[Quinn 01] - The Cleaner

Quinn looked Nate in the eye. 'Today's lesson: Do what you're told.'

Nate stared back for a moment, then looked down. Without another word, he turned and began walking away.

Once Nate was gone, Quinn continued toward the line of trees at the edge of the property. As he neared it, the first flakes of snow began floating down from the sky.

'Great,' he muttered under his breath as he picked up his pace.

When he arrived at the depression, he bent down to get a closer look. Immediately he knew it wasn't caused by a pinecone, and definitely not by a branch. It was a footprint. Several, actually. Now knowing what to look for, he could see more indentations running along the trees leading back to the rear of the property.

At first Quinn couldn't tell whether the footprints were heading to or away from the house. A closer look revealed they were doing both. Someone had approached the house from the forest, then returned, keeping his – or her – feet in the same indentations. In fact, the person may have made more than one trip. Or maybe more than one person had used the same tracks. It was impossible to tell. Snow boots, though. Sorels, if Quinn guessed right.

As he followed the tracks, making a new set of his own beside them, the air began to thicken with falling snow. The prints were deep enough, though, that it would take some time before they completely disappeared.

A hundred yards from the house, Quinn found that whoever had made the tracks had stopped, either coming or going, and used the cover of several pine trees to shield him from the house. The person had stomped around a bit, probably to stay warm.

'You watched the fire from here,' Quinn said to himself, picturing the scene in his mind. 'Made sure it was doing what you wanted.'

But why had he gone back?

Because now that Quinn had had a chance to look at several of the depressions, the top set of footprints definitely were heading back to the house.

He tried to reason it out, but no answer came to him. He decided not to worry about it for the moment, then continued following the person's footprints deeper into the woods.

He immediately noticed there was something different about these new tracks. There weren't multiple passes on them. Just one set, heading toward the house.

Okay, Quinn thought. So, our guy approaches the house from somewhere off in the forest. He starts the fire. Walks back into the woods. Finds a tree to hide behind to make sure he's done a thorough job. Then what?

The only possible answer he could come up with was that the fire didn't take the first time. Or, he suddenly realized, someone else had shown up, potentially ruining the arsonist's plan.

Except there hadn't been any report of another body. Just Taggert. The only thing Quinn could definitely determine from the tracks was that the assassin hadn't left the scene the same way he'd come.

Quinn sat in the driver's seat of the Explorer, still parked in front of the Farnham house. He was talking on his cell phone to Peter, head of an agency simply called the Office.

'Definitely not an accident,' Quinn said.

'Witnesses?' Peter asked.

'Don't appear to be any.'

'And Taggert was the only victim?'

'Yes,' Quinn said. 'Unless there's something else you think I should know.' 'Nothing,' Peter told him. Quinn sensed a lie. 'Did the chief have anything else?' 'He did drop something I was unaware of,' Quinn said.

'What was that?'

'He said they talked to someone who claimed to be Taggert's sister. Know anything about that?' 'Just wrap things up and send me your report,' Peter said, ignoring the question.

'Not interested in cause of death?'

'No. You found out everything we need to know.'

'What did you do?' Quinn asked. 'Hire someone you didn't trust to get rid of this guy? Now you're worried maybe he didn't do as good a job as you'd hoped?'

There was a momentary silence from the other end of the line. 'We didn't kill Taggert. He's no use to us dead.'

'Who was he?'

'You don't need to know that.'

'All right, whatever, Peter. I should be out of here by the end of the day. You'll have my report in the morning.' Quinn paused. 'There's a few more things I want to check.'

Peter waited a moment before responding. 'What?'

'There's no car. Nothing here and nothing in the police report. Taggert couldn't have just walked in.' 'Maybe he took a cab.' 'Out here he'd need his own vehicle.' More silence on the other end. 'Cadillac,' Peter

finally said.

'What?'

'He was driving a white Cadillac'