ILL-TIMED ENTANGLEMENTS (The Kate Huntington mystery series #2) by Kassandra Lamb Read Free Book Online Page B

he’d had Liz to help him cope with the loss of his friend.
    “Guess we’d better be getting back and get some sleep, so we can go pester old people again tomorrow.” Rob stood up and pulled Kate to her feet.
    As they started walking back toward Betty’s building, he put his hand on her shoulder. “Here I was trying to cheer you up,” Kate said. “And once again you end up comforting me.”
    “Actually I feel better than I did earlier. Maybe having to come up here isn’t all bad. It’s given me a little distance. Made me realize that I’m not responsible for the mess my client’s life has become. All I can do is try to help him as best I can.”
    They entered the building. The lights in the atrium had been dimmed and there were now only a few murmurs of conversation coming from behind closed doors.
    Kate dropped her voice to a whisper. “It’s such a tough balance to maintain, in both our jobs. To care, but not be sucked into the misery ourselves.”
    Rob put his key in the lock of Betty’s door but before opening it, he turned to Kate. “I always know, sweetheart, that when the undertow starts sucking my feet out from under me, you’ll help me get my balance back.”
    He opened the door and ushered her into the quiet apartment, the dim light over the stove the only illumination. “Thanks, Kate,” he whispered and kissed her on the forehead, before turning toward the bedroom.
    “Goodnight, dear,” she said softly, and headed for the sofa bed in the den.

CHAPTER
FOUR
    A fter a morning of pestering old people, as Rob had put it, they were walking back to Betty’s apartment for lunch. They’d had even less success than the day before because many of the residents had gone to church.
    “I’m going to have to leave in a few hours so I can prep for court tomorrow,” Rob said. “I’m thinking we need more hands on deck here. I’m going to call Skip Canfield and hire him, and Rose if she’s not on duty, to come up tomorrow and help out with talking to people.”
    “I just had a thought,” Kate said. “I’ve got Betty’s back-up computer disks in my car. We put them there as a precaution in case Lindstrom decided to confiscate them, along with the computer. Do you think Liz would have time to go through them to see when the subplot that was supposedly plagiarized first appears? If it was a good bit before the time when Betty and Doris met, I would think that would make the motive pretty flimsy.”
    “But we wouldn’t be able to prove when those earlier drafts were written exactly.” Rob was a technophobe. His understanding of computers was quite fuzzy.
    “Yes, we can. Files are electronically date-stamped. Liz’ll know how to access that information.” The technophobe’s wife, ironically, was a computer whiz.
    Rob thought for a moment, then nodded. “Wouldn’t totally eliminate the motive, but it would take the teeth out of it. Which is really the only reason Lindstrom has to suspect Aunt Betty. I’ll take the disks with me and see what Liz can do with them.”
    Over lunch they told Betty about Kate’s idea. “I’ll write out the gist of the subplot,” she said. “And also as much as I can remember about Doris’s idea. The basic premise was similar, but the way she’d planned to develop it was different… Unfortunately, I can’t prove that.” Betty sighed heavily.
    Kate gave her a worried look. “Try not to let this get to you, Betty. Remember you’re innocent until proven guilty.”
    Once they had finished their lunch and were heading out of the building to locate the next person on their interview list, Rob said, “I didn’t want to say this in front of Aunt Betty, but unfortunately in the real world, innocent until proven guilty doesn’t always apply. The police and prosecutors often get jaded. They start to assume that, if the person looks guilty, they probably are. And then their agenda becomes to find the evidence to convince a jury that the person is guilty, or to