His Best Friend's Baby (3 page)

He let out a rough, humorless laugh. What an idiotic image! Okay, he didn’t let himself dwell on his occasional loneliness, sometimes wished he had Dean’s gift for closeness with other people. But rats!
Poor me,
he mocked himself.

What he was feeling was the grief of losing family. For most people, there must be a moment when they realized that the last person who’d known them when they were young was gone. When parents died, or a sister or brother. For Quinn, Dean was that person. Like anyone else, he’d deal with the loss.

Mindy reappeared at five o’clock. She looked awful, he thought critically, seeing her hover in the kitchen door, her vague gaze touching on microwave, refrigerator, table, as if she’d never seen any of them before.

She was pretty, he’d give Dean that. She always had had an air of fragility, accentuated now. Maybe five feet four or five inches tall, Mindy was incredibly fine-boned. She kept her golden blond hair chopped short in a sort of unkempt Meg Ryan style that somehow suited the long oval of her face and her huge gray-green eyes.

The first time Quinn saw her, she’d worn tight jeans and a cropped T. Dean had leaned close to say something that made her giggle. Not laugh, like a grown woman, but giggle.

According to Dean, she was twenty-five. Twenty-six now; Quinn had had no choice but to attend the party Dean had thrown for her birthday, during which she’d clapped her hands with delight, danced with such abandon she’d kept whacking people, and almost cried when she’d failed to blow out all the candles.

“Oh!” she’d cried. “I won’t get my wish!”

Dean had blown out the last two, then wrapped a comforting arm around her slender shoulders. “Sometimes you need help to get a wish.”

Her absurdly long lashes had fluttered quickly, as if she had to blink away tears, and then she’d flung herself against him and kissed him passionately. The crowd whistled and applauded.

Except for the passionate part, Quinn had felt as if he were at a birthday party for a friend’s sixteen-year-old daughter. He’d wondered what she and Dean had to talk about. She was an artist, Dean had always said proudly, but the only product of her artistry Quinn had ever seen was the hand-painted Welcome sign that hung over their front door. It was pretty. Michelangelo, she wasn’t.

He hadn’t thought much of it when Dean had first started dating her. She’d seemed young and flighty. Some people enjoyed having yappy miniature poodles, too. Not his choice, though.

But marriage? He was still shaking his head.

At the moment, half her hair was spiky, the other half flattened from the pillow. Her face was puffy, her eyes bloodshot, her slender figure hidden inside a thick terry-cloth robe that was bright turquoise decorated with red and gold stars. Barefoot, she shuffled toward the refrigerator as if she were an old lady.

“Hungry?” he asked.

Her gaze swung toward him as if she hadn’t noticed he was there. It registered his presence without interest.

“Um,” she mumbled.

“I can cook or order something. Pizza?”

She shuddered.

“How about Chinese?”

Her response was slow, as if neural synapses weren’t firing at normal speed. “Okay,” she finally agreed.

She did manage to pour herself some juice while he called. When she carried it to the table and sat down, she said, “You’re still here.”

“I didn’t want to leave you alone. Since you never got around to calling your mother or a friend.” Quinn shrugged.

“I don’t want anybody right now.”

He tried to hide his exasperation. “Then you’re stuck with me.”

She was quiet for several minutes. Then, like a puzzled child, she asked, “Why don’t you like me?”

Because you’re silly, not too bright and self-centered.
Because sooner or later, you were going to get tired of Dean and break his heart.

Quinn didn’t say a word of what he thought. Instead, he snorted. “What makes you think I don’t like you?”

Okay, maybe the not-too-bright part wasn’t true. She looked at him with knowing, sad eyes.

He found himself amending. “It’s not that I don’t like you.”

She kept waiting. Or maybe she had lost interest in any answer and was just staring into space he happened to occupy.

“I didn’t think you and Dean were a good match.”

Anger flared in her voice. “And you were the expert...why?”

“I knew Dean a lot better than you did!”

“And me not at all.”

His jaws knotted. “That might be because you were too busy giggling and flirting with Dean to hold a rational conversation.”

“I didn’t know I was required to present my credentials to you.”

They glared at each other.

Then, as quickly as their petty argument began, it ended. Her face crumpled. Her voice drifted. “Oh, what difference does it make?”

After a moment of struggle, she regained control, sipped juice and went back to glancing vaguely around the kitchen. Eventually, her gaze reached the address book and phone at his elbow.

“Have you already called some of Dean’s friends?”

“I called everybody.”

“Everybody?” Her gaze lifted to his face. “Shouldn’t I have done that?”

“You didn’t seem up to it.”

She was starting to look mad again. “You mean, I wasn’t willing to do it today, before Dean’s body is even cold.”

“Did you want his friends to find out he was dead from the six o’clock news?”

“No.” Emotions waged war on her face. “Will it be...”

“On the news? Yes. He was a cop.”

“Not anymore.”

“As far as we’re concerned, he was one of us. Reporters will see it the same.”

“You could have said...”

Sharper than he had meant to be, Quinn said, “Murder makes the news. I didn’t know I had to tell you that.”

Resentment smoldered in her eyes and made her lips pouty. She even
looked
childish.

“I read
The Times
. I don’t watch much TV. And following local murders is not my hobby.”

Which part of
The Seattle Times
did she read? he wondered uncharitably. The comics?

“Dean’s murder will be in the morning papers, too. I thought the news would better come from one of us.”

“So you just took over.”

A headache began to bore into his skull. “I took over when you decided to spend the day napping.”

She rose to her feet, looking anguished, furious and completely grown-up. “When I spent the day grieving! Instead of worrying about whether somebody Dean played golf with once in a while found out in the first twenty-four hours that he was dead!”

The doorbell rang.

Quinn shook his head and went to answer it. He half expected that by the time he got back to the kitchen, she’d have retreated to the bedroom. Instead, she stood at one of the French doors looking out, her back to Quinn.

Quinn wondered, though, how much she could see through her own reflection in the glass. Maybe nothing; maybe she was studying her own haunted face.

“Dinner,” he said, lifting the sacks.

“I did love him, you know.”

Pain squeezed his chest, roughened his voice. “I know.”

He hadn’t been sure, not when Dean was alive. Now, he was beginning to believe she did.

“Just so you believe that much.” Sounding incredibly weary, she turned from the view of the garden and came to the table.

He got plates and silverware and dished up. She waited docilely, her head bent as if she found the weave of the place mat fascinating. He wondered if even the slight effort of spooning moo goo gai pan and kung pao beef onto her plate would have stopped her from eating. But once he put food in front of her, she picked up her fork and took a bite.

Like this morning, neither of them ate much. But they tried. When she pushed her half-empty plate away, he did the same.

“Why,” he said, trying to understand, “won’t you call your mother?”

She gave a seemingly indifferent shrug. “We’re not that close.”

“Doesn’t she live around here?”

“Issaquah.”

Fifteen, twenty minutes away.

Mindy stood. “Excuse me. I have to...” She fled.

Staring after her, Quinn wondered what he’d said wrong. Or did she just hate Issaquah, the mecca of upscale shopping with the chic shops that made up Gilman Village? Mama, he concluded, must have money to live in Issaquah. Somehow that didn’t surprise him. He added
spoiled
to Mindy’s list of sins.

He turned on KOMO news and watched as the camera panned “the storage business where in the early hours of this morning a former Seattle Police detective was struck down, allegedly by two young men trying to steal this travel trailer.” The camera focused on the white pickup truck with Fenton Security emblazoned on the door, then zoomed in on the Fleetwood. When Quinn was gravely told that “a source informs us that the young men may have been manufacturing methamphetamine in this trailer,” he used the remote to turn the TV off.

Quinn’s stomach roiled. Too vividly he saw Dean’s body sprawled on the pavement, the blood in his mouth, the glazed eyes. Why had Dean decided to confront the two punks? Why hadn’t he waited for the cops?

Quinn’s fist hit the table so hard the dishes jumped and a shockwave of pain ran up his arm.

He heard a small sound and looked up through the blur of tears to see Mindy staring at him from the doorway. He knew what he must look like, his lips drawn back from his teeth in an agony of anger and grief.

After a moment, she turned and left him to mourn alone.

Quinn let out a harsh sound. The two people who Dean had loved most couldn’t stand each other. Pretty sad.

CHAPTER THREE

O
N
A
SUNNY
M
AY
DAY
, hundreds watched Dean Fenton be laid to rest at the cemetery. Endless tears rolled down Mindy’s face. Struggling with grief that balled in his throat like a jawbreaker that was trying to choke him, Quinn remained rigidly conscious of his dignity. Mindy, apparently, didn’t care.

She looked inappropriate for her role as grieving widow to begin with. With a suspicion she’d have nothing to wear, Quinn had suggested a couple of times over the week that she go shopping or order something online. She’d ignored him, of course, and now wore—well, he guessed it was a business suit for a twenty-something, which meant the skirt hugged her butt and left a long expanse of leg bare while the jacket was form-fitting over what seemed to be a camisole, the lace showing at the V. It wasn’t even black, but rather white. Call him old-fashioned, but in his opinion a widow shouldn’t go to her husband’s graveside wearing clothes that advertised her body.

Naturally, she hadn’t thought ahead enough to bring tissues, and had turned to him with wide-eyed desperation earlier at the church when tears and snot had begun to run down her face. Wasn’t that a mother’s job? he’d wondered, but he could already see that she was right: she and her mother weren’t close.

Mom had shown up today, he had to give her that, but had seemed annoyed at the necessity of missing a luncheon for some club she belonged to. From the minute she’d arrived, Mindy looked sulky and even younger than usual.

The Howies were here, too, of course, Nancy looking much as she had at the wedding except for the sadness on her sweet, soft face, and for the tremor that affected not just her voice but her hands. Every time Quinn looked at her, she held them clasped together, as if one could control the other. Parkinson’s?

George, in contrast, seemed to have aged ten years in one. A thick head of graying hair had turned white and fine, a dandelion puff instead of strong sod. His shoulders stooped, and his knuckles had become gnarled. Quinn had felt the difference, when they’d gripped hands in greeting and grief.

Now the first clod of dirt was flung atop the casket. Quinn shuddered and felt Mindy do the same beside him. A cry escaped her lips. He laid a hand on her back and she gave him one wild look before turning back to the raw earth and shining cobalt-blue casket. Her mother had somehow managed to be standing on the other side of Sergeant Dickerson, who had been heavily paternal in response to her dabbing a tissue at the corner of her eye.

As the crowd broke up, she turned immediately and took in her daughter’s ravaged face. Her own froze. Laying a hand on Dickerson’s massive arm, she turned toward the parking lot without waiting for Mindy. The Howies hesitated, then started on their own toward the cars.

Quinn had no objection to hanging back, although he frowned at the few scattered rhododendrons rather than letting himself look again into the hole.

Finally Mindy let out a deep sigh and turned in a confused way as if unsure where to go. He took her elbow, pointed her in the right direction, and they followed the stream of mourners returning to their cars. Unfortunately, they still had to face the reception to be held in a hall at the church, where everyone would want to say a few words.

She lurched and almost went down. Quinn’s grip saved her. He hoisted her upright.

“I’m sorry! My ankle turned.”

He looked down at her spiky white heels.

“You could have worn flat shoes.”

“These are the only white ones I have,” she said, as if that was any kind of answer.

“Black is traditional, you know.”

“But Dean hated black. Didn’t you know that?”

In fact Quinn, who wore black much of the time, hadn’t known that. The minute she pointed it out, though, he realized Dean had tended to wear bright colors and chinos rather than dark slacks.

“He...” Her voice faltered. “He’d have rather seen me in white than black.”

All right. So she meant well. Her appearance still wouldn’t play well with the older cops and much of the viewing public, who—thanks to the ever-present news cameras—would see a sprite who appeared to dress out of the Victoria’s Secret catalog weeping at graveside and flashing a lot of leg on tonight’s local news.

But he forbore to tell her that.

“You want to go by the house so you can, uh, touch up your makeup before we go back to the church?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care.” She paused. “I suppose.”

While he waited in the living room, she disappeared for about two minutes. When she came back, her face was still puffy but clean, and she’d renewed her mascara.

“I’m ready.”

He nodded and they let themselves out the front door. She sat in silence beside him as he drove. Not until they pulled into the parking lot did she let out a broken sigh.

“Dean would have liked an Irish wake. A celebration, not...”

She didn’t have to finish. He knew what she meant. Not a lament, a ceremony to share regrets.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Maybe when we’re ready.”

They exchanged a rare glance of accord before getting out of the car, standing side by side looking at the open door to the hall, and—in his case, at least—gathering composure.

Her ankle turned in those silly shoes on the steps leading down to the daylight basement reception rooms. Once again, he grabbed her in the nick of time. Shaking his head, he led her in a meandering route among the mourners so she could accept their condolences. Her tears returned within minutes and the mascara began to run again.

Half the Seattle police force was here, of course, but also plenty of people Quinn either didn’t know or had a feeling he’d met once or twice. Dean had had a lot of friends. Maybe some of them
were
casual golf buddies, but they’d cared enough to show up at his funeral, decked in dark suits and ties, on a sunny Saturday perfect for golfing.

“You’re Quinn?” some of them said, shaking his hand. “He talked about you. Said he hoped you’d end up his partner in the security business someday.”

Despite the spasm of pain he felt every time he thought of Dean, Quinn managed a crooked smile. “He knew I’d never quit the force, but he was too stubborn to take no for an answer.”

One of them grinned. “Yeah, he made us play thirty-six holes one day last September even though it was eighty-six degrees, because he couldn’t get a handle on his slice and he was too stubborn to quit.” The grin faded as the friend remembered he’d never watch Dean Fenton take a swing with his three wood again.

Quinn made time to talk to the Howies, who reminded him about some of Dean’s more outlandish exploits when he was their foster son, then hugged Mindy, asked Quinn not to be a stranger and left. Frowning, he watched them go, George stooped like an old man and Nancy with the shakes she’d told him with one stern glance not to mention. Not today.

Mindy, Quinn realized reluctantly, wasn’t the only obligation he’d just inherited. Dean had been, for all practical purposes, the Howies’ son, the one who remembered their fiftieth wedding anniversary and sent them for a weekend to the Empress in Victoria, the one who called unexpectedly, who made sure they were all right. He hadn’t mentioned Nancy’s tremors, maybe because he hadn’t thought Quinn would care.

But, he did care, whether he wanted to or not. The thought made him uncomfortable. An obligation. That’s all he had to think of them as. Dean would expect him to step in.

With no booze being served, the crowd trickled away fairly fast. Mindy, Quinn saw, looked skim-milk pale and on the verge of collapse as she thanked people for coming. He looked around for her mother but didn’t spot her.

At Mindy’s side, he said, “I think we can leave now.”

“Really?” Her gaze went past him and she gave a shaky smile at someone behind him. “Thank you so much for coming today.”

The couple, who looked vaguely familiar to Quinn, said a few kind words about Dean and left.

“Where’s your mother?”

“Gone.” Again she looked past him, and her eyes filled with tears. “Selene! Oh, I’m so glad you’re here.”

Selene wore a sleeveless white sweater and a flowery skirt that swirled to her calves. Her wild dark curls were barely subdued by a barrette. He made a private bet that she was a college student.

After the two women hugged, Mindy turned to him. “Quinn, this is my best friend, Selene Thomas. She’s a grad student at the UW.”

He nodded and said by rote, “Thanks for coming today.”

Big dark eyes filled with tears. “Dean was such a sweetie.”

The two hugged and commiserated some more while Quinn shifted from foot to foot. He just wanted to get out of here. Maybe take a run, or go to the gym. He wanted to work himself into mindless exhaustion. Maybe then he’d sleep tonight.

“Selene is going to stay with me tonight,” Mindy told him. “So you’re off duty.”

He felt a lurch of profound relief.

“We can talk all night,” her friend promised.

Personally, Quinn thought what Mindy needed was to sleep. She was looking frailer by the day, to the point where he’d had to set aside his cynicism. She wasn’t eating enough to keep a bird alive, and judging from the dark circles under her eyes wasn’t sleeping either. She seemed unable to think about practicalities.

Dean’s will had left everything to her except a few mementos to Quinn. She’d wept and refused to worry about where a safe-deposit key might be or whether bills might be coming due. Quinn had made himself keep his mouth shut. So far. It had only been a week. She hadn’t buried her husband yet. Even a nitwit like she was would start thinking about money and groceries and hiring a lawn service soon.

He hoped.

“Off duty?” Selene echoed, blinking at him.

“Quinn’s been making me eat and mowing the lawn and returning phone calls.” Mindy’s huge, smudged eyes met his. “He doesn’t think I’m capable of taking care of myself.”

He
knew
she wasn’t capable of taking care of herself. He was hoping that the state was temporary. Being the long-term guardian of a twenty-six-year-old adolescent wasn’t his idea of a good time.
Dean,
he asked for the thousandth time,
why her?

“You want to prove you can,” Quinn suggested, “why don’t you start eating more than a few bites at a time?”

“Because...” Color touched her cheeks and her gaze slid from his. “Because I can’t eat when I’m upset.”

Quinn’s eyes narrowed. That wasn’t what she’d intended to say. He’d have liked to know what she’d been unwarily about to admit. But he only nodded and asked Selene if she had a car.

Well, no; she’d ridden the bus.

“I’ll drive you two home. If,” he added with courtesy to Mindy, “you’re ready?”

She sniffed and nodded.

Selene chattered during the drive. What a nice ceremony. Everybody really liked Dean, didn’t they? The house must seem so big without him!

At the last, tears began to roll down Mindy’s face. Again. Quinn glared at the rearview mirror, but her friend was oblivious.

“What are you going to
do?
” she asked.

Mindy swallowed hard. In a watery voice, she said, “I don’t know. I haven’t thought... Not yet...”

Quinn pulled into the driveway. “Shall I come in?”
Please, no,
he begged.

Mindy shook her head and gave him a shaky smile. “We’ll be fine. Thank you, Quinn.” To his surprise, she reached out and squeezed his hand. “I mean it.” Then she got out to join her friend on the sidewalk.

“Nice to meet you!” Selene called, as he waved and put the car into reverse.

He flexed his fingers. Mindy didn’t touch him if she could help it. He didn’t touch her, except recently when it was obvious somebody had to steer her to where she was supposed to be. They’d never been comfortable with each other. He’d seen that she was physically demonstrative with everyone else—with her youthful gaiety, she hugged, kissed, danced and even sat on laps without the slightest inhibition. He guessed he’d killed her spontaneity toward him the first time they met. Except for falling into his arms to sob the night he came to deliver the news, this was the first time she’d voluntarily touched him.

His mouth twisted into a sour smile. He must have looked good in comparison with her charming mother.

Quinn grabbed his gym bag and went to the health club. After changing into his usual gray T-shirt and old sweatpants, he snagged a basketball and went into the gym. Late afternoon on a Saturday, it was completely empty. He dribbled the ball, each bounce echoing sharply. Instead of the sound annoying him, he liked it. It seemed to accentuate his solitude.

He warmed up with a few easy layups, then free throws, finally challenging himself with tougher and tougher shots, driving to the basket, spinning, shooting backward, shooting from halfway down the court, from the corners. When he’d worked up a sweat, he dropped the basketball back in the bin and went to the weight room. He wasn’t quite alone here, but the few men who’d claimed a machine or a bench were preoccupied with their own rhythms.

When Quinn’s muscles began to groan, he moved on to a treadmill, setting the timer for half an hour. By fifteen minutes, he was wearing down. He’d been too inactive this week, spent too much time holding the pitiful widow’s hand, figuratively rather than literally, of course.

His shirt was soaked by the time he finished, his legs as shaky as a newborn colt’s. He wiped his face on a towel and went back to the gym to shoot some more baskets anyway, testing his control, his discipline, satisfied only when the ball dropped neatly through the hoop without ruffling the net.

Finally, he showered, changed into swim trunks and dived into the pool. The cool water closed over him, sliding across his skin, insulating him for a few brief moments from the world. By the time he showered again, got dressed and slung his gym bag over his shoulder, he felt almost like himself.

* * *

F
OR
THE
ONE
DAY
, Mindy had actually
liked
Quinn. He’d been her rock. A silent chauffeur, a hand when she needed one, a steady gaze to help her ground herself. For all his composure, she’d felt the magma beneath, the hot, unsettling grief that matched her own, and she was grateful for that as well. Dean had been liked by many, but loved, she suspected, by only a few. The Howies, Quinn and her.