpose was solely to indict—or decline to indict—suspects. Because they weren’t asked to determine guilt or innocence, their standards were looser than those of a trial jury. Their decision didn’t even need to be unanimous.

  When she said Colleen’s name, Mia saw a few nods of recognition. Grand jurors weren’t banned from watching the media in general, which meant they often had a passing familiarity with any headline cases. But now that they knew they would be considering Colleen’s case, they would have to stay away from any fresh news. And no matter how high-profile the case, they were sworn to keep secret what went on inside the grand jury room.

  “First, I’d like to present King County homicide detective Charlie Carlson.”

  While the bailiff brought Charlie in from the anteroom and swore him in, Mia took a quick second look at the stain on her skirt. It was a long flaky trail just above her knee. And then she realized what it was. Snot. This morning Brooke had hugged her knees good-bye while Mia was leaving her at da
ycare. Only she hadn’t been hugging or even clinging. She had been wiping.

  Mia wondered how many people had noticed it today. If so, she hoped none of them had identified it. She tried to brush it off while she asked Charlie to explain to the grand jurors who Darin was and how he had taken his own life.

  While not allowed in a trial jury, hearsay was permitted before a grand jury, so Charlie could talk about what he had learned through their interviews. Once more Mia was amazed at Charlie’s ability to remember conversations almost verbatim.

  Last night she issued target letters to Brandon Shiller and Reece Jones, ordering them to appear next week in front of the grand jury as hostile witnesses. While they had no choice but to appear, they could still refuse to answer any question if the answer might tend to incriminate them. The boys could also bring lawyers with them and even leave the grand jury room to consult them, but in this room it would only be Mia, the jurors, the court reporter, and the witness.

  Mia said, “What might have tipped Darin over the edge was when his Facebook account was hacked.” She asked Charlie to read some of the printouts aloud. While he did, she watched the jurors’ faces, not his. She saw revulsion, embarrassment, and pity.

  When he finished, she asked, “So do you have any questions for Detective Carlson?” She liked to hear what regular people were thinking. The grand jurors’ questions could help shape her approach to any future trial. And sometimes jurors even thought of angles she had missed.

  “What about the school?” a plump woman in a red cardigan asked. “Did they know about what was happening?”

  “Some of the harassment occurred at Darin’s middle school,” Charlie said. “Some continued over the summer. And some seems to have taken place at his new high school. While the middle school knew there was an issue and tried to intervene, the high school was unaware of the problem until it was too late.”

  “What’s the dividing line between cruel behavior and criminal behavior?” asked a middle-aged man in a pin-striped suit.

  “Sometimes that can be difficult. Cruel behavior can be despicable without being criminal. However, in Darin’s case, we are talking about more than simple cruelty. I told you that Jeremy Donaldson saw Darin on his hands and knees with a bloody face and with Mr. Shiller and Mr. Jones standing over him. All of Darin’s friends and his father reported seeing bruises that appeared to be the result of physical contact. In other words, assaults.” When Charlie took a breath, there was a slight hitch to it. He added, “And the hacking into Darin’s Facebook account is clearly covered by Washington’s cyberstalking law.”

  Something seemed to have shifted in Charlie as they interviewed Darin’s friends. Mia had found herself wondering just what memories had been stirred up.

  A frail-looking man with white hair said, “Can we really hold a teenager criminally liable for the suicide of another teenager?” Each word was pronounced with precision. “These kids didn’t put the scarf around his neck, after all. They were nowhere near when it happened.”

  Mia said, “That’s why we’re here in front of you. We need your help in deciding whether the cruelty rises to the level of criminal behavior.” She waited a moment, but no one else spoke. She took a deep breath. “Okay, if there are no other questions, I’m going to turn to the death of my colleague, Colleen Miller. And again I’m going to ask Detective Carlson to go through some of the facts we’ve already learned about her death. I’m also going to have him tell you about the death of Stan Slavich, another King County prosecutor who was also shot at home over four years ago, and whose killer has not yet been found.”

  After summarizing the basic facts of Colleen’s and Stan’s deaths, Charlie said, “We don’t know if their deaths are linked, but we can’t overlook the similarities. You may already be familiar with this idea, but when we investigate a murder, we try to figure out who had the motive, means, and opportunity. One problem with Ms. Miller’s death is that we have not been able to ascertain the motive. If the motive was her work as a prosecutor, then it may be no coincidence that she was killed in the same manner as her co-worker. However, just because they were both shot to death may not prove anything. After all, guns are involved in nearly thirteen thousand homicides in America each year. However, one thing Ms. Miller and Mr. Slavich did have in common was they were both active in Safe Seattle.” Charlie summarized their efforts to find True Patriot and their visit to Second Amendment Seattle, including Gary Teller’s contention that a pro–gun control vigilante might have tried to make martyrs of Colleen and Stan.

  “Do you believe that last theory is possible?” Mia asked.

  “Possible?” Charlie echoed. “Anything’s possible. Likely? No. There’s a saying: when you hear hoofbeats, don’t look for zebras. With Ms. Miller’s death, I think we need to consider some of the more common reasons for murder. Normally those are jealousy, revenge, profit, or to conceal another crime.”

  “Can you tell the jury about Ms. Miller’s romantic relationships?” Mia asked.

  “As far as we know, there was only one recent one. Ms. Miller had an online relationship with a man named Vincent. We’re getting his contact information.”

  “What about the profit motive? Was there anyone who would have benefited financially from Ms. Miller’s death?”

  Charlie nodded. “I also interviewed Ms. Miller’s ex-husband, Martin Miller. He admitted arguing with Colleen about paying for their daughter’s college tuition. He also has a .22 caliber handgun, which is the same caliber as the bullet that killed both Ms. Miller and Mr. Slavich. His alibi is that he was with his current wife. We have submitted a warrant to his phone carrier for his cell site location information.”

  Mia said, “Can you explain what that is?”

  “Sure,” Charlie said. “Even when someone isn’t making or receiving a call, their cell phone still automatically registers with the nearest cell tower. And it continues to reregister as they move around. In a city like Seattle, that means we can pin down a user’s location within a few blocks.”

  When Charlie was finished, they broke for lunch. Mia scraped off the worst of the stain, and then instead of going back to her office she went out to the Suburban. The Suburban that she had listed on a site for people who wanted to take over someone else’s lease payment. The car was the only place she could be alone, without anyone overhearing her. And at least during lunch she wasn’t driving and talking, the way she had been this morning.

  Mia knew that hands-free wasn’t really safe. She’d seen the studies. Their office had even prosecuted egregious cases of distracted driving. And those studies had probably been of people having normal conversations. Not trying to work out repayment plans for thousands and thousands of dollars.

  She picked up the next bill in the pile. It was for a Visa card. Squinting at the tiny print, she called the number for customer service. “My husband died and left me with some large credit card bills that I was unaware of. I need to work out a repayment plan that I can afford.”

  Mia spent the next half hour being transferred, explaining her situation, and laying out the hard numbers that still shocked her. At the end of her lunch break, she had achieved a reduced interest rate and gotten the late fees and penalties waived.

  Three down. Nine to go.

  CHAPTER 27

  When Mia went back to her office, she was surprised to find Charlie waiting for her. On his face was an expression she hadn’t seen there before, a kind of glee. “I just got the cell site location information for Martin.”

  “And?” Mia waited for the other shoe to drop.

  “And it matched what he said. He was at home all evening.”

  For how indispensable cell phones had become, they could still be dispensed with. “Or at least his cell phone was,” Mia pointed out, wondering why Charlie seemed so happy. Had he found a witness or footage from a nearby security cam that had showed Martin near Colleen’s house that night?

  He gave her a Cheshire grin. “I didn’t just run Martin�
��s phone. I ran all the phones on his account.”

  Comprehension dawned. Not Martin. His wife. “Gina.”

  “Exactly.” Charlie got to his feet. “Gina’s cell phone was within a two-block radius of Colleen’s house around the time of the murder.”

  “So either Martin was there with Gina’s phone or Gina herself was there. Either way, Martin lied.”

  “Yup.” Charlie pulled his car keys from his pocket. “Now we’ve got motive, means, and opportunity.” In two quick strides he was at her door. “Let’s go talk to her.”

  As they hurried down the hall, Jonas came up to them.

  “Mia, there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

  “Um . . .” She looked at Charlie, who was shifting from foot to foot. “Can it wait?”

  “I’m not sure that it can. I believe there’s some facet of the data regarding Colleen and Stan that I’m overlooking. I looked for common defendants. I looked for affiliations with fringe groups. But I fear there’s something’s missing. With your permission, I’d like to ask an outside computer expert for help. She specializes in database searches.”

  Mia flashed back to Frank’s talk about money. “Unfortunately, Jonas, I don’t think there’s room for that in the budget.”

  “That won’t be an issue,” Jonas said. “If she’s interested, she doesn’t charge.”

  That was certainly unusual, but Mia didn’t have time to ask more. Charlie was jingling his keys impatiently. “Okay, sure,” she said, waving her hand. “We’ll talk about it more later.”

  Martin and Gina lived in a thirty-story silver-and-glass condo building layered with jutting balconies that made it resemble a giant electric razor.

  “It looks like a giant piece of medical equipment,” Charlie said, craning his neck.

  “I think it looks great,” Mia said. “All those clean lines. And just think—no lawn to mow, no gutters to clean, no roofs to keep the moss off of.”