ILL-TIMED ENTANGLEMENTS (The Kate Huntington mystery series #2) (33 page)

The therapist in Kate was doing battle with the investigator. The therapist wanted to reassure the poor woman. She was convinced that Carla Baxter was not the intruder who had attempted to set up Betty’s fake suicide, and the topic of nitrates had not made her nervous. It was unlikely that she’d had anything to do with the murders.

But the investigator part wanted to find out exactly what this woman was so nervous about. Maybe the two goals were not mutually exclusive. Kate reminded herself that she needed to be careful. She was alone with the woman.

Bracing to defend herself if necessary, Kate kept her voice sympathetic and reassuring. “Carla, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think you have a secret that you’re anxious might come out, and I want to reassure…”

Baxter jumped to her feet. “No!” she gasped. “How did you find out I killed my sister?”

•   •   •

Rob knocked on the Murphys’ door with little hope that there would be any response. But this time a female voice called out, “Just a minute.”

He let out a sigh of relief and glanced down at the slip of paper in his hand. First, find out about any connection to Jeff, then explore the access to chloroform and the knowledge of nitrates issues.

A woman, about five-seven and in decent shape for her years, opened the door, the safety chain in place. Rob introduced himself and explained that he was talking to people in the community in order to clear his aunt’s name.

“Come in then,” Mrs. Murphy said. “But I don’t know if there’s anything more we can tell you. We’ve already talked to those other folks, who said they were friends of your aunt. We told them everything we could think of that might help.”

“I’m sorry to bother you again,” Rob said, “There’s just a couple new things I need to ask you about, if you don’t mind?”

Mr. Murphy, a lean man of average height who looked like he made regular use of the community’s gym, had come into the room while his wife was talking.

“Sure, shoot!” he said, pointing his finger at Rob like a gun and mimicking shooting it. His wife gave him a repressive look.

Rob politely refused the offer of refreshments. Mrs. Murphy escorted him to the small living room area that contained only a loveseat and one overstuffed armchair. The rest of the combination living/dining area was dominated by a huge mahogany table, china cabinet and heavy, carved chairs that no doubt had once graced a much larger formal dining room.

As Rob sat in the armchair and Mrs. Murphy settled on the loveseat, her husband dragged over one of the dining room chairs. He straddled the seat backward and crossed his arms on top of its back.

“First, of all, I was wondering if you knew the more recent victim, Jeffrey Morgan?” Rob began. “And perhaps could tell me anything about who his friends or enemies were?”

The Murphys exchanged a look. Then Mr. Murphy said, “We
can
tell you that. But then we’ll have to kill you.” His voice was even, his expression deadly serious. Rob realized that Murphy’s chair was between him and the door.

A
s Kate was walking back to Betty’s building, she was still processing the sad story she had just heard. Carla Baxter had a dark secret, but not the one Kate had suspected.

The story Baxter had told her was a variation of the ones Kate had heard all too many times in her office–abusive stepfather, mother in denial, children desperate enough to run away. Seventeen-year-old Carla had felt she couldn’t leave her thirteen-year-old half-sister behind, at the old man’s mercy without her big sister as a buffer.

The second day, they were hitchhiking on the highway when a car stopped. Carla hadn’t liked the way the man was looking at her sister and was about to say, no, thank you. But her sister was already leaning into the car. The man grabbed Jenny’s arm, yanked her the rest of the way in and took off.

A sobbing Carla stumbled along the shoulder until a police officer spotted her. An APB was released and Carla was returned to her home. Two weeks later, her sister’s body was found in a shallow grave. Her parents, along with most of the occupants of the small town in which they lived, had blamed Carla.

When Carla had turned eighteen, ten long months later, she had left home and had never returned. But she had carried a tremendous burden with her, and had lived the next fifty years with the irrational fear that if anyone found out about her past, they too would blame her for what had happened.

Kate had tried to convince the woman that her sister’s death was not her fault, but she doubted she’d had much impact. Guilt tended to be the most illogical emotion of them all. She’d encouraged Carla to seek professional counseling. The woman had tearfully promised to think about it. But Kate seriously doubted she would follow through and get help.

Kate had been debating about the wisdom of bringing up Frieda’s name when Carla had started begging her not to tell anyone about her past. Her words had been pleading but she’d had a strange glint in her eye.

Kate had hated to make a promise she wasn’t planning to keep but she was afraid not to. The woman had looked downright irrational. Kate had finally succeeded in convincing her that her secret was safe.

As she entered Betty’s building, Kate was still trying to decide whether to tell Lindstrom about her gut sense that Carla Baxter may not be a totally sane person. She definitely intended to tell him that the woman had a motive to kill Frieda.

As if her thoughts had conjured him up, Kate saw the detective coming across the atrium. But she never got a chance to tell him anything about Baxter.

Lindstrom hurried in her direction. “Kate, have you seen Joe Fielding around today?” he asked, urgency in his voice.

“No, not this morning. What’s the matter, Sandy?”

Ignoring her question, he brusquely said, “Go back to Mrs. Franklin’s apartment and stay there until I call you.” Then he turned and started to walk away from her.

Kate ran to catch up with him. “What’s going on, Sandy?” she asked, worry in her voice.

“Hair from the last rape scene matches Fielding’s. He’s my rapist. He wasn’t home when we went to his apartment. I gotta track him down before he rapes, or kills, again.”

“Kills?” Kate’s eyes went wide.

Lindstrom’s arm shot out to hold her back as he eased open the machine room door. The officer rummaging through the cans and jars on the work bench glanced up.

“No Fielding, sir, but I did find this.” He held up an evidence bag with a small bottle in it. “Trichloromethane on the label.”

“Good work, Officer Daley.”

“Isn’t that….?”

“Chloroform,” Lindstrom answered before she had finished the question.

The detective moved briskly back out to the atrium and headed for the outside doors. Kate raced after him. “Sandy, wait…”

Outside, Lindstrom stopped, looking around the parking lot. Kate caught up. But before she could tell him that Mac and Rose might be talking to Joe at that very moment, he said, “There’s more. Local FBI office got a partial hit back from ViCAP. It’s a national database to match up violent crimes with similar MO’s.” Lindstrom took out his cell phone as his eyes continued to scan the nearby grounds.

“Home invasion in Boston, eight years ago. Elderly woman was raped and hit on the head with a lamp, although she wasn’t killed. Jewelry box was rifled. Her assailant wore a black ski mask. Guess who the maintenance man for her apartment building was?”

Kate grabbed Lindstrom’s arm. “Sandy, Mac and Rose were going to talk to him, to see if he knew Jeff Morgan.” She yanked her phone out of her pocket to call Rose.

The detective was talking into his own phone, requesting more uniforms to join the search.

•   •   •

A half mile away, Rose was watching Fielding’s every move.

At first he’d assumed that she was a new member of the housekeeping staff, and had made a couple lewd suggestions about what they could do together after work.

He had grown wary when she’d informed him that she was investigating the murders. Rose had reassured him that she was a friend of Mrs. Franklin’s, not a member of the police force that was formally investigating the crimes. Trying to get him warmed up, she had asked for his impressions of some of their suspects.

But he kept moving nervously from one area of the shed to another. She had to stay on her toes to keep him from getting around behind her. She wasn’t about to let that happen.

“Yeah, that Mrs. Forshite,” Joe slurred the woman’s name as he flashed Rose a bad-boy smirk. “She’s got the hots for me, I can tell. One a shese days, when her ol’ man’s not ‘round…” Fielding gyrated his hips, then stumbled a step. He sniffed and rubbed his red nose.

As Fielding once again paced across in front of her, Rose checked out his pupils.
Aw, shit!
she thought. She instinctively put more distance between herself and the man. Fielding wasn’t drunk, as she had first assumed. He was high.

Cocaine or PCP, Rose figured, from the signs he was exhibiting. She prayed it was cocaine. Taking another step backward, she bumped into the shelves, just as her phone started vibrating in her pocket.

Fielding veered toward her and suddenly stopped pacing. In one long stride, he stepped in so close that Rose couldn’t lean down to get her pistol out of her ankle holster.

“Come on now, li’l Mexican mama,” he slurred. “’Nough talkin’. Let’s party.” He started to take another step to pin Rose against the shelves with his hips, as he reached out to grab one of her breasts.

•   •   •

Skip was hiding a smug smile as he sat down on the sagging sofa with the floral print slipcover in Mr. Morris’s living room. It had taken him almost an hour but he had finally worn the man down.

He’d tried a modification of Mac’s approach–knocking, then calling through the door, “Mr. Morris, I know you’re in there. I just have a couple questions. If you don’t let me in, it looks like you’ve got something to hide.” Every few minutes, he had repeated the process.

Skip was realizing the springs in the old sofa were shot. His bulk sagged deep into the upholstery, forcing him uncomfortably against the back of sofa. His knees were sticking up in the air and his gun was digging into the small of his back. But he would embarrass this guy if he made a big deal about the uncomfortable seating, which would not make Morris eager to talk to him.

He looked around. No place else to sit anyway. The only other seat was the old-fashioned wing chair the other man had taken.

Misunderstanding Skip’s appraisal of the room, Morris said, “I know. It’s damn crowded in here. Can’t turn ’round without knockin’ somethin’ over. The old bat wouldn’t give up none of her damn knickknacks when we sold our house… She was the one who wanted to move here. Said she didn’t want to clean that big house no more. But then she wanted to keep most of her junk.”

Skip decided that his late wife was a saint to have put up with him as Morris went on to deride women in general. He was sounding like a true misogynist.

Skip asked him how well he had known the two dead women. Morris, already on a tear against women, replied, “Damn bitches. Deserved to die if you ask me. One of ’em mean as a snake and the other couldn’t keep her nose outta other people’s business.”

Skip paused, then said, “I got the impression from Mr. Reilly and Ms. Hernandez that you’d said you didn’t know Frieda McIntosh all that well.”

The man hesitated for only an instant. “Well, ya didn’t have to know her that good to know she was a nosy bitch.”

Skip decided to come back to why Morris thought the women deserved to die, after he’d asked about the third victim. “I understand that you and Jeffrey Morgan were friends.”

The man stared at the wall above Skip’s head for several beats, his eyes growing shiny with unshed tears. “Yeah, he and I were buddies,” Morris finally said. “Couple a weeks ago, his doc told him he had cancer. Tumor all twisted ’round his pancreas…” The man choked on a suppressed sob. “Just had a few months to live.”

Morris lowered his eyes to meet Skip’s and the tears started leaking out and running down his leathery cheeks. “Jeff asked me what’d it been like for Sally. How bad did the pain get? He was hintin’ for me, when the time came and he couldn’t take it no more, to help him put an end to it all.”

The man’s head fell forward and he shielded his eyes with a hand, while he shook with quiet sobs.

“I’m very sorry for your loss, sir,” Skip said softly, then quietly waited for the man to compose himself.

Skip was thinking that Jeff Morgan had a very good reason to kill himself.

•   •   •

Police cruisers were descending on The Villages, disgorging more officers to help in the search of the buildings and grounds. “Don’t worry. We’ll find them,” Sandy Lindstrom tried to reassure Kate as they stood on the sidewalk by the main road.

Her heart was in her throat. She kept telling herself that Mac and Rose were both seasoned fighters. There’s no way Joe would be able to overpower the two of them. She was trying again to reach them on their cells when a faint call came from the other side of the recreation building. “Detective!” Lindstrom and Kate took off running.

“Detective, over here!” came the voice again as they rounded the corner of the building. They spotted a large shed, with a uniformed officer standing in the open doorway. As they drew near, he stepped aside.

Inside the shed, Rose was kneeling on Joe Fielding’s back, a knee pinning one of his arms in an obviously painful position. He was whimpering, his face twisted into a grimace, the other hand underneath him, clutching his crotch. Rose reached under him and yanked out that hand, slapping one end of her handcuffs onto the wrist. He yelped as she shifted her knee to attach the other end of the cuffs to his other wrist. Ignoring his sound effects, Rose was calmly reciting the Miranda warning in a flat voice the whole time.

She relinquished her prisoner to an officer from the proper jurisdiction. Then Rose pointed out the concentrated plant food bottle to the detective, who gestured to another uniform to bag it.

As Joe was being led out of the shed, Lindstrom stepped in front of him, holding up the evidence bag containing another bottle, the small glass one from the machine room workbench. The officer stopped but kept a good grip on Joe’s arm.