ILL-TIMED ENTANGLEMENTS (The Kate Huntington mystery series #2) (6 page)

After a long pause, Rob squeezed her hand. His voice came out of the darkness now gathering around them. “You don’t need to cheer me up, Kate. As usual, just talking out a case with you is helping.”

Rob knew her so well that he had developed a sometimes disconcerting ability to read her mind. As she could his at times. Through the years, they had helped mutual clients deal with a variety of legal messes, and had socialized outside the office along with their spouses. Even before Eddie’s death, the Huntingtons had considered Rob and Liz their closest friends. Then she and the Franklins had endured those horrible weeks following his murder. Shared adversity makes for powerful glue.

“So how’ve you been, my friend?” Rob said, as the last of the lights around the adjacent parking lot finally decided it was truly dark and snapped on.

She squeezed his hand before letting it go, then sat back and sighed herself. “Looking forward to returning to work, and then feeling guilty because I’m actually glad my maternity leave is almost over. I’m just not cut out to be a stay-at-home mom.”

“You should talk to Liz, sweetheart. She’s had the been-there, done-that experience with that. She loves being a mom, but all day, every day pretty much drove her up a wall when the girls were little.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Kate said. “It’s great when I’m actually interacting with Edie, and I’m very aware of how lucky I am that she’s such an easy, cheerful baby. There’s way too much time, though, when she’s sleeping. Of course there are always chores to do, laundry and such…”

“
But
laundry is boring. Not exactly in the same league as helping people get sane,” Rob said.

“Yeah, I’m pretty much bored to tears most days.” The nearest streetlight was reflected in the tears now pooling in her eyes. “And lonely,” she added in a whisper.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her up against his side. “You still miss him a lot.” A statement, not a question.

“Every minute that I’m not thinking about something else.” She leaned her head on his shoulder.

“I miss him too,” Rob said out of the darkness, his voice husky. He gave her shoulders a squeeze, glad for the dim light, hoping she wouldn’t notice the tears in his own eyes.

His connection to Kate had always been stronger, but over the years he’d become good friends with her husband as well. Ed Huntington had been the kindest and most easy-going man Rob had ever known. “Sometimes I still catch myself, when I hear a good joke, thinking I gotta remember to tell Ed that one,” he said quietly, turning his face away from her as one of his tears broke loose.

Kate sniffled. Rob reached into his pocket for his handkerchief and handed it to her. While she was wiping her eyes, he furtively swiped at his own with the back of his hand.

There were very few things he kept from this woman with whom he was closer than anyone else on the planet, with the exception of his wife. But he had tried to hide from her his own grief for her husband. She’d already had so much to deal with–losing Ed and having to face childbirth and parenthood on her own–and he’d had Liz to help him cope with the loss of his friend.

“Guess we’d better be getting back and get some sleep, so we can go pester old people again tomorrow.” Rob stood up and pulled Kate to her feet.

As they started walking back toward Betty’s building, he put his hand on her shoulder. “Here I was trying to cheer you up,” Kate said. “And once again you end up comforting me.”

“Actually I feel better than I did earlier. Maybe having to come up here isn’t all bad. It’s given me a little distance. Made me realize that I’m not responsible for the mess my client’s life has become. All I can do is try to help him as best I can.”

They entered the building. The lights in the atrium had been dimmed and there were now only a few murmurs of conversation coming from behind closed doors.

Kate dropped her voice to a whisper. “It’s such a tough balance to maintain, in both our jobs. To care, but not be sucked into the misery ourselves.”

Rob put his key in the lock of Betty’s door but before opening it, he turned to Kate. “I always know, sweetheart, that when the undertow starts sucking my feet out from under me, you’ll help me get my balance back.”

He opened the door and ushered her into the quiet apartment, the dim light over the stove the only illumination. “Thanks, Kate,” he whispered and kissed her on the forehead, before turning toward the bedroom.

“Goodnight, dear,” she said softly, and headed for the sofa bed in the den.

A
fter a morning of pestering old people, as Rob had put it, they were walking back to Betty’s apartment for lunch. They’d had even less success than the day before because many of the residents had gone to church.

“I’m going to have to leave in a few hours so I can prep for court tomorrow,” Rob said. “I’m thinking we need more hands on deck here. I’m going to call Skip Canfield and hire him, and Rose if she’s not on duty, to come up tomorrow and help out with talking to people.”

“I just had a thought,” Kate said. “I’ve got Betty’s back-up computer disks in my car. We put them there as a precaution in case Lindstrom decided to confiscate them, along with the computer. Do you think Liz would have time to go through them to see when the subplot that was supposedly plagiarized first appears? If it was a good bit before the time when Betty and Doris met, I would think that would make the motive pretty flimsy.”

“But we wouldn’t be able to prove when those earlier drafts were written exactly.” Rob was a technophobe. His understanding of computers was quite fuzzy.

“Yes, we can. Files are electronically date-stamped. Liz’ll know how to access that information.” The technophobe’s wife, ironically, was a computer whiz.

Rob thought for a moment, then nodded. “Wouldn’t totally eliminate the motive, but it would take the teeth out of it. Which is really the only reason Lindstrom has to suspect Aunt Betty. I’ll take the disks with me and see what Liz can do with them.”

Over lunch they told Betty about Kate’s idea. “I’ll write out the gist of the subplot,” she said. “And also as much as I can remember about Doris’s idea. The basic premise was similar, but the way she’d planned to develop it was different… Unfortunately, I can’t prove that.” Betty sighed heavily.

Kate gave her a worried look. “Try not to let this get to you, Betty. Remember you’re innocent until proven guilty.”

Once they had finished their lunch and were heading out of the building to locate the next person on their interview list, Rob said, “I didn’t want to say this in front of Aunt Betty, but unfortunately in the real world, innocent until proven guilty doesn’t always apply. The police and prosecutors often get jaded. They start to assume that, if the person looks guilty, they probably are. And then their agenda becomes to find the evidence to convince a jury that the person is guilty, or to scare the suspect into a plea bargain.”

“Do you really think Lindstrom could build a case against Betty?” Kate said, dismay in her voice.

Rob held up his big fist and started ticking off points. His index finger went up. “He’s got a half dozen witnesses who heard the victim make her accusation and threaten to sue, and the defendant reacted with shock. The prosecutor would pound that point, that Betty was so upset, she was speechless.” He extended the next finger. “The very next morning the victim is found dead.” Another finger went up. “The scene says it was a crime of passion. An impulsive striking out during an argument.”

His little finger joined its buddies. “The defendant’s fingerprints and hair are found at the scene. And a defense attorney would sound pretty lame trying to make a case that the victim hadn’t cleaned her living room in three months.”

Rob wiggled his thumb. “The defendant has no alibi. Lindstrom’s got opportunity, means and motive. Actually a less dedicated detective might have already arrested her. The fact that her nephew is an attorney may be all that’s stopping him.”

Kate stopped walking and turned to face him, shock on her face. “Hell, Rob, this is the United States in 2006, not medieval Europe. How does Betty
maybe
wanted to kill Doris, and
possibly
could’ve killed her, become she
did
kill her? Don’t they have to prove she did it?”

“In theory, but in practice the prosecutor looks at the case and asks himself, or herself, can I convince a jury this person is guilty.”

They started walking again, along the stretch of road between Betty’s section of The Villages and the buildings clustered around the recreation building.

“There was a case up here in Pennsylvania, a few years ago,” Rob said. “Man was found dead in his car, side of his head bashed in. Woman was seen getting into his car and her fingerprints were found in it. She was arrested for second degree murder.

“Her story was that a stranger stopped his car and asked for directions, throwing open the passenger door to talk to her. When she leaned over to answer his question, he dragged her into the car and took off. Took her to the spot where the car was later found, and tried to rape her. She fought him, he hit his head against the side window and she assumed he was just knocked out. She took off. Went home, shaken and ashamed of her stupidity.”

“So she didn’t report it,” Kate guessed.

Rob nodded. “Prosecutor claimed that she and the guy were lovers, and they’d had an argument. She’d hit him and left him for dead. There was no evidence that she even knew the man, but the prosecutor was very persuasive and her fresh-out-of-law-school public defender was not. Actually, her lawyer was an idiot. A female police officer had come forward and reported she’d been approached by the same guy when she was off duty, in exactly the way the woman claimed. She’d flashed her badge at the guy and he took off.

“The prosecutor ignored that piece of information and her lawyer, for some obscure reason, didn’t use it. After the prosecutor had mopped the courtroom floor with his green opponent, a better lawyer was hired by a local rape victim advocacy group. He filed an appeal and had the cop testify. The appeals court’s hands were tied, though. It was not new evidence. Her defense attorney had known about it at the time of the first trial.”

“Wait a minute, I read about that case somewhere,” Kate said. “The woman was eventually pardoned by the governor of Pennsylvania.”

“Yes,
nine years
after she was convicted. Her daughter was fourteen. The girl’s foster parents had thought it would be too upsetting to bring her to prison to visit her mother, so the woman hadn’t seen the child since she was five.”

Rob had to grab Kate’s arm as her steps faltered. “Holy… crap,” she said, although that wasn’t the word she was thinking. “Okay, I get it. The legal system is not to be trusted to actually care whether or not someone’s really guilty.”

Turning to face Kate, Rob said, “Now you know why I’ve been so worried. I know it’s a lot to ask, Kate, but would you be willing to stay up here for another day or two? I’d just feel a whole lot better if I knew you were here to run interference with the police. I’m hoping my court case will be finished by Tuesday or Wednesday. At the very least, Liz’ll be available by then.”

“Wait a minute,” Kate said. “Where the hell is Betty’s son?”

Rob grimaced. “On a cruise in the Mediterranean.”

Kate shook her head. “By the time he gets here, this will all probably be resolved.”

Annoyance flashed in Rob’s eyes. “He’s not coming.”

“What?”

“I’m afraid my cousin takes after his father. My uncle was one of the most self-centered men I’ve ever known. When I finally caught up with Jake by ship-to-shore phone, he listened politely, then said, ‘Keep me informed,’ and hung up… Before I could point out that it was his filial duty to come help his mother.”

They started walking again. “I’m amazed that Aunt Betty was able to stand living with the two of them,” Rob said.

“Women of her generation didn’t question their lot in life. They just made do,” Kate said.

They fell silent as they entered one of the apartment buildings. Kate was trying to decide what to do. Her guilt and longing for her baby were escalating by the hour, but the mental image of Betty incarcerated, even for a day or two, outweighed her maternal angst. Edie was safe and cared for, no matter how much Kate hated being away from her. The physical and emotional risks to Betty if she was arrested were a much greater concern. If Kate was there she could quickly move to arrange for a local lawyer and bail.

“Okay, I’ll stay,” she said finally, even though her heart ached for her little girl.

“Thank you,” Rob said, breathing out a sigh of relief. “I’ve got Fran checking out the reputations of criminal lawyers up here. I’ll have her call you with some names, just in case.”

Kate nodded. There had been no sign of Detective Lindstrom all weekend, although they’d seen various police officers also interviewing residents.
Maybe he’s come up with other leads
, she thought.
And by tomorrow morning he’ll be stopping by to tell us that Betty’s been cleared.
Then she could go home to her child and her blissfully boring life.

And to think she had wanted a little excitement. “Watch what you ask for, indeed,” Kate muttered under her breath, as Rob rang the doorbell of their next interviewee.

•   •   •

Monday morning, Kate decided to talk to the retirement community’s director, Alice Carroll. At the small building that housed the management and sales offices, she was kept waiting only a few minutes before being ushered into the director’s office.

“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Mrs. Carroll,” Kate said, as she shook the middle-aged woman’s hand and took the offered seat. The director, tall and thin, was meticulously dressed, but her plain face was bare of make-up.

Kate explained why she was there, representing Betty Franklin. “I’m sure you want to clear up this matter quickly as much as we do. I was hoping you could give me some insights into the members of the writers’ club.”

“Well, Mrs. Huntington,” the director huffed. “I really am
not
at liberty to discuss my residents.”