MULTIPLE MOTIVES (The Kate Huntington mystery series Book 1) (19 page)

“Joe has dissociative identity disorder, what used to be called multiple personality disorder. Many therapists still call these folks ‘multiples,’ since saying ‘so-and-so who has dissociative identity disorder’ is a mouthful.” She was stalling as she sorted out how much they needed to know about Jim Lincoln. She liked Jim and felt like she was ratting him out. She even liked Steve. He was just an insecure kid. Then she remembered that said insecure kid might be her husband’s killer.

She forged ahead. “Joe has several alter personalities. One of those alters… Wait, let me back up. Joe is probably homosexual, but he’s very conflicted about that. So his psyche has developed an alter that’s quite heterosexual and macho. And that macho alter, whom we shall call Stan, flirts with me.”

“Flirts, or tries to seduce?” Rob asked.

“Somewhere in between. It’s very likely, since I’ve been working with Joe for over a year, that he’s seen me with Rob, maybe on our way out to lunch. He may have assumed we were a romantic couple, in which case Stan might see Rob as his competition.”

“I flirt with lots of women,” Mac said, watching Rose out of the corner of his eye. “Don’t mean I’m gonna knock off their boyfriends.”

Rose just lifted an eyebrow.

Kate said, “Good point, Mac. But with multiples…Well, the host alter is usually fairly mature, but–”

“What’s a host alter, Katie?” her father asked.

“Sorry. The host alter is the one who maintains the person’s original identity, goes by their given name. That alter is often, but not always, more grown up than the others, has a maturity level at least close to the person’s chronological age. But the other alters are almost always around the age they were when they were created, so they may be five years old, or ten or sixteen.”

“How are they created?” Rose asked.

“Ho, boy. The short explanation is that these folks have horribly abusive childhoods. A new personality forms during or right after a traumatic event, to help the child deal with that event. Each alter only remembers some of the abuse, which actually helps the child cope. If their personality wasn’t fragmented into alters, they wouldn’t be able to handle that much trauma. It’d be too overwhelming.

“So back to Ji… uh, Joe, or rather Stan. He’s a fifteen-year-old boy, with horrible stuff in his history, so he’s even less sane than a normal teenager. There may be an obsessive crush on me hiding behind the flirting, and he could very well be unstable enough to try to take out his competition.”

“That would explain going after Ed and shooting at me. But why would he try to run Liz down?” Rob asked.

“The hit-and-run could have been a coincidence,” Liz said. “And he might’ve been aiming at Mac the other morning, thinking he was Kate’s new boyfriend.”

“What about the attack on Mary?” Dan asked.

“Assuming that attack was meant for me, he may have developed a…” Kate hesitated, then carefully avoided eye contact with the others as she finished the sentence. “A, uh, reaction formation.” She heard an aborted snort coming from Liz’s direction.

Rose’s eyebrow went up, as Mac asked, “What’s that?”

To Kate’s left, her father turned a chuckle into a fake cough. She fought back the giggles trying to escape her throat. “Loves me but he’s convinced himself he hates me,” she answered when she could trust her voice again.

Rob was wearing his court face, but one end of his mouth was twitching. “How serious a suspect do you think he is?”

“I think he should go near the top of the possibilities–”

“I just had a terrible thought,” Liz said. “Maybe when he hit Mary, his intention had been to knock you out, Kate, and kidnap you.”

That stifled Kate’s urge to laugh. Her mind ran wild, visualizing Jim Lincoln, or rather Steve, holding her captive and….

“That’s a possibility we should keep in mind,” Rob said, his expression now grim.

“This guy, Stan, or whoever our perp is, might have realized after he hit her that he had the wrong sister,” Rose said.

“Or he freaked when he saw the blood,” Mac said.

Kate nodded. “If it is Ste…Stan, then the sight of all that blood could’ve caused him to switch, and Joe or another alter came out and took off.”

“Switching, is that when they shift from one personality to another?” Rose asked.

“Yeah, sorry. I keep forgetting and slipping into psychobabble.”

“I think Joe/Stan should go in the likelies for now,” Rob said.

“I couldn’t bring home the files since these are active cases so I wrote this.” She held up a sheet of paper on which she’d written:
JOE–has D.I.D. STAN–MACHO ALTER, 15-yrs-old, may have crush on Kate, taking out competition
.

The others nodded their approval. Kate placed the Joe sheet in the front of the box of files at her feet, then pulled out another sheet and put it on the table face down.

“The other current client we will call Shirley, and she’s pregnant.”

Rob’s mouth fell open.

Kate gave him a small smile. “I’ve only just begun to shock you. I believe that Shirley is also a multiple.”

Rob sat back in his chair. “Whoa!”

“Rob is Shirley’s divorce lawyer,” Kate told the others. “Her husband beat her, and she put up with it until she found out she was pregnant. Then she knew she had to get out. I won’t go into the reasons I suspect she’s a multiple but she has an alter who’s angry enough to be physically aggressive. Often the alters hold different emotions, again to avoid the overwhelm of all the intense feelings together. One alter will experience most of the fear, another the sadness and yet another the rage about all the horrible stuff they endured as a child.

“Contrary to Hollywood’s portrayal of them, multiples are almost never dangerous, except to themselves if the sad alter becomes suicidal. But the problem is that each alter lacks the normal range of emotions. The feelings can’t counter-balance each other like they do, at least most of the time, in the rest of us. So the angry alter can
sometimes
become dangerous, because that alter may not feel the fear of repercussions that would keep them from acting on the anger. It’s pure rage with little or nothing reining it in… in a personality that can be any age, from toddler to adult.”

There was silence as everyone digested that.

“What about the husband?” Rose asked.

“He’s a possibility, but my sense of him based on what Shirley’s told me is that he’s fairly passive with everyone but her. Many batterers are aggressive in general but a subgroup are the exact opposite. They bow and scrape with everybody else, build up a lot of resentment, then come home and take it out on their women. I think that…Fred falls into that category.”

Rob was nodding his head. “I had a settlement conference with them. Not much hope of settling out of court, but you gotta try. Crof…uh, Fred was very self-effacing, to the point where it was embarrassing. Of course he tried to convince me that his wife was over-reacting. Women can be so hysterical and all that B.S. Assuming I’m going to drop the case on his say-so.”

“Because he’s the man so of course you’re going to believe him over her,” Kate said.

“Right. That attitude’s not unusual in domestic violence cases. But his reaction when it became obvious that I
didn’t
believe him and I wasn’t going to drop the case–
that
was a bit unusual. Most guys turn ugly at that point. Couple times, we’ve had to call the police. But this guy kept right on kissing up.”

“I think Fred should go in the possibilities,” Kate said. “But I’m more worried about Shirley, or rather one of her alters. She’s said some things recently that indicate she’s developed a crush on Rob, because he’s the white knight who’s rescuing her.”

Rob digested that idea for a moment. “Okay, I’ll buy that maybe Ch…Shirley’s developed a slight crush on me. But she’s fallen hard enough to be willing to kill off her competition?” His expression skeptical, he looked down at his expanding midriff, then spread his arms and shrugged ruefully. “I’m no Brad Pitt, and I’m almost two decades older than her.”

“Rob, you’re a powerful man, who’s also kind and sympathetic,” Kate said. “You’re the perfect good daddy in the eyes of a woman who’s been mistreated by every man in her life, starting with her father. And it’s not just that you’re saving her from her husband. Abused children often develop powerful fantasies about being rescued from their predicaments. For boys, it’s more likely to be some Rambo-type hero who comes in, guns blazing, to rescue them. For girls, a Prince Charming who will fall in love with them and take them away to live happily ever after.”

“No doubt, that’s why those fairy tales became so popular to begin with,” Liz said.

“Okay, assuming Shirley thinks she’s in love with me,” Rob said. “That would explain the attack on Liz. But why go after me? Or
you
, Kate?”

“The attack on you and Shelley fits least well, but she looks a lot like her mother. It was reported on the news that Liz was still alive. Shirley may have been following you and thought Shelley was Liz.”

“But wouldn’t she realize that Liz would still be laid up, so soon after the accident?” Rose asked.

“Maybe not. Each alter is only out–as in they have control of the body–some of the time. So their awareness of the passage of time is often not good, especially when they’re decompensating.”

Confused looks at the psychobabble. “Becoming less stable,” she clarified.

“But why then would she turn her anger on you?” Rob asked.

“I found out she was around…” Kate paused to pick her words carefully. She didn’t want to betray Rob’s confidence. “That Tuesday evening you were in my office, decompressing a bit. Remember the noise we heard outside my door?” He nodded. “It was her. Ostensibly looking for her lost keys, which were in the bottom of her purse all along. She was my last client that evening. Now I’m wondering if she saw you headed for my office and intentionally eavesdropped. And thought she was witnessing something other than a friendly hug.”

“So then you became another rival,” Liz said.

Kate nodded. “I’m inclined to put her in the likelies pile.” The others agreed. She placed the Shirley sheet in that section of her files.

“So what do you want to do about Shirley and Joe at this point?” Rob asked her.

“I’m not sure. I need to give that some thought. Maybe I’ll be able to find out more about these alters next time I see them.”

“Okay.” Rob turned to Mac. “In the meantime, we need to track down the grandfather who lost the visitation suit. Here’s the most recent address Liz could find for him. You ever heard of that town?”

“Yeah. Wide place in the road. Near Hagerstown.”

Rob turned to his wife. “Tomorrow, can you find out what’s been happening with the daughter and grandkids the last few years?”

Liz nodded, stifling a yawn.

“I don’t think we need to meet tomorrow night,” Rob said, “unless one of you comes up with something interesting. Kate has clients in the evening and I’ve got a major backlog of paperwork at the office.”

While saying their goodnights, Liz slipped Kate a piece of paper.

Lou walked Kate to the police cruiser out front. As Officer Jackson pulled away from the curb, she unfolded the paper.

By the glow of a streetlight, she was able to make out a doctor’s name and appointment time, for that Wednesday. She was impressed Liz had gotten her in so quickly, but then again not many people said no to Liz when she wanted them to say yes.

Hopefully the killer would behave between now and then, so she could keep the appointment. With a sinking feeling in her gut, she realized it had been almost four days since the last attack.

He, or she, was overdue to strike again.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Tuesday morning, Rob looked at his desk and groaned.

Gotta get on top of this paperwork.

He felt like he was losing control over his job, and right now he needed to feel in control of
something
.

Buried in the mountain somewhere were at least two motions that needed to be filed today. So, first task was to prioritize.

Forty minutes later he had two piles, organized in order of importance. In pile one were documents for his own cases, prepared by his paralegal, Beth Samuels, based on his instructions. The second pile were for cases being handled by associate lawyers in the firm, that for one reason or another needed his input or review. Most of those were prepared by their newest hire, Tim Williams, whose future with the firm was questionable.

Rob relaxed a bit. He had a handle on the task. Now he just needed to get it done.

He plowed through the top third of pile one in a little over an hour, making only minor corrections. After buzzing Beth to come get them, he sighed and picked up the most pressing of those prepared by Williams.

Halfway through the document, Rob was trying to decide if he should just rewrite it himself, which would probably take less time than trying to edit it. He opted for scrawling REWRITE over the entire page. Obviously, this one wasn’t getting filed today.

His cell phone chirped. He tossed the brief across his desk so hard it slid off the edge and into his trash can. Deciding that was where it belonged, he answered his phone. “Franklin.”

“Got a bead on Grandpa,” Mac said. “Watchin’ the bastard as we speak. Should know more by tonight.”

“Good. You want to report in later, say about nine-fifteen?”

“Will do.”

Rob disconnected and called Liz. She reported that she too had some interesting information about Grandpa. Eyeing the stacks of paperwork, Rob said, “Save it to tell everyone tonight. Can you call Kate and ask her to come over at nine for a short war council? … Thanks. Love you.”

Sighing, he got up to fish the damn document out of the trash can, and went back to figuring out what the devil this young man thought he was saying.

The next thing he knew, his stomach was growling. He looked at his watch.
How’d it get to be twelve-thirty already?

He buzzed his assistant to come into his office. Handing her the document he’d considered trashing earlier, he said, “Fran, three things. Take this to Beth and ask her to redo it. It needs to be filed tomorrow.”