FAMILY FALLACIES (The Kate Huntington mystery series #3) (14 page)

B
ack in the living room,
Rose, Mac and Skip were sitting on the sofa and chairs, leaning toward each
other. As she entered the room, they stopped talking.

Skip turned to her.
“Maria’s putting the baby to bed for you, darlin’. She figured with all the
excitement and having her nap cut short the little one could use an early
bedtime.”

Kate went over and sat
beside him on the sofa. “Are you okay?” she asked, putting her hand on his
thigh.

“Yes. I’ve calmed down,
dear
.” He picked up her hand in his.

Was it her imagination
or had there been considerable emphasis on the word
dear
? Maybe they
needed to have a quick talk about Rob and endearments.

“Uh, I need to talk to
you for a minute.” She jumped up and tugged on Skip’s hand. “Be right back,
guys,” she said over her shoulder, as she dragged him toward the master
bedroom.

Once the door was
closed, she said, “Look, there’s already enough tension tonight so I need you
to understand something, because we can’t afford for you and Rob to be
distracting each other.”

“
Distracting
each other?”

“Okay, maybe not the
best words, but here’s...” She made herself stop and take a deep breath, then
began again. “Rob calls his daughters
sweetheart
or
dear,
and
somewhere along the way he started calling me by those endearments as well. But
it just means that he cares about me as a friend. He calls Liz either
hon
or
honey
, or sometimes
darling
or
my love
.

“He never calls me any
of those things and he never calls her
sweetheart
or
dear
. And I
call him
dear
, or sometimes
dear heart
, when emotions are running
high, but never
darling
or
sweetheart
. Is this making sense?”

“Yes, darlin’. I get
it. Different names for different folks.”

“Oh, and while we’re on
the subject, try not to call me
love
or
my love
.”

He stepped in close to
her and took her hands between his, holding them against his chest. “Because
that’s what Ed called you, right?”

“Right,” she whispered,
looking at his hands encircling hers.

“What did you call
him?” Skip asked, his voice gentle.

“
Darling
or
love
,”
she whispered, her eyes still on their hands.

Duh, Skippy. That’s
why she doesn’t call you darling.

Skip wrapped one of his
big hands around both of hers and used the other to tip her chin up. Worry shot
through him. Her eyes were the washed-out gray they became when she was physically
exhausted or emotionally stressed out. Right now she was both.

“Okay, I think I’ve got
it.” Then, trying to get her to relax a bit, he added in a teasing tone, “Did
y’all sit down one day and figure this out?”

“No, it just evolved
that way. We never even paid attention to what we were calling each other,
until Rob calling me
sweetheart
almost got us arrested for Eddie’s
murder, when that jerk detective decided we must be lovers, trying to get rid
of our spouses.”

“Okay, but I may need a
crib sheet to keep all this straight. What happens if I get it wrong?” He
wiggled his eyebrows suggestively above a mock scared look. “Are you going to
punish
me?”

Catching on that he was
trying to lighten the mood, she said, “Hmm, I’ll have to come up with something
appropriate.” Pulling one hand free, she found the ticklish spot on his side.
“How about this?”

He wiggled away from
her, grinning. “Hey, I’m bigger’n you, remember?”

Kate breathed a small
sigh of relief. She wasn’t real sure who that other guy was who had yelled at
Officer Lindsey, but her Skip was back.

~~~~~~~~

O
ut in the living room,
Rob was ushering Detective Randolph toward one end of the sofa. He sat down on
the other end. Maria was nervously perched on the edge of an armchair. In her
country, the police were often corrupt, and it was dangerous to have anything
to do with them.

Kate felt a swelling of
gratitude and fondness for this little woman who was so devoted to Edie she
would endure questioning by the dreaded
policia.

Rose and Mac came out
of the kitchen, each carrying a wooden chair. Rose set one beside her cousin
and sat down on it. Mac positioned the other next to the empty armchair. He
then stepped back and leaned against the wall.

Catching Kate’s eye, he
winked at her. “Take the easy chair, sweet pea. You look a bit knackered.” Kate
gave him a small smile as they sat down, Skip on the kitchen chair beside her.

With Rose translating,
the detective walked Maria, step by step, through the finding of the note and
the description of the person who had apparently left it. Then Randolph turned
toward Skip. This was the guy the uniforms said had yelled at them. Mr.
Franklin, who’d introduced himself as Mrs. Huntington’s lawyer and friend, had
said this Canfield fellow was also a friend and a private investigator. The guy
was big and looked a little rough–unshaven, his clothes a bit rumpled. Why
would he have gone ballistic over a note? Something didn’t quite add up here.

“I understand there
have been other notes. You’ve been investigating their source, Mr. Canfield?”

“Yes, sir. One of those
notes
was
actually left inside the house. Since then, I started coming
over during the days that Kate works, to protect the baby and Maria.”

“So you’ve been
providing bodyguard services.”

“Yes, but today I
was... visiting with Kate. We took the baby for a walk, and when we came back,
Maria told us how she’d found the note.”

Kate gave the detective
the details about the other notes. “Maria thinks the person today was the same
one who left the note in the baby’s playpen, and–”

Randolph held up a hand
and turned back to Maria. He asked her a few more questions, again with Rose
translating.

When he turned his
attention back to Kate, she said, “The notes are tied to what happened to my
niece.” A bushy eyebrow went up as she told the detective about the call from
her sister-in-law, and the note in Amy’s pocket. Randolph switched eyebrows at
the news that the note had been destroyed.

Now the pieces were
starting to fall into place. The detective said, “It would help tremendously,
Mrs. Huntington, if you could convince your brother and sister-in-law to file a
complaint regarding the kidnapping.”

“I doubt that’s going
to happen, Detective. I’ve already pushed them to do just that, and to get Amy
some counseling. I didn’t get anywhere.”

“I see.” Randolph
turned back to the lawyer. “Without that incident reported officially as a
crime, what we have here are several notes, none of which actually make direct
threats, except this last one.”

“And the one in my
niece’s pocket,” Kate said.

“Unfortunately we only
have your statement, Mrs. Huntington, that the note your sister-in-law
described even existed.”

Skip was now leaning
forward in his chair. “Are you
questioning
the validity of that
statement, Detective?” he asked, in a deceptively calm voice.

Rob jumped in. “No,
Skip, but in a court of law, that’s called hearsay evidence. There’s no way of
proving it’s true, since it’s coming from a third party. Kate never saw the
note. She was just told that it existed.”

“I understand your
concern, Mr. Canfield,” Randolph said, “for the safety of your friend and her
baby, but–”

Skip did not like the
direction this guy was heading. “No, sir, I
don’t
think you understand,”
he interrupted, then blurted out, “Kate’s not just a friend, she’s the woman I
plan to marry!”

The others stared at
Skip with shock on their faces. Kate shot him a look that was half surprise,
half anger.

Skip caught Kate’s
expression out of the corner of his eye. Okay, that statement was definitely
rushing things. He knew there would be hell to pay later for letting it slip
out, but he kept his attention focused on the detective.

Randolph was saying,
“Well, then your concern makes that much more sense. I can certainly understand
how you must feel–”

Skip interrupted him
again, his voice calm on the surface, steel underneath. “Detective, do you have
children?”

The policeman seemed
taken aback. He nodded.

“Okay, then it’s
possible that you
can
understand, but I don’t think you’re quite there
yet. Have you
ever
had some person, some unidentified person, threaten
to harm your child, to
destroy
your family?”

The detective sat
perfectly still for a long moment. As he opened his mouth, Rob cut him off.
“Detective, I am
quite
sure you
do
understand Mr. Canfield’s
level of concern,” he said, in the firm, driving-home-a-point voice he used in
court. “So the current question is,
what
is the Baltimore County Police
Department planning
to do
to catch this unknown person before he or she
harms Edie?”

Kate glanced sideways
at Skip. His jaw was clenched but he was under control.

The detective sat back.
Now it made a lot more sense why this guy was wound so tight. “Okay, folks, you
deserve the unvarnished truth,” Randolph said. “Mr. Canfield, please hear me
out before you react.”

Skip just nodded,
showing no visible signs of relaxing.

“Officially what we
have here is a series of anonymous notes, only one of which is overtly
threatening, and a teenage girl who disappeared for several hours and turned up
under the influence of drugs. And the only thing tying those two situations
together is a third-party report that a note, consistent with the others, was
found in the girl’s pocket. Normally we would file a report, tell you all we’d
look into it and to be careful, and send this latest note to the lab–”

Skip ground his teeth
and leaned further forward.

“Let him finish, Skip,”
Rob said, hiding his own anger behind his court face.

Randolph had spelled
all that out so they wouldn’t be too shocked if his lieutenant, due to the
department’s limited resources, eventually pulled the plug on the investigation
he was about to launch. “But looking beyond the official facts, there’s a
serious threat here,” he said now. “Anyone who’s willing to kidnap a teenager
in a crowded mall is probably capable of hurting an infant, if they get the
opportunity. I’d like to catch ’em before that happens. I’m gonna have some
uniforms canvass the neighborhood. See if anyone saw the person who left the
notes, either this time or before, maybe we can get a better description.”

Skip told him that he
and Rose had done that after the note was left in the baby’s playpen. Rose gave
the detective a short synopsis of her investigation of the false memory group,
including a description of the leader. “Harris has admitted to me that they do
sometimes send anonymous notes to therapists, but I haven’t been able to link
anything specific to this case,” she concluded.

“Detective,” Skip said,
“I’m thinking that if this is a man, he could be coming into the neighborhood
dressed normally, then when he’s close to the house, he puts on a disguise to
look female. So when we’ve asked around, using Maria’s description, we got
nothing.”

Randolph nodded. “I’ll
instruct my officers to ask about
anyone
your neighbors have seen that
they didn’t recognize, and especially anyone carrying a bundle or bag that
could hold a disguise.”

He turned to Kate. “I’m
going to put some pressure on your brother and his wife to let me question your
niece, in connection with
this
investigation. She may remember something
about her assailant, from before she was drugged... I need the other notes. Do
you still have them?”

“I have the one from
the playpen, sir,” Rose said. “Had a buddy run it through the lab, as a favor.
No clear prints except Kate’s.”

“My boss has the
others, in a folder in her office,” Kate said. “Some came through the mail but
two were dropped off when no one was around. Maybe someone else in the building
saw who delivered them.”

“Okay, I’ll check it
out. Mr. Canfield, until we catch whoever is doing this, I suggest you stick
like glue to your fiancée and the baby.”

Skip glanced sideways
at Kate. “Not exactly hardship duty, sir,” he drawled, a grin spreading across
his face.

The detective couldn’t
suppress a grin of his own. “Congratulations on your engagement,” he said,
standing up. He hadn’t missed the surprise on the friends’ faces. Hell of a way
to have to announce your betrothal.

“I’ll touch base with
you all soon. Goodnight.”

Rob rose to see him
out.

As soon as the door
closed, Mac grabbed Rose up out of her chair and waltzed her around the living
room. “She’s gettin’ married in the mornin’, ding, dong the bells are gonna
ring...,” he croaked out in his gruff voice. Rose, having no affinity for
dancing, was struggling to stay on her feet, but she was grinning.

Maria would have
admonished them to quiet down before they woke the baby, if she hadn’t been
laughing so hard at the sight of her cousin being dragged around the room.

Rob came back from the
door and made a beeline for Skip, hand extended. He too was grinning. Most of
his doubts had been put to rest in the last hour as he’d watched this man’s
body language. Canfield couldn’t be that good an actor. He loved Kate and Edie.