SUICIDAL SUSPICIONS: A Kate Huntington Mystery (The Kate Huntington Mystery Series Book 8) (3 page)

“Now would be as good a time as any,” she said in a husky whisper. Then her tone shifted to teasing. “Unless
you’re
not ready yet.”

He pushed himself to a stand and pulled her to her feet. Wrapping his arms around her, he grinned down into her face.

Toby jumped up and tried to nose between their knees.

Skip ignored the dog. He leaned down and swept Kate up into his arms. He ignored the twinge in his back as well. “Darlin’, I’m
always
ready.”

~~~~~~~~

Dolph had come through in spades. Not only had he gotten a verbal rundown of the case, he’d somehow gotten his hands on a copy of the responding officer’s report.

“It’s kinda gruesome,” Dolph said as he handed it across Skip’s desk.

Skip read through the first part of the report. The woman had been found on the floor, an almost-empty bottle of vodka next to her, as well as two empty pill bottles.

Skip shook his head slightly, wondering why Dolph had called it gruesome. It definitely wasn’t good though. If this was Kate’s client, it looked like she’d committed suicide.

“You get to the part about the dog yet?” Dolph asked.

“No.” He skimmed down the page. He stopped at the words
barely alive
and then backed up. The woman’s dog had been found locked in a metal crate. It was covered in its own filth, its food and water bowls empty. The report said they had received a call from a neighbor that the animal was “howling pathetically.”

He grimaced, then handed the report back to Dolph. “Stick this in a file somewhere, just in case we end up investigating it.”

“Why would we investigate a suicide?”

“Long story.”

Which I can’t tell you
, Skip added mentally. “Hopefully, we won’t have to get involved,” he said out loud.

Dolph nodded and left his office.

Skip glanced at his watch. Four-ten. Kate would be headed home by now. She had taken the afternoon off to participate in some activity with Billy’s second-grade class.

He called her cell phone. As it rang, he decided to leave out the part about the dog. She would be upset enough that her client had done herself in.

“Hey there,” she said.

“Hi. Are you home yet?”

“No, on the way. I really love this Bluetooth in my new car. So cool to be able to talk while driving.”

She sounded so chipper. He hated to deflate her good mood.

He took a deep breath. “Is your client Josephine Hartin? If so, the news isn’t good.”

Silence.

“You there, darlin’?”

“Yeah, but maybe this conversation needs to wait until you get home.” Her voice was shaky. “I’ve got the kids with me, and little pitchers have big ears.”

“It’s kinda quiet around here,” Skip said. “I think I’ll come home early. See ya there.”

“Okay.” Silence, except for the sound of the children squabbling in the backseat. “Thanks for finding out for me. Love you.”

“Love you too.” He disconnected.

Don’t need to tell her. She already knows.

~~~~~~~~

Kate’s eyes stung. She slowed the car as her vision blurred. The woman in that apartment had been Josie. “No sign of foul play,” the newspaper had said. If it had been an accident, Skip would have said so right off. Or a heart attack or stroke, not that thirty-one year olds often dropped dead from those causes. That only left one alternative.

Edie had broken off her argument with her brother and was telling her something.

Blinking hard, Kate tried to tune in to what she was saying, but the words wouldn’t register. “That’s nice, dear,” she said, hoping that was an appropriate response.

She’d been denying her fear that Josie had committed suicide. She hadn’t wanted to believe it, although it would explain the family’s attitude toward her.

Kate shook her head. Why hadn’t Josie called her? She’d done so before when she was down. And her message the day before had sounded cheerful enough. But she’d mentioned some kind of breakthrough.

Had her psyche coughed up some realization that had thrown her into a downward spiral?

Of course, some people with bipolar committed suicide while in a manic state. But they weren’t usually the ones who had been in therapy for a while and were responding to treatment like Josie was. They were the desperate folks who believed there was nothing that would help them, and they couldn’t take the out-of-control roller coaster of mood swings anymore.

Had there been a note?

Kate blew out air and willed her tense fingers to loosen their death grip on the steering wheel. She’d have to wait until Skip got home to learn more.

Maria had been Kate’s housekeeper and nanny since Edie was a baby, before she had married Skip even, and the plump, little woman knew her pretty darn well. At the house, Maria took one look at her face and shooed the children and dog toward the back door. “Nice day,
niños
. We play outside for now. Do homework later.”

Kate didn’t argue with that plan.

She flopped down on the sofa and kicked off her shoes. Fatigue washed over her, a riptide dragging her toward depression herself.

Her specialty was working with trauma survivors. It was rewarding work but they were a population prone to suicide attempts. She’d known the day would come eventually when a client took his or her own life.

But not Josie!

Her chest hurt. She felt nauseated. If only she hadn’t put Josie’s appointment off for a week. They could have talked about this breakthrough, whatever it was. She could have helped Josie deal with it, maybe slowed down the pace a bit so she wasn’t overwhelmed by whatever it was.

What the hell was the big breakthrough anyway?

She’d always wondered if there was more going on with Josie. Bipolar disorder was biologically based, but it was challenging to tease out how much the mood swings were also affected by life events, past and present. Brain chemistry alone didn’t quite explain the depths of some of Josie’s depressions.

Then again, each time she’d gone through a depressive episode, she’d dealt a bit more with her issues regarding her cold and controlling mother and had made definite strides toward a healthier approach to life. This last shift had been the biggest stride yet. Josie had really gotten it on a deeper level that you can love someone, and know that someone loves you in their own way, but that didn’t mean you had to let their negative behavior affect you.

Had that new perspective somehow opened up a can of worms, something buried in Josie’s unconscious mind perhaps? Such dissociated memories did happen, despite society’s resistance to accepting that reality. The human mind was remarkably adept at defending itself against anything that might overwhelm it, and if need be, it would build walls around a bad memory.

Usually such memories surfaced gradually, giving the person time to process them. But sometimes they came surging back with a vengeance, especially if the person poked at them, trying to get them out into the light of day.

Tucking her bare feet up under her on the sofa, Kate shook her head.

Josie was the type to do just that. She was not a patient woman. If something had started to surface, she wouldn’t have waited until her next therapy session to explore it. She would have tried to dig it out of her unconscious mind by force.

And Kate had come full circle back to her own guilt. If she had seen Josie last week, she could have slowed her down, warned her against trying to force her psyche to open up too quickly.

Kate took a deep breath, trying to loosen the tight band around her chest.

You are not responsible for your clients’ psyches or actions. You can only help them heal. You can’t make them heal.

The words were an old mantra, learned two and a half decades ago from her first clinical supervisor, Sally Ford. Usually they helped Kate put things in perspective.

This time, not so much.

Josie was the one who had needed to reschedule, she reminded herself.

I should have squeezed her in somehow.

Kate sighed and leaned her head back against the sofa cushions.

You can only make the best decision possible with the information you have at the time.

Another of Sally’s mantras.

At the time that Kate had left her first message for Josie, the woman had been in a very good place. And she had told her to call right away if she felt the least bit down.

At least, that’s what Kate thought she had said. But it had been almost two weeks since she’d left that message, the evening of Edie’s play. Maybe she’d only thought about saying that, but hadn’t actually said it.

Skip’s key in the front door lock saved her from further ruminating and self-incrimination, for now at least.

She met him at the door. He wrapped his arms around her without saying anything. She rested her cheek against his chest and listened to the solid thumping of his heart.

She wished she could stay there forever, but after a few minutes she pulled back. Taking his hand, she led the way to their favorite spot on the sofa. “I know it must have been suicide, from your tone earlier.”

“Looks that way, I’m afraid.”

“Was there a note?”

“Don’t know. The report Dolph got his hands on didn’t say anything about a note. But there was a bottle of booze and two empty pill bottles.”

“Josie didn’t drink. She knew it was a bad idea, both because of the meds she was on and her tendency toward depression.”

“Darlin’,” Skip’s voice was gentle, “she wouldn’t care about that if she was trying to kill herself.”

Kate’s gut twisted. “True,” she said softly. “How did they find her?”

“Neighbor got worried and she called it in.”

“What made her get worried?”

Skip broke eye contact, looked across the room at nothing. “The report didn’t say.”

Despite her pain, warmth spread through her chest. This man loved her so much, he was almost as upset as she was. She took his hand and squeezed it. “Can you find out if there was a note?”

He turned back to her. “Yeah, I can have Dolph ask his contact.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed her fingertips.

She gave him a small smile. “Thanks.”

“I’d better go relieve Maria,” Skip said, “so she can get supper started. I’ll see what homework the kids have.”

“Would you mind supervising their baths tonight? I think I need to go to bed early.”

Worry turned Skip’s hazel eyes to a muddy brown. “Early as in after supper?”

She tried to imagine getting through dinner–eating, talking with the children–then shook her head. She was exhausted. Even sitting upright for that long felt beyond her. “I’m not hungry. I think I’ll get ready for bed and then read for a while.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. “I’ll take care of the kids. You take care of you.”

“Thanks, sweetheart.” She leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek. “I’ll be okay, in time. I… I just need to deal with this.”

She pushed herself to a stand and headed for the bedroom.

CHAPTER THREE

Despite going to bed at a ridiculously early hour, Kate didn’t feel particularly rested the next day. Her sleep had been fitful, punctuated by vague dreams she couldn’t remember in the morning.

She muddled though her morning client sessions, then halfheartedly ate her sandwich as she returned phone calls.

At the end of the day, she checked for messages, hoping there wasn’t anything pressing. She just wanted to go home and crash.

“Mrs. Huntington,” a crisp, clear, female voice, “this is Nancy Hartin.”

Kate’s stomach clenched. Her hand flew to her mouth.

Josie’s mother? Holy crap!

“My husband and I would like to meet with you. We have some unanswered questions about…” The voice faltered. “About our daughter. Please call me back as soon as possible.” Couched as a request but really an order. The woman gave her phone number.

Kate fought back nausea. Were the Hartins planning to sue her? Failure to prevent a suicide was one of the three most common grounds for malpractice suits–right up there with sexual malfeasance and breach of confidentiality.

She sat rigidly in her desk chair. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was talk to the Hartins. She honestly wasn’t sure she could make herself do it.

The thought of calling her friend Rob flashed into her mind. Maybe he could call Mrs. Hartin back and explain, as Kate’s lawyer, that due to confidentiality she couldn’t talk to her.

She shook her head. That was the coward’s way out. And perhaps she could give these grieving parents some comfort.

But still she couldn’t make herself dial the number. She decided to call Rob after all, for moral support and to get his take on it.

“Franklin.”

“Hey there. Are you still at the office?”

“Walking to my car,” Rob said. “What’s up?”

“Uh, I lost a client last week… to suicide.”

“Oh no! Tha…” Road noise in the background drowned out some of his words. “Are…kay?”

“Not really. I only found out about it a couple days ago. It’s hit me pretty hard. I’ve never had this happen before. And now the parents are asking to meet with me. I’m not sure what I should do.”

“Hm, any inkling why they want to meet?” The road noise made it hard to assess his tone.

Kate swallowed hard. “Not really. Although if my client’s descriptions of her mother were accurate, she isn’t planning on a mutual consolation session.”

“You think she blames you?” he asked.

“Most likely.”

The slamming of a car door. The background noise disappeared. “Maybe I should sit in on this meeting.”

If only you could!

“I’m not sure how to do that legally, because of the confidentiality thing.”

“Which doesn’t die with the client.” Silence for a beat. “You could tell them you can’t talk to them for that reason.”

Kate took a deep breath. “I thought of that, but it seems kind of cruel. They may just be looking for some answers. That’s what her message said…” A thought struck her. The Hartins might also be able to answer some of
her
questions and help her figure out what happened.