ILL-TIMED ENTANGLEMENTS (The Kate Huntington mystery series #2) (20 page)

“I’ll walk you to your car,” Skip said.

After a swing out to US 30 to buy a deadbolt lock and the tools to install it, Kate and Skip were headed back across Columbia Avenue, the main drag through the western side of Lancaster, when Kate spotted a horse and buggy half a block ahead of them.

She leaned forward, straining against her seatbelt. With excitement in her voice, she said, “Oh, I was hoping to see some Amish while I was up here. All these years I’ve lived just two hours away, and I’ve never been to Amish country before.”

Waiting for a break in the traffic coming the other way, Skip carefully maneuvered his Explorer around the buggy. Kate waved at the Amish family, a couple with a small boy, no older than four. The bearded father kept his eyes stoically ahead, but the modestly dressed mother gave Kate a shy smile. The young woman’s hair was tucked up under a small white bonnet.

The boy, wearing a miniature version of his father’s straw hat, blue shirt and suspendered black trousers, was much less reserved. He waved back at Kate, a big grin on his face.

At the sight of the boy’s cheerful face, Skip experienced a sharp stab of something he had never felt before. Easing back into his lane in front of the trotting horse, he realized it was envy. He wanted what that man had. A family.

In his thirty-eight years, he had dated many women, loved some of them and even lived with one. But, much to his mother’s dismay, he had never felt the urge to marry or have a family. And he had never particularly felt like he was missing out on anything. Until now.

Skip glanced at Kate, who was still looking over her shoulder at the receding buggy and its occupants. He’d never met little Edie but he recalled the picture her proud mother had shown him. The baby was a tiny version of Kate–dark curly hair, blue eyes and a big grin.

He felt a warm sensation in his chest.
Aw, shit, Skippy
, he thought, with a sinking feeling in his gut.
You’ve got it bad, man!

A
t Betty’s apartment, Skip began installing the deadbolt above the newly repaired security chain. While the others gathered in the living room, Kate stood by the breakfast bar, handing Skip tools as needed.

Liz pointed to the lists propped up on the settee. “Between Betty’s knowledge of them and what I could get out of Mrs. Carroll, we’ve identified the former occupations of most of these folks. We thought we were really onto something with Mr. Forsythe.” Under his name Betty had written “high school chemistry teacher.”

“Your description of the intruder tends to eliminate him, however,” Liz said.

“But he’s the only one of our top suspects it eliminates, except maybe one or two of the ladies in the writers’ group,” Kate said. “And Mr. Berkeley. He looked quite frail.”

“Even if neither Berkeley or Forsythe could be the intruder, they could be in it with their wives for some reason,” Rose pointed out.

Liz leaned over the list of the writers’ group members. “We tried to find out the occupations of spouses as well. Jill Winthrop, widow and homemaker, deceased husband was retired military, a colonel and, get this, in charge of a VA hospital for the last five years of his career.

“Julie Thompson, divorcee, was an elementary school principal, don’t know what her ex did for a living. Henry Morris, widower, maintenance worker for the Lancaster school system, wife was a nurse’s aide at the hospital.”

“They must have been careful savers to be able to afford this place,” Kate said.

“So Mrs. Winthrop or Morris could conceivably have chloroform laying around that their deceased spouses, for some obscure reason, may have brought home,” Skip said.

“But that’s not very likely,” Rob said.

“True,” Kate and Skip said in unison. He looked over his shoulder and flashed her a grin.

Kate glanced in Rob’s direction. He was looking their way, but his emotions were hidden behind the neutral mask he wore in court.

Betty had written “might have access to chloroform” next to a star at the bottom of the list. Now she took out a marker and put a star with a question mark next to it beside Winthrop’s and Morris’s names. There was already a star beside Mr. Forsythe.

Liz continued, “Janet Maccabe, widow and homemaker, husband worked for the railroad; Fred Murphy, forensic technician for the local police department, wife was a nurse.”

“Either one of them might be able to get their hands on chloroform,” Rob said. Betty put a star by their names, which already had several asterisks next to them indicating he was one of the married men Doris had flirted with and he had particularly disliked Frieda.

“Nothing popped when we interviewed them,” Kate said. “Did you sense anything suspicious about them, Skip?”

Skip shook his head without turning around, as he tightened the last of the screws in the deadbolt. “Seemed like nice boring people. But they’re both average height and build, and looked reasonable fit.”

“Boring’s a good description of them,” Betty said. “Frieda was the only one they didn’t get along with. Fred’s got a rather dry wit and Frieda never got his jokes. She’d take offense and tell him off.”

“Peggy Foster is divorced. She was a school teacher but again, no idea what her ex did for a living.”

“I interviewed Foster,” Kate said. “She’s tiny. She couldn’t have been the intruder last night.” Betty was nodding in agreement. She wrote “too small” after Foster’s name.

“That’s it for the writers’ group,” Liz said. “The other married couples… Hmm, the Petersons. He was a manager at the Armstrong plant here in Lancaster. She worked in the pharmacy at the hospital.” Betty put a star next to her name. “The Berkeleys owned their own hardware store.”

“Would they be able to get chloroform?” Rob asked.

“Maybe,” Liz said. A star with a question mark went up next to the Berkeleys.

Liz continued, “Carla Baxter never married. She was a mathematics professor at Drexel in Philly. Daniel Jennings is a widower. We couldn’t find out what he did for a living. Last but not least, we have the Forsythes, chemistry teacher and aerobics instructor.”

“Why am I not surprised,” Kate muttered under her breath.

She had been chasing a thought around in the back of her head. Finally she was able to grab it. “Betty, what were the members of the writers’ group working on? Did any of them have stories in progress, or ones they’d written before, that had a plot at all similar to what’s been happening here?”

Betty thought for a moment. “Only two members write mysteries. Well, actually Janet writes political thrillers. Jill Winthrop’s been working on a volume of short stories…” She paused for a couple seconds. “I seem to recall that one of them is about an artists’ commune. A jealous member is killing off the other artists.”

“Anybody in the group who tends to be jealous of the others?” Kate asked.

“Doris,” was Betty’s immediate reply.

“How about Winthrop herself?” Rose said.

“Jill’s a hard person to read. She’s very private. It was like pulling teeth sometimes to get her to talk about what she was writing, which after all is the whole point of the group, to hash out our ideas with other writers.”

“Could we have a life-imitating-art scenario here, perhaps?” Rob said, as the doorbell rang. He got up to answer it.

Mrs. Carroll stepped into the apartment and stood by the breakfast bar. She was clenching and unclenching her hands, her expression an odd mix of anxiety and anger. “I’m afraid you will all have to leave,” she declared.

“Excuse me,” Rob said into the stunned silence.

“The rules clearly state that no one who is not related to a resident by blood or marriage can stay in a resident’s apartment for more than one week. This has been going on for a week now, so you all need to leave.”

“Mrs. Carroll, first of all, my wife and I
are
related to my aunt by blood or marriage, and secondly, this isn’t exactly a routine visit,” Rob said, in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Well, I just can’t allow you to go on asking questions, bothering the residents, and keeping everything stirred up.” Her voice was rising, an hysterical edge to it. “I’ve had four residents move out, and several more have given me notice that they’re leaving. When I called people on the waiting list to take their places, all but one turned me down.”

“Mrs. Carroll,” Kate said, in what she hoped was a conciliatory tone. “
We’re
not the problem. People are being murdered. We’re trying to help the police figure out who the murderer is.”

“But you’re not helping.” The woman was almost in tears. “You’re just making it worse. Keeping everybody upset.” She was now wringing her hands.

Betty stood up. “How dare you come in here and tell my guests they have to leave. This is my home!”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Franklin, but I’m supposed to keep everything calm around here. I can’t have all this trouble.” The woman took a deep breath and straightened her back. “I must insist that your guests leave.”

Fire flashed in Betty’s eyes but before she could respond, her nephew said, “Mrs. Carroll, you have no legal standing to do that. Residents have the right to have guests and we have the blessing of the lead detective on the case.”

“Well, we’ll see about that. I’m going to call our lawyers.” The director turned and left in a huff.

As Rob closed the door and flipped the new deadbolt, Kate asked, “Can she make us leave?”

“I don’t know. It’s a bit of a gray area,” Rob said grimly, turning back toward them. “Hopefully we’ll catch a break before she catches up with her lawyers.”

•   •   •

But a big break in the case was not in the cards that day. They had to settle for several little ones. Most of the doorbells they rang went unanswered. Even though the two deaths had happened at night, as the rumor mill spread and exaggerated the details, residents were becoming more wary about opening their doors to strangers.

Kate and Skip had been able to eliminate Janet Maccabe. She had moved slowly around her apartment, complaining about her arthritis. It was highly unlikely that she could have been the intruder who had gotten away from Skip, and then Rose and Mac as well. Her reaction when they’d asked about chloroform had been mild curiosity. “Do they still make that?” she’d said.

Jill Winthrop, on the other hand, had become quite nervous as their interview with her had progressed, and she had begun fingering the string of pearls at her throat. She was a prim-looking woman, tall and slender, wearing an old-fashioned shirtwaist dress, with short, curly gray hair bracketing her wrinkled face. She’d adamantly denied that her husband had ever brought home any chloroform or other supplies from the VA hospital.

When Kate had brought up the subject of her writing, the woman had become resistant. “I don’t discuss my work,” she had bluntly declared.

“Other than with the writers’ group,” Kate had said.

“Not even there, if I could help it. It is too easy for one’s ideas to be plagiarized, as we have now seen happen.” When Kate had started to ask specifically about one of her stories, the woman had cut her off and ended the interview with the claim that she had to leave for a doctor’s appointment.

As Kate and Skip headed down the fire stairs to meet the others for lunch in Betty’s apartment, they agreed that Mrs. Winthrop merited closer scrutiny.

Mac and Rose were walking along the secluded stretch between the recreation center and Betty’s building, discussing the results of the only two interviews they had successfully conducted that morning. After looking around to make sure no one was in sight, Mac took Rose’s hand. She flashed him one of her beautiful smiles. He grinned back at her.

Mac glanced down at the sidewalk and noticed the black tire mark. He turned to Rose to make some comment about reckless drivers. Before the words could form on his lips, they heard the roar of an engine.

Rose looked over her shoulder. In the next instant she was shoving Mac off the sidewalk onto the grass and diving after him. Together they rolled several times, as they heard the engine being gunned again and the squeal of tires. Mac leapt to his feet. The car that had been the source of those noises was already over a hundred feet away. He was only able to make out the first two letters of the license plate before it was too small to read.

“You okay?” he asked Rose, still squinting after the rapidly departing vehicle.

“Yeah,” she said from beside him. “You get the plate?”

Mac shook his head. “Just D-P. Older car, I think.”

Rose nodded in agreement. “Engine sounded like it could’ve been a V-8.”

“Think that was intentional?” Mac growled.

Rose thought for a moment. “Maybe.”

“Funny thing is…” Mac pointed down to the two tire marks on the sidewalk, the original and a fresh one. “I was ’bout ta say that somebody ’round here’s a careless driver.”

•   •   •

Liz was helping Betty make sandwiches when Rob let Rose and Mac into the apartment. As she worked, she filled the others in on her computer research that morning. “I found out that Carla Baxter’s undergraduate degree was in chemistry. She started out pursuing that field in her graduate work but then switched to math. So she might know how to get chloroform.”

Liz brought the plate of sandwiches over and put it down on the coffee table. “I checked into Alice Carroll’s background as well. I thought her little tizzy fit this morning was a bit of an over-reaction, so I did some digging. She was a nurse until ten years ago, when she came here as an administrator. Worked in an assisted living and hospice facility. They had several suspicious deaths. Folks who were terminal but who died sooner than was expected. Local police were starting to suspect they were mercy killings by one of the staff, but could never prove anything. Shortly after that, Carroll resigned.”

“So are you thinking she had something to do with the murders here?” Rob asked.

Liz shrugged as she passed out glasses of iced tea. “I don’t know about that. But it does give her a strong reason to want us to stop investigating. She probably feared we would dig this up.”

“And ironically she brought that on by drawing attention to herself,” Kate said. “She seemed rather hung up on keeping the peace around here. Is it possible that she got wind of Doris’s threat to sue Betty and went to talk her out of it and…”