Chapter Fourteen
“Quinn. Oh my goodness.”
“Hi, Ms. Glomm.” He stands on the front porch, bugs bouncing against the light.
“I didn’t realize you were … come in, come in.”
Quinn heads inside. He’s hit with the smell of dirty cat litter.
There’s stuff everywhere. Mom always said her colleague is something of a collector of things, polite criticism underlying the words.
Those things include porcelain figurines, thrift store colored glass, and piles of old newspapers and magazines.
She clears a stack from a lounge chair, offers him something to drink, which he declines. A bird—a big, ragged-looking parrot—squawks in a cage in the corner of the living room. Ms. Glomm mutes the old console TV.
“I’m so glad you’re out. When did you—”
“Today.”
“Oh my goodness. If I would’ve known I could’ve picked you up. We could’ve had a—I don’t know—a celebration.”
“That’s okay.”
“I ran into Pat at the plant when he was picking up a delivery. He’s such a character, your uncle. He said you joined the military. Your mom would be so proud.”
Quinn isn’t so sure about that.
“Mom’s stuff,” he finally says, getting to the reason for the visit.
“Oh yes,” Ms. Glomm says, but doesn’t get up. “How’s your brother?”
Quinn doesn’t want to get into it. And the smell is starting to get to him, so he says, “He’s doing great.”
“Randy said it’s a real nice group home.”
Quinn can’t restrain the scowl at the mention of his mother’s shit boyfriend.
When the warden told Quinn that someone had murdered his mother, Quinn was sure Randy was the perpetrator.
But the cop, the one who stopped taking Quinn’s collect calls from the detention center, said Randy has an airtight alibi.
Quinn wonders how airtight it really is.
Ms. Glomm must sense that she shouldn’t have mentioned Randy because she finally stands, hobbles down the hallway, and disappears into a bedroom, presumably to get Mom’s stuff.
Quinn looks around the room, taking in air through his teeth. The television displays the dumb sitcom where the neighbor only shows half his face from behind the fence.
Ms. Glomm returns with a box. “This is everything that was in her locker and the personal stuff from her desk.”
Quinn decides he’ll go through the box in private later.
“I’m so sorry about your mom.”
Everyone keeps saying that. He wonders how many times he’ll hear that in his lifetime. People mean well, but platitudes don’t help.
“Do you have any idea of who would want to hurt her?” Quinn asks. Beyond ruling out dirtbag Randy, the cop said the details of the investigation are confidential. Quinn suspects that’s because they don’t have any details.
Quinn expects Ms. Glomm to say she has no idea who killed his mother, offer more platitudes, but she surprises him.
“I reported my suspicions to the investigator—I assume he told you?”
“Told me what?”
“That your mom … that she told me she was going to report something to the company. Get the police involved.”
“Report something?”
“Yes. Well, she was going to. I’m not sure she ever did.” Ms. Glomm shifts in her chair. “She ran everything in our department. Inventory, shift scheduling, even the trucking schedule—it’s amazing the place hasn’t gone under without her.”
“What did she— What was she going to report?” Quinn asks, his tone impatient.
Ms. Glomm looks around uncomfortably, lowers her voice. “She said she discovered something in the company books.”
“What?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
“And you told this to the cop?”
“I did.”
“He didn’t ask you for her papers? Or her things?” They might identify what she was going to report, who might have a motive to kill her. Maybe it wasn’t a random robbery.
Ms. Glomm shakes her head. “I went through the papers,” she says, gesturing to the box. “You know, to see if there were clues. But I didn’t see anything.”
Quinn eyes the box.
“But she always kept this green folder,” Ms. Glomm continues. “Called it her Red Flag file of important papers. I remember because I thought it was funny since the folder wasn’t red.”
“It’s not in her things?”
She shakes her head.
A jolt of heat surges through him. The cop never bothered to look for this box or the Red Flag file.
“It’s not at the house?” Ms. Glomm asks.
“The bank took the house.”
“Where are her things?” Ms. Glomm asks with a glint in her eye, either at the idea of this Red Flag file or, more likely, because of her affinity for junk.
“I’m not sure,” Quinn says.
“Your mom always said she kept her Red Flag file in a cubby, safe and sound.”
It’s then that Quinn has the realization. He thinks he knows where to find the file.