The Mia Quinn Collection

by Lis Wiehl

  “But you want me to tell on my friends.” His look was anguished.

  “I’m not saying it’s not going to be hard. But it’s the right thing to do. And look at this logically. The police already have the video. The visuals are clear. Including images of you. That shirt pulled over your nose and mouth isn’t much of a disguise. It’s only a matter of time before they figure out one or two of the people who were in there. And once they have one, that person will give up the rest. We have a bargaining position if you go there voluntarily.” Mia hated to be thinking strategically. But this was her son. “We lose that once you’re identified.”

  “But I didn’t even take the stupid candy bar!” His voice rose. “I didn’t take anything!”

  “There could still be other charges. Conspiracy to commit theft. Disorderly conduct. Malicious mischief. They’re talking about making an example of the kids who were there so it doesn’t happen again. Even if you didn’t take anything, it doesn’t change that you were willingly there.”

  “Okay.” Gabe’s shoulders slumped. “Okay, I’ll talk to the police.”

  At the police station Brooke tilted her head back to look at the high ceiling, slowing their progress, while Mia resisted the urge to tug her forward. Her heels echoed on the white marble floor. She asked the woman behind the bulletproof glass for Marc Stoker, the detective handling the case. Tracy had given Mia his name when Mia told her she might have recognized one of the kids on the tape. Mia hadn’t said it was Gabe, and she had been relieved when she didn’t recognize the detective’s name. Bad enough to go through this with a stranger. Far worse to do it with someone she had worked with. Then she had called to ask if Marc could stay late to meet them.

  Now they waited in silence. Her son stood two paces behind her with his head down. When the detective came out, Gabe’s eyes widened. Marc Stoker’s biceps strained the short sleeves of his black uniform shirt. He had a shaved head, a brown mustache, and a close-trimmed goatee.

  “My son has a matter he wishes to speak to you about.” Mia didn’t let on that she had paved the way for this. Let Gabe carry the burden.

  Gabe’s voice was low. “I went to that Sunshine Mart with those kids. The ones who stole things. But I didn’t take anything.”

  “All right,” Marc said. “Let’s go on back and talk.”

  He took them to a room where a video player was set up. At first Brooke watched the tape with interest. She grew bored as Marc stopped and started it, walking Gabe through what had happened and writing down the names Gabe knew. Mia had tossed some crayons and a notebook into her purse before leaving home, and now she let Brooke draw while she half listened to what Gabe was saying.

  Then she heard Gabe say Zach’s name as he pointed at one of the boys wearing bandannas. Mia stiffened. The kid who had shaken her hand, looked her in the eye, asked about her job? The one who had made such a good impression? Maybe she was no better judge of character than Gabe.

  Eventually Marc asked Gabe to look through yearbooks for kids whose names he didn’t know but who had taken part.

  “Where do you get the yearbooks from?” Gabe asked. He was starting to relax because he thought the worst was over. He didn’t know Mia was planning one more stop before this day—which she hoped was the worst in his life—was over.

  “Every year we ask the schools to send them to us,” Marc said. “As you can see, they can come in handy.” It was depressing to think that a percentage of the yearbook’s smiling faces would someday be posing for mug shots.

  While Gabe was looking through them, Mia stepped out into the hallway and made a phone call. Fifteen minutes later the detective said they were done and shook Gabe’s hand. Gabe’s shoulders straightened.

  “There’s one more stop we have to make,” Mia said as they walked to the car.

  He stopped. “What?”

  “We’re going to see your coach.”

  Tears welled up in his eyes. “Mom—no.”

  “I know there’s a code of conduct for the team, and you violated it. I need you to tell Coach Harper that yourself.”

  Gabe was silent during the twenty-minute drive to the coach’s house. Mia did not attempt to fill it. She hoped he was thinking. In the back Brooke had fallen asleep, her head at an awkward angle. When Mia pulled into the driveway, she hoisted Brooke onto her hip, ignoring her sleepy grumbles.

  The coach answered the door. Standing this close to him, she realized with a shock that she was probably a few years older than he was. He had light red hair and eyes that slanted down at the corners. From the back of the house, Mia could hear the piping sound of a young child’s voice and a woman’s soft answer.

  “Coach Harper,” she said, shifting Brooke’s weight so she could offer her hand. “I’m Mia Quinn. Gabe’s mom.”

  “Hello.” His expression was wary. Mia had given him the barest explanation of why they were coming.

  “Gabe, can you tell the coach what happened on Sunday?”

  In a few halting sentences, her son laid it out. He kept his eyes down until the very end.

  The coach sucked in a breath. “And were there other players from the team involved?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He winced. “Under the code of conduct I had you all sign, you are held to the highest standards of moral behavior and character both on and off the field. What happened on Sunday clearly violated that code.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The coach’s jaw firmed. “Who were the other players, Gabe?”

  Mia stepped forward. “The police are figuring that out now, and I expect there will be charges filed. Right now, the way I see it, this is between you and Gabe, between Gabe and his conscience, and between Gabe and me. The information about who else was involved is going to come out, but I don’t think it has to come to you from Gabe.”

  Coach Harper looked up at the ceiling, thinking. Then he nodded. “All right. I accept that.” He turned to Gabe. “I’m glad you came to me. I’m guessing this was your mother’s idea, but still, you’re here and you’re being honest. I respect that.”

  Gabe’s shoulders relaxed the tiniest bit.

  “But I also have to consider that you acted in a way that violated our ethics. I’m going to bench you for three games.”

  Gabe took a ragged breath and then nodded. “I actually haven’t played once since the season started.”

  The coach nodded. “I’m aware of that.”

  “You are?” His eyes widened, and in her son’s expression Mia could see how beaten down he had been feeling, sitting on the bench game after game.

  “Yes.”

  “But why? What have I been doing wrong?”

  Coach Harper’s face was open. “What do you think, Gabe?”

  Gabe hesitated and then said in a rush, “It could be because I’m not good enough. Or because I’m new and don’t know the plays yet. Or because I missed that one practice.”

  “If you weren’t good enough, you wouldn’t have made the team.” The coach put his hand on Gabe’s shoulder. “It’s the second thing you said—you don’t know the plays well enough yet. But you keep studying the playbook and you keep showing up to practice, and you will.” He squeezed his shoulder and then let go. “I have faith in you, Gabe.”

  “Even after today?” Gabe bit his lip. His eyes were shiny.

  “Maybe especially after today.”

  CHAPTER 41

  It happened again that night—Brooke screaming in terror, Mia unable to wake her, Gabe hovering, helpless and wide-eyed, at the end of his sister’s bed. The only difference was that Mia knew she would be seeing their pediatrician the next day. She just prayed that Dr. Gibbs would know what was going on.

  Mia had gotten the earliest doctor’s appointment that she could—eight thirty. As she parked in front of the medical office, part of her worried that Frank would note her absence and be unhappy. But she was no Frank. Her kids came first.

  When Dr. Gibbs came into the exam room, Mia immediately felt h
er shoulders loosen. As she looked into his calm gray eyes, caught in a net of wrinkles, she let her breath out in a whoosh. Dr. Gibbs was nearly seventy. He had once told Mia that he even had a few former patients whose grandchildren now came to him.

  He patted the exam table. “Okay, Brooke, do you think you can get all the way up here for me?”

  Excited by the challenge, Brooke scrambled up. Dr. Gibbs was a small man, nearly elfin, so he was only a few inches taller than Brooke as he listened to her lungs and heart and looked into her ears. Then he handed her a picture book from the rack on the wall. “Why don’t you look at this while your mother and I talk.”

  He turned to Mia. “Has her father’s death greatly affected her?” His soothing voice still held the hint of a Scottish burr.

  “She was sad when it happened. But she’s so young, I’m not sure how much she understands.” Mia tried to swallow the sudden lump in her throat. It thickened when he patted her shoulder.

  “Since this problem began, has she seemed different during the daytime? Is she unhappy? Lashing out?”

  Mia thought back. “Not that I’ve noticed.”

  “And does she ever remember these episodes when she is truly awake?”

  “No.”

  He nodded. “I think I know what we’re dealing with.”

  Mia braced herself. Was it some kind of seizure? Mental illness? A brain tumor?

  “What Brooke is experiencing is something known as night terrors.” He patted her hand. “But they’re more terrifying for the parents than the child. About one or two kids out of every hundred get them. They’re not nightmares, and they’re not the result of bad dreams. Some children’s brains simply haven’t learned how to transition from deep sleep to light sleep. The result is a night terror. It presents in a manner similar to sleepwalking. The brain waves, the sweating, the tachycardia—accelerated heart rate—and the increased respiration rate are similar.”

  Mia remembered what her dad had said. “My father told me I used to sleepwalk.”

  “There you go.” Dr. Gibbs nodded. “There may be some genetic predisposition. But just as you did, Brooke will eventually grow out of it. You can help her by keeping a regular bedtime. Try putting her to bed at eight or eight thirty every single night. Don’t let her fall asleep earlier than that, and don’t keep her up later. And if she continues to have night terrors, you should pay attention to how long after she goes to bed they occur. Then try waking her up fifteen minutes before that time and keeping her awake for about five minutes. In a few months her brain should catch up with her sleep patterns and the night terrors should stop altogether.”

  Even though she barely made it back to the courtroom for her scheduled time in front of the grand jury, Mia felt oddly relaxed. Brooke was okay.

  She began by bringing the grand jury up to speed on the events of the last few days. She put Charlie on the stand to testify about what Gina Miller had said about being near Colleen’s house the night of the murder.

  “And Gina Miller volunteered for a polygraph?” Mia asked.

  “Yes.” Charlie nodded. “I observed as it was administered. According to the examiner, she passed the test with no signs of deception.” While the polygraph results weren’t admissible in court, they could be helpful when considered in totality with other evidence. “We also took possession of a .22 caliber pistol that had been stored in a shoe box. She claimed the gun had not been fired in several years, but there is no way to test for that.”

  He also talked about the homeless girl who lived across the street from Colleen.

  “And what efforts have you made to find her?” Mia asked. In a way, she was asking for herself as much as for the grand jury. She hadn’t touched base with Charlie since they had spoken with Ophelia.

  “I went to the local high school and determined that Ronni Slate has been attending this school year. However, Friday was the last day she was in school. I talked to several of her friends and encouraged them to have her contact me, but I haven’t heard from her yet.”

  Finally Mia asked him to explain to the grand jury about Willy Mercer, who had been prosecuted by Stan for a little girl’s murder and who himself had been murdered, targeted for a killing it later turned out he actually hadn’t committed.

  “And what have you learned since then, Detective Carlson?”

  “Colleen Miller prosecuted the girl’s real killer two years ago.” He explained how the girl’s stepfather had been the man who really murdered her. “The parents of Willy Mercer divorced after his death. I’ve spoken with his mother, and she denied any involvement in Mr. Slavich’s or Ms. Miller’s death. Willy’s dad, Seth Mercer, has moved since his son was killed, and I’m trying to locate him for questioning.”

  Mia turned to the grand jury. “Do you have any questions for Detective Carlson?”

  “How could everyone believe that poor boy was guilty?” a woman with red-framed eyeglasses asked.

  Charlie sighed. “It’s unintentional, but sometimes people see what they want to see. Given the previous charge that Willy Mercer had been a Peeping Tom, Stan Slavich focused on the things that linked him to this case. Unfortunately, Mr. Slavich was wrong.”

  Mia wondered if Stan had paid the ultimate price for his blindness. Public defenders like Eli Hall were often asked how they could defend a murderer or a rapist: what if a guilty man went free? But no one seemed to realize that the prosecutor faced a similar dilemma: what if an innocent man was imprisoned? Even if Stan had been right 99 percent of the time, that still meant that out of a hundred cases, one defendant he prosecuted might have been innocent, sent to prison for a crime he or she hadn’t committed.

  The same horrible statistic applied to Mia.

  When there were no more questions, Mia said, “Okay, people, we’ll take a ten-minute recess and then we’ll turn to the case of Darin Dane.”

  Mia remained at her table, although she could hear the babble of the grand jurors’ voices as they took their chance to grab a snack and discuss what they had just seen and heard.

  Ten minutes later the court reporter swore in Reece Jones. Today he was dressed in a navy blue suit that set off his blue eyes and dark hair. The suit was perhaps a mistake on the part of his attorney, because it made him look several years older than fourteen.

  “Now, Mr. Jones, could you please tell us where you go to school?” Mia asked.

  Reece looked down at a yellow piece of paper that he clutched in his hand.

  “On the advice of my attorney,” he said, “I must respectfully decline to answer and assert my constitutional right to remain silent.” His voice started out small and then got louder as he went along.

  Reece might have an attorney, but the attorney was not allowed to accompany his client into the grand jury room. Instead he was forced to wait on one of the narrow benches in the hall and hope that his client didn’t decide to disregard his script.

  “You seem to be reading from a piece of yellow paper, and there is some writing on that paper,” Mia said. “Is that writing what you have just read to us now?”

  Reece hesitated, then finally said, “Yes.”

  “And did your attorney write that out for you this morning?”

  After a moment’s pause, he looked back down. “On the advice of my attorney, I must respectfully decline to answer and assert my constitutional right to remain silent.”

  The jurors looked at each other with raised eyebrows and shakes of the head.

  “Did you know Darin Dane?”

  Another glance at the paper, although by now Mia thought Reece should have had it memorized. “On the advice of my attorney, I must respectfully decline to answer and assert my constitutional right to remain silent.” When Reece raised his face, he was smiling.

  No, scratch that, Mia thought. He was smirking.

  She fought to keep her own voice neutral. “Did you ever physically strike Darin Dane?”

  A hint of singsong crept into Reece’s voice. “On the advice of my attorne
y, I must respectfully decline to answer and assert my constitutional right to remain silent.”

  Murmurs now.

  “Did you ever hack into his Facebook page and put up malicious postings?”

  Reece’s eyebrows drew down. He opened his mouth, closed it, and then finally read his prepared statement again. “On the advice of my attorney, I must respectfully decline to answer and assert my constitutional right to remain silent.”

  As he spoke, a few jurors began to mutter impatiently.

  “Okay, Mr. Jones, I understand that your lawyer has instructed you to not answer today. We”—she indicated the grand jury—“would like to hear from you if you change your mind. Until then, thank you.”

  Reece left with a bounce in his step.

  Next, Brandon Shiller was brought into the room and sworn in. His hair, so stiff with gel it angled straight out from his head, made Mia think of a character from one of the video games Gabe liked to play. She wondered how seriously he was taking all of this. But then she looked into his wide-spaced brown eyes and saw fear. Secretly Mia was glad. How frightened must Darin have been of Brandon?

  “Mr. Shiller, where do you go to school?”

  “Independence High.”

  “What year are you in?”

  “I’m a freshman.” He kept his eyes on his folded hands.

  “And who are your close friends at school?”

  “I don’t know. Reece, I guess. And Conrad. Zane.”

  “Could you please give me their last names, Mr. Shiller?”

  “Um, okay. It’s Reece Jones, Conrad Silcox, and Zane Appall.” His fingers were still folded, but now the knuckles were white.

  “And are you involved in any sports at Independence High?”

  “Right now I play football.”

  “And those other boys you mentioned, do they also play football?”