Dead and Gone

by Tina Glasneck

  It fit too well. Quinn’s unease increased every time he thought about it. The reporting instinct he had counted on for years—what he jokingly called his “Spidey sense”—was tingling.

  He thought he had been on the story of a lifetime. But now he had the distinct feeling he had been used. The story was so right it felt wrong.

  It was unnerving and the more congratulations he received, the worse he felt.

  What was it Buzz said? Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they are not out to get you. Quinn thought Buzz was more than a little crazy, but maybe he was right on that one.

  He leaned forward and stared at his keyboard. From a distance it looked fine, but when he examined it closely, it had crumbs and small hairs between the keys. It looked nasty. It seemed an apt metaphor.

  Almost everyone else appeared happy. Rebecca actually seemed in a good mood, an unusual state for her. And Laurence had already told him twice what an excellent story it was. He acted like some kind of proud father, probably because he knew the paper would sell well today. Murders were more common than they once were—and God knows this town had its own brand of serial killer a dozen years back—but they were rare enough to attract attention.

  But Kate appeared more withdrawn than ever. She complimented him briefly in the morning, but hadn’t said much of anything else. And she had reason to be happy apart from his story. Quinn noticed Kate’s first by-line had ended up on the front page, an exclusive from Martin Heller offering a compromise with the conservationists at Phillips Farm. On any other week, it would have been the lead story. But he could not imagine that Kate would hold that against him.

  Rebecca interrupted Quinn’s reverie when she started rounding everyone up for the staff meeting. Quinn left his keyboard and followed her into the conference room.

  The meeting was already out of Laurence’s control by the time Ethan Holden walked in. Kyle had spent 15 minutes discussing the poor quality of the photos with his story, which had touched off a fight with Josh, the head photographer, while Alexis complained bitterly about last minute changes made to her story on the new science lab at Park View High School.

  At least two people audibly groaned when they saw Holden open the door and stroll in. He looked at the motley group around the table, smiled briefly, and then walked to the far side of the room.

  “Please continue,” he said in a deep gravelly voice. “I don’t want to interrupt.”

  Janus snorted and when Holden looked at him, acted like he had a coughing fit.

  Laurence placed his palms on the table and began for a third time.

  “I think we had a good paper,” he said. “Quinn, I want to make sure we keep a close eye on your story. They may have arrested the husband, but if we have new details by next week, we should make sure to stay on top of that.”

  This was the part of the staff meeting Quinn despised. Laurence did not have a clue what to say now that Holden—his boss—had shown up. He kept glancing in his direction waiting for the inevitable interruption.

  Quinn also hated being told to follow the story. Did Laurence really think he wouldn’t? That he would just walk away? No, he doubted Laurence did. But he had to say something.

  He glanced at Kate, who was the only one not darting glances in Holden’s direction. Instead, she seemed to be staring at the wall.

  Quinn realized with alarm that Laurence had asked him something.

  “Yeah,” he said, hoping it was a yes or no question he had been asked.

  Laurence nodded.

  “I also want to stay on the kindergarten fire,” Laurence said.

  Kyle groaned quietly.

  “What more do you want me to say?” he asked Laurence.

  “Interview the parents,” Laurence said. “Talk to other kindergartens.”

  “I don’t think there will be a rash of kindergarten fires, Laurence,” he said.

  “Laurence is right,” boomed Holden, and Helen and Alexis both jumped in their chairs.

  Laurence looked surprised to have Holden supporting him.

  “Kids,” Holden said. “It is always about kids. Remember that.”

  Kyle nodded. The comment had made little sense to anybody but it was safer to nod around Holden.

  “Kids,” he said again, gravely. “And animals. People love animals.”

  Here it went. The semi-monthly everybody-loves-animals story.

  “We need to put more on the front page,” Holden continued. “People connect with animals. Just the other week, Paul Gibson and I went hunting. He told me how important it was that the local paper emphasize this county’s wildlife. That way people can appreciate it more.”

  “By killing it?” Janus asked.

  Laurence glared at him, but Holden didn’t appear to notice.

  “It’s important we tell people what is unique about this county, particularly the wildlife,” Holden said. “I was hoping we would have a few shots of animals in our special Halloween section, Laurence. Maybe a horse-drawn carriage ride in a pumpkin patch. Don’t you think that would be a good idea?”

  Heads swiveled sharply in Holden’s direction and there was an audible gasp from Alexis. People had been beginning to nod off, but that comment got their attention.

  “What Halloween section?” Rebecca asked, looking at Laurence.

  “Uh yes, Mr. Holden, I was going to talk with you about that,” Laurence replied, and looked away from everyone.

  “Yes?” Holden said and looked at Laurence expectantly.

  “Well, I thought, maybe in private we could discuss it.”

  “No time like the present,” Holden replied gruffly. “Let’s all talk about it. This is going to be a big deal.”

  “Well, sir, I just wasn’t sure that the county is quite ready for this,” Laurence said.

  “Ready? I would say it’s overdue,” Holden replied. “We’ve been doing it in the Fairfax papers for five years. It sells well every time. We need to expand it to Loudoun. None of the other papers even mention…”

  “That’s precisely my point, Mr. Holden,” Laurence replied. “Halloween here is a little different.”

  “I know, I know, the killer,” Holden said. “But that was more than a decade ago.”

  “Loudoun isn’t like other places, Mr. Holden,” Rebecca said. “Since 1994, Leesburg has banned any public celebration of Halloween. Shopkeepers are generally discouraged from painting even a pumpkin in the window, much less a ghost. This is not something we want to celebrate here.”

  “Well, I think it is time people got over it,” Holden said.

  “With all due respect, I don’t think you can just…” Laurence started.

  “The paper needs to take a stand,” Holden said. “I’ll write an editorial. It is time to move on, and…”

  “Why, so you can sell a few more papers?” someone said bitterly.

  Helen gasped and the entire staff looked toward the origin of the voice. Kate sat there, glaring straight ahead at Holden.

  Holden coughed abruptly. He was not used to outright defiance.

  “No, of course not,” Holden said.

  “Then why? Why do they need to get over it?” she asked.

  “Kate, I think maybe you should let Rebecca and I handle it,” Laurence said gently.

  Quinn was too surprised to jump in to help her.

  “We can’t live in the past, young woman,” Holden said. “Banning a public celebration of Halloween is poppycock. It’s nonsense. There is no sense tying together the murders with the damn holiday…”

  “Why not?” she asked. “He did. I’d say he connected them together pretty well.”

  “Well, it’s time to let that madman go,” Holden said. “They caught him. He’s dead. People should just move on. What’s done is done.”

  “What about the families of the victims?” Kate asked. “Should they just move on? Forget about it?”

  “Look, I’m just saying…”

  “I know what you are saying,” she said. Hold
en seemed afraid to look her in the face. “It’s over, let’s just all forget about it. Well not everyone can do that. Do you want to be the one to remind them? To force it down their throats?”

  “Kate…” Laurence said.

  “Young lady, I don’t know who you are or why you care so much about this, but I’m the publisher of this paper and I don’t appreciate your tone,” he said.

  “She’s just trying to say that people haven’t forgotten, Mr. Holden,” Quinn said, and Laurence and Rebecca both glared at him. “She doesn’t mean any disrespect.”

  But Kate had a look of pure disgust on her face. Disrespect appeared to be exactly what she intended.

  “Well,” Holden said. “I’m just saying, I think it is about time to put together a section like this.”

  “I don’t know if that is a good idea,” Rebecca said.

  “Well, I do,” Holden said, and banged his hand on the table. “I do think it is about time. We need to move on from this. I want a special Halloween section on my desk by next week. That’s it. No more debate.”

  “Mr. Holden…” Laurence began.

  But Holden stood up.

  “I bid you all good day,” he said stiffly, and walked out.

  Laurence put his head in his hands, and Rebecca glared at Kate.

  “Kate, you are new here, so maybe you didn’t know,” Rebecca said. “That was Ethan Holden, our publisher. Don’t talk to him that way. Ever.”

  “Why not? His idea is going to bring up a lot of pain for everybody,” Kate said.

  “It’s just a Halloween section, with ghost stories and a couple pumpkin carving tips, where is the harm?” Laurence asked.

  “I happen to agree that it isn’t a good idea,” Rebecca said, still looking at Kate. “But he is the publisher of this paper. If the man wants a special section, he’ll get one.”

  “Fine,” Kate said.

  Everyone else sat in stunned silence.

  “In fact, I can tell you right now who is going to write it up,” Rebecca said. “I think we will start with Kate and Quinn. Mostly because they interrupted what should have been a private conversation between Mr. Holden, Laurence and me.”

  “I don’t think you’re being fair,” Quinn said.

  “Newsflash, Mr. O’Brion: Life is not fair,” Rebecca said. “I’ll cut Kate some slack because she is new, but I don’t want to hear another word from you. Laurence and I will brainstorm assignments and hand them out today. You will both get your stories done. That’s all there is to it.”

  “But…”

  “Don’t test me,” Rebecca said and Quinn shivered involuntarily.

  And that was that. The rest of the meeting occurred in near silence. When Rebecca dismissed them, everyone rushed to leave the room.

  By the time Quinn got out, he could already see Kate exiting by the side door. He hurried to catch up with her and got to her outside in the parking lot.

  “Kate?” he asked her.

  She wheeled on him.

  “Don’t follow me,” she said.

  “Whoa,” Quinn put up his hands. “What did I do?”

  “I don’t need your help,” she said. “That man was an idiot. A goddamned idiot.”

  “Are you mad at me or at him?” Quinn asked.

  Kate glared at him and then paused. She sighed.

  “I should leave,” she said.

  “Well, I’d stay out of Rebecca’s way,” he said. “She is not exactly peaches and cream when she is pissed off.”

  “That’s not what I mean,” she said, shaking her head. “I should leave for good. I should have never come back.”

  “Hang on,” Quinn said, and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Look, it’s just a little fight. It will blow over. Come on.”

  “That’s not why. I don’t know why I’m here, Quinn. I was just begging for that kind of outburst. Everything is so…”

  She clenched her fists into balls. She wanted to scream or hit something. But instead she let her fingers slowly curl back out again.

  “Let’s go somewhere,” Quinn said. “Let’s go talk this out.”

  “I don’t think…”

  “Come on,” he said. “Please. You’re upset. I’d like to help.”

  “You can’t,” she said. “You can’t.”

  “How do you know?” he responded. “I don’t think I can make it any worse.”

  She paused before finally sighing. “Okay, let’s talk. God knows I need to talk to somebody.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked him when they were in the car. They had been driving in silence for 10 minutes.

  “You haven’t guessed?” he asked.

  And it was then she knew. They were heading back to the cemetery.

  “Okay,” she said. “Perfect, actually.”

  They rode the rest of the way quietly. He parked by the front gate and they both got out.

  “This is as peaceful a place as there is,” he said. “And private to boot.”

  “It is,” she said. “I should come here more often.”

  “Yeah…”

  “Not for the reasons you think,” she said and started to walk briskly. “Follow me. Remember how you said I had been here before?”

  Quinn nodded, as he and Kate walked down the cemetery’s main road.

  “How did you know?” she asked.

  “Just a vibe,” he said.

  “Like you had seen me before?”

  “No, although I’ve felt like I do know you from somewhere,” he said. “But I knew I had never seen you before. I would have remembered.”

  “Well your guess was right,” she said.

  “I gathered that from your reaction,” Quinn replied.

  She stopped in front of a grave. It took a moment for Quinn to realize this had been done on purpose.

  He looked at it. It was a simple marble slab with the inscription, “Here lies Sarah Blakely.” There were some dates below.

  He looked at Kate quizzically.

  “The name doesn’t mean anything to you?” she asked quietly.

  “Should it?” he asked.

  “I’m surprised you haven’t come across it in your research,” she replied as she stared at the headpiece. “Sarah Blakely was killed 12 years ago. She was the Loudoun serial killer’s fifth victim.”

  There was a pause before Kate said anything more. But Quinn had begun to feel a sense of dread.

  “She was also my mother,” Kate said simply and turned away from the headstone.

  She started to walk down the path. Quinn hurried to keep up with her.

  “Jesus,” he said and wondered what more he could say. “I’m so sorry...”

  “I was born here, Quinn,” Kate said. “I even attended Leesburg Middle School.”

  “Why didn’t you tell Laurence that?” he asked.

  She stopped.

  “Would you?” she asked. “If I had mentioned that I had lived here, there would have been more questions. There are always more questions when you are a reporter. Where did you live? Why did you leave? Do you know Joe Smith, or Judy Doe, or whoever? Sooner or later, it would have been clear who my mother was. And I didn’t want that out there.”

  “Kate, I have no idea what to say,” Quinn said. “I lost my parents, so I know what it feels like.”

  “No offense,” she replied and looked back in the direction of her mother’s grave. “But it’s not exactly the same. Your parents died and it’s a tragedy. They were young, you grieve, but you can tell people about it. They can help you. But who helps you when your mother is murdered and the killer is still out there? You can lie, certainly, but that feels like a betrayal. You can tell the truth, but then you can’t just leave it at ‘murdered’ really. It is something that begs for more background.

  “So you push it away, because it isn’t something you want to talk about. And pretty soon your mother isn’t dead anymore, she has been systemically erased. I saw photos of you with your Mom and Dad at your apartment. I have almost none
. She died when I was 12 years old—late enough that I can still remember her, but it’s fading. If you don’t talk about someone, they fade away like an old photograph."

  “I’m sorry,” Quinn said again.

  “So you can see why I was a little upset with the Holden plan,” Kate said and laughed. It was not a pleasant sound.

  “I can,” he said.

  “I’m not the only one who will be,” she said. “There are more people than me who would just as soon the entire affair stay buried. And that’s the real thing. Because Loudoun associates that stupid holiday with the sick bastard who killed people, they can’t help but think of him when you start trying to get them to celebrate it.”

  Quinn was not so sure. Maybe she was right, or maybe it was time for people to move on. For them to see that Halloween didn’t equal a literal bogeyman. But he did not think now was the right time to debate this.

  They had walked to the edge of the graveyard, where they had sat nearly a week before. It felt like longer ago, Quinn thought. A breeze came across the pond and made him shiver.

  “My dad and I left not long after,” she said, looking at the pond as well. “And I really never thought I would be back. My life felt like it began at age thirteen and that was that. Some people asked about my Mom, of course. But nobody knew. It was easier to let them think that maybe she had abandoned us. Of course, it never occurred to me I would head back here.”

  “Then why are you here?” Quinn asked.

  She laughed again and turned to look Quinn in the eye.

  “That’s the thing, Quinn,” she said. “I really don’t know.”

  She walked forward and found the bench to sit down.

  “I was there, you know,” she said.

  “Where?” he asked and sat down next to her.

  “I was in the house when he murdered my mother,” she said calmly.

  “My God,” Quinn said.

  “I didn’t know it, of course,” she said. “But he did. He knew I was there.”

  “How?” Quinn started.

  “I remember the whole day,” she said and her eyes had a distant look. “It was a Thursday and Mom was supposed to be home. The front door was wide open. I yelled upstairs for her, but she didn’t respond. In fact, I thought maybe she was out, that the door had just been accidentally left open.”