“We were at the bar…”
“On a Sunday?”
“Hey, we already had to come into work, why not?”
“Fine, fine,” Quinn said. “What do you mean sick?”
“I was telling you,” Gary said.
“Okay,” Quinn said.
“No sense in me talking to you if you are just going to interrupt,” Gary said again.
“Okay,” Quinn said. “I’m sorry.”
Gary waited.
“I’m really sorry,” he said again.
Gary cleared his throat and continued.
“Kaulbach and Redacker came in and the two of them were all sullen and quiet. That isn’t like Johnny at all, of course, and we were all curious to know what the hell was going on, so we started asking them questions. But they wouldn’t say nothing. Johnny started giving us the procedural bullshit, you know, ‘It’s against policy,’ all that jazz. I swear he is to big for his britches ever since Stu promoted him. Last week, he actually told me…”
“Gary?” Quinn interrupted. It was best to keep the guy on track.
“Right, right,” he said. “So Johnny is clamming up and the whole time Kaulbach looks like he is going to faint or something. Finally, he excuses himself. I went after him, because the kid is new, you know?”
“Also you thought he might spill his guts?” Quinn asked.
“Well, that is what he was doing,” Gary replied. “He was puking his lungs out. I mean really just pouring it out.”
“Okay,” Quinn said. “You don’t need to paint a picture.”
“I asked him if he was okay, you know, after he finished, and he said he was. I asked him what had happened and he said, ‘Stu said we could lose our jobs if we said anything.’”
“That it?”
“Well, then this morning I get in early and I find this voicemail from Stu. It said the press conference today is canceled, and if anybody asked why, I was to tell them that Brown is sick or something.”
“Pretty lame,” Quinn said. “And since when do you handle press? You won’t talk to Kyle so…”
“That cocksucker,” was all Gary said.
“I know what you think of him,” he replied.
“What I think of him? That asshole nearly cost me my job,” Gary said.
“I know, I know…”
There was a significant pause.
“I don’t know why I was in charge of press today,” Gary finally said. “Maybe Fred really is out.”
Or maybe not, Quinn mused. Fred Tipper had a reputation as a leaker on the police force. This was mostly undeserved, since his job was to talk to the press. Or more specifically, Kyle. Gary, on the other hand, had handled press only a few times and his dislike of Kyle Thompson was well known.
Gary didn’t really like any reporters. The only reason he tolerated Quinn was because of a single favor more than a year ago.
“You know something more,” Quinn said. It was not a question.
“Christ,” Gary replied, but said nothing.
“Look, I really appreciate what you’ve said so far,” Quinn began.
“Bullshit,” Gary said. “Bullshit. Reporters are all alike. You butter us up or you dress us down, but you don’t really give a damn. You just want information. You just want a story.”
“Yes, I want a story,” Quinn said. “But I’ve given you no reason not to trust me. In fact, quite the opposite.”
“You can’t always bring that shit up,” he said. “You can’t keep using it on me.”
“Come on, Gary, I’m not using anything,” he said. “I’m just trying to get the story.”
There was a pause. Silence reigned and Quinn watched the clock on the wall move agonizingly forward a full minute before he talked again.
“What are they hiding?” he asked, when he could take it no longer.
“I don’t know,” Gary replied.
“But you know something,” Quinn said.
“The Kaulbach kid…”
Quinn let the pause come. He steeled himself to wait. If he hurried, Gary would realize he could just hang up the phone. Sometimes there was a magical effect on sources. If you ask a question, they feel compelled to answer it. But push it too far and you lose them. Quinn waited.
“He kept saying something,” Gary began again.
“What?”
“He kept saying, ‘I found her head. I found her head.’”
“Found who’s head?”
“Well, I finally asked him,” Gary said. “Look, I can’t be telling you this. This is my ass on the line.”
“Think about it Gary, why did they put you in charge today?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sure you do,” Quinn said. “You hate reporters. You tell them nothing. You’ve made no secret about it. Stu doesn’t trust Tipper-he never did. He’ll leak. But you won’t.”
“Because they trust me,” Gary said. “And I'm betraying that…”
“No, because you got burned by Kyle and Summer,” Quinn said. “You said something off the record and they put it in their stories. But they don’t know about us. Why? Because I didn’t burn you. I went out of my way to protect your son and I didn’t have to. A cop’s kid dealing marijuana is a big story…”
“Shut up, okay?” Gary said. “You don’t have to remind me.”
“Kyle doesn’t know I talk to you-my own editor doesn’t know,” Quinn said.
This last part was a bold lie-Rebecca knew damn well who his source was. But she would never give it up.
“No one will know if you leak to me,” Quinn said. “You know you can trust me. They won’t know.”
“All right,” Gary said finally. “All right.”
“Tell me what you know,” Quinn said.
“They found a body, in the woods, on the gravel road between here and Waterford,” he said.
“Hearse Road?”
“Yeah,” Gary said.
“They found a body. Murdered?”
“She was decapitated, Quinn,” Gary said. “That kind of thing doesn’t tend to happen accidentally. The Kaulbach kid spilled the story along with his guts. The woman was missing a head-clean cut from her shoulders.”
Quinn felt a momentary stab of panic. In his head, an image played from his nightmare. The Horseman was bearing down on him, a sword in his hand, preparing to remove his head. He could feel the blade about to cut into his flesh.
Quinn pushed it away.
“And Kaulbach found the head,” he said.
“They were called out there to search,” Gary said. “Originally they wanted to have a whole pack do it, but they stopped.”
“Why?” Quinn asked.
“Because they’re scared,” Gary said. “Scared this isn't a murderous lover or something…”
“Scared it’s the Horseman,” Quinn said.
“Yeah,” Gary said, and then added, “Wait. What? The Horseman? Who the hell is the Horseman?”
“No one,” Quinn said quickly. “I sometimes get my serial killers mixed up.”
“I'm not going to say who I was thinking of,” Gary said.
“Lord Halloween,” Quinn said. “That’s who they are worried about.”
“Look, I was truthful at the beginning here,” Gary said. “I don't know much. We don't know that it is that guy
