Chapter 7
“ Robert Crowley is hard to quantify. As a poet in his own right, he was mediocre at best. His poems tended to be overly-symbolic with a poor sense of pacing. And yet it would be unfair to leave him out of a discussion of British poetry during the 19 ^th century. Other poets at the time considered him bold and innovative, and later, better masters of the art were influenced by him. But it seems his real claim to fame unfortunately comes from the rather bizarre circumstances surrounding his disappearance. That-if nothing else-assured he was unlikely to be forgotten.”
— Ross MacFarlane, “Scottish Poetry Through the Ages”
Monday, Oct. 9
Quinn sat in the early morning darkness staring at his living room wall. He was not really conscious of being there-his thoughts had drifted somewhere else-and it was only with a sudden start he realized he had been staring at the same spot for over an hour.
He supposed it must have been some manner of dreaming, though he knew he was awake.
Maybe this will be enough sleep today, he thought grimly.
He could not be surprised, or even too disappointed. After Saturday evening had gone so well, it was only natural that the night would go badly. The nightmares, always intense, always realistic, had been worse than ever.
So bad, in fact, that sleeping on Sunday night did not appear to be much of an option. Instead, he had stayed up-at first by watching the TV-and then by reading. He had not nodded off-though he felt incredibly tired-but his mind had wandered.
Quinn stood up abruptly and crossed over to the window. Sometimes he thought he could still hear the sound of hoof beats out there. But he heard nothing this morning. He tapped his fingernail against the glass and then turned around to get in the shower.
He was at work by 7:00 in the morning, far ahead of everyone else. He had three goals for the day: the first, and most important, was to talk to Kate again. He wondered if her brief kiss on his cheek had felt the same to her- the electric impulse that had spread through his body. He doubted it. Then he smiled at himself. This is what it was like when he was depressed and running on no sleep. He doubted everything.
The second goal was to attend Sheriff Brown’s press conference on the stalker. Quinn leaned back in his chair. Well, maybe “stalker” was a little strong. Peeping-Tom, perhaps? It didn’t matter. The story had provided him with fodder for two months. A man, always hiding in shadow, spying on houses in Leesburg’s outskirts. More than a dozen people thought they had caught a glimpse of him, and on at least two occasions, police had been called out to find evidence of an attempted break-in.
It was, sad to say, Quinn’s favorite story at the moment. He had slim pickings in the town itself and crime was usually crowded out by Kyle. But Kyle had dismissed the stalker story as unimportant-a phantom no less-and so it had become Quinn’s. And if now it was a story “with legs,” it remained in Quinn’s purview.
He hated the idea that he could be territorial-he despised Helen’s insistence that any article on the board of supervisors go through her first-but good stories were hard to come by.
Though he was not expecting much, he assumed the sheriff would face the normal angry parents and concerned citizens during the conference. Enough for a story. Enough so that Quinn actually had something other than business to write for the week.
He sighed. It was not supposed to be like this.
The phone startled him out of his reverie and for a minute he glared at it like it was some strange alien being. It was so early in the morning, who the hell would be calling him?
“Quinn O’Brion,” he said, picking up the line.
There was silence on the other end.
“Hello?” he asked again.
“Quinn,” the voice said. “I didn't expect you to be there.”
It took a second for Quinn to place the voice.
“Then why were you calling now, Gary?” he asked.
They both knew why. Gary was notoriously hard to catch on the phone, mostly because he hated talking to the press. Quinn was an exception. But Gary still felt that every conversation with Quinn endangered his job with the Leesburg police.
He was probably right.
“Uh…” Gary drifted off.
“It doesn’t matter,” Quinn said quickly, worried Gary would hang up.
“What's going on?”
There was a long silence on the other end.
“Gary?” Quinn asked. “You still with me?”
“Yeah,” Gary said finally. “I’m here.”
“Cat got your tongue?”
“The press conference is off.”
“What? Why? Did they catch him?” Quinn asked hopefully. His pulse quickened as he smelled a good story.
“If they caught him, don’t you think there would be a bigger press conference?” Gary said. “They certainly wouldn’t cancel it.”
“So what’s going on?”
“I’m not sure.”
Quinn waited. This was the best policy with squirrelly sources. Secretly they want to talk. It is just a question of pausing long enough for them to spill it all out.
“There is a lot of commotion,” Gary said after some time had passed.
“What kind of commotion?”
“It’s very hush-hush,” he said. “They won’t tell anybody anything.”
“What do you mean by commotion?”
“Yesterday, they called in a bunch of guys,” Gary said. “But they never told us what it was for. A lot of us were just standing around with nothing to do.”
“So they called in a lot of guys on a Sunday and then didn’t do anything with them?”
“About right,” Gary replied, keeping his voice low. “And then…”
Quinn paused again. It was all he could do not to ask more questions, but he paced himself. It wouldn't do to rush this.
“Then Stu came out. You know Stu, don’t you?”
“Brown’s deputy? The one always hovering around him that looks scared of his own shadow?”
“Er… yeah,” Gary said. “Anyway, Stu came out and told the boys to go home. Said it was a mistake made by a dispatcher or something.”
“That’s weird, but I guess it’s possible…”
“Well, we all thought so too, but… then he said something weird,” Gary said.
The conversation drifted to silence.
Finally Quinn couldn’t take it anymore.
“What did he say?”
“He said that we shouldn't mention this to anybody,” Gary replied. “He said it would be embarrassing if everybody knew about it.”
Quinn laughed.
“Who gives a shit if the dispatcher called in a few guys for no reason?”
“That’s what we thought,” Gary said.
“And then Stu called a couple guys back. Johnny Redacker and the Kaulbach kid. They looked confused and went into his office. We caught up with them later and Kaulbach looked sick.”
“What do you mean?”
