“I quit five years ago. Sheila thinks it’s gracious to leave these out for guests, even though no one smokes anymore. Like the good old days in Hollywood, all that crap. Her sister tells her about Hollywood crap…” He stared at the cigarette, flicked ash on the carpet, and ground it into the pile with his heel. The resulting black scorch mark seemed to give him satisfaction.
I said, “Did Gavin talk about a new girlfriend?”
“New?”
“After Kayla.”
“Her,” said Quick. “There’s an airhead for you. No, he didn’t say anything.”
“Would he have told you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Was he open about his personal life?”
“Open?” said Quick. “Less so than before the accident. He tended to get confused. In the beginning, I mean. How could he not be confused, he caught a tremendous blow right here.” Quick touched his forehead.
Same spot where the bullet had entered his son’s skull. He didn’t know yet. No reason for him to know yet.
“Confusion,” I said.
“Just temporary. But he found he couldn’t concentrate on his studies, so he dropped out of school.”
Quick smoked and grimaced, as if inhaling hurt.
“He got hit on the prefrontal lobes,” he said. “They told us it controls personality. So obviously…”
“Gavin changed,” I said.
“Nothing huge, but sure, there’d have to be changes. But then he got better, almost everything got better. Anyway, I’m sure Gav’s accident has nothing to do with this.”
Quick puffed rapidly, flicked more ash. “We need to find out whoever did this. Bastard leave any clues?”
Milo said, “We have no suspects and very little information. We haven’t even been able to identify the girl.”
“Well I don’t know her, and I doubt Sheila does. We know the same people.”
“Is there anything you can tell us about Gavin that might help?”
“Gavin was a great guy,” said Quick, as if daring us to argue. “Had his head on his shoulders. Hell of a golfer. We both loved golf. I taught him, and he learned fast, leaped right over me- a seven handicap, and he was getting better. That was before the accident. Afterward, he wasn’t as coordinated, but he was still good. His attention would wander… sometimes he’d want to take the same shot over and over- wanted to do it perfectly.”
“Perfectionistic,” I said.
“Yeah, but at some point you’re causing a traffic jam on the green, and you have to stop. In terms of his interests, he liked business, same as me.” Jerry Quick slumped. “That changed, too. He lost interest in business. Got other ideas. But I figured it was temporary.”
“Other career ideas?” I said.
“More like career fantasies. All of a sudden econ was down the drain, and he was going to be a writer.”
“What kind of writer?”
“He joked about working for the tabloids, getting the dirt on celebrities.”
“Just a joke,” I said.
Quick glared. “He laughed, and I laughed back. I told you, he couldn’t concentrate. How the hell could he write for a newspaper? One time Eileen was over, and he asked her if she knew any celebrities he could get dirt on. Then he winked at me, but Eileen just about dirtied her pants. Gave some big speech about celebrities deserving their privacy. The thought of offending some big shot scared the hell out of her… anyway, where was I…” Quick’s eyes glazed. He smoked.
“Gavin becoming an investigative reporter.”
“Like I said, it wasn’t serious.”
“How did Gavin fill his time after he dropped out?”
Quick said, “By hanging around. I was ready for him to go back to school, but apparently he wasn’t, so I- it was a hard time for him, I didn’t want to push. I figured maybe he’d reenroll in the spring.”
“Any other changes?” I said.
“He stopped picking up his room. Really let it go to seed. He’d never been the neatest kid, but he’d always been good about personal grooming. Now he sometimes had to be reminded to shower and brush his teeth and comb his hair. I hated reminding him because he got embarrassed. Never argued, never gave me attitude, just said, ‘Sorry, Dad.’ Like he knew something was different and felt bad about it. But that was all getting better, he was coming out of it, getting in shape- he started running again. He was light on his feet, used to do five, six miles like it was nothing. His doctor told me he was going to be fine.”
“Which doctor is that?”
“All of them. There was a neurologist, what was his name-” Quick smoked and removed the cigarette and tapped his cheek with his free hand. “Some Indian guy, Barry Silver, our family doctor, referred us to him. Indian guy, over at Saint John’s… Singh. He wears a turban, must be one of those… you know. Barry is a friend as well as our doctor, I golf with him, so I trusted his referral. Singh did some tests and told us he really didn’t see anything off in Gav’s brain. He said Gav would take time to heal, but he couldn’t say how much time. Then he sent us over to a therapist- a psychologist. To help Gav recover from the trauma.”
“A neuropsychologist?” I said.
Quick said, “She’s a therapist, that’s all I know. Woman shrink, Koppel, she’s been on TV, radio.”
“Mary Lou Koppel.”
“You know her?”
“I’ve heard of her,” I said.
“At first Gav saw one of her partners, but they didn’t hit it off, so he switched to her.”
“What was wrong with the first partner?”
Quick shrugged. “The whole process- you pay for your kid to go in and talk to someone, it’s all hush-hush, you’re not allowed to know what’s going on.” He dragged on his cigarette. “Gavin told me he wasn’t comfortable with the guy and that Koppel was going to see him. Same price. They both charged two hundred bucks an hour and didn’t accept insurance.”
“Was it helpful?”
“Who knows?”
“What feedback did Dr. Koppel give you?”
“Nothing. I was out of that loop- the whole therapy thing. I travel a lot. Too much, been meaning to cut back.”
He smoked the cigarette down to the butt, snatched another, and chain-lit, then snuffed out the first one between his thumb and index finger. Onto the carpet.
He mumbled something.
Milo said, “Sir?”
Quick’s smile was abrupt and unsettling. “I travel all the time, and it’s hell. You know the airlines, disciples of the devil. Frequent business flyer? They could care less. This time, after Sheila called me about Gavin, and I told them why I needed to go home, I got treated like a king. They tag you as bereaved, and you get prioritized all the way. Upgrade to first class, no one could do enough for me.”
He barked what might’ve been laughter. Smoked, coughed, smoked some more.
“That’s what it took. That’s what it took to get treated like a human being.”
Milo asked him about his daughter, and Quick said, “I told Kelly to stay in Boston. She’s got law school, what good can it do her to come here? If you release the… release Gavin to us and we have a funeral, then she can come home. When will that be?”
“Hard to say, sir,” said Milo.
“That seems to be your tune.”
Milo smiled. “Kayla Bartell-”
“Haven’t seen her around for a while. She knew Gav from high school, and they fooled around for a while.”
“Fooled around?”
“Like kids do,” said Quick. “Her father’s some kind of composer. Eileen informs me he’s important.”
“You’ve never met him.”
“Why would I?”
“Gavin and Kayla-”
“That was Gav’s business… to be honest, guys, I don’t get these questions,” said Quick. “What happened can’t have anything to do with Gav. He went up to Mulholland with some girl and a pervert- some sex fiend- took advantage, right? It’s obvious, right? Isn’t that what you’re thinking?”
Before Milo could answer, Quick’s eyes swung to the stairs. Eileen Paxton stomped down, ignored us, and hurried into the kitchen.