Chapter 14
Kate was still at work, running through paperwork and the numbers.
When Reese came in and sat down across from her, she had a single sheet of paper in her hand. Kate looked up with a hopeful expression. “Have you got something?”
“Well, … I’ve got something,” she emphasized. “Honest to God, I’m not exactly sure what it is.”
Kate snorted. “Welcome to the club. What did you find?”
“One of the numbers that we ran? … It contacted Robert, one of your current cases.”
She frowned. “Not Kurt, the Coquitlam one?”
“We’re still waiting for that. I ran this number through because she contacted a bunch of places, then told Robert in a text that It was positive.”
Kate sat back and stared at her. “As in a pregnancy test?”
“I don’t know. There’s no context.”
“And he’s dead, so we can’t ask him. Yet his boss and next-door neighbor told me that Robert had a vasectomy to avoid that issue.”
“Really?” Reese replied. “That changes everything then.”
Kate nodded. “Exactly. Could be some woman thought she could catch Robert. I wonder if any of his women know about this vasectomy? Might be interesting to see who mentions it—or not. What about the woman’s telephone number?”
“No longer in use.”
“Of course. If she thought she could snare Robert with that ruse, I’m sure he dropped her in a nanosecond. Now the woman caller, if truly pregnant, would be in a kerfuffle, trying to figure out the father of her child.”
“Maybe this happened with all three men? Did you ever get back to Kurt’s sister?” Reese asked.
“I did, yes. Of course this subject didn’t come up. You?”
“I’ve got another call in to Esther, but she hasn’t yet gotten back to me. I need to try her again, maybe talk to her about this angle. But, with these guys, if they got somebody pregnant, does that change anything though?”
Kate shrugged. “It’s not that it changes anything, but it could definitely have an impact somewhere along the line as to the motivation for these guys’ deaths. I mean, what if a husband found out that his wife’s pregnant, but the baby’s not his?”
Reese winced. “Unfortunately that happens way more often than we even want to think about, doesn’t it? You don’t even want to think about it happening at all, but people being people—”
“I know,” Kate interrupted, with a smile. “People being people.”
With that, Reese got up. “I’ll keep digging. And, whenever I speak to Esther again, I’ll run that pregnancy angle by her.”
Kate stared at the phone number for a long time and then decided to call Caroline again. This time Caroline answered quickly.
“You do know I have to work, right? It’s bad enough that people even know about this.”
“And what about the other woman, Lanny, the receptionist at the company right now, who had an affair with Robert too?”
“How should I know? Why don’t you talk to her instead of calling me?”
“Why don’t you talk to her? You’ve both been through the same thing, so that’s common ground for the two of you.”
“I can’t because she’s already turned in her notice and quit. I guess there was just a little too much commentary about her involvement in Robert’s life,” Caroline noted. “I’m not sure that I’ll escape that either. Now, what is it you’re calling about this time?”
“This time,” Kate stated, “I have a question. Did Robert ever talk to you about anybody who may have gotten pregnant?”
Caroline was startled for a moment, as a stunned silence fell.
Kate asked, “You there?”
“Pregnant?” she repeated. “That was against his rules.”
“Yeah. We have a text message to that effect to Robert from somebody, but her phone number is no longer active.”
“Oh my God. He would have been absolutely livid. He was almost to the point of making everybody sign some contract, regarding no strings, no whatever,” she explained. “Gosh, I can’t even imagine how that would have gone over.”
“So, he didn’t mention it to you?”
“No, he didn’t. But I do remember a couple times when maybe he wanted to say something but didn’t, and, well, … the sex was really hard and furious after that. So I figured, whatever the problem was, he just needed to wear it off.”
“What would he have done if it were you, for example?”
“Oh, I wouldn’t have carried it to term,” she declared, finality in her tone.
“I’m divorced, remember? With nothing but bitterness in my memory of it.
Even if some married gal got pregnant with Robert’s child, I would think it must be a nonnegotiable issue because of the husband.
Plus, don’t some of the married women who play around have kids already?
I don’t see a married woman taking her fuck buddy’s child home to raise.
Sorry, … that’s just the way I see it. Hell, if I get pregnant from any of the men I’m sleeping with now, no way in hell I’m keeping it.
After my divorce, I don’t want a man except for sex, and I sure as hell won’t raise his little rug rat on my own, while he’s out bopping half the country. ”
Kate didn’t say anything in response to Caroline’s tirade.
“Now you probably think I’m some heartless bitch for saying that too.”
“I don’t have an opinion on any of this unless it has to do with the case,” Kate stated. “I’m not looking to judge anybody. I’m just trying to figure out who that might have been.”
“Well,” Caroline began, her tone very perky now, “we had somebody who worked here.” She pondered it and added, “I think her name was Betty, and she may have had an affair with Robert.”
“And why does she stick out to you? I mean, we have Mary, Lanny, obviously you, yet Betty stuck out to you. Why?”
“Because things got really ugly in the office, and then suddenly she was gone. I’m not even sure how much of a notice was given before she left. She took some holidays, then, boom, she was out.”
“So, do you know what her name was? Full name? Contact information?”
“I don’t have contact information, but her first name was definitely Betty. Let me think about her last name. It started with a B, I think. Berkeley, I’m pretty sure.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Gosh, that was a while ago. At least … maybe six, eight months ago.”
Kate didn’t say anything.
“And before you ask again, no, I don’t know anybody else. I didn’t even think about Betty until you mentioned a pregnancy.”
“Did you think at any point in time that Betty was pregnant, or was that just the gossip in the office?”
“It was office gossip. You know how it is. Nothing is crueler than office gossip, particularly when the person is gone,” she noted. “I’m guessing your office isn’t any different.”
“I don’t have any illusions about gossip.
” Kate felt Rodney staring at her. She glanced over, and he had one eyebrow raised.
Kate continued her phone inquiry. “So, do you think anybody else in that office dated Robert? And would that person, some two years back, have had anything to do with Kurt in his different location, yet working for the same company?”
“Oh, I don’t think so. Yet maybe plenty other women were involved with Kurt, John, and Robert, just within the office staff at both locations.”
“Very true,” Kate acknowledged, “but I will call you back if I have any other questions. However, right now, I want to get ahold of Betty, which is the only lead I have.”
“Call HR. They should know how to contact her,” Caroline snapped and ended the call.
*
Simon texted Kate.
When she called him back, she began, “When you text, asking if I’ve got a minute, presumably you’re asking for business reasons?”
“Not necessarily,” he clarified, “but, at this very moment, I am definitely checking to see if you’re okay.”
“I’m okay, but … What happened?”
He frowned, staring down at the phone. “You’re way too perceptive these days.”
“What happened, Simon?” she repeated, her voice rising ever-so-slightly, with an edge of impatience, as if he were lying to her, and she wouldn’t tolerate it.
He sighed. “So, I communicated with that … woman again.”
“Right,” she replied. “What about her?”
“She lives in Vancouver—or lived in Vancouver anyway.”
“Good God. We don’t even know if she’s in this time frame, do we?”
“Nope, we sure don’t,” he noted, with a smirk, knowing that she couldn’t see it.
Still, her response was so typical that it just made him smile to even think about her dealing with all this woo-woo stuff.
She was so black-and-white, so cut-and-dried, and he kept pushing her limits of believability on a daily basis.
“And what did she say?” Kate asked.
He filled out the conversation for her, and she went silent for a moment. “Fertility, really?”
Such a thoughtfulness came with her question that he wondered if she had picked up on something he hadn’t. “Is that important?” he asked cautiously.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “With these three cases, there is definitely an element of sex, and with sex comes pregnancy, fertility, and all the rest.”
“Exactly,” he agreed.
“I just found out about a possible pregnancy, but I’m still waiting to get the number to confirm with the woman in question. This may have been yet another office romance with Robert Blake, the latest one to pass away. Yet here’s the wrinkle. He supposedly had a vasectomy.”
He pondered that and asked, “So, you still think it’s connected?”
“No, I don’t know if it’s connected at all,” she grumbled. “I haven’t even had a chance to talk to this woman. For all I know, she was using it as an excuse to pressure him into a relationship or trying to scam him into child support or—”
“Maybe it was somebody else’s kid,” he suggested.
“Yes, all of the above. I still don’t know. All I have is a bunch of bits and pieces, and none of it is coming together. The whole thing is driving me wacky.”
He smiled. “I get that. I just thought I would fill you in on that little bit of information.”
“Good enough,” she replied, but then she did a double take.
He could almost see her frown forming.
“Is anything else going on?”