SUICIDAL SUSPICIONS: A Kate Huntington Mystery (The Kate Huntington Mystery Series Book 8) (15 page)

Movement out of the corner of his eye. An older woman–Mrs. Langdon, he presumed; he’d missed back-to-school night last fall–walked briskly across the asphalt, headed for the confrontation.

Skip took off at a lope to catch up.

She had Billy by the arm by the time he got there. Tears were streaming down the little boy’s face.

The older boys were standing a few feet away, laughing. “Sissy,” one of them called out.

“That’s quite enough,” Mrs. Langdon said. “Billy, I’m going to have to take you to the principal’s office.”

“It’s not my fault,” Billy yelled. “They started it. They called me a faggot.”

Skip suspected his son didn’t even know what the word meant, but he knew it was intended to be derogatory.

“I think all the boys need to go to the office,” Rose said from beside him.

Skip nodded. “That sounds like a good idea.”

Mrs. Langdon rounded on them. “The rules are very clear. Physical aggression is not allowed. Billy shoved the other boy.”

Skip ignored her. “Billy, how many times have these boys picked on you?”

“I don’t know. Lots.” The child wiped his wet face with the jacket sleeve of the arm his teacher wasn’t holding.

“When did it start?” Skip asked.

Billy’s lower lip trembled, but he took a deep breath. “After Christmas break.”

Skip narrowed his eyes at the teacher.
And where were you the last three months?

“We were just havin’ some fun with him,” the boy who’d been shoved said.

The boy next to him jabbed him with an elbow.

“Come on, Billy,” Mrs. Langdon said.

Skip crooked his finger at the other boys. “You’re all coming too.”

“We don’t have to,” the elbow-jabber said.

“Oh, I think you do,” Skip said in a low, firm voice.

Rose had stepped around behind the boys.

“You better not touch us or my dad’ll sue you,” the jabber said.

Skip pegged him as the ringleader. He leaned over and stared the boy in the face. “You better hope that I don’t
have
to touch you.”

The boy paled.

“Move!” Rose barked from behind him.

All the boys jumped.

“We will all go,” Mrs. Langdon said, as if it had been her idea all along.

~~~~~~~~

Kate was feeling like her normal self as she drove back to her office. Liz hadn’t found much on Josie. Only that she had been moved from the elementary school at St. Batholomew’s to Bryn Mawr when she was in second grade. All Kate had known was that her client had attended private school. She had assumed those schools had been Catholic, considering her parents’ staunch beliefs. But Bryn Mawr made sense too. It was a top-notch girls school, one of the best in the country.

Liz had also checked out Father Samuel Phelps. Kate hadn’t been surprised when his record with the church was squeaky clean. The Hartins also seemed to have no skeletons in their closets, although Kate knew from her professional experience that things could happen behind closed doors that never made it into any official record.

Gerald Kraft, the doctor who’d claimed that he hadn’t written the clonazepam prescription, had never had any disciplinary action against him by the AMA. Nor had he ever been sued for malpractice.

Kate got back to her office with only five minutes to spare before her first afternoon client was due to arrive. Racing into her office, she threw her raincoat in the general direction of the coat rack in the corner and reached for her desk phone to check her voicemail.

The outer door opened and closed. Her client was here.

Fortunately, there were no phone messages. Kate pulled her makeup case out of her purse to freshen up a bit.

A rap on her half open office door. Her head jerked up. She dropped her lipstick tube on the desk.

A woman who looked to be in her mid thirties stood in the doorway. Her gray suit was impeccable. Not a strand of her strawberry blonde hair was out of place. “Mrs. Huntington?”

“Yes.” Kate picked up the lipstick and capped it. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Pernette Wells, Mrs. Hartin’s assistant.” The woman’s tone was carefully neutral. “She asked me to deliver this to you.” She held out a shoe box-sized package, wrapped in plain white paper.

Kate took the package. “Thank you.”

The woman gave a stiff nod and left.

Kate waited until she heard the snick of the outer door closing. Her hands trembled as she tore away the wrappings and opened the box.

Inside was a bound book, about six by nine inches. Its cloth cover was black with bright flowers on it.

Josie’s journal.

CHAPTER TWELVE

On the way home, Kate promised herself she would put aside the journal, literally and figuratively, until after the kids were in bed. She’d been neglecting her family obligations too much lately.

Several messages had required return phone calls at the end of her day, and she’d only had time to peek at the last entry in the journal, hoping it would miraculously reveal the “breakthrough” Josie had referred to in that phone message, or at least give some hint as to what she was “checking out.” The entry indicated she had figured something out and was both excited and scared to pursue it, but otherwise it was frustratingly vague.

“Enough,” Kate said out loud as she pulled up in front of the house. She mentally closed the door on all thoughts of Josie.

.

This time, Skip was the one who seemed preoccupied over dinner.

Billy squirmed in his chair as Edie chattered on about her day. Finally he interrupted. “Daddy and Aunt Rose were awesome, Mommy. They made the bad boys go to the principal’s office with us. And I didn’t get in trouble for shoving Jimmy Henshaw after all.”

Kate raised her eyebrows in Skip’s direction.

He gave a slight shake of his head. “I’ll explain later.” He turned to Billy. “Remember what I said, son. It’s always better to walk away from a fight when you can.”

“But they were all around me, Daddy.”

“I know, son, but for future reference.”

Billy subsided into a mild pout.

Edie jumped into the silence with more about her riding lesson after school. “Miss Linda says I’m doing a whole lot better, and Fiddlesticks didn’t try to buck once today.”

“That’s great,” Kate said. “Hey, did you get all your homework done yet?”

“Almost. I have some math left to finish.”

“Get to it right after dinner, and I’ll check it before bedtime.”

“Okay, Mommy.”

Kate turned to Maria, who had been rather quiet throughout the meal. “How are things going with your gentleman caller?”

Maria looked confused for a moment, then flashed a smile. “Good. He take me to dinner this Friday, wid his children.”

“How old are they?”

“Ten, twelve and fifteen.”

“Have you met them before?” Kate asked.

“No. Dis is first time.” Maria ducked her head. “I am a little nervous. What if dey no like me?”

Kate wanted to reassure her, but she knew realistically that the kids might resent someone they perceived as a replacement for their mother. “How long has he been widowed?”

“Four years,” Maria said.

“If they don’t like you,” Edie piped up, “then they’re just crazy.”

The adults laughed. “I agree,” Kate said, her chest swelling with pride for her daughter. She suspected Edie knew the implications of the situation. If this man’s kids liked Maria and the romance progressed, they might very well lose her as a member of their household.

But her little Edie was the poster child for fairness–she wasn’t going to put her own selfish interests above Maria’s happiness.

“Come,
niños
,” Maria said. “You help me clear de table, so your mama and papa can talk.”

Apparently Maria had caught the undercurrents earlier. Kate’s anxiety about this romance eased some. Her housekeeper was no fool where people were concerned.

~~~~

Skip started to lead the way to the sofa, then thought better of it. He didn’t want the kids to hear them. He turned toward the study instead.

Kate sank into the desk chair behind the computer desk. “So how’d you end up going over to the school?” she asked in a low voice.

He nudged the door closed and perched on a corner of the desk. “When I caught up with his teacher, she gave me this song and dance about letting kids work it out for themselves.” An echo of his earlier anger churned in his gut. “That’s the same BS the school gave my folks when I was a kid. ‘Boys will be boys,’ the principal said when my father complained about the bullying.” He noticed his hands were balled into fists and willed them to relax.

“So you and Rose went over there.”

“Yeah, and we witnessed the boys picking on Billy. He shoved one of them, and Mrs. Langdon was going to have
him
punished for fighting.” His jaw clenched, then released again at the memory of what had come next. “We made sure that the older boys were marched off to the principal’s office too.”

“What happened?”

“The principal read them the riot act for picking on a kid younger than them. She basically called them wimps.” He grinned a little at the mental image of the chagrined expressions on those boys’ faces.

“You know Mrs. Langdon’s attitude isn’t the norm anymore,” Kate said. “But teachers are so overworked these days, it’s hard for them to have to monitor the kids’ behavior constantly too.”

“I know that, but the teachers were all huddled together in a group, talking to each other. They weren’t even paying much attention to what the kids were doing. That is until Billy shoved the other kid.”

Kate didn’t say anything.

“The principal wants me to speak at the PTA meeting next Tuesday,” he said. “She wants to start an anti-bullying campaign.” Butterflies fluttered in his chest, taking him by surprise. He wasn’t usually self-conscious about talking to groups of people. But this topic was a different story.

Kate smiled up at him. “Wow. That’s wonderful, sweetheart.”

“Can you come to the meeting?”

“Of course.” She took the hand that had been resting on his knee and gave it a squeeze.

He squeezed back. “Guess we’d better check their homework and then get baths going.”

“Okay, but I may not be going to bed on time tonight.”

“Oh?”

“Josie’s mother sent her journal to my office this afternoon. I want to check it out.”

He grinned down at her. “I’m impressed by your restraint that you didn’t tear into it the minute you got home.”

“Trust me, I wanted to. But I’m trying to be a little more balanced about this whole thing.”

~~~~

Skip had volunteered to supervise baths so Kate could get started on the journal.

She carried the box over to the sofa and pulled the book out. Skimming through it, she found the entry for a month before Josie’s death and started reading there.

Almost every day, Josie wrote about the roller coaster of emotions that was bipolar disorder. Some of the entries were rather disjointed. But she hadn’t been writing a memoir. The journal was intended for her own eyes only.

Kate stopped to study the entry a few days before her last session with Josie. It was the first mention of the dreams in that month’s sample of entries. They had probably been mentioned earlier. She would go back later and look for more details about them in the earlier entries.

February 27

Last night, I had the dream again. I really need to remember to tell Kate about them. But every time I even think that, I get so anxious. My hand is shaking as I’m writing this.

I hope this doesn’t mean another round of depression. I’m just now coming out of one, and that would be so unfair. Usually I get to have some fun in the in-between times, before the mania gets too out of control to be comfortable.

That implied that the dreams triggered her depressive episodes, or maybe they only announced them. With bipolar it was hard to tell when the person’s moods were related to life events and when they were just brain chemistry taking over.

Kate turned the page.

February 28

Today I volunteered at the vet’s office. I was downright giddy getting ready this morning. I hate to admit it but my crush on Laurie Blake is getting worse. I got that feeling again today. We were chatting at lunchtime, all relaxed and friendly, then suddenly she closed down. I have no clue what is triggering that reaction. What am I doing that makes her withdraw like that? Has she picked up on my crush maybe?

And I also have no clue about who the hell I am. Or rather what am I? Straight or gay?

When I dated guys I was plenty turned on by them sexually, but I never loved them. Not in this deep longing way that I love women sometimes. Note to self: bring this up with Kate next time. Maybe she can help me figure it out.

“Yes I could have,” Kate said under her breath. But Josie had brought up her mother instead, in that last session. Was that a dodge, or had the mother stuff really been more pressing? There was no denying that Josie experienced a major shift that day regarding her mother.

Kate’s chest ached that she’d never been able to help Josie understand her attraction to women. The young woman had brought it up before and had been quite conflicted about it. But she hadn’t called it a “deep longing.”

Most likely Josie was indeed bisexual, but the words
deep longing
were telling. Kate suspected they indicated transference. Something about the women Josie was attracted to reminded her of her mother on an unconscious level–in Laurie Blake’s case, it was probably the shutting down and distancing. Then the childhood longing for love and attention is triggered, confusing and complicating any real romantic attraction.

Correction,
was
triggered. Past tense.

Kate’s eyes stung. Josie’d never had a chance to sort that out. And now she’d never have a chance at a healthy romantic relationship with someone, male or female.

Kate blinked back the tears and made herself keep reading. The next day’s entry described the telephone conversation with her mother that Josie had brought up that Monday in therapy. Mrs. Hartin had once again insisted she was sending her maid over to clean Josie’s condo. Josie had just as adamantly told her she wouldn’t let the maid through her front door.