EIGHTEEN

‘Why didn’t you call us first?’ Lieutenant Beck asked Quinn.

It looked like every available cop in the township, sheriff’s office and BCI in the area was gathered there around Stuart Kitchen’s body. The medical examiner was supervising the retrieval of the baby. Lou Siegman stood next to Jack Waller, who even in the illumination from all the extra light, perhaps because of it, looked pale white. Richard Valentine as usual was just arriving, huffing and puffing his way to the scene. Scarlet was still at Quinn’s side.

‘I had to do something that was personally important to me first,’ Quinn replied looking at the uncovering of the baby’s corpse.

‘What? Kill Stuart Kitchen?’

Quinn turned to him.

‘You doubt this was self defense?’

‘No, but there’s self defense and there’s self defense.’

‘What the hell’s that supposed to mean?’ Scarlet asked before Quinn could. ‘I was here. I saw him pointing the gun at Randy.’

‘All I’m saying is if he had called us first, Kitchen wouldn’t be here pointing the gun at him and he wouldn’t have had to kill him. You can bait someone into a situation, you know.’

‘From what well of stupidity did you draw that pail?’ she asked.

Quinn smiled.

‘You think Randy wanted to be seconds away from having himself shot and killed?’

‘I think, Scarlet, that our Lieutenant Beck is simply upset that his solid, thorough investigation turned into fertilizer,’ Quinn said. Even though Beck was somewhat in the shadows, Quinn could see his face redden.

‘What the hell’s going on here?’ Richard Valentine asked. It seemed like perfect timing for comic relief. Everyone looked at him as if he were the dumbest man on earth.

Jack came to life.

‘Randy figured out that his high school buddy, Barry Palmer, the one he hired to work here, did dig up Matthew Kitchen’s coffin. There was no jewelry, but there was a dead baby in there. He also figured out that Palmer tried to blackmail Stuart Kitchen with the discovery and when Randy found the baby, too, and called the Kitchens first . . .’

‘Which was his first dumb mistake,’ Beck muttered. Jack ignored him.

‘Stuart told him to get the baby out of the coffin. He did and then Stuart killed him when they met for him to pay off Palmer. Kitchen tried to frame Randy and Randy figured out where Palmer had buried the baby.’

‘How did he get dead?’ Richard asked nodding at Stuart Kitchen’s body.

‘Randy decided to call the Kitchens and let Stuart know what he had found. He says he expected Evelyn to show up to see it and he says she and he were going to call the police, but Stuart showed up instead.’

‘Well, what does she say about it?’ Richard asked.

‘I’m heading over there now,’ Lieutenant Beck said. He nodded at the two agents who were with him and then glanced at Quinn before starting away.

‘Well, I don’t get it, Jack,’ Richard continued. ‘Whose baby is this?’

‘The medical examiner will tell us in about three or four days,’ Lou Siegman said. ‘But you can risk a few bucks on it being tied to Matthew or even Stuart Kitchen.’

Everyone turned as the ambulances arrived

‘I thought cemeteries were supposed to be peaceful, tranquil places,’ Richard muttered.

‘It will be that way again very soon,’ Quinn told him.

‘Yeah, right. I’m going to be a nervous wreck every time we bury someone. I may live forever. It’s too risky to die.’

That seemed to crack the ice and everyone smiled.

‘I need you to come to the station, Randy,’ Lou said. ‘We’ll need to do a formal full report. You can call your lawyer now. You have his home phone number or do you need me to get it for you?’

‘No, I got it. I’ll just stop in Jack’s office and use the phone. Beck never gave me my cell phone back.’

‘He left it in my office. Sorry. You can get it now,’ Lou said.

‘You don’t need to stop in Jack’s office, Randy,’ Scarlet said. ‘I’m going with you and I have my cell phone.’

‘Right. I’m not going anywhere without her, Chief,’ he said and took Scarlet’s hand.

On the way to the parking lot, they passed the paramedics who carried the stretchers.

‘I thought people are dead before they come here,’ one quipped. ‘We usually don’t take the bodies from a cemetery.’

‘Oh, don’t worry. They’ll be coming back,’ Lou Siegman said.

It was the second opportunity to smile.

‘We’ll take my truck,’ Quinn told Scarlet when they reached the parking lot. ‘We’ll get your car in the morning.’

‘Oh?’

‘I’m not going to sleep alone tonight,’ he said.

‘Any port in a storm?’

‘Oh no. I know when I’ve found my home port,’ he replied and she pressed her body closer to him.

Quinn was hoping that before they left the police station, he would learn about Beck’s interview of Evelyn Kitchen, but whatever conclusions were arrived at were apparently being kept under tight wraps. Even Corny couldn’t find out anything. On the way out, Quinn did see Beck on the phone in another room. They glanced at each other and then Beck nodded at one of his agents and the agent closed the door.

‘You’ve got to be running on fumes,’ Scarlet told him when they got into his truck and started away from the station.

‘I’m too tired to notice or feel anything,’ he replied.

‘I hope not everything,’ she said.

‘Well . . . I’m around graves enough to know how to resurrect,’ he said and she laughed.

They were quiet most of the way, but when they reached Sandburg, she turned to him.

‘Why didn’t you call the police first, Randy?’ she asked. ‘You really didn’t need to confront Stuart Kitchen to get to this place.’

‘I wasn’t expecting Stuart Kitchen.’

She was quiet for a few moments.

‘Did you know her in high school?’

‘Oh, not like you think. I knew of her, of course. She was, how should I put it . . . unapproachable? But for me most of the girls were.’

‘Yes, but for you she was different, wasn’t she?’

‘I’m sure there was someone like that for you,’ he offered as an answer.

She said nothing more about it until they had made love and now both fully exhausted began to turn away from each other to go to sleep.

‘I never asked you why you kept all these comic book heroes on your walls.’

He paused and looked at the posters, pictures and covers dimly lit by the moonlight piercing the veil of thin clouds and streaming in through his bedroom windows.

‘Maybe men never stop being boys at heart. When you’re younger, you can’t wait to stop being a child, and when you’re older, you regret you’re not.’

‘Because you lost your heroes, your dream girls?’

‘I suppose that’s part of it, but the good thing is you also finally realize what’s really important, substantial. Cemeteries aren’t simply places filled with the dead. They’re places full of regrets, full of people who missed the point.’

‘What is the point?’

He reached for her hand.

‘When you find something or someone real, you hold on to it. In the end it’s the only thing that will give your life any meaning.’

‘Are you holding on to me?’ she asked.

‘Just try to get out of this grip,’ he told her and they fell asleep holding hands.