ILL-TIMED ENTANGLEMENTS (The Kate Huntington mystery series #2) (4 page)

“Were there any witnesses to the discussion between you and Mrs. Blackwell about her book idea?”

“Well, no. She approached me after one of our meetings. Invited me to her apartment for a cup of tea. She wanted my help to get the book published, once it was done.”

“So it would have been her word against yours as to when that discussion happened, and your word as to when the earlier drafts were written?”

Betty looked confused, as if it had never crossed her mind that anyone might question her word.

Kate jumped in. “Detective, these were all things that would have been discussed tomorrow with the publisher’s lawyers. I’m quite sure all these legal ins and outs hadn’t even occurred to Mrs. Franklin yet. And I think we need to stop at this point, until legal counsel is present.”

As if on cue, Kate’s cell phone started playing Brahms’ lullaby. She looked at the caller ID window and saw that it was Rob. Trying not to let her relief show, she answered it. “Hi, can you hold on a minute?… Detective, if you would excuse us, we need to consult with Mrs. Franklin’s attorney now.”

The detective nodded and stood up. “I’ll check on the crime scene folks. Don’t go anywhere.” Kate noticed that, as he left the room, he nodded to a uniformed officer who moved into position just outside the door.

Kate quickly gave Rob a rundown of what had happened, the questions the detective had asked, and the answers given. Betty followed Kate’s end of the conversation with curiosity and only an occasional flicker of anxiety on her face.

When Kate had finished filling him in, Rob asked, “Has this detective indicated he’s going to arrest her?”

“No, but I think it might be under consideration.”

“You think he’s going to?”

“Not sure,” Kate said.

“Is she holding up okay?”

“Yes, remarkably so.”

“Hmm, they have motive and opportunity…”

“Shouldn’t be enough,” Kate interjected.

“But in some jurisdictions, it’s considered enough for arrest while they dig for more concrete evidence.”

Kate struggled to keep the dismay off of her face. “Are you licensed to practice in Pennsylvania?”

“No, but if she’s arrested, I’ll hire a local firm. And if it goes to court, I would probably second chair.” Rob paused for a beat. “Look, I really need to be here for this damn case. Do you think you can hold the fort up there until tomorrow evening?”

“Yeah,” Kate said. She got up, trying to look nonchalant as she wandered over to the big window overlooking the parking lot.

Rob heard the hesitation in her voice. “Are you okay?” he asked, regretting the burden he was putting on her shoulders.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m feeling… just a little inadequate, I guess,” she whispered into the phone, turning further away from Betty. “I think I can deflect the detective for the rest of today maybe, but I don’t know about tomorrow.”

“Do the best you can and I’ll be on the road the minute I get out of court tomorrow. I’ll leave my phone on vibrate in my pocket. If they arrest her, call me right away. If I don’t answer, I’m in court and I’ll get a recess as soon as I can and call you back. The police are going to want to search her apartment. Let them. They’ll be able to get a warrant anyway, and refusing to allow a search will just look suspicious.”

“Okay.” Responding to Betty’s gestures, Kate added, “Here, Betty wants to talk to you.”

Betty took the phone but didn’t get a chance to say more than “Hello.” She listened and said “okay” several times, and then handed the phone back to Kate.

Kate saw that Rob had disconnected the call from his end.

“I thought that boy had better manners than that,” Betty said, peeved at her favorite nephew. “He wouldn’t even let me talk.”

“He’s in what I call
court mode
, Betty. You’ve probably never seen him that way. When he’s in court, he has to be very direct and to the point, and sometimes downright aggressive. He’s a bit brusque right after he gets out of court, until his normal personality reasserts itself.”

“Well, he did say he had to get back to the courtroom, that they only had a few minutes recess,” Betty said, somewhat mollified. “Hmm, maybe in my next book, I’ll have the heroine get into some kind of legal trouble and have a courtroom scene, and then she falls in love with her lawyer.” Betty tapped her index finger against her upper lip in thought.

Kate stared at her, then shook her head and grinned. “All things are grist for the mill, huh?”

“You betcha,” Betty said, smiling back at her.

•   •   •

After going over the same questions several more times, Detective Lindstrom did ask to search Betty’s apartment. They drove back across the retirement community’s campus in silence.

Once inside, the detective pulled a small electronic device from his suit jacket’s inside pocket and placed it on the breakfast bar that separated the apartment’s kitchen from the living room and dining areas. “Mrs. Franklin, I need to take your fingerprints.” As he had Betty place her fingers in the device, Kate watched in fascination.

Lindstrom glanced over at her. “Clever little gadget, isn’t it? Takes a digital image of the print. We only have two of them. Testing them out to see if it’s worth getting more.”

And this was the very kind of situation where such a device was extremely handy, he was thinking. This way he did not have to expose his elderly suspect to the stress of taking her to the police station. If she had a coronary, the lawyer nephew would no doubt sue the department, and his superiors would eat him for lunch.

After taking Betty’s prints, the detective and one of his uniformed officers began to methodically search the apartment. Betty went into the small den off of the living room to call her agent.

A few minutes later, Detective Lindstrom came out of the bedroom with a hairbrush in his gloved hand. “I’d like to take a hair sample from this brush,” he said to Kate. She nodded and he removed several hairs, slipped them into an evidence bag, labeled the bag and then put it in his coat pocket.

“I also need to take the computer,” the detective was saying, as Betty entered the room. She went pale and turned to Kate.

“I’m not going to allow that, Detective,” Kate said firmly. “That computer contains Mrs. Franklin’s books. It’s the main tool of her trade.”

“I can get a warrant for it,” Lindstrom pointed out.

“You do that then,” Kate answered evenly.

Once he was gone, Kate turned to Betty. “If you don’t have your computer files backed up, do it now.”

“I do. Everything’s on disks.”

“Get them then. We’re going to put them in my car, because he
will
be back for the computer. I’d say by tomorrow at the latest.”

“I’d already gathered them up for the meeting. I’ll get them. Would you put the kettle on, dear? I need a cup of tea.”

After stashing the box of disks in the back seat of her car, Kate and Betty settled down in the living room with their tea. Having scalded her tongue with the first sip, Kate was blowing gently on the hot liquid in the china cup as Betty talked about the writers’ club and how it would probably never be the same again.

Kate’s mind wandered. The whole morning was starting to feel surreal. It felt like she had taken a wrong turn and landed in a British mystery novel, with Miss Marple sitting across from her, sipping tea and calmly discussing suspects.

Kate’s attention returned to Betty’s words and she realized the older woman was now talking about the victim. “Doris could be rather difficult at times,” Betty was saying. “But she didn’t deserve to be murdered.”

Glancing up, Kate noticed unshed tears in the elderly woman’s eyes. Jolted back to reality, her own throat tightened. This was not an Agatha Christie novel. A woman was dead and Rob’s aunt was the prime suspect.

“Betty, tell me everything you can think of about Doris and the others in the writers’ club.”

Betty looked a bit startled. “Why, dear?”

“Because maybe something will pop out at us that would explain why someone would kill her.”

“Shouldn’t we leave that to the police detective? His manners aren’t always what they should be, but he seems competent enough.”

“No doubt he is, but you have the most obvious motive so he may not be inclined to dig too much deeper…” Kate trailed off, not quite sure how to end the sentence without unduly frightening the elderly woman.

But Betty was made of sterner stuff than that. “So maybe we should be doing a little digging ourselves,” she said, just as the doorbell rang.

The woman who entered the apartment was Betty’s polar opposite.

In contrast to Betty’s crisp linen slacks and pale green short-sleeved sweater, the woman she introduced as her friend, Frieda McIntosh, wore a bright red but shapeless house dress. Frieda was a couple inches taller than petite Betty and was almost as round as she was tall. Her long steel gray hair was jammed into a hasty knot on the back of her head.

“Have a seat, my dear,” Betty said. “Would you like some tea? I was about to have another cup.”

“Tea would be great.” Frieda plopped down on an armchair. “I guess it’s too early for something stronger.” She looked longingly at the wooden cabinet in Betty’s dining area, that contained a small selection of liquor for guests.

Betty headed for the kitchen. “Help yourself, dear.”

Frieda hesitated, then shook her head. “Best I keep my wits about me, in case that handsome detective has more questions.”

“So Detective Lindstrom’s been to see you,” Kate said.

“Yes. He just left my apartment a few minutes ago, and I’ll tell you, I did
not
like the direction some of his questions were leaning. It sounded like he thought Betty was the killer, so I told him Betty Franklin wouldn’t hurt a fly.” Frieda nodded her head sharply, as if her opinion should definitively settle the issue.

“Thank you, Frieda.” Betty handed her friend a cup of tea, and then settled down on the settee between the two armchairs.

“So tell me everything. What did the detective say? Did he fingerprint you, read you your rights?” Frieda asked, excitement in her voice.

Betty glanced quickly in Kate’s direction. “We were about to go over what we know about Doris and the other members of the writers’ group,” she said, ignoring her friend’s questions.

Kate took her cue from Betty. “Mrs. McIntosh, do you know if Doris had any enemies?”

“I’m Frieda, honey. Mrs. McIntosh was my mother-in-law and I never did like the old battle-axe. But to answer your question, I’m not sure Doris had anything
but
enemies. She was a pain in the caboose, always going on about how this person or that person had done her wrong.

“And she was what we called a C.T. in my day, a you-know-what teaser, or at least she would’ve been if she wasn’t a wrinkled up old prune, and most of the men around here weren’t impotent.”

At Kate’s surprised expression, Frieda laughed. “I know I’m a bit over the top sometimes. Decided awhile ago that I didn’t have enough time left on this planet to waste any of it mincing words, so I tell it like it is. Most folks, by the time they get to be my age, don’t care much what others think anymore. I certainly don’t.”

“In what way was Doris a C.T.?” Kate asked, trying to hide a smile.

“She used to flirt all the time with the men, even the married ones. She even flirted with Henry, and
nobody
can stand him. She told me one time that a couple of the widowers had actually asked her out. No accountin’ for taste! But she turned ’em down flat.

“She flirted with our maintenance man, Joe, as well. And he’s gotta be at least forty years younger than her. Bet she wouldn’t have turned him down. He’s a hunk.”

Betty got up to fetch a pen and pad of paper from her den. She handed them to Kate, who started taking notes. Then Betty headed for the kitchen to make lunch. She knew her friend was just getting warmed up.

An hour and a half later, Frieda had polished off two sandwiches, most of the plate of cookies Betty had produced, and three cups of tea. And they now had all the latest dirt on the members of the writers’ group, along with the information that Detective Lindstrom had implied there had been no forced entry into Doris’s apartment.

While saying her farewells at the door, Frieda took Betty’s hand. “Now you pay no nevermind to what Doris said, honey. We all know you didn’t steal her idea. I think she was just jealous ’cause you’d gotten published and she hadn’t.”

Betty gave her friend a hug. “Thank you for your support, dear.”

Once Frieda was out the door, Betty turned to Kate. She burst out laughing at the expression on the younger woman’s face. “I’m afraid Frieda takes some getting used to.”

“Well, I did say I wanted to know all about Doris and the writers’ group members,” Kate said, with a smile.

Betty’s gray eyes twinkled. “Watch what you ask for, my dear.”

F
riday morning dawned sunny, hot and humid. A typical summer day. As Kate stretched to relieve the stiffness from sleeping on the uncomfortable sofa bed in Betty’s den, she realized it was probably going to be one of the least typical days of her life.

She found Betty frying eggs in the small kitchen. “Good morning,” her hostess said, giving Kate a warm smile as the latter headed for one of the stools at the breakfast bar.

“I figured we might want to eat in this morning, so we can plan our day. And I’m not quite sure I’m ready to deal with the others in the cafeteria yet.” Betty placed a heaping plate of eggs, bacon and toast in front of Kate. “Eat up now. I hope you’re not one of those gals who’s always on a diet.”

“Nope,” Kate said, as she picked up her fork. “I’m blessed with a high metabolism.”

They had barely finished breakfast when Detective Lindstrom was ringing the doorbell. He presented Kate with a search warrant for the computer. She made a show of reading it, although she only understood about one quarter of the legalese. She handed it to Betty as Lindstrom and a uniformed officer headed for the den.

A few minutes later the uniform came out carrying Betty’s hard drive. He left with it as Lindstrom said, “I have some more questions, Mrs. Franklin.”