Chapter Forty-Four
“Mr. Quinn!” the friendly voice says as Quinn enters the flower shop.
The store’s owner, Mr. Agbayani, smiles. It’s an act, Quinn knows. The smile that tries to hide the loss.
Quinn wasn’t looking forward to the visit.
The annual vigil the family holds for their missing daughter Minnie, who was last seen playing hopscotch on the sidewalk outside the store.
But it’s the least Quinn can do since Midwest Investigators has come up with no leads.
The case is so ice cold, the firm stopped charging the Agbayanis.
It’s a pro bono investigation now that was reassigned to Quinn on his first day.
A lost cause for the new guy in the office.
In the corner of the store there’s one of those fold-up card tables.
A photo of beaming four-year-old Minnie is displayed on it next to picked over cheese plates.
The store closes soon, so Quinn’s just in time to pay his respects.
He doesn’t like to think of it that way since it assumes Minnie is dead.
“I’m sorry I’m so late, work went longer than I anticipated.”
“No apologies, Mr. Quinn. This is just an informal gathering of hope. May first is a sad day for so many families, we want to reclaim it, make it also a day of hope. I’m so happy you made it.”
Quinn’s boss had warned him that it would be sad.
“Eric and everyone at the firm, we want to let you know we haven’t given up.
” That’s true, Midwest Investigators hasn’t given up.
Mr. Agbayani came to the firm three years ago, frustrated that the police seemed to have put the case on the shelf.
Mr. Agbayani thinks the police have tunnel vision that Minnie’s parents are involved in her disappearance.
But Quinn disagrees. The senior investigators at Quinn’s P.I.
firm tapped their contacts at the Omaha police and got access to the file.
OPD worked the case hard. They gave Mr. and Mrs. Agbayani a hard look since stranger abductions are exceedingly rare—missing and murdered kids usually fall at the hands of family—but the homicide investigators don’t believe the parents are involved.
The problem is that Lila Agbayani—called Minnie because she likes to wear her hair so it looks like mouse ears—vanished without a trace.
No witnesses. No obvious suspects. No physical evidence other than a lens from a pair of glasses police found on the sidewalk outside the store.
There were no prints on the lens and it was non-prescription, so there’s no way to trace it to a particular person.
Police speculated that the perp could’ve worn fake glasses as a disguise; perhaps Minnie put up a fight and the glasses were knocked off, the perp snatching them up not realizing that a lens had fallen out.
But there’s an alternative, less exciting theory: The lens was there for days and has nothing to do with the abduction.
“Can I get you a soda? There’s still some food left.” Mr. Agbayani smiles. It’s the smile of a man who knows that this story will probably end with the discovery of tiny bones found on a roadside or buried in a shallow grave.
“Oh, no thank you, I’m great,” Quinn says.
“At least try these,” Mr. Agbayani says, gesturing to a platter filled with an assortment of homemade cookies. “One of our vendors makes the best cookies you’ve ever tasted.”
Quinn isn’t much for sweets, but he picks one up to be polite. An oatmeal cookie. Next to the platter is a card that has a religious message on it. He takes a bite. “Wow, this is good.”
“Reverend Agness says his wife bakes them with a prayer for Minnie.”
Quinn thinks he remembers the couple. When Quinn was assigned to Minnie’s case after his colleagues had exhausted every possible lead, he decided to reinterview every vendor of the store.
He did a phone interview with the reverend and his wife, who live 250 miles away in farming country and have a specialty fertilizer business to supplement their income.
They knew nothing. The day Minnie went missing they were holding service with a churchful of witnesses, a fact confirmed by Quinn’s colleague early in the investigation.
And their fertilizer business, which makes deliveries to Omaha-area stores once a month, has no other employees.
“Delicious,” Quinn says. “Speaking of deliciousness, I wanted to thank Mrs. Agbayani for the soup.” On his last visit to the store, Mrs. Agbayani had made him a traditional Filipino dish called bulalo.
“Narra hasn’t been feeling well or she would’ve left you another one of her dishes.” Mr. Agbayani doesn’t elaborate and Quinn assumes that today is just too much for her to bear.
“I’d like to buy some flowers, if that’s okay?” Quinn says. “I know you’re closing soon, though.”
“Absolutely, Mr. Quinn, what’s the occasion?”
“Anniversary. First year dating my girlfriend Holly.”
“Happy anniversary!” Mr. Agbayani leads Quinn to a display of bright blue flowers.
“Carnations are traditional for a first anniversary.”
Quinn takes his word for it. As Mr. Agbayani prepares the bouquet, he says, “Young love,” with a twinkle in his eye.
Quinn gets a millisecond of an image of what Mr. Agbayani was probably like before his daughter was taken.
Young love. Is that what they have? Quinn and Holly certainly complement one another.
She’s outgoing, warm, vivacious, talkative; he’s stoic (she says), quiet, gives her room to be center stage.
She helps him put on his silly disguises for work, packs his lunches; he helps her study for her law school classes, does those flash cards for Torts and Criminal Law, lets her rehearse her presentations for moot court.
They both love reading. They both love George.
They haven’t had a real fight, though lately she’s been growing frustrated with his obsession with his mother’s case—his preoccupation with his mom’s cryptic Red Flag file, his fixation on his mother’s coworker Kenny Pearl, his gut feeling that Randy Calhoon isn’t the real killer. But otherwise, he thinks they’re happy.
It’s okay there’s not a red-hot spark, right? His thoughts meander to his mother. One of those nights when she’d had too much to drink and was feeling nostalgic and missing Dad.
“I wanted nothing to do with your father at first,” she said, with a sweet smile.
“All the girls fawned over Rick Riley with his leather jacket and long hair and those dark eyes, but I was a cheerleader and not in the same crowd and, honestly, kind of afraid of him. But one day on my way to class, I dropped my folder and all my papers went flying all over the hallway. I was flustered gathering them up because the bell rang and I was going to be late for class.” She stopped, looked out at nothing.
“And your dad stayed behind and helped picked them up. And when he gave me the pile, our hands brushed, and I swear it was like touching a live wire. And in that moment I saw this bad boy thing was an act, and I saw him. And I know it sounds corny and like one of those silly Meg Ryan movies, but I knew.”
Mr. Agbayani hands Quinn the flowers. Quinn says his goodbyes, and Mr. Agbayani gives him a hug before he takes off. “I haven’t given up on Minnie,” Quinn says.
“I know that, Mr. Quinn. I know.”