SUICIDAL SUSPICIONS: A Kate Huntington Mystery (The Kate Huntington Mystery Series Book 8) (5 page)

She wished she had more answers, for the Hartins and for herself. She wasn’t likely to get those answers though, not unless Josie left a suicide note. And maybe not even then.

Driving home by rote, she prayed to God for peace.

Anger came instead. How could God let this happen? Where was He when Josie needed him?

She got no answers to those questions either.

~~~~~~~~

Sunday morning she begged off from going to church, telling Skip she felt like she was coming down with something.

Coming down with something all right–full-blown depression. She’d had another fitful night, punctuated again by vague but disturbing dreams, and had woken more tired than she’d been when she went to bed.

She dragged through the day, going through the motions of being a mother and wife. Several times, she caught Skip giving her worried looks, especially when she picked at her dinner. It took a lot for her to lose her appetite.

She wanted to reassure him, but she couldn’t drum up the energy to do so.

She knew intellectually she would be okay eventually, maybe soon even. The grief for Josie had to run its course.

Another Sally maxim came to mind.
No way around grief but through it.

She knew the more one tried to fight it, to force themselves to let go and move on, the longer the grief process would take.

.

Monday morning saw some improvement. She was able to concentrate better than she had on Friday, and focusing on her clients’ problems helped her put aside her own. She went into her last session of the morning feeling like she was beginning to get her equilibrium back.

Carol Foster suffered from major depressive disorder, similar to bipolar in the depths of the depression and its biological roots, but without the mania. Kate had been her therapist for years. Most of the time she was relatively stable, but every now and then she would plunge into depression again.

Unfortunately, this was shaping up to be one of those times.

Dear Lord, not now.

Kate went through the suicide assessment questions with Carol. Had she had thoughts about dying lately? Yes. Did she have a plan for how she would kill herself? No. Did she have anything in the house she could hurt herself with should she feel the impulse to do so?

Carol gave her a weak smile. “Just my antidepressants.”

Kate’s heart rate shot up. Her stomach clenched. “Have you been hoarding them?”

Carol shook her head. “The prescription’s only for two weeks at a time, and I can’t get it refilled until two days before I run out. It’s a pain to be constantly running to the pharmacy, but at times like this, I’m glad my doctor set it up that way.”

Kate’s stomach relaxed some.
Okay,
that
sentiment’s a good sign that she wants to live.

Carol could always stop taking the pills and eventually accumulate enough for a lethal dose. But that would require a level of planning this client had never exhibited before.

“You know I’m Catholic,” Carol said, “and suicide’s a sin.”

Of course Kate knew that. She and Carol had discussed her religious beliefs before. Why did the woman feel the need to remind her now?

My God, she’s trying to reassure
me
!

Kate hid her dismay behind a gentle smile. “I know you would never plan to kill yourself, but I have to check. And we do need to guard against a possible impulse at a particularly low moment.”

Which is probably what happened with Josie.

There probably wouldn’t be a note then. People who committed suicide on impulse rarely left one.

Kate yanked her mind back to Carol. That’s where her focus should be, not on Josie nor her own need for answers.

“Yeah,” Carol was saying, “I know I’ll come out of this eventually. It’s just hard while I’m in it.”

“Do you feel like maybe you should go into the hospital for a few days?”

Kate’s stomach tightened again. She hated that she was asking the client that question. She was supposed to be figuring that out, not Carol. But she was off her game at the moment, and this client knew herself pretty well.

Carol cocked her head to one side, then shook it. “I can hang in there, but maybe I could come in again later this week?”

“That’s a good idea.” Kate got up and fetched her appointment book from her desk. Her schedule was fairly packed but she’d give up her lunch break, if need be.

When she sat back down, Carol pointed to the book. “You know, there’s an app for that.”

Kate smiled, a genuine smile of relief. Carol couldn’t be too far under the cloud of depression if her sense of humor was peeking out.

“Don’t you have a smart phone?”

“I do,” Kate said, “although I resent it most days. It isn’t right that my phone is smarter than I am.”

Carol gave her a smile, a little stronger than the last one.

Kate tapped the book. “Old habit learned from my mentor way back when. Don’t trust computers with client info. They can be hacked.”

Carol actually let out a soft chuckle. “Ah, thus the bank of file cabinets against the wall.”

Kate’s heart rate finally returned to normal. She quietly blew out air as she looked for an opening in her schedule later in the week.

.

At the end of the day, Kate was relieved that there were only two messages in her voicemail. The first was a routine confirmation of a schedule change. The second was from a colleague. It gave her pause.

“Hey, Kate, this is Jo Ann Reinhold. I have a client I’d like to refer to you. She’s dysthymic and had a pretty rough time growing up. I think there may be more going on there in the childhood trauma department. So since that’s your specialty, I’m thinking you might be a good fit for her. Give me a call.” Jo Ann gave her number and signed off.

Kate cringed. Dysthymia–chronic, low-grade depression, that could potentially turn into a full blown depressive episode.

I’m just not up for this right now.

She punched her colleague’s number into the phone. “Hey, Jo Ann,” she said when the woman answered. “I’m sorry but I can’t take your referral right now.”

“You sure you can’t fit this gal in?”

“I’m pretty booked up. Why do you want to refer her?”

“She’s great to work with, but we’ve gone about as far as I can take her. There are some vague signs of possible sexual abuse, but no conscious memories. You have the skills to get to that stuff better than I can.”

One part of Kate’s mind was intrigued. Another part was screaming,
No, no, no!
Out loud, she said, “How depressed does she tend to get?”

“Not terribly most of the time, but here’s the interesting part. She always gets fairly depressed at the same time of year.”

“Seasonal affective disorder?” Otherwise known as the winter blues, caused by the reduced sunlight at that time of the year.

“No. It lasts for about two weeks around Christmas, and again for several weeks in the summer–which just happen to coincide with the times she would visit her grandparents every year as a kid.”

Jo Ann was right. This case was right up Kate’s alley as a trauma recovery specialist. The client sounded like she was a likeable person, and she was therapy-savvy, always a plus.

So why am I not excited?

Before she could analyze that question, she heard herself saying, “I’d like to take the case, but I’m too jammed up right now.”

A pause. “Do you see your schedule lightening up any time soon?” Jo Ann’s voice had lost a good bit of its earlier energy.

“Maybe, but I can’t predict when.”

“Anybody else you can recommend?”

Kate thought for a moment, then gave her two names.

“I’ve heard of them. They’ll do, I guess. But they’re not as good as you.”

Kate faked a chuckle. “Flattery will not make more hours appear in my week.”

Jo Ann laughed. “Figured it was worth a try. I may hang on to this gal for a little while, and see what bubbles up. Would you call me if your schedule opens up?”

“Sure. Good talking to you, Jo Ann.”

“Same here. Take care.”

Kate hung up the phone and then stared at it for a moment. Why had she done that? She’d turned down a client she could have taken, could have helped.

She sucked in air and blew it out again on a long sigh. She could always call Jo Ann back in a few days and say things had loosened up.

I just need more time to get over Josie.

But she found herself hoping that Jo Ann would have transferred the client to someone else by the time she called her back.

~~~~~~~~

Skip decided to get the bad news over with as fast as possible. Maybe by knowing for sure that her client had committed suicide, Kate would be able to move on.

 She was apparently on the same wavelength. While still kicking off her shoes, she asked, “What did Dolph find out?”

Skip took her hand and cleared his throat. “There was a note, but the family asked that the contents be kept confidential.”

Her face sagged. She dropped down onto the sofa. Skip sat down beside her.

“What else did he find out?” she asked.

“They found a third bottle of pills in her medicine cabinet, also almost empty, even though it was a new prescription. With the cocktail she took, she didn’t want to survive.”

“No, I wouldn’t imagine Josie would mess around.” The sadness in her voice made his chest hurt.

“When she set her mind on something,” Kate continued, “she tended to do it right. What was the other prescription for?”

“Clonazepam.”

Kate’s eyebrows went up. “Who was the prescribing doctor?”

“Don’t know,” he said. “It’s a wonder she hasn’t succeeded in killing herself before.”

“She’s never tried before.”

He arched his own eyebrows. From what little he recalled from a training workshop on suicide when he’d been a state trooper, there were usually one or more unsuccessful attempts in the person’s history. “Seriously?”

“She’s felt suicidal a few times, but she’d never attempted it. For one thing, she was raised Catholic. The Church considers it a mortal sin to take your own life.”

He squeezed her hand and dropped his gaze, then looked off across the living room, hoping she wouldn’t ask any more questions.

He should have known better.

“There’s something else, isn’t there?” she said.

“No, it’s nothing important, not really related to what she did.”

“Tell me.”

He shook his head, fully aware that she wasn’t going to let it go.

Kate pulled her hand loose from his. “Damn it, Skip, I don’t need you to protect me!”

He snorted. “Says the woman who’s been depressed for the last week.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “What is it?” she said through gritted teeth.

“Her dog. It was locked in its crate…”

She flopped back against the sofa. “Holy crap.” Her tone was sharp, not sad.

Not exactly the reaction he’d expected.

She drummed her fingers against her lips, her expression thoughtful. “Her mother hinted that the dog was in bad shape, but I didn’t dare ask them for more details. What was in the police report?”

He winced. “You sure you want to know?”

“Yes, and I’ll explain why after you tell me.”

Skip suppressed a sigh. “He was found in his crate. Food and water dishes were empty.” He decided against describing the feces and urine. She’d figure that out for herself. “It was the dog’s howling that got the neighbor’s attention.”

“Anything on how long she’d been dead before she was found?”

“Dolph couldn’t get the autopsy report. But the detective’s report said she had probably been dead twelve to thirty hours.”

Kate looked at him, her eyes growing wide. “She did not kill herself.”

Wondering if that was denial talking, he said, “How do you know?”

“She loves dogs and she was big on animal rights. She’d never leave her puppy like that.”

Skip noted the mix of present and past tense. Kate’s mind still hadn’t digested the reality of her client’s death. “Maybe it was an impulse thing.”

Kate shook her head. “No. Even if she had the impulse to kill herself and decided to do it, she would have done something about the dog. She would not leave him to starve in his crate.”

Skip sat back and put his arm around her shoulders. “Darlin’, are you sure this isn’t wishful thinking?”

She tensed.

“Sorry,” he said quickly. “I’m just playing devil’s advocate here. What could she have done with the dog?”

“My guess is the neighbor who reported the howling is the same one who’s dog-sat for her before when she was traveling. It would have been an easy thing to go next door and say she wasn’t feeling well. The woman would have taken the dog for the night.”

Skip still thought she was grasping for straws, but he nodded. “You want the agency to investigate.”

She pulled back a little and looked up at him, a small smile on her face. The first one in several days. “Thanks for offering, but there are some things I can check out first.”

His muscles tensed but he managed to keep his voice calm. “Such as?”

“Such as calling her doctors tomorrow to see who prescribed the clonazepam. If I remember correctly, it would be a duplication of her other meds, and they might not mix all that well. And I want to check something else out.”

His jaw clenched. He tightened his arm around her. “You’re not going to do anything dangerous.” A statement, not a question, or rather a gentle order.

She actually chuckled. His heart did a funny little flip and he breathed out a soft sigh.

“I don’t think I have anything to fear from an elderly priest,” she said.

“Could her death have been accidental?” Skip asked. “Maybe a bad interaction of the drugs. That would explain the dog being crated.”

“But not the suicide note.” Kate tapped an index finger against her lips. “Unless she’d written that at an earlier date, when she
was
feeling suicidal. I don’t suppose we know where the note was found.”

“Nope.”

Kate sighed and relaxed against him.

Skip used his free hand to tip her chin up and lowered his mouth to hers.