FAMILY FALLACIES (The Kate Huntington mystery series #3) (26 page)

K
ate huddled in her
coat, ducking her head as the cold wind blew hair into her face. She rushed
toward the door of Mac’s Place. January had been particularly brutal this year,
but at least it was coming to an end.

Rob wasn’t there yet so
she grabbed their favorite booth. The waitress came and asked what she wanted
to drink. Kate hesitated. “Water will be fine, no ice,” she said. She decided
to order the crab soup, for a change, on such a cold day.

When Rob arrived, they
greeted each other without their usual level of enthusiasm. The gray skies
outside were not the only reason for their subdued mood. Once they had ordered
their food, Kate asked, “Have you talked to Audrey yet? She was going to call
you.”

“Yeah,” Rob said. “I
think I’ve talked her into waiting to file the civil suit until after the
criminal case is decided. If her father’s convicted, we’ll be on a lot firmer
ground.”

“What do you think the
chances are that he’ll be convicted?”

Rob shrugged. “I’d say
50/50.”

“She caught him in the
act!”

“True, but a good
defense attorney will claim that she misread the situation. Or her father may
just flat out lie and say she made the whole thing up. His lawyer will probably
try to postpone and drag things out as long as possible, so the little girl’s
memory gets foggier over time. Her testimony’s pretty crucial to the
prosecution’s case. No doubt they’ve videotaped her telling what happened. But
if she isn’t able to remember at least the gist of it at the time of trial,
they’ll have to get in experts to explain about the limits of a four-year-old’s
memory.”

“Can’t the prosecutor
push for a speedy trial?”

“Sure but that doesn’t
mean he’ll get one. With the courts backed up the way they so often are these
days, a speedy trial may be six months from now.”

“That’s a long time for
a four-year-old to remember something,” Kate said. “Autobiographical memory is
still iffy at that age, and especially since Audrey and Ted aren’t allowed to
talk to her about it. The memory won’t get consolidated... What about Audrey’s
journals?”

“They’ll help, assuming
the prosecutor can get them admitted into evidence. That’s where your testimony
will be crucial, to establish that those journal entries were written long
before that day. But the defense attorney’s going to try to twist it around
that you have an axe to grind against Wells, because of the malpractice suit.”

Kate nodded. She was
not looking forward to the day that case went to trial.

“How’s the little girl
doing?” Rob asked.

“The play therapist I
referred them to did an evaluation and said she thought the girl had not been
abused. That this was probably the first time the grandfather had tried
anything with her.”

“Well, that’s a relief.
But why wouldn’t he have abused the girl sooner?”

Kate shrugged. “The
motivation for when abuse starts is often hard to figure out. We think four or
five is about when Audrey was first abused as well. Could be that was the age
her father was when he was abused. It’s pretty much a given that abusers were
themselves abused. That’s how they learn such an aberrant behavior... Or maybe
babies and chubby toddlers have no appeal for him. But when the child slims
down a bit, looks more like a child than a baby, then he’s attracted to them.”

Rob shuddered at the
thought of a man being attracted to a four-year-old.

The waitress appeared
with their food. He waited until she had left before asking, “Is it weird, working
with Audrey, after all that’s happened?”

“Not as weird as I
thought it would be.”

Audrey had begged Kate
to continue as her therapist, despite the awkwardness of the situation. And she
had expressed no animosity toward Skip, the man who had killed her mother.
Indeed, every time Kate had met with her since that awful day, Audrey had asked
how Skip was doing. Kate always lied and said he was fine.

“Hey, I just thought of
something,” Kate said, then fell silent. She ate a spoonful of crab soup as she
pondered the enormity of the thought. Rob was piling pickle slices on top of
his crab cake, while he waited for her to continue.

“I’m thinking about the
earliest notes,” Kate finally said. “If I remember correctly, Audrey had told
her mother very little at that point. She was just distancing herself from her
parents as much as possible. And then when she did say something to her mother
about the abuse, she pretended that the abuser was someone outside the family.”

Rob was fairly sure he
knew where her thoughts were headed. “So why say in the notes that her daughter
lies and accuse you of destroying families?”

“Because the woman
knew
,
on some level at least, that her husband had abused her daughter when she was
little.” Kate put her spoon down and sat back against the bench. “She knew the
truth was about to come to light, and that truth would destroy her family.”

“And she was trying to
get you fired, or scare you off before that happened,” Rob said, nudging the
edge of her soup bowl. She dutifully ate another spoonful.

“I need to tell Skip
this. He thinks he killed a poor misguided woman who was just trying to protect
her family.”

“When she was really
protecting a sexual abuser,” Rob said.

“While putting her own
grandchild at risk. Yeah, I think that might just help Skip put things in
perspective.” Kate ate another spoonful of crab soup, and actually tasted it
this time. It was delicious. The cold spot in the center of her being was
beginning to thaw.

Spoon halfway to her
mouth again, she stopped. “Damn!
Can
I tell Skip this? The
confidentiality issues with this case have gotten so murky.”

Rob was shaking his
head. “This isn’t something your client told you. It’s an insight you just had
about a woman who tried to kill you, tried to kill
us
. And now Skip’s
suffering because of that woman’s actions. You have every right to tell him,
and you wouldn’t have to go into any details about what Audrey told you.”

Kate smiled at him.
“Has anyone ever told you that you’d make a great lawyer?”

Rob grinned, then nudged
her soup bowl again.

“Eat your own food, Mr.
Pot Calling the Kettle Black.”

Rob gave his untouched
sandwich a chagrined look, then picked it up and took a bite.

They ate in silence for
a moment, then Rob asked, “How’s Skip doing?”

“Not great, but a
little better. He’s still having nightmares, but not quite as often... How are
you doing with it?”

“No more nightmares,”
Rob said. “Not since the first week, but I find myself thinking about it. A
lot. Whenever I’m not distracted by other things... I can’t get what she said
out of my mind.”

“Me, neither.” Kate
looked down at the table as she repeated the woman’s dying words. “‘I didn’t
want to hurt you or Phil. I just wanted my family back.’”

“How about you, Kate?
How are you doing?” Rob asked gently.

“Some flashbacks, and
I’m still kind of jumpy. Monday, I was bringing groceries into the house and
the wind caught the door, slammed it shut with a bang behind me. The
entranceway ended up covered in food. Broke the eggs.” Kate shook her head.
“What a mess...”

Her mouth went dry as
her mind flashed to the image of that gun pointed at Rob’s head. She jumped a
little in her seat at the sound of the gunshot that she had believed, for one
horrible second, had taken her dearest friend’s life. Then she shuddered
slightly, as she once again saw the woman who was holding the gun slowly
crumple to the floor.

Kate hadn’t even
realized that Rob had put his hand over hers on the table. “Are you okay?”

Her eyes came back into
focus and she looked across the table at him, turning her hand palm up to
tightly grasp his. “I thought I’d lost you...” Her throat closed up on her.

“But you didn’t,
sweetheart,” he said softly. “I’m still here. We’re all still here.”

She nodded mutely as
she looked down at the table again, composing herself.

“At least we don’t have
the threat of a murder charge hanging over our heads anymore,” she finally
said, letting go of his hand so he could eat his sandwich.

“I don’t know if Jones
and Bradley would have believed us,” Rob said, “even after the lab found the
residual blood on her coat, if Audrey hadn’t told them that her mother had a
motive for killing her uncle. That he was the obstacle to dropping the lawsuit
so Audrey would let her see her granddaughter again.”

“And getting rid of him
worked. Audrey was letting Alicia visit with her grandmother again.” Kate
picked up her fork and halfheartedly stabbed at her salad.

“I can’t quite
understand why the woman came after you at that point,” Rob said.

“I think it’s because
Audrey was trying to get her mother to back off, so she told her that I would
have to call Protective Services if she let Alicia spend the night with them.”

“Having no idea just
how unglued the woman had become,” Rob said.

“Her mother also
probably figured that she could convince Audrey to come back into the family
fold, once she was out from under my supposed influence.”

“Is Skip going to
continue his PI work?”

“Yeah. After a few days
he realized that this had nothing to do with his work. He was protecting us.”

“Indeed, if he wasn’t a
PI who carries a gun, we’d probably be dead now,” Rob said.

Kate looked across at
him, worry in her eyes. “Rob, I’m afraid he’ll hesitate, if he’s in a situation
where he has to draw his gun, or actually shoot it again. And that hesitation
could be fatal.”

Rob couldn’t think of
anything comforting to say. She was right.

“That was the argument
that finally convinced him to get some counseling. I pointed out that if he
wanted to protect
me
from pain, then he needs to protect
himself
from
harm.” Kate stopped and looked down at the table.

Rob took her hand
again. He knew she believed that she wouldn’t be able to handle losing another
husband. He wasn’t taking any bets on that, one way or the other.

Rob wasn’t sure
he
could handle watching her go through that a second time.

“He’s only had one
session so far,” Kate was saying. “But he did actually smile yesterday.” She
smiled a little herself at the memory.

“Counseling should help
with the nightmares,” Rob said, as he knew from first-hand experience with his
own in the past.

“Would you look for an
opening to talk to him, man to man? If he knew you’d been in counseling before
and that it helped, that would make a big difference, I think. He really
respects you and considers you a friend.”

“As do I him, on both
counts. Yeah, I’ll talk to him. He’s a hell of a guy, Kate. I’m really happy
for you, that you’ve found another good man.”

Kate’s eyes filled with
tears, but they were happy ones for a change. “I am absolutely amazed, Rob, at
my good fortune. With all the jerks in the world, and trust me there’s lots of
them, most of them related to my clients. And here I’ve managed to cross paths
with three of the most healthy and wonderful men out there.”

One of her tears broke
loose. “Thanks for the compliment, sweetheart,” Rob said as he let go of her
hand to reach in his pocket for his handkerchief.

Kate took it and wiped
her eyes. “If Liz ever gets tired of washing and ironing these, let me know and
I’ll take over the chore. I don’t ever want my men to stop carrying cloth
handkerchiefs.”

“How sexist of you,
Kate. What makes you think that Liz irons them?” Rob grinned at her.

“You!? You iron them?”

“Yeah.” His face grew
serious. “I go through them pretty fast sometimes. I see a lot of misery in my
job, too. I can’t help people in quite the same way as you do, though...” He
trailed off, not sure if Kate wanted to hear a pep talk about the importance of
her work.

“What was it you said
to me awhile back?” Kate asked. “In so many months...”

“In a few months, this
will all be a bad memory.”

Kate just nodded as she
stabbed at her salad.

“Have you decided
anything about taking a leave of absence?” Rob asked after a moment. He didn’t
add the ‘or quitting completely’ option that she had also mentioned in the
weeks since they had faced that woman’s gun.

“I don’t know, Rob. I’m
really torn about that. I love my work, most days. But this is the second time
that one of my cases has put the people dear to me in jeopardy. I keep telling
myself that it’s a fluke. Ninety-nine percent of therapists go through their
entire careers without anything disrupting their personal lives other than the
occasional middle of the night emergency call.”

Kate lowered her eyes
to her plate, then shook her head. She didn’t want to think about that anymore
right now. And this was as good an opening as she was likely to get.

She looked up at Rob
and smiled. “Actually it looks like I’ll be able to put off that decision for
awhile. I’ll have an excuse to take a leave soon, for a different reason. Oh,
by the way, we’re going to be moving the wedding date up a bit.”

Rob’s look of confusion
turned slowly to comprehension and his eyes grew wide. “How long have you
known? Why didn’t you call and tell us right away?” he demanded as a big grin
spread across his face.

“Just since yesterday,
I wanted to tell you in person,
and
I thought it would be appropriate to
tell the baby’s
father
first. That was when he smiled.”

~~~~~~~~

L
et me ramble for a
page or two and then I will give you a synopsis of the next adventure in the
lives of Kate, Skip and the Franklins.

I feel that I have not
sufficiently thanked the people who make my books a reality. I have a wonderful
group of beta readers who help me transform the raw material of my first draft
into the polished version that you read. Thank you, thank you, thank you to
Angi, Sue, Jonathan, Gina, Ralph, Virginia, Judy, Juanita and Ann (I hope I
haven’t forgotten anyone!). And a special thanks to my good friends, Angi, Dot
and Mary, for all their encouragement and support.

God bless my
long-suffering husband, who is also my proofreader. Although an avid reader of
many things in the non-fiction spectrum, he never reads fiction so it is a very
real sacrifice for him to wade through my books to make sure all the T’s are
crossed and the I’s are dotted.

And how could I forget
my good friend and fellow mystery writer, Shannon Esposito, who helped
tremendously with the final polish of this book and is one of the best
hand-holders I’ve ever known. She has talked me down off the ledge more than
once when I was ready to chuck it all and go back to being a retiree. I can’t
thank you enough, Shannon!

Also a big thanks to
the priests, Louann Loch and Allen LaMontagne, of my two Episcopal parishes (in
Florida and in Maryland) and to the folks in the Bible study groups at both
parishes. Bless you all for your support.

Last but not least,
thank you, Ma, for the gift of this plot concept. In 1995, I had started the
first novel in this series. One day, my mother, who wrote travel articles and
children’s books, called me up. “I have a great idea for a novel,” she said.
“But I know I’ll never get around to writing it before I die, and it would fit
in nicely with your Kate and Rob series.” She told me her idea and I agreed
that it would work in my series.

Unfortunately, life
happens. That first novel, one third finished, languished in my hard drive
until 2009–five years after my mother’s death. Once retired, I could focus on
my writing, and my mother’s idea has finally become Book Three in the Kate
Huntington mystery series.

Although all the
characters and groups mentioned in this book are fictional (my deepest
apologies if a name I have randomly picked for one of my bad guys or gals
happens to also be your name), the “false memory syndrome” movement is very
real, unfortunately. They have done a lot of damage to innocent people, both
sexual abuse survivors and the trauma recovery therapists trying to help them.

The “false memory”
movement provides an excellent example of how a noisy minority–ill-informed and
with their own agenda–can distort reality for the majority of society.

As Sally Ford
acknowledges, false accusations do occur, and there were zealots in the early
years, right after sexual abuse came out of the closet, who–out of naivete, not
malice–pushed beyond the limits of what we knew about traumatic memory and
trauma recovery in the 1980's.

But science has since
caught up and there is now considerable proof of the validity of traumatic
amnesia, although delayed memories, like any other memories, are far from
infallible. Human memory is susceptible to suggestion, and is not even always
recorded accurately in the first place. But traumatic memories operate somewhat
differently, research has found. Contrary to what we might expect, they
actually tend to be a bit
more
accurate than normal memories,
perhaps because they are seared into our brains so dramatically at the time of
the event.

On the other hand,
there is absolutely no scientific evidence that a “false memory syndrome”
exists. In the medical and mental health fields, the word
syndrome
refers to a group of symptoms that occur together and are thought to be related
to a common cause, i.e., it is a synonym for the words
disorder
or
disease.
Thus, post-traumatic stress
syndrome
involves nightmares, flashbacks,
intrusive thoughts, exaggerated startle response, etc. all related to the
trauma the person has experienced.

There are no symptoms
in this supposed “false memory syndrome.” There is only a conflict of opinions
as to what has happened during a person’s childhood. The grown child believes
one thing happened; others believe differently.

The false memory
movement was one of the main reasons I retired when I did. After twenty years
as a childhood abuse specialist, I felt it was time to get out while I was
ahead. There were some people I was unable to help but I had many successes as
well, and I had never lost a client to suicide and had never been sued for
malpractice. When the climate of our society shifted from one of respect for
the intense work that I did with these trauma survivors to one of skepticism
and assumptions that I was planting false memories in my clients’ heads in
order to keep them in therapy and make more money (excuse me while I grind my
teeth), I decided it was time to bail.

Okay, enough of that
gruesome subject.

Let me point out again,
as I did at the end of
Ill-Timed Entanglements
, that these two books are
set in 2006, making Kate and Skip members of Generation X (the generation
between the Baby Boomers and the current crop of thirty-somethings).

I also have another
reason for setting it in that year. The novel I am currently writing (
Zero
Hero, Book 6
) involves the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, and is set in
2013. And two more novels have to happen in between.
Celebrity Status
(Book 4) jumps three years to the spring of 2010; I decided the characters
needed a break to enjoy life for awhile before more bad stuff came their way.
Collateral
Casualties
(Book 5) is set in the fall of 2011.

So without further ado,
here is a summary of Book 4 in the Kate Huntington series.

CELEBRITY STATUS, a Kate Huntington Mystery

Kate Huntington is
back, now married to the
very
patient man who has courted her through
the last two books in the series. Life is good. She has her own private
practice, the kids are thriving and the PI agency Skip co-owns is steadily
growing.

But perhaps Canfield
and Hernandez, Private Investigations, is doing a little too well. They have
attracted their first celebrity client, and they soon come to hope she’s their
last. 

Pop singer, Cherise
Martin, is being stalked by an anonymous fan with a twisted concept of love.
Before Skip realizes just how twisted, he involves first his psychotherapist
wife and then their lawyer friend, Rob Franklin, in the case.

Soon their mundane
lives as everyday citizens are being reported, and distorted, all over the
tabloid press. Nothing they try–not restraining orders, threats of lawsuits nor
even Skip’s imposing size–seems to be sufficient to stop the unrelenting
paparazzi. Or the stalker.

Skip Canfield is a
strong man, emotionally as well as physically, but everyone has their limits.
When hints of his wife having an affair with Rob are added to his feelings of
helplessness over being unable to protect his family, the big man is terrified
he will lose the life he loves–his wife, his kids, his dreams.