SUICIDAL SUSPICIONS: A Kate Huntington Mystery (The Kate Huntington Mystery Series Book 8) (24 page)

It was a common tactic of abusers, to tell the child victims they wouldn’t be believed, that people would blame them, or that their parents would somehow be harmed by the truth. And suggesting to a traumatized child that the whole thing should be forgotten played right into the mind’s defensive tendency to block out anything too emotionally overwhelming.

Some of the pieces fell into place. They clicked together nicely. Josie had been abused, at St. Bart’s. Probably by the janitor, but there had to be someone else involved. The Church wouldn’t work so hard to protect a lowly janitor.

Please don’t let it be Father Sam
, she prayed silently.

She laid back down carefully, amazed that Skip had slept through her jerking around. Staring at the ceiling, she planned her course of action.

Tomorrow she would have Manny go talk to the janitor. Manny wasn’t particularly tall, but he was muscular and could be quite scary when he wanted to be.

She would look into Father Bill some more. But first she really needed to talk to Mrs. Hartin, for several reasons.

Once she’d figured out how to accomplish that, she was finally able to drift off to sleep again.

~~~~~~~~

“Franklin,” came from the speaker on her dashboard.

“I need you to call that O’Connor woman, the Hartins’ lawyer.”

“Well, good morning to you too, Miss Obsessed.”

“I’m sorry.” Kate shook her head as she negotiated her car through the morning rush-hour traffic. She’d been saying those two words a lot lately.

She started over. “Good morning.”

“Now what am I supposed to tell Kathy O’Connor?”

“Tell her that I have some answers for Mrs. Hartin, but I have to see her in person. Today at lunchtime, if possible. My office or I’ll meet her somewhere.”

“And what are these answers?” Rob asked.

“That threatening note for one. It proves that Josie was murdered.”

“Maybe. Or it may just mean that someone’s worried you’ll uncover something else while you’re poking around.”

“Like what?”

“It bothers me that all records of that prescription disappeared from that pharmacy. What if someone there is peddling stolen drugs?”

“I don’t see how that could have led to Josie being killed.”

“That’s my point. They may just be worried because you’re asking questions about that prescription, so they sent that note.”

Kate shook her head, even though Rob couldn’t see her. She didn’t want to hear that the note might not be solid proof that Josie was murdered. She pulled into the parking lot across from her office building. “Maybe. But I still have some questions for Mrs. Hartin.”

“Okay. I’ll see what I can set up. You mind if I sit in?”

Kate wanted him to so badly. It hit her that she’d felt pretty alone with all this. But she’d been the one who’d been shutting the others out for the most part, convincing herself that she was the only one who could investigate, the only one who knew Josie and would understand the clues. Was that some kind of unconscious penance for letting Josie down?

“Kate, you there?”

“Sorry. I’d love to have you sit in since Mrs. Hartin’s kinda scary, but she’s not likely to open up if you’re there. I’ll call you as soon as it’s over.”

“Okay. I should be around all afternoon. This is a catch up on paperwork day.”

Kate disconnected and climbed out of her car. As she walked to her office, she felt lighter than she had in days. She hoped the feeling lasted this time.

She was really, really tired of guilt.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Kate groaned quietly when she saw who Skip had sent as her second bodyguard, while Manny was off interviewing the janitor. Correction, Skip probably hadn’t sent him. Mac Reilly, who was leaning against her outer office door, had no doubt volunteered for the job.

He was his usual scruffy self, with a two-day-old beard and wearing a faded Army T-shirt and blue jeans. He was going to scare the bejesus out of her clients.

She loved Mac dearly. They’d grown up together. But in that lay the other part of the problem. He tended to play the overprotective big brother at times.

“Hey, sweet pea,” Mac greeted her with his childhood nickname for her.

“Good morning.” She pasted on a smile even as her mind was scrambling for a way to get him to leave. But she knew he wouldn’t.

And he shouldn’t. She was in danger, and she was way too vulnerable in the office. Also, if someone came after her here, a client could end up getting hurt as well.

That thought made her heart race.

The only thing she could think of was to call her clients and tell them not to be alarmed by the scary-looking guy in her waiting room. She had no clue what excuse she could give for why he was there.

She unlocked the door and led the way into her waiting room.

~~~~~~~~

Skip sat at his desk staring at the list of pieces of information his wife had gathered. He admitted to himself that Kate was a good detective. Which shouldn’t be surprising since she spent her days piecing together the psychological puzzles of why people did and felt what they did. That had to be tough to do, since you couldn’t see or touch the psyche.

He wasn’t about to tell her she was a good detective though. No need to encourage her. She seemed to stumble over more than enough dead bodies as it was.

She had thought the nun, Sister Michelina, had been lying to her, or at least withholding information. And everything pointed toward something that had happened at that church back when Josie was a kid. It’d be worthwhile to re-interview the nun.

He checked his watch. Kate would be in session right now. He called her cell phone and left a message. Then he made another call, to schedule an appointment with Sister Michelina.

When the elderly nun came on the line, he identified himself as an investigator looking into Josie Hartin’s death.

She didn’t sound particularly surprised by that, but she was a bit resistant. “I haven’t seen Josephine in decades, young man.” Her tone was crisp. “I’m sure it would be a waste of your time to talk to me.”

Skip pushed, and finally the nun agreed to see him on Saturday, mid-afternoon.

~~~~~~~~

Kate was almost her old confident self with her clients. She only second guessed herself a couple of times during her morning sessions.

Even the session with Carol Foster had gone well. “I just feel blah now,” the woman had said. “That usually means the depression is lifting and I’ll feel better soon.”

Kate gave the client an encouraging nod.
You and me both, sister.

She’d been checking messages between each client and had heard nothing back from Rob. So she was a bit surprised when she ushered Carol out of her office and saw Nancy Hartin sitting in her waiting room, surreptitiously eyeing Mac.

Kate showed the woman into her office and gestured toward the loveseat in the corner sitting area, where she normally talked to clients.

Mrs. Hartin glanced at her desk, back at her and then headed toward the loveseat. She settled onto it, crossing her legs and smoothing down her skirt. “My lawyer informs me that you have some answers.” Her tone was an odd mixture of haughty and anxious.

Kate realized that she no longer found the woman intimidating. She had a pretty good idea where the Hartins’ skeletons were buried. She leaned forward. In her best therapist voice, she said, “I need to ask you a couple things first.”

Mrs. Hartin hesitated, then gave a small nod.

“Why did you take Josie out of St. Bartholomew’s school in second grade?”

Mrs. Hartin turned her head away. She bit down on her lower lip.

The gesture was so out of character Kate had trouble hiding her shock.

“I have a good reason for asking,” she said softly. “It may very well be related…” She stopped, not sure she wanted to say more just yet.

“We let everyone think it was because Bryn Mawr would give Josephine certain advantages, but that wasn’t the real reason.” Nancy Hartin paused and sucked in a deep breath. It came out on a shudder. “I was taking her to school one day and she said to me, ‘Do I have to go with the man who makes me take my clothes off today?’”

Kate had been suspecting something like this, but still her throat tightened.

A tear meandered down Mrs. Hartin’s carefully made-up cheek. She dropped her gaze to her lap. “Her voice was so innocent, as if she were asking if she had to eat her vegetables. I tried to get her to say more, but she got this scared look on her face. She said she’d made it all up.”

Mrs. Hartin raised her head. “But how does a seven-year-old make something like that up?”

“She didn’t,” Kate said gently.

“I know. I took her back home and called the school, told them she was sick.” The words were now tumbling out. “But my husband poo-pooed it, said it was just a child’s lively imagination. I took her to our family doctor, without Phillip’s knowledge.”

She stared straight at Kate now, her eyes begging for understanding. “The doctor said she hadn’t been abused. I thought I’d gotten her out of there in time, before anything really bad had happened.” She looked away again, gnawed on her lip. “But when she was a teenager and started struggling with depression, I wondered.”

If only you’d told Josie about it, then she and I would have both known what we were dealing with.

Kate didn’t voice the thought. She knew what Mrs. Hartin’s reasoning had been. It was the common belief of the time, and still believed by all too many people today. If one just didn’t think about the trauma, they would be fine.

She changed the subject. “Mrs. Hartin, I need to see the rest of Josie’s journals.”

The woman’s head jerked up. “There was only the one.”

Kate shook her head. “Josie had been journaling for months, and she’d also kept journals a few years ago, when she was working with that other therapist.”

“The most recent one was the only one the police found. I asked specifically about that.”

Kate told her about the dusty vacant spot on the bookshelf and finding one of the older journals down behind other books.

“Do you think Josephine got rid of them?” Mrs. Hartin asked.

“No, I think someone stole them.” Kate shook her head again in frustration. “And probably destroyed them.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because there are references in that old one and the current one that imply something happened to Josie back then.” Kate decided against describing the man with the scraggly beard. Mrs. Hartin might remember the janitor, and who knows what a distraught mother would do to try to find out what he knew. Time enough later, after she got Manny’s report, to point a finger at Mr. Jones.

“I think whatever happened was the cause of her recurring dreams, and that she’d been told not to tell anyone, maybe even told to forget what happened. So whenever she got close to remembering, it made her very anxious.”

Mrs. Hartin’s lips formed an angry line even as more tears leaked out of her narrowed eyes. “Not
told
. You mean she was threatened.”

Kate knew there was no way to make this easier for the woman. She was facing the reality that her little girl had gone through some horrible experience, and she, her mother, had failed to protect her.

“Brainwashed would probably best describe it,” Kate said. “A combination of threats of dire consequences if she told, followed by reassurances that everything would be okay if she kept quiet.”

She leaned forward and took a chance. Reaching out a hand, she rested it lightly on Nancy Hartin’s arm. “You did get her away from whatever was going on. And you took her to the doctor. A lot of people wouldn’t have done that. They would have preferred to hang on to their denial.”

“Yes but I didn’t get her away completely.” Her voice was harsh with self-recrimination. “I wanted to change parishes but Phil wouldn’t do it. There were too many influential people who went to St. Bartholomew’s, he said. He needed those contacts.”

So Mr. H can stand up to his wife when he really wants to. Too bad he’s only assertive when it comes to his business, not his daughter.

Kate kept those thoughts to herself as well.

Mrs. Hartin shook her head. “But I never let her out of my sight when we were at church. I kept her with me in the sanctuary, wouldn’t let her go to Sunday school.” The woman’s voice broke on a sob. She buried her face in her hands. “She was always so nervous when we were going to church. She’d cling to me. I knew in my heart of hearts that something…had already happened.”

Kate moved over to sit next to the woman on the loveseat. She laid a hand on her shoulder. Mrs. Hartin turned toward her and let Kate wrap her arms around her. She sobbed for several minutes.

When the crying seemed to be ebbing, Kate let go and sat back. “What happened at St. Bart’s wasn’t the only cause of Josie’s depression. It probably wasn’t even the main cause. It just aggravated her bipolar disorder. And bipolar is biologically based. There’s pretty good evidence that it’s genetic.”

Mrs. Hartin gave a slight nod as she dried her eyes with tissues from the box Kate kept on the table next to the loveseat. “See, that’s what I don’t understand,” she said when she’d sufficiently regained her composure. “Nobody on either side of the family has ever had any mental disorders.”

Kate seriously doubted that, but bipolar was often missed in earlier generations, especially if the person tended more toward mania than depression.

She slipped back over to her own chair, facing the loveseat. “Tell me, who made the original Hartin fortune?”

“My husband’s grandfather. He was an old man by the time I met him, but he’d been quite the dynamo in his day. Very charismatic and…” She trailed off, her mouth forming an o.

“No doubt he was also depressed at times,” Kate said. “But he would have hid that, forced himself to push through it.”

“So why couldn’t Josephine do that?”

Kate stifled a sigh. When would that belief die, that people with mental disorders should just buck up and deal with it?

“Because she wasn’t a man born in the late 1800s. She was a woman born in the 1980s. In Josie, the mania took the form of creativity, came out in her artwork.” Kate was waltzing close to the line of confidentiality, but she didn’t think her dead client would mind if the knowledge helped her mother to finally understand her.