Chapter 12
Kate walked in, Edgar wincing when he saw her. She glared at him. “Don’t bother.”
He chuckled. “I’m sure the other guy looks way worse,” he teased, “so that always gives me hope. But, boy, when you get yourself into trouble, you get into real trouble.”
“Even worse,” she muttered, “I asked for this one.”
When he frowned at her, she laughed. “I was at my dojo, brushing up what my master called some of my dated and a little-too-predictable skills.” She lifted her chin, not a tad bit ashamed of the bruise that had already started to show there.
“So, the beating I took is apparently something that I most likely deserved.” When his eyes widened in horror, she laughed and waved her hand.
“It’s all good, but I’ll have a puffy eye later too. ”
“Uh, too late, you already do. Better get some ice on that.”
“That’s the plan.” As she headed toward the elevator, she asked, “Is he home?”
“He got in just ahead of you.”
“Oh, good,” she replied. “Maybe we can grab something and head to the boat tonight.”
“If you need food, just let me know.”
“I’ll need food,” she declared, “but I have no idea if anything’s upstairs. You would think I would know, but I have more things to keep track of than whether we have food to eat or not.”
He smiled. “You know who to call.”
She nodded and headed up to the penthouse. As she walked in, Simon was there, sorting through the mail.
He glanced over and smiled. “There you are.”
“Yeah, go figure. We’re both early.” She hesitated only a moment, then asked, “Any chance we can grab dinner and run out to the boat?”
His eyes lit up, and he turned to face her. “Wanna get changed into something a whole lot more comfortable for boat wear? Then we’ll head out and pick up something to eat.”
“I wondered if we had any food. Edgar asked if we needed to order anything, and I had absolutely no idea,” she muttered, chuckling.
He finally took a good look at her and stared, all the joy in his face falling away, as he attempted to control whatever he was thinking and was about to say.
She reached up, kissed him, and whispered, “Happened at the dojo.” His eyebrows shot up, and she added, “Yeah, apparently I’ve gotten a little too … predictable in my self-defense.”
He frowned. “If that’s the case …”
“I know. I know,” she said, “that means I deserve it.”
“I won’t say you deserve it,” he protested.
“No, I get it,” she replied. “Believe me that I know. You don’t need to say it.”
He clamped down on the words threatening to bust loose.
Meanwhile she walked into the bedroom, changed out of her work clothes, and put on warmer but much more casual choices for the boat. She grabbed a sweater too. “We probably should just keep everything we need at the boat.”
“I thought we had enough,” he noted. “We’ve got quite a bit there now.”
“It’s really just the food that we need.”
“I’ve already ordered it, so we’ll pick it up on the way.”
“Perfect.” As she walked out of the bedroom to rejoin him in the kitchen, she asked, “And your day?”
“It was fine,” he said, with a headshake. “I don’t want to talk about it. What about yours?”
“It was fine. And I don’t want to talk about it either.”
He gave her a big grin and nodded. “Good thing we can communicate.”
She nodded, followed by a snort. “Good thing.”
And, with that, they headed out the door. As they stopped for food, he paid, and she gathered it up, carrying the food, as Simon had blankets and other stuff with him from the penthouse.
They walked outside and headed to the boat. He asked, “You want me to help with that?”
“Nope.” She chuckled. “At least if I hang on to the food, I know I’ll get some.”
“I have never once starved you, not a single time.”
“Not yet,” she teased, with a laugh. “I know. However, that yet always keeps me on my toes,” she shared, grinning.
Soon they were at the boat and settled in the small kitchen in the cabin, eating pasta from Mama’s. Kate stared at it and muttered, “We’ll have to carry just as much food back out again.”
“It’s okay,” Simon noted. “At least this way, if nothing else, you’ll have breakfast.”
“Pasta for breakfast always works,” she declared, with a big smirk.
“Most people eat eggs or a piece of toast,” he commented.
“Yeah, well, most people don’t have the potential level of physical activity in their day as I do,” she snapped.
Yet it was an easy camaraderie instead of actual temper.
When she finally put down her fork, she looked over at him and muttered, “I don’t know about you and your problem, but this case of mine is driving me crazy. ”
“Yep, I’m definitely there with you,” he shared. “I stopped in and talked to the priest today.”
She froze, staring at him, her gaze serious. “Any particular reason why?”
He looked over at her, startled, and then smiled. “For the last couple days, I found myself sitting on the front steps of that bloody place three different times.”
“So, you went inside?”
“I went in a couple days ago, but I found myself right back there again today. So, I walked in, and the same priest was there. I spoke with him more today, and he remembered you. It was Father McCain.”
She winced. “Probably not a great memory.”
“He did say that you were welcome to come in and visit.”
“I’m sure he is quite sincere. If there was ever a lost soul, in his eyes, it would undoubtedly be me.”
“He remembered you and had a lot of good to say, including that you were doing a very difficult job and that your soul and spirit needed to be kept. Something about somebody needs to look after you.”
“What else did he say?”
“Well, he also asked me about the living in sin thing.” She stared at him, her eyes wide, her jaw dropping, and he nodded. “Yeah, I know. I thought that was pretty cheeky of him too.”
She started to laugh. “Oh my.” She shook her head in wonder. “You really did have a conversation with him. And why the devil did you go in? Like, what’s going on that you stopped there? Is this a crisis of the soul?”
“No, but it could very well be a connection to your case.”
She froze in the act of reaching for a piece of garlic bread. She put down the bread, leaned back, and asked, “How do you figure?”
“I don’t know that I figure as much as I was trying to ask him something.
I was doing a very muddled-up job of it.
And when I mentioned something about believe, he asked, Believe in what?
Believe in love, believe in marriage, believe in …
” And Simon listed off the other things that had been mentioned.
Kate nodded. “My team touched on those too. I’m just not sure that we’ve come to a conclusion about any of it. And, no, I’m not sure that this, in particular, will give us any answers.”
Simon sighed. “I just ended up there—three times as I mentioned. So, you know me, if it feels as if I should walk that path, I do.”
“Of course,” she agreed, “and I would too, especially with any sense of needing to. It is very interesting that you ended up there though.”
“I have to admit that a part of me wondered whether he was coaching women who were about to get married or maybe somebody who had lost a child or I don’t know what,” he shared. “It’s way too open-ended.”
“We’re going through a lot of John’s relationships.”
“Which one’s John?”
She explained that he was the one she was called in on first. “Then we found that similar death of a guy from two years ago, Kurt. It’s a bit harder to get info on Kurt’s cause of death because no autopsy was performed.
It was assumed to be a drug overdose, yet ruled accidental.
Nobody put it down to suicide, just that these things happen when you play with crap in your body.
” She shook her head at that. “So, the details aren’t available.
Thus I spoke to the Coquitlam detective on that case and asked for Kurt’s phone list. He shared that with me, and we’re working on it too. ”
“What are you looking for?”
“Trying to find the same lover for all three dead men,” she replied. “Also looking for the same groups. I am looking for the same … everything.”
He nodded. “That would, in some ways, make sense.”
“That’s what I thought,” she muttered. “We did get a hit of three women who dated all three dead guys. However, we haven’t really gotten anywhere on that angle yet.
And I need to get somewhere because the clock is ticking, and nothing is more unkind than old Father Time.
Especially in my industry, where the fun just never ends,” she quipped.
“Still, your questions about Father McCain’s group efforts could be an interesting line of questions,” she noted, staring off in the distance.
“I wonder if he is teaching and/or runs something like matrimony classes. Is that a thing?”
Simon nodded. “It certainly was a trend at one time. I don’t know if it still happens. Maybe only in smaller centers, where they would have classes before you got married—on what marriage is, how it’s meant to go, all that stuff,” he guessed, with a helpless-looking shrug.
He continued. “Are men required to attend these classes? I don’t know how that works in the Catholic church, if it’s a requirement even for the women.
For all I know, it’s potentially Hey, this is in your best interests, so we want you to show up and to do this.
I’m not sure how that works,” he conceded.
“I suspect you can’t force it, but, in close-knit communities, it’s quite possible that it becomes, if not mandatory, at least something that’s highly recommended, shall I say. ”
She stared at him. “It sounds so … archaic.”
“Just another belief system,” he noted.
“Right. Well, … it’s not mine.”
“No, but what if it’s accepted as mandatory by somebody involved in your case?
What if she, or even he, believes very highly in monogamy?
What if they believe in marriage and forever after?
And what if their wife has other lovers?
You’ve already found the one woman, Sherry, to be heavily involved in outside relationships, and supposedly her husband doesn’t mind? ”
“Yeah, I don’t know about that her husband doesn’t mind thing,” she clarified. “I haven’t got to the point where I need to speak with her husband, but I might have to if Sherry moves any higher up on my suspect list.”
“Why is she on there in the first place?”
“Because she had affairs with two of three guys. Maybe possibly hooked up with the third. The only reason I question that is her argument how she dated one John Smith, noting there are many others of the same name.”
He stared at her and nodded. “That’s a good reason.”
“But not if I can connect her to the third one.”
“Unless you can connect one of her friends to the third one.”
“Right, and that would be the next issue,” she noted. “But how does any of that hit the believe part?”
“Maybe that’s got nothing to do with it,” Simon suggested. She turned to him, and he frowned. “What’s that look about?” he asked her.
Kate declared, “Because that whole believe thing is also something I feel is coming from you.”
He stared at her for a moment. “I’m not saying it is. I’m not saying it isn’t. I don’t have a feeling either way. What I can say is, believe doesn’t really fit. So, maybe it’s just an anomaly.”
“Maybe,” she muttered skeptically.
Simon shrugged. “Maybe she—if we are dealing with a female killer—left the message on the one guy and then it blew up from there.”
“But why start with believe? Believe what? Believe in matrimony? Believe in marriage? Believe in one woman, not a dozen?”
“I don’t know.” Simon smiled at her. “Now we’re into the whole psychology of people, and that’s a whole different story.”
“It’s the psychology of one person hopefully,” she clarified. “And, more so, the psychology of a potential killer.”
“I think you have to decide whether your killer is male or female.”
“I can’t do that. Not yet. Not enough info.”
“Then you may have to …” He left it hanging.
“Don’t even say it,” she grumbled, glaring at Simon. “I’ve been waiting for somebody to tell me how I need to talk to the staff shrink to see if he has any idea about what’s going on. So far I have managed to avoid anybody even bringing it up—until now.”
Simon winced. “And yet you know—”
She held up a hand and glared at him.
He sighed. “You know his insights could be helpful. You need more information, more input, other eyes on this.”
“Maybe,” she muttered. “Yet, if it’s coming from him, I don’t know if I can trust it.”
He grimaced, then added, “I’m sure that would upset him to no end.”
“Possibly,” she replied cheerfully and gave Simon an evil grin. “Can’t say I particularly care, though I suppose I should.”
“Why don’t you send Rodney over?”
“I should,” she agreed, with a bright smile. Then she frowned and added, “Then I would have to explain why I didn’t go.”
Simon burst out laughing. “You can’t win for losing, can you?”
“No,” she muttered. “I don’t know why everybody is so gung-ho about my talking to him anyway.”
“Because he has insights, and, if it moves your case forward, you should be all over it, trying to get his take.”
She shot him a look. “That’s a low blow.”
He chuckled. “Yet it’s not. I would have expected you to completely chomp down and decide that, if nothing else, you would figure out what he had to say and discard it if it didn’t feel right.”
She frowned, then nodded. “I probably should. I’ve blocked out that he’s even there, to be honest.”
“I’m sure that makes him feel wonderful.”
“Probably not,” she noted with glee, “but I’m not in the business of making him feel great.”
Simon had to laugh at that. “True, but you are trying to solve this, and, if he has anything to offer …”
She just stared at him.
“What?” he asked. “I hear you, but I don’t know what you want from me.”
“I don’t want anything from you,” she replied. “If you had anything to give me, even woo-woo stuff, you would have shared it already. I want an angle to pursue, but it can’t just be any old angle that I pull out of my ass.”
He burst out laughing. “Yeah, well, particularly not when your ass took such a beating.” She glared at him, but he smiled back. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
She groaned. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll contact the shrink tomorrow and see if he has anything valid to offer.”
Simon knew about her aversion to shrinks, after that fiasco of a case where she trusted a shrink, who was a pedophile and a murderer. It had been brutal.
He added, “If you wanted to be really proactive about it, you would make that appointment tonight.”