MULTIPLE MOTIVES (The Kate Huntington mystery series Book 1) (14 page)

The officer seemed to ponder that for a moment. “Sure, ma’am…uh, Kate. You can call me Rose. Unless Detective Phillips is around.”

Kate suddenly had a thought. “May I ask a personal question, Rose?”

“I suppose so, ma’am…Kate.”

“Were you ever in the military?”

“Yes, m…Kate. Army.”

“Thought so. The way you talk reminds me of my friend, Mac, the one with the glass in his back this morning.” Had it just been that morning, felt like a week ago. “He was Special Forces.”

The young woman’s eyes lit with respect.

“Why did you get out, if you don’t mind my asking?”

“Wouldn’t let me be an MP. Said I was too
petite
.” She spat out the last word. “Put me on a desk. Shuffling papers.”

“Rose, I would
not
call you petite. You’ve met Liz, Rob’s wife?” The officer nodded. “Liz is petite. I would call you
compact
.”

“Compact. I like that!” She flashed the most beautiful smile Kate had ever seen. It was brief, but it lit up her face.

Kate smiled back.
Okay, enough chitchat to soften her up.

“Rose, I need to ask a favor.” The woman’s right eyebrow did the Mr. Spock imitation.

“As you know, Rob and I are going through our files, trying to come up with suspects to turn over to Detective Phillips.” No need to mention that they had no intentions of telling Phillips anything anytime soon. “But in the meantime, if you accidentally overhear a name, or other random information, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep it to yourself, and not share it with the detective, for confidentiality reasons.”

Rose looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded. “If it’s not related to the investigation. Not my business. Nor his.”

“Thanks.”

Something flashed across the young woman’s face, then the cop mask fell back into place.

What was it? Worry, confusion, regret?
Kate wasn’t sure, but something was going on behind those chocolate-brown eyes.

“So what would you like for dinner?” she asked.

“Not picky, m…Kate.”

“Good, ’cause I’m a lousy cook.” She stood up.

Rose stayed seated but squirmed a little on the edge of her chair. “Uh, can I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure.”

“Sorry to bring up unhappiness, but your husband, he was killed just a couple months ago. And someone’s trying to kill you and Mr. Franklin. But the two of you were joking around today?”

Kate sat back down. “Rose, my husband and I…” Grief clogged her throat. She swallowed, then continued, “We’ve been close friends with the Franklins for years. Rob and I are very comfortable with each other, and we both use humor to help us cope. It’s got to get really bad before we stop joking around.”

She paused for a moment, deciding how much to share. “And it was that bad for awhile. I didn’t even smile much, from the time my husband was killed until my sister woke up. When she opened her eyes, I was just so relieved I couldn’t help but laugh, actually shouted with joy.” She smiled now at the memory. “That seemed to bring back my sense of humor, and I’m trying hard to hang onto it, ’cause I missed it.”

But not anything like I miss my husband
.

I miss you too, love
, Eddie’s soft baritone echoed in her head.

She wasn’t about to tell this young woman that she’d also been feeling better ever since she started talking to her dead husband.

Rose looked thoughtful again. Then she nodded. “Sorry for being nosy.”

“That’s okay. I guess it does look pretty weird to see us cutting up, under the circumstances. Now, to the kitchen and let’s forage.”

“Kitchen’s not safe. For you at least. Tell you what, I’ll cook.”

“Oh, what a relief. You’re saving us both from food poisoning,” Kate said, and was blessed with another brief smile.

The light was starting to fade from the sky outside the kitchen windows, but it was dangerous to turn on any lights. For the first time since she and Eddie had sacrificed the formal dining room in order to expand the kitchen, Kate missed having another place to eat. She set up tray tables in the living room.

Even working in semi-darkness, Rose whipped up the best omelette Kate had ever tasted. Over dinner, she broached the next topic. “Rose, there’s another factor that adds to the pressure here. I’m pregnant, and I really don’t want to lose this baby. He or she is all I have left of my husband.” She stopped, blinking hard.

Rose paused in her chewing. Both her eyebrows were in the air. Kate suspected she was counting backwards in her head.

“I’m close to three months along. The baby must have been conceived shortly before….” This time she couldn’t completely blink the tears away. She swiped at her cheeks with her fingers.

Rose’s expression softened. She swallowed her food. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you. Liz and Rob know about the baby, but I don’t want to tell anybody else yet, especially my family. My dad may be arriving here soon, and I definitely don’t want him to know. He and Mac, they’d want to lock me up in a steel vault until this guy’s caught. So I’d appreciate it if you’d keep the news that I’m pregnant to yourself.”

The young woman took another bite of food, chewed, swallowed, then nodded. “No problem.”

~~~~~~~~

As they finished their omelettes in silence, Rose was chewing on a decision as well. Of course she wouldn’t say anything to Kate’s friends or family about the baby. Not her news to announce. The question was whether or not she was going to share this little tidbit with Detective Phillips.

He still wasn’t convinced that this woman and the lawyer weren’t lovers. He’d even speculated that maybe they’d hired someone to throw the police off by faking more murder attempts, and the hired thug had attacked Kate’s sister by mistake.

The timing of the pregnancy was awfully tight. Of course, this lady could have gotten pregnant by her lover before her husband’s death. Indeed, that would be a major motivation to knock off their spouses.

But Rose was having a lot of trouble imagining Kate Huntington as a stone-cold killer, especially one who would put her own sister at risk.

Besides, Elena Rosa
, she argued with herself,
you know Phillips is an ass!

If she told him Kate was pregnant, he’d assume Franklin was the father and would gleefully start nailing the lids down on their coffins. She didn’t want either of these seemingly nice people railroaded into a murder conviction if they didn’t do it.

She’d watched them interact all day, and she hadn’t seen anything that looked or felt like flirtation–no lingering touches, no sultry looks when they thought she wasn’t watching. No sexual energy between them at all. They acted more like a married couple who’d been together for years. As Kate had said, comfortable with each other.

It suddenly struck Rose that these two were more like brother and sister. In her large family, she was especially close to her brother Ricardo. These people, with their teasing and joking around, reminded her of Ricky and herself.

But then again, they could both be really good actors
.

She caught herself as she was about to shake her head in frustration.

Bottom line–she wasn’t telling Phillips anything just yet. She’d keep watching these two closely, especially around Mrs. Franklin. It would be interesting to see how she reacted to Kate.

And if I decide to tell him later, I don’t have to let on how long I’ve known about it.

That cover-her-ass thought was the first time Rose had considered the impact that withholding information from a superior officer might have on her career. Now that she did contemplate it, she wasn’t sure she cared.

As they stood and gathered up their plates, the doorbell rang. It was the big, buff bodyguard. He informed them that her replacement had arrived.

As she was about to leave, Kate put a hand on her arm. “Yet another favor.”

Rose cocked an eyebrow at her.

“Tonight, before you go to bed, I’d like you to say ‘Yes, Kate’… ‘No, Kate’… ‘Please, pass the salt, Kate’ out loud about twenty or so times.”

Rose grinned. “Goodnight,
Kate
.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Rose rang her charge’s doorbell at eight on Saturday morning. The woman opened the door and just stood there, staring at her. Then she stepped back and mumbled, “Hang on a minute.”

Rose walked in and closed the door behind her. Kate Huntington disappeared into a room off the living room.

She came back in a minute, carrying two large department store bags. She dropped them on the sofa. “Mary bought this stuff, the day she was hurt. It got left behind when they went home.” Kate was rummaging through the bags.

“Here.” She held up a loose-fitting white shirt and beige slacks. “These should fit you. Might have to roll up the pants legs some, make a cuff.”

Confused, Rose lifted an eyebrow at her. “Ma’am…uh, Kate?”

“I can’t have a uniformed officer sitting in the waiting room at the center.”

“On duty. Gotta be in uniform.”

“But you’ll scare the clients.”

Rose lifted an eyebrow again. “You got clients who’ve broken the law?”

“No, and if they did, I couldn’t tell you. But the majority of our clients have been victimized in the past, some of them by authority figures. There are a multitude of interpretations, most of them bad, that they might put on the presence of a police officer. You would make them very uncomfortable, and it’s important that a therapist’s office and waiting room feel safe.”

Rose paused to process that information.

Meanwhile the woman kept talking. “Maybe I could have Skip sit in the waiting area, and you stay out in the parking lot. Although a big guy like him would scare some of them worse than a cop hanging around.”

“My orders are to stick with you.” She’d get in as much trouble for being out in the parking lot as she would for being out of uniform, if Phillips found out. He’d ordered her to spy as well as protect. But maybe she could use that as her excuse for being in civvies if he happened to show up. She’d tell him that this woman wouldn’t let her stay close by if she was in uniform.

Kate was shaking her head in frustration. “I’ve got to go in today. One of my clients, last time I talked to her, she was feeling suicidal. If she doesn’t get her session today, she may not make it through the weekend. Crap, I don’t see a solution to this. I’ve gotta go in, you’ve gotta go with me. And my boss is likely to send me home if I show up with a uniformed police officer in tow.”

“Okay, I’ll do it,” Rose said. “Got some of my own clothes in my trunk. And my ankle holster.”

“But you can’t. You’ll get in trouble.”

She rolled her eyes. “Kate, you just talked me into it. And now you don’t want me to do it?”

“Okay, how about this, you stay in uniform going to and from the center and change into the street clothes while we’re there?”

Rose nodded. “That’ll work.”

And it did. The clients in the waiting room paid no attention to the compact woman who was pretending to read a magazine. She was just another client waiting for her counselor.

When Kate finished with clients at noon, they headed to the Franklins’ house.

~~~~~~~~

The sun streaming through the sliding glass door in the Franklins’ family room drew Kate to that side of the room. She closed her eyes and reveled in its warmth on her cheeks. The light dimmed.

She opened her eyes. Rose had stepped between her and the door and was firmly pulling the curtains closed across it. Kate stuck her tongue out at the silky, black bun on the back of the officer’s head, even though she understood her motivation. That glass surface exposed her charges to the outside world.

Liz encouraged Rose to load her plate with food before joining the bodyguards out in the living room. On the big table to one side of the room sat a platter of sandwiches and a bowl of potato salad. Next to the obligatory jar of pickle slices for Rob, there was a bottle Kate suspected was meant for her.

Liz was telling Rob how good it had been to get out of the house that morning to run a few errands, and yes, she was careful, and yes, Ben’s a very vigilant bodyguard. She looked over at Kate examining the prenatal vitamins and broke off.

“I took the liberty of getting those for you. I figured you probably hadn’t gotten in to see your doctor yet. I saw those when we went to the pharmacy to get Ben some cough medicine.”

Feeling vaguely guilty, Kate said, “It hadn’t even crossed my mind to schedule an appointment yet, with all the craziness.”

“Would you like me to call the obstetrician who delivered the girls and make an appointment for you? He’s getting up there in years but I think he’s still in practice.”

“That would be a huge help, Liz.”

“I’ll call first thing Monday morning.” Liz turned back to her husband. “And speaking of Ben, with all the joint people power we have here right now, can we send him home? He’s been hacking and coughing for a couple days. He needs to get some rest, and as run down as we are from all this stress, I’m afraid we’re going to catch whatever he has.”

Rob leaned down to kiss the top of his wife’s head. “Okay, Mother, I’ll take care of it.” He headed for the living room, as a fit of intense coughing from that direction proved Liz’s point.

Kate and Liz sat down at the table. “Liz, I trust your discretion but I’ve got to say this out loud to appease my own conscience. Up to now, I’ve only bent the rules. Now we’re about to break them, so nothing we discuss goes beyond this room.”

Liz nodded.

Rob returned and took a seat. “Mac called this morning,” he told them. “He’s eliminated Connolly. Guy got himself killed a few months ago in a bar fight.”

Liz snorted. “I think being dead qualifies him as an unlikely suspect.”

Rob’s mouth quirked up on one end. “Mac’s in Morgantown, West Virginia now, where Hunter was last registered as a sex offender. He’s gonna call in later.”

Three hours later, the sandwiches were seriously depleted and they’d rehashed a couple dozen cases from the possibilities pile. With Liz’s fresh perspective they’d eliminated quite a few and had added three files to the strong possibilities pile.