MULTIPLE MOTIVES (The Kate Huntington mystery series Book 1) (26 page)

“Yeah, it’s okay for her to take risks when she’s in uniform but not when she’s in civvies would sound silly even to my father’s ears.” Kate chuckled. “Besides, I think he’s a bit intimidated by Rose. Short, reserved and voluptuous does not fit his stereotype of a female cop.”

Liz snorted. “So what shall we do with ourselves to stay sane?”

Kate looked around the room, hoping for inspiration. Her eyes landed on the boxes Rose had put against the wall near the door Tuesday night. “The files. Let’s go through them again, check out the suspects on your computer. Maybe we’ll find something that jumps out as a big motive.”

“Sounds good.”

Kate dragged the boxes over to the table and pulled the likelies files out of one of them. She held up the top file. “We never did get Mac’s report on Grandpa.”

“Ah, speaking of a big motive,” Liz said. “I found a newspaper article about his oldest granddaughter. She was killed in a boating accident last summer. He could be thinking he was cheated out of those last few years with her.”

Kate nodded. “We’ll put him aside for now though, until we get Mac’s report. Let’s take a look at these others.”

She hesitated, then sighed and handed the Shirley sheet to Liz. “You might as well start with her. Her real name is Cheryl Crofton. Husband’s name is Frank. See what you can dig up on them. I’m going to make us some sandwiches and then read through the likelies files again.”

It was after three before Liz pushed back from her computer desk. She swivelled her chair around toward the table where Kate was reading files.

“Got something?”

“Not much really, after all that digging,” Liz said. “They’re both pretty broke. Routine deposits every Friday, no large withdrawals or big checks written. Only thing the least bit interesting is that the deposits stopped in the husband’s account about two months ago. Could be he’s cashing his paychecks instead of depositing them, thinking he can hide his assets from Rob’s audit when it comes time for the property settlement.”

“Or he could’ve lost his job,” Kate said.

“The only other thing I found were the police reports for the domestic disturbance calls. There were forty-two of them total.”

“Good heavens, they’ve only been married a little over two years. That’s almost two a month.”

“And the police would’ve only been called when it got really bad,” Liz added.

“Yeah, there would’ve been a honeymoon period between each blow-up.” At Liz’s puzzled look, Kate added, “Guy beats the crap out of his wife, then feels at least somewhat remorseful and worries she’ll leave him, so he tries to make it up to her, brings her gifts, promises to never do it again.”

“And she believes him?”

“At first she does. He’s back to being the guy she fell in love with, so she convinces herself it was all an aberration and it won’t happen again. Then the tension starts to build up until he blows again.”

“Doesn’t she ever catch on that he
is
going to keep doing it?” Liz asked.

“Eventually, but by that time she’s so beaten down and scared of him she’s afraid to try to leave. Anything interesting in the police reports?”

“I just skimmed most of them, but there are a couple things. Some mention the wife going after the husband physically once the police arrived. One time, she had him up against the outside wall of the house, waving a kitchen knife in his face.”

“Hmm, Cheryl never said anything about fighting back. But then she probably wouldn’t if it was another alter who was doing that. She might not even remember it.” Kate paused. “That confirms that the angry alter is capable of violence. But the thing I’m having trouble getting past at this point… Cheryl’s a strong woman, but could she drag Rob around unconscious? Of course she might have knocked everybody else out and then forced him to go with her at gunpoint.”

She wished she could take the words back when Liz cringed.

But then Liz straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath. “She could have an accomplice.”

“Possibly. None of Cheryl’s friends that I know of would be likely to join her in a crime spree. But sometimes the other alters have friends, or even romantic partners, that the host alter doesn’t know about.”

Liz nodded. “Other interesting thing about the police reports is that they confirm your assessment of the husband. The officers couch it in cop-eze but several of them imply that he’s a wimpy dude who was trying to kiss up to them.”

Kate thought for a moment. “Print out those reports for me. I’ll read through them more thoroughly, in case there’s anything else helpful in them. And then see if you can find out what these guys have been up to.” She handed over several files she’d finished reading.

She sat down on the sofa with the police reports. After awhile, they began to blur together into one long, sad story of domestic violence repeated over and over again.

By dusk, when the troops came back to base, Kate had found nothing else useful in those reports, but Liz had found addresses for two of their suspects and had eliminated two others who were either in jail or dead.

~~~~~~~~

Liz laid out the makings for sandwiches on the family room table. Everyone gathered around and started constructing their dinners. Rose nodded to Skip that he should give his report first.

“Found a man who was cutting across the back parking lot of the office building Tuesday night,” Skip said. “He saw a big vehicle toward the back of the lot. Somebody was stuffing a large bulky object into the back of it. But it was too dark back there for him to make out any details. He thought maybe it was something the guy had stolen so he decided not to get too nosy. Just put his head down and kept walking fast.”

“But he thought it was a man?” Dan asked.

Skip shook his head. “When I pressed him on that, he admitted he couldn’t really tell if it was a man or woman. He mainly saw shadows and movement.”

“Don’t really tell us nothin’ new,” Mac grumbled.

Rose silently agreed. It only confirmed what they’d already suspected.

They all settled into seats, balancing plates on their laps. She gave them her report. “Talked to Beth Samuels, Rob’s paralegal. She thought she smelled beer Tuesday night, when she was standing by a printer out in the common area. Said she was wondering if Tim Williams was having a solitary pity party in his office. Next thing she knew she woke up on the floor with a bad headache. According to the firm’s grapevine, Williams’ days there are numbered. He was the lawyer who said he’d been Tasered before he was knocked out.”

“Could he have faked that?” Kate asked.

Rose had already had that same thought. “It’s possible. I left a message for the officer I talked to Tuesday night. We’ll see what he remembers about the guy’s injuries. Might have to track down the paramedics who were there.”

“If Rob was about to fire him,” Kate said, “that might give Williams a motive to harm him. Wouldn’t explain the attacks against me, or the note, but…”

“We have to follow all leads,” Skip finished for her.

Rose’s cell phone buzzed in her pocket. She put aside her half-eaten sandwich and answered it. It was the officer who’d been on the scene Tuesday night. What he had to say did not surprise her.

She disconnected. “Williams refused treatment, so we got nothing but his say-so that he was hurt.”

“He could have knocked out Beth and Lou,” Kate said. “Then overpowered Rob and stashed him somewhere, maybe in his vehicle. Then came back inside and faked his own injuries.”

“Still don’t explain why he’d go after you, sweet pea,” Mac said. “And all this started two, three months ago.”

Liz picked up on his train of thought. “It’s unlikely he would have been given notice that long ago that he was going to be fired.”

“Unless he was put on probation about then,” Skip said.

“I can call Fran,” Liz said. “Find out what she knows about all that.”

Kate nodded. “And do a background check on him. Maybe he’ll turn out to have some connection to one of our other suspects.”

Kate remained on the sofa as most of the others trudged off to bed. Rose felt bad for her. Fatigue and worry had etched new lines in the woman’s face.

 Skip went to the table and made another sandwich. He carried it over and offered half to Kate. She shook her head. He sat down in the recliner.

Rose decided to check in with Phillips. She got his voicemail and left a kiss-up message. Then she called the lab directly, hoping they would give a lowly rookie the results on the note and wheelbarrow. In case Phillips had already gotten the report, she told the lab tech she was calling on behalf of the detective, to clarify the results. The tech bought it.

She listened, then disconnected and went over to sit next to Kate on the sofa.

“No prints on the wheelbarrow, tie or note. On the wheelbarrow, that’s significant. It should be covered with prints from the construction workers. Somebody wiped it down. Cloth under it was part of a torn dress shirt.”

Kate nodded. “So that was how they got Rob away from the building. Maybe dragged him partway, to where they’d stashed the wheelbarrow, and his shirt got torn. Then they used the wheelbarrow to get him to their vehicle in the back of the parking lot. Doesn’t make sense though, that they wiped the prints but left the shirt?”

“Perp may have left it on purpose, like the tie,” Skip said. “To show us they have Rob.”

Kate thanked Rose for the information, then got up and headed for bed.

Rose watched her slumped shoulders go around the corner. She was glad she hadn’t told Kate the lab tech’s exact words. He had said
shredded
, not
torn
.

“Blood on the shirt?” Skip asked, keeping his voice low.

Rose nodded. “O negative. Same with the tie.”

“If it’s Williams, the kidnapping could be a ruse to make it look like it’s tied to the other attacks. In which case, Rob’s already dead.”

Rose pressed her lips together and nodded again.

~~~~~~~~

Rob woke shivering on the floor, a cramp in his gut.

Oh, great. Now I’m getting sick.

He’d been scared all along, since the moment he’d realized he’d been kidnapped, but now it really hit him.

I’m gonna die in this basement!

Heart pounding, he struggled to fight down the terror. He had to find a way out of here.

He carefully got to his feet and shuffled to the door in the fading light. There was a plastic water bottle sitting next to the bowl of soup. Leaning against the bowl was a piece of paper with
EAT
written on it.

Guess Cheryl doesn’t like it that her boy toy might prefer starvation to being her captive
.

He looked longingly down at the water bottle. His mouth was so dry, it felt like he’d been chewing on cotton balls. Then he averted his eyes from the bottle and concentrated on examining the door again.

Although it was solid, the frame looked flimsy. Maybe he could use a brace from the shelves as a makeshift crowbar and break up the doorframe enough to pry the door open.

He felt his way over to the shelves in the growing darkness. They covered most of the wall and were probably once filled with a frugal homemaker’s stock of canned and dry goods. Now they held just a few dusty cans. He started tugging on the thin metal braces between each shelf and the metal uprights, looking for one that might be loose.

The room was soon completely dark and he was debating whether to keep working when a flash of light streaked across the top of the wall.

What was that?

A moment later, the light appeared again, swung in an arc over his head, and then was gone, leaving the room even blacker until his eyes readjusted.

Headlights!

The lights from passing cars were shining through the little window.

He grabbed a brace as the next car went by, then tugged and pulled on it in the dark until another set of headlights showed him where the next brace was. It was slow going.

As the room returned to inky darkness after a flash of light, he banged his sore thumb against a bolt on the shelves. Pain shot up his arm. He put the thumb in his mouth and tasted the metallic saltiness of blood. With nothing else to press against the wound, he once again wrapped his other hand tightly around the thumb to stop the bleeding.

Afraid of doing himself further injury in the dark, he decided he might as well get some rest. But the thought of his captor coming in while he slept made him shudder.

Inspiration struck. He waited for the next set of headlights to show him where the metal bucket and bowl were. Then he placed the bucket on top of the bowl so that someone opening the door would knock it over. The noise should wake him up.

His spirits brightened a little. Even as weak as he was, with enough adrenaline pumping and the element of surprise, he just might be able to overpower his captor.

Wrestling the cot upright, he sat down on it. Best not to lie down. In such a small space, his captor would be on him before he’d be able to get up. He leaned his sore back carefully against the cement wall.

He was jolted awake again by a cramp in his gut. Doubled over on the cot, he gritted his teeth until it started to ease.

Eventually he was able to sit up. The bucket was where he’d put it, on top of the bowl. Light was filtering through the window. Morning, or daytime at least. His captor had not returned last night.

He tried to stand and almost fell on his face. Once again, his muscles weren’t responding well to neural impulses. That didn’t make sense. He hadn’t been drugged in at least twenty-four hours.

He managed to get himself upright. Moving carefully, he made his way over to use the bucket. A thin trickle of dark yellow urine was all he could produce.

Not good. When your body stops making urine, you are seriously dehydrated. Was that why his muscles weren’t behaving themselves? He looked longingly down at the water bottle.

Wait! If the cap’s still sealed then it’s probably safe to drink.

He picked up the bottle and gently turned the cap. It came right off. The little plastic ring gave no resistance since it had already been broken free of the cap.