SUICIDAL SUSPICIONS: A Kate Huntington Mystery (The Kate Huntington Mystery Series Book 8) (18 page)

“She just seems to have a mild concussion.” The doctor slipped his scope into his pocket. “Keep her quiet for the rest of the weekend. If there’s no more nausea, she can go to school on Monday, but no phys ed or running around during recess, at least for this week.”

“What’s a concushion?” Edie asked.

The doctor smiled at her. “Concussion. It means you rattled your brain cells around inside your skull, and it will take a little time for your brain to heal, so you don’t want to jostle it again for a while.”

Kate felt a smile tugging at her lips despite the ominous presence of her angry husband behind her. It was a great explanation of a concussion for a nine year old.

Edie glanced up and her face brightened. “Hi, Daddy.”

“Hey, Pumkin,” Skip said from behind Kate. “I hear your pony jumped without you.”

“Aw, Daddy. I made it over the jump, but Fiddle hit his foot and stumbled.”

“And where was your mother while all this was happening?” Skip muttered next to Kate’s ear.

Anger flared in her chest, at the same time that guilt twisted her gut. Even if she’d been watching Edie’s every move, she probably couldn’t have stopped her from the impulsive attempt to take the jump.

She tamped down her temper and turned to Edie. “No more jumping except during lessons until Miss Linda says you’re ready.”

“No more jumping, period,” Skip said.

“Daddy!” Edie whined.

Kate gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to turn around. As scary as the last hour had been, while she’d raced Edie to the hospital and tried to wait patiently for a doctor to see them, she didn’t see the need to curtail the child’s riding lessons.

“We’ll discuss that another time,” she managed to get out in a relatively calm voice.

“Well, she’s good to go.” The doctor stood up from the stool next to the examining table. “You all check out with the nurse up front, please.”

“You take care of the bill.” Skip’s voice was terse. “I’ll take her home.”

Although she wasn’t crazy about his tone, the idea was sound. The passenger floor of her car was not a pretty sight right now. Nor did it smell all that good.

~~~~~~~~

Skip managed to wait until the kids were bedded down, but it wasn’t easy. First she’s oblivious to the fact that Billy’s being bullied, and now Edie’s hurt on her watch. Enough was enough!

She was in their usual evening spot, sitting on the sofa. But her expression said she wanted to be anywhere but there.

She held her palms out in front of her as he approached. “Look, I know I should have been paying better attention–”

“You said you were looking down. You were reading, weren’t you?” He’d seen her slip that journal into her pocket, but he didn’t want to falsely accuse her.

She dropped her hands and nodded.

“What were you reading?” He knew the answer but he was going to make her say it.

She looked down at her lap. Then she brought her gaze back up to his face, where he stood looming over her. “Josie’s journal,” she said in a flat voice.

His jaw clenched. “Enough, Kate! You have got to let this go.”

She stared up at him. “Would you please sit down. I’m getting a crick in my neck.”

He scowled at her and took the armchair across from the sofa.

She showed no surprise that he hadn’t sat down next to her, as he usually would.

“I understand that you’re pissed,” she said in a low voice. “Your child got hurt.”

“
Our
child got hurt.”

“Our child got hurt. But I’m not sure I could have stopped her even if I’d been looking her way at that moment.”

“But the point is, you were supposed to be watching her, not absorbed in that damn journal.”

“You watch her every second when you take her?” Her tone was angry.

That made him even madder. He was the one who had a right to be pissed.
She
was supposed to be contrite.

He breathed in slowly through his nose. This wasn’t getting them anywhere. In an emphatic tone he said, “You need to let me assign Manny to investigate this, so you can get back to focusing on your own life.”

She sighed and looked away. “If only it were that simple. This isn’t just about justice for Josie.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth for a moment, an old nervous habit. “It’s affecting my work. I…” Her voice dropped to almost a whisper. “I don’t trust myself anymore.”

Even in profile, he could see the pain in her face. Some of his anger drained away. “Let us find the killer, Kate. It’s what we do.”

She shook her head slightly. “A lot of this stuff, it won’t mean anything to anybody else. I’m catching things because I knew Josie, her issues. When I have something more concrete, then somebody else could probably take it from there. But not yet.”

He ground his teeth. He wasn’t willing to let this drag on. “I want our lives back to normal. I want the mother of my children to be focused on them again. I insist that you let us handle this.”

Her eyes flashed. “You insist? Or what?”

He blew out air. “Poor choice of words.” He ran fingers through his hair, then grabbed a hunk and tugged.

Her face softened. She leaned forward. “Look, I promise I will try harder to segregate all this from my personal life. I’ll work on it during my lunch hours, and a little bit after work, but I’ll focus on home when I’m here.”

He didn’t say anything, wasn’t sure what to say really.

“Skip, I wish… I’ve tried to forget about it, but I can’t.” Her voice was low. “This is the best I can do right now.”

Her deflated tone tugged at his heart. He wanted this done, but he was no stranger to grief. After his father’s death, he’d gone a little nuts. Blown his career with the Maryland state police by erupting at his captain. Granted the man was an ass, but still…

“You’ll let me know as soon as there’s anything the agency can do? The sooner this gets resolved, the better.”

“Amen to that.” She smiled for the first time all evening. “Is it time for make-up sex yet? Or do you need to yell some more?”

The last of his anger melted. His mouth quirked up at the corners. “Hmm, sex versus yelling?” He held out both hands, palms up, and moved them up and down, weighing those alternatives. “I could probably yell some more, but I think I’ll take the sex. You better make it extra good, though.”

Her smile turned to a full-fledged grin. “I think I can manage that,” she said in a low, sultry voice.

~~~~~~~~

Ironically Skip ended up having to work on Sunday. The CEO of one of his biggest clients, a major insurance company, was in town just for the weekend and wanted to meet with him over lunch. It bordered on a command performance, and Kate told him she totally understood that he needed to go.

She hadn’t taken the kids to Sunday school, since Edie was supposed to be taking it easy. But the child seemed to be doing fine. Kate watched from across the kitchen as Edie sat at the table drawing in the sketch pad they had given her for her birthday. Without having to look, Kate could guess that it was another picture of a horse.

Billy’s laughter could occasionally be heard over the sound track of the video he was watching in the living room.

Kate leaned her butt against the counter and took a swig of coffee from her mug. Yes, she’d promised to focus on family when she was home, but Skip being gone for part of the day had shot the heck out of family time. With nothing else to focus on, her mind kept wandering back to Josie’s case.

It dawned on her that she’d never talked to the owner of the gallery where Josie worked. Nor had she heard back about Manny’s efforts to track down her friends.

She grabbed the phone from its base on the counter and called Manny.

“Yo, Kate. What’s up?”

“Hey, Manny. Sorry to bother you on a Sunday morning, but I was wondering if you’d had any luck tracking down Josie Hartin’s friends.”

“Yes and no. I checked out the artist crowd she hung with. I’d say they were more acquaintances than close friends. Some of them hinted that they found her a bit too intense, which I thought was really sayin’ something, coming from that crowd.”

Kate wasn’t totally surprised. In addition to her bipolar disorder, Josie had some symptoms of borderline personality disorder. She tended to be needy and yet volatile in her relationships. She was definitely intense, although those borderline tendencies had been getting better in recent months.

Manny cleared his throat. “Most of them said she was pretty tight with that gallery owner she worked for. But I didn’t talk to her. Skip said you wanted to interview her yourself.”

“Yeah, I do.” She knew that Josie’s boss had been one of her few close friends. From what Manny was saying, maybe she was her only close friend. “But I haven’t gotten around to it yet. I was thinking about going down there today.”

“I can go with you.”

“No, I don’t want to make you work on a Sunday.”

“Humph. I’ve been bored silly lately. Except for the few things I’ve checked out for you, I’ve mostly been sitting around the office waiting for things to pick up.”

She pursed her lips, debating with herself. She’d promised Skip she would take Manny with her, but would he have to pay the man overtime on a Sunday? And it seemed so unfair to ask Manny to work on his day of rest.

“Kate, it isn’t good for me to have so much time on my hands,” Manny said in a low, intense voice.

That made the decision for her. She was one of the few people outside of AA who knew that Manny was a recovering alcoholic. She could understand how being at loose ends might lead to temptation.

“Okay. Do you have the address?”

“Yeah. Lemme find it.” Rustling noises for a moment, then he was back. He gave her the address, and she jotted it down on the pad lying next to the phone’s base.

Kate glanced again at Edie, trying to assess if an outing to an art gallery would qualify as too much excitement. Probably not.

“I’ll meet you there in an hour. The kids will be with me. Is that okay?”

“
No problema
.”

Kate disconnected. “Sweetie, how’s your head feeling?”

Edie looked up from her drawing. “It’s okay.”

“How would you like to go see an art gallery today?”

Her face lit up. “Really?”

“Really. But you’ve got to promise to not get too excited or be too active, okay?”

“Sure, Mommy.”

.

Art gallery
struck Kate as a bit of an overstatement when they arrived at the address. The gallery was in the first floor of an old rowhouse on a side street in Fells Point, a rather bohemian area in downtown Baltimore known mainly for its bars.

Manny was leaning against a streetlight pole near the entrance, which sported a red sign reading
Hiliau’s Gallery, Paintings and Other Works of Fine Art
.

He stepped over and pulled the door open for them.

“Kids,” Kate said. “You remember Mr. Manny, don’t you?”

Edie said a shy hello, but Billy had already raced ahead into the building.

Kate stepped in after him and quickly cased the big front room. Reasonably child-friendly–no nudes and nothing breakable within Billy’s reach. Nonetheless… “Billy, do not touch anything, you hear me?”

“Okay, Mommy,” the boy shouted.

“Inside voice please.” Kate looked around for her daughter.

Edie was already completely enthralled. She was moving slowly down one wall that was covered in landscapes, her head bent back, mouth hanging open.

Billy’s outside voice had brought them to the attention of a staff member. A big-boned, middle-aged woman, with graying hair and dressed in a brightly colored tee-shirt and jeans, crossed the room toward Kate.

The woman’s smile was warm and welcoming. “Can I help you?”

Not sure how long Billy would be content with looking at pots and pictures, Kate opted to get right to the point. She extended her hand. “I’m Kate Huntington. Are you Marilyn Hiliau by any chance?”

The woman’s smile faltered for less than a second. “Yes, I am.” She took the offered hand and shook it.

“I’m a friend of Josie Hartin’s. Could I talk to you for a few minutes?”

The smile faded. The woman glanced at Manny.

“He’s with me. He’ll keep an eye on the kids, keep them from breaking anything.” Kate looked at Manny, hoping he was okay with this plan.

He nodded once. “Come here, little man,” he said to Billy. “You wanna see the pots on the high shelves?”

Kate glanced at the Native-American pottery, each on its own small shelf extending from one wall. “Don’t let him get within reach.”

Manny chuckled and swept Billy up into his arms.

Marilyn Hiliau’s expression had turned wary, but she gestured toward a door leading into the rest of the building. “Let’s go back to my office.”

They walked down a hallway and through a room full of empty frames, packing crates and several large rolls of bubble wrap.

Office
also turned out to be an overstatement. Kate suspected it had once been a large closet. It contained a small metal desk, overflowing with piles of papers, and an old wooden desk chair that squeaked when Ms. Hiliau sat down in it.

The woman gestured toward a straight-back chair, half in the oversized doorway and half hanging out into the larger room. “Have a seat.”

The ornate woodwork of the doorframe caught Kate’s eye.

Marilyn Hiliau followed her line of vision and chuckled. “This house used to be a brothel. The big front room was for entertaining guests, well, until it was time to entertain them another way more privately. This room…” She gestured with one hand to encompass the larger room. “It was the madam’s bedroom.”

Billy’s voice echoing in the front room reminded Kate that she might not have much time. She leaned forward and took a deep breath. “Ms. Hiliau, I’m not sure where to start so I’ll just dive in. I’m looking into Josie’s death, because I don’t think she committed suicide.”

The woman nodded as tears pooled in her eyes. “Call me Marilyn. And neither do I.”

Kate gave her a small smile. “And I’m Kate. I knew Josie fairly well, but I didn’t know her artist friends.”

Marilyn shrugged. A tear broke loose. She swiped it off her cheek with her fingertips. “I don’t know that she had many friends, besides me. We were pretty close.”