Death Takes Priority

by Jean Flowers

  My facial expression was out of my control. I tried for an empathetic look; a supportive smile; a kind, patient attitude. But I was sure my eyes or the muscles around my mouth gave away how upset I was. I wanted to know why he wouldn’t testify. Wouldn’t he be eager to help clear his mother? Or did he know something to the contrary?

  “Which ‘they’ are you trying to avoid? The prosecution or the defense? And why?” I asked, before I could stop myself. “Why won’t you testify?” I hadn’t meant for it to come out so much like an accusation.

  Quinn pressed his palm against the side of his head, as if trying to keep it together. I wished I could help him. “You know what? I shouldn’t even be talking to you about this. In fact, can we move on? Can you trust me for now, until I can figure out the best course of action for my mother?”

  “But . . .”

  “Please?” He put his hand on mine and pulled it away immediately, even though I’d made no attempt to move it. Unless my mental waffling showed outwardly. “Let me just say that I need to keep you out of it, for everyone’s sake, including yours.”

  I took a deep, frustrated breath. “Can you at least tell me what this has to do with Wendell Graham?”

  Quinn threw up his hands. “I wish I knew. I swear. I’m telling you straight out; I’m not holding back. I have no idea why they questioned me about Wendell Graham. I’m not sure I ever met the man, unless he was in a line with me getting coffee or, you know, crossing in front of me while I was at a stop sign.”

  “He was found with a piece of paper with both your names on it. Why? How would he know your real name?”

  He took a breath, sounding equally frustrated. “I. Have. No. Idea.” His knees bounced in a nervous way with each beat, each word of the sentence. He didn’t speak in an angry tone; it was at a slow pace, as if trying to find the answer. He looked at me. “Do you believe me on that?” he asked, his eyes pleading.

  “I do. And I guess the chief of police believes you, too. Otherwise she wouldn’t have released you.”

  Quinn reached for his third slice of pizza; I was finished eating, having practically inhaled my slice.

  “She’s okay with it as long as I stay in town, but that’s fine,” he said. “I’m grateful to that lawyer, wherever he’s from. Edmund Morrison, I think he said.”

  “You didn’t hire him?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Me? From what the cop told me, his watch cost more than the monthly budget for the whole force. He’s from some big firm in New York.”

  “Did he interview you?”

  Quinn shook his head. “He came in for, like, five minutes, gave me his card, which I have to locate, now that I think of it, and told me not to talk to anyone without him present, and left.”

  “Did that seem strange to you?”

  “More than strange, but here I am, instead of in jail, so I’m not complaining. I should have called him immediately when I got out, but in a way I’m afraid to. What if it was a mistake and they put me back in custody? On the other hand, I don’t want to be slapped with a bill that will require me to sell my car, if I can head it off.” He finished his coffee and started on the cookies. I’d forgotten how much men as big as Quinn and my dad could put away in one sitting. “I plan to call him as soon as I find the card. And catch my breath,” he continued. “These two days have been a roller-coaster ride. Or maybe a crazy trip to one of those carnival fun houses.”

  I knew what he meant.

  My phone rang, making this one of the busiest evenings of the season that didn’t involve work. Was more pizza on the way? Dessert? I checked the caller ID, excused myself, and walked into the living room with the phone. I said hello to the chief of police. Alas, no gelato delivery.

  “Hey, Cassie, just checking in. Sorry again that you had to make the trip to the station for nothing.”

  My gaze fell on Quinn, sitting a few yards away in my kitchen, one leg resting on the other knee, sipping from a mug of coffee. “No big deal. It gave me a chance for a nice little walk.”

  “Did Ross tell you about the fancy lawyer who got him out? Very top tier.”

  “Uh, yes, he did.” Why did I feel I was withholding information?

  “You sound like you have some company. I’ll let you go.”

  “Well . . .”

  “It’s okay. Just wanted to check in. Mind if I stop by with my lunch tomorrow? My coffee’s better but your place is quieter. At least at noon.”

  “That would be great, and I’ll start with a fresh pot, I promise.”

  “Just kidding about the coffee. See you then. Have a good evening.”

  I hung up, as nervous as if I’d lied under oath.

  * * *

  Quinn and I moved back to the living room and took the same easy chairs across from one another, the coffee table between us. The street outside was quiet. Not that it was ever as busy as traffic on the Fenway in front of my Boston apartment, but on some nights here teens turned out to cruise the neighborhood. Reveling, North Ashcot–style.

  We shared a little more of our lives beyond phone books and murder investigations, and Quinn became the first person in town to learn about Adam.

  “Looks to me like you miss Boston more than you miss Adam,” he said, after sharing one innocuous back-home anecdote of his own.

  “What makes you say that?”

  He looked around, pointing here and there. I followed his direction, from the paperweight on an end table—a glass encased rendering of the Swan Boats on the Charles River—to a framed certificate verifying that I’d bought a brick for the courtyard at the USS Constitution Museum to a coffee table book on the collection at the Museum of Fine Arts.

  “And then there’s the mirror in the bathroom.”

  “With the Plymouth lighthouse scene across the top.”

  “And the pens, the Old North Church magnet on the fridge, the mugs—”

  “I get it,” I said, laughing. “And”—I pointed to a small bowl of red candy-covered nuts—“you forgot the Boston Baked Beans.”

  He popped a couple of “beans” in his mouth. “Always loved these. Didn’t know they were really from Boston.”

  “A lot of the things you’re pointing out were gifts,” I explained, bordering on defensive. “I’m showing my appreciation by displaying them.”

  “Are they from Adam?”

  “No. Good point.”

  From what I’d told him, Quinn had deduced correctly that my home now reflected my taste and not Adam’s. In fact, most of the Boston paraphernalia had been hidden away in my apartment, since the items only contributed to Adam’s disapproval of my touristy décor, which was even worse in his mind than my college-dorm taste. More grist for my “Letting Go” mill.

  For his part, Quinn kept to his pattern of engaging me in stories about jobs after college, and threw me only small bones now and then about what his life was like pre–North Ashcot.

  He told me one typical frat story from his college days in Berkeley, and admitted to his part in keeping the tie-dye T-shirt tradition alive on campus. He then pointed to a small toy mail truck among my windowsill ornaments and asked for my favorite post office story. Lucky for him, I loved to tell mail tales.

  * * *

  Around eleven, we decided it should be safe for Quinn to sneak out and head home. Even so, I helped him work out an inner belt route from the back of my house to where he said he’d left his car. It was a cold night so we doubted anyone would have windows open or be sitting on a porch.

  “Let’s hope I’m not back at the police station, arrested for trespassing,” he said. I took it as a good sign that we could joke about his situation, at least for now. There was still the matter of who murdered Wendell Graham, and I was sure Quinn wouldn’t feel really comfortable until that mystery was solved. Neither would I.

  “One more thing,” I said. I’d e
xtracted the errant letter from my purse as Quinn was putting on his jacket, stuffing his arms, still encased in my UMASS sweatshirt, into the sleeves. “I forgot to give you this. It came to the post office yesterday, when you were . . .” I searched for a neutral word. “Unavailable.”

  “Forgot” wasn’t exactly the right word either, but every time I’d thought of it this evening, I found an excuse not to hand over the envelope. The pizza would get cold, for example, or the phone might ring.

  Quinn took the envelope from me, glanced at it, and put it in his jacket pocket with a simple, “Thanks.”

  What? Just like that? Sharing time was over? Didn’t I deserve to know what I’d been sweating about for so many hours? If I’d known I was going to be shut out of this letter-opening event, I might have kept the piece of mail longer and made a more active attempt to identify its source. Maybe even used the steam-from-a-kettle technique my college roommate had taught me.

  “I hope I haven’t inconvenienced you by forgetting to give you that letter sooner,” I said. Hint, hint.

  “No. I’m the one who should thank you for letting me drop in tonight. You saved my sanity.” He laughed and tilted his head. “I think. I know I had a really nice time, in any case.”

  “Me, too.” Except for these last two minutes.

  “Do we dare try lunch tomorrow?”

  “Sure, but maybe we should drive separately,” I said.

  Quinn smiled, and went down my back steps. At the bottom, he turned and touched his cap, a salute of sorts. I felt like a teenager ushering her boyfriend out the back door before her parents caught on.

  It made no sense, but, in spite of the way he kept things close to his vest, I trusted Quinn, and felt closer to him than to anyone else in North Ashcot.

  Besides, now I had a few more details than I had earlier today. I could narrow my search a bit with confirmation on the place: San Francisco; a date: a year ago; and a scenario: a woman accused of stabbing her husband multiple times. Curiosity was an annoying addiction.

  * * *

  After a half hour, I’d ruled out the newlyweds in a town north of San Francisco who’d attempted to kill each other, and an older couple who’d gone on a shooting rampage. A better possibility reared its head: the case of a woman who lived in the Sunset District of San Francisco, close to the Pacific Ocean, who had been taken into custody when her husband was found in nearby Golden Gate Park, the victim of multiple stab wounds. Police were looking for anyone with information. Her adult son was unavailable for comment.

  Aha. I was sure I’d just shared a pizza with her adult son. It took me more time than it should have to realize that the stabbing had occurred only last week. Wrong time frame. I closed my laptop and called myself a failure at effectively utilizing search engines.

  I was headed to my bedroom when I remembered I hadn’t checked my messages. My routine had been thrown off by the busy social evening. And it wasn’t over yet. I had three messages and three more lunch invitations. Derek Hathaway was “eager to catch up” with me after all these years; Tim Cousins finally had a little free time to give me “a proper welcome to our little town,” as did Selectwoman Gert Corbin whose secretary had called: Could someone please call the office to schedule a date? In other words, my people should call her people. I didn’t think so.

  Two unappealing men and one woman who didn’t care enough to handle her own lunch dates. No thank you. I’d been meaning to get rid of the landline handed down by Aunt Tess—who needed them anymore?— and now moved the chore to the top of my list.

  * * *

  Another fitful night. Last night, questions had kept me up; tonight, it was some of the answers that wouldn’t let me sleep. I’d almost dozed off when I realized I’d double booked myself for lunch—with Sunni, and then with Quinn. Even aside from the annoying message-leavers, my social life was booming. If only it wasn’t all wrapped up in law enforcement, murder, and legal issues.

  The last dream I remembered on Wednesday morning was another twisted scenario where my phone books had been delivered with a special postmark that would one day be ranked high value on the collectibles list. I shouldn’t have been surprised, since I’d read a blog article right before falling asleep. The article chronicled a recent convention of postmark collectors, a group who were less well-known than stamp collectors, but no less avid. I needed to monitor my bedtime reading more carefully.

  One of the collectors in the (real) photograph I’d seen, looking a lot like Quinn, snuck into my dream and walked away with phone books that had an outline-type postmark in the shape of California. Never mind that there was no postmark on the real phone books, or that nothing else in the dream made sense.

  In that way, my dreams matched my real life.

  9

  The first thing I had to take care of on Wednesday morning was the disposition of the newly recovered phone books; the second was to unbook my lunch date with either Quinn or Sunni.

  The first was easy. I spent about fifteen minutes before opening the doors, making sure the directory count was correct at two hundred and fifteen books, and that none were damaged to the extent that they couldn’t be used. I’d checked the offensive ad for Ashcot’s Attic and felt bad that I didn’t have time to open each one and scratch Scott’s name from the listing. I did note that his boss had been right: Scott James was definitely cute.

  Following strict policy, I should have put a notice in each post office box, asking the customer to come to the counter, where I’d hand over a directory. But I decided that, since I was already a few days late with distribution, I’d cut that corner. I placed a pile of books on the counter with a sign that invited box holders to take one, and replenished the pile through the morning. I trusted North Ashcot citizens not to cheat and take a book if they weren’t box renters, or to take more than one book. After all, our crime rate was negligible. Except for this week’s murder.

  The second chore, straightening my lunch calendar, was harder to accomplish. Sunni or Quinn? How to make the decision? I could decide based on chronology—“first come, first served”—and keep my date with Sunni, the first to ask. Or I could follow the “keep on the good side of the law” principle, which still brought me to lunch with Sunni. Factoring in the nosiness principle— did I want to know more about Quinn and his life before North Ashcot, or more about the current investigation into Wendell’s murder? That line of thought ended in a tie.

  My final choice: I’d start with Sunni, and if she wanted to talk about her quilts or the kite festival instead of the murder investigation, I’d plead upset stomach and call Quinn as backup. The fact that it took so much thinking on my part to arrange lunch was a clue that I didn’t get out much.

  To complicate matters, my counter was very busy for the first half hour or so and I didn’t have a minute to make a call to either of my potential dates.

  Continuing the trend of animal week, Mrs. Spenser’s cockatoo had an accident on the table that held the postal forms, requiring special cleanup. Happily, Mrs. Spenser’s young granddaughter offered to take care of the mess. I handed her cleaning supplies and a pile of new forms and she assured me we’d be back in business in no time.

  When Sally Aldritch came by with another large “media mail” box for her son, I gave her a look that sent her ducking back and out the door. I figured she thought I was giving her a sign that in our midst today there was a mystery shopper—like an undercover cop, only a postal worker who’d come to check on operations and potential postal code violations. I wouldn’t have been sorry if Sally had been afraid that she’d be led out in handcuffs. Maybe the frightening image would keep her from further testing my leniency.

  I could have told Sally about the time I was enlisted to monitor a certain post office with respect to the conduct of a postmaster, only to learn that he’d been living in the building. It was a large enough facility that he had his own office, and he slept, ate,
and lived in that room after hours. The stiff penalty might have sobered Sally to the realities of trying to put one over on the USPS.

  The last customer before a break in the line was none other than my least favorite redhead in her green parka.

  Wanda Cox came to the counter with a flat-rate envelope that I suspected was empty, a prop that she was willing to pay for to get my attention. If there were a postal inspector in my office that day, I knew he wouldn’t care about someone willing to spend more money than necessary. After the transaction, real or not, Wanda did her best, given her small, short frame, to lean over for an intimate conversation. I noticed for the first time how young she was, probably nine or ten years my junior.

  “Look, how about I buy you lunch, and we talk, just for as long as it takes to eat a salad. Huh? Can you give me that?” she asked.

  “I’m booked. In fact, I’m double booked.” It felt good to say that with a free and clear conscience.

  “After work then. Coffee?”

  “I’m booked.” Conscience almost clear, since I planned to have lunch with Sunni and coffee with Quinn, if it worked out for him.

  She slid her card toward me.

  “I have one already.”

  “Did you even look at it?”

  By reflex, I looked down, ready to say, “Yes, now go away.” This time I read the name. Wanda Graham Cox.

  “Please go”—I looked again—“Wanda Graham? Are you—?”

  She nodded, seeming on the verge of tears. “I’m Wendell Graham’s little sister and I need your help.”