Chapter 2

K ate stared at Rodney, a question in her gaze. She turned and looked back at the house, then leaned forward to speak to Simon on the phone. "Are you sure?"

Exasperation filled his tone but also vestiges of panic. "Yes, damn it, I'm sure. And, before you ask, no, I don't know how, and I certainly don't know why. Just get the hell out of there fast, please," he pleaded.

Kate agreed and immediately turned in the direction of their car, while Simon ended the call. She couldn't even believe her feet were following Simon's instructions without any reasonable explanation. Yet how could she not? How could she ignore it when he was so obviously panicked?

She sat once again in the car, eyeing the area, the rich neighborhood, and this monstrous old house. Still looking around and feeling the unsettling pull, she asked Rodney, "Who called in the body?"

Rodney checked his phone and repeated what she already knew. "We had an anonymous tip about the body from a youngster on a pay phone or some burner phone or whatever. Then a black-and-white came to check it out and confirmed a body was in there."

She nodded slowly and asked suspiciously, "Where is that black-and-white now?"

Rodney looked around and started to swear .

"Exactly," Kate replied. "Nobody's here, and we would have walked right into that house, and there may or may not be a body at all in this one. But right now," she stated, searching for anything at all, "I'm much more concerned about where the cop is who supposedly came and checked it out."

"Are you thinking that they didn't even come and that it was a prank call?"

"It would be on record that they came," she noted. "At least I would think so. I'm not sure how that part of our reporting system works," she admitted in exasperation. "I need to sort that out a little bit more."

Just then Rodney's phone rang, and it was Reese, the department's analyst. "Hey, apparently you've got the wrong address."

Rodney turned toward Kate, his eyebrows shooting up.

Kate winced, holding her breath, trying not to go berserk. "How the hell did that happen?"

"I guess the cop who entered the info on the welfare check was pretty shaken up by what he saw, and he got it wrong."

"So, what is the correct address?" Rodney asked, and Kate wrote it down and recognized that it was the same house number but a couple streets over. "So, he's absolutely sure about that address now?"

"Yes, apparently the coroner is on his way over, and other black-and-whites are there." After a moment, apparently sensing tension in their voices, Reese followed up by asking, "Is there a problem?"

"Not necessarily." Kate spoke slowly, as she tried to sort this out. "We'll be there in a minute."

Rodney ended the call and frowned at her, sitting in their still-parked car. "What the hell?"

"I don't know what to say." Kate got out and took several photos of the neighborhood and the wrong house, then settled into the vehicle once again. With a glance at Rodney, she muttered, "Let's go." She tried hard not to make her tone as brisk as she wanted it to be. However, she felt a complete sense of something gone wrong.

He punched the correct address into the GPS and drove them there, as he glanced at her several times. Yet she didn't look back at him. "You want to explain to me what just went on?" he finally asked.

"How the hell would I know?" she replied. "We were sent to the wrong house, and then Simon calls us in a panic." She pinched the bridge of her nose. "I don't know anything, except what Simon told me. If we went in that house… we would die ."

"What the hell?" he muttered. "And Reese confirmed it was the wrong address. So is Simon picking up something from the wrong house or from the correct one?"

"The first one, but who knows what it was."

"Then not our business."

She glared at Rodney. "That depends. What if somebody else goes into that house? Will they die? And, if we have Simon's warnings, are we responsible to report them?"

"Ah, shit," Rodney muttered. "You're right.… I suppose it's an easy mistake to make with this house to that one."

"Maybe," she muttered, "but it's not a mistake that we're used to. When was the last time we went to the wrong address for a dead body?"

He snorted. "Never."

"Exactly. Plus, with a highly unusual mistake like that, we should have been corrected long before we got here."

"It's not as if we were early getting there either," Rodney pointed out. "We had been doing interviews for other cases."

"Precisely."

"It's all kind of…"

She gave him a wry look and added, "It's all wrong, so let's just leave it there."

He shook his head. "Yeah, because it does seem to be all wrong."

Rodney pulled into the correct neighborhood, and very quickly they knew they were in the right place because black-and-whites were everywhere. Even the coroner's vehicle had just pulled up to the front yard of the mega-mansion. She watched as Dr. Smidge got out near her.

Rodney groaned. " Great , my favorite person."

She grinned at her partner because Rodney was right. Smidge was not the easiest person to talk to. "He's a piece of work."

"But he sure talks to you."

"He talks to you too," she replied. "You've just got a problem with him."

"Why would anybody want to deal with dead bodies all day?"

She raised an eyebrow at that question. "Do you know how many people would say the same thing about us, asking why we would want to deal with all these violent crimes day in and day out?"

He shrugged. "Makes more sense than Smidge's job."

She laughed. "Honestly, I think I could probably do that job."

Rodney stared at her in horror and then winced. "Yeah, you probably could. Something is very abnormal about you too."

"I'll take that as a compliment," she muttered, as she ducked under the yellow tape, nodding at the police officer as she held up her badge to identify herself. Catching one officer off to the side, who looked a little green around the gills, she walked over to him and asked him point-blank, "Are you the responding officer?"

He winced and nodded. "Is it that obvious?" he asked.

She knew he was pretty shaken up from whatever he'd seen, and she gave him a nod. "So, you're the one who gave us the wrong address?"

He nodded again. "Yeah, sorry about that.… I was busy upchucking into the bushes. It's pretty ugly in there."

"Got it, thanks for the heads-up. Now, the wrong address you did give us, have you ever been there before?"

He looked at her and shrugged. "I have no idea. I didn't even think to check the address online. Is there a problem?"

"Not necessarily," she stated, not giving him any more information than that. She turned and followed another cop, who took her to the crime scene in the residence's home office. Once inside, she almost bumped into Smidge, who turned and glared at her, ready to rip whoever had gotten so close to him.

She smiled as she looked at him expectantly, as if meeting someone pleasant and sharing casual chitchat. "Fancy meeting you here."

He glared at her. "There are better places to meet."

"Yeah, apparently we have a problem," she pointed out, with a shrug. "We both prefer to be here."

He let out a whooping laugh that made everybody turn to them. "Yeah, we're both sick, aren't we?"

"Sometimes you've got to wonder," she conceded, with a nod to the dead body. "So, this one is straightforward? Or is there such a thing?"

"I don't think there is such a thing," Rodney snorted, coming up behind her.

Smidge indicated the body, then frowned. "Single gunshot to the head."

She wandered closer. "Not suicide," she muttered.

Rodney frowned at her. "Don't you want to wait for that call?"

"No, I do not," she replied, with a nod.

Smidge eyed her, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. "Why not, Detective?"

"He would have to be left-handed," she pointed out, "but his pen's resting on the right-hand side of the notepad."

Rodney looked from the victim to the notepad and swore. "I didn't even see that, but maybe the killer switched the notepad."

"I don't think so. Look. You can see that the pad is pressed down slightly where his arm is." Then she walked over to see the writing on the notepad and nodded. "The suicide note doesn't read as if written freely. It doesn't read true."

Rodney came up behind her, read it, and asked, "What part doesn't seem true?" He then read it out loud. " Honey, I'm sorry. I can't do this anymore ."

"Yeah, sure," Kate said, glancing from the body to the people standing beside her. "But short of, honey —whoever that is—having some idea of what it is he can't do anymore, and providing that answer for us, there must be more to it," she determined in a clipped tone. "And really, if you were leaving a suicide note, wouldn't you say why or at least tell everyone you love them one last time or something?" She shook her head. "It doesn't ring true to me."

Rodney shrugged. "I think you're making too much out of this one."

"She is right about one thing," Smidge added, with a snort. "Our victim is right-handed, and he definitely wasn't shot in a way that is consistent with his pulling the trigger, even though it's been made to look that way."

"So, first things first," Kate added, with a nod to Rodney. "Let's check out life insurance plans."

Smidge gave a bark of laughter. "When did you become so cynical?" Then he grinned at the detectives. "Forget I asked that."

"Yeah, working on this job," she muttered, as she gave him a knowing expression, "that would have been the first thought in your head too."

"Yep," Smidge confirmed, "but we've been wrong before."

"Yeah, so find me anything you can," she replied, turning to Rodney and giving him a calculated expression of misery. "We'll go find the wife." She turned, and Rodney followed her out of the room.

Rodney sighed. "I don't get it. How is it that the two of you get along so well?"

"And here I expected you to say that we were two peas in a pod." Kate chuckled because her and Smidge's every interaction was riddled with jabs and whatnots.

"In a way, you are," Rodney pointed out, "but it's freaky because he's definitely not easy to get along with."

From behind them, they heard Smidge's booming voice, as he called out, "I heard that."

Rodney stopped, rolled his eyes upward, and muttered, "Of course you did." Picking up the pace, he moved forward rapidly, obviously hoping that Smidge hadn't heard that last bit either.

Kate laughed as she stepped into the kitchen. "Comments like that will not help, you know?"

Rodney shrugged. "It's as if the guy's got ears in the back of his head."

"He probably does," she agreed, with a chuckle, "considering the fact that he often wears earplugs and is in his own world."

"And yet he's frequently not in his own world. It would be a lot easier if he were."

She shook her head. "He's not that hard to get along with, Rodney."

"You're the only person on the planet who would say that," he muttered. "Everybody else believes the opposite."

"Maybe it's time to change your belief then," she countered, as she entered the dining room and found the wife standing beside the table, looking shell-shocked and staring out the window. "Mrs., ah…" Kate paused, looking down at her notepad, "Mulhouse?"

The woman turned to her and nodded. "Yes, I'm Amie Mulhouse."

"I'm sorry to meet you under these circumstances," Kate began, introducing herself and Rodney. "May we sit down and make you a little more comfortable, while we ask you a few questions?"

"Why would you need to ask me anything?" she replied, trying hard to hold back her tears. "Isn't it self-explanatory? For whatever reason he decided that life was too difficult, apparently too difficult to even explain why it was too difficult," she shared, looking at Kate with an exhausted gaze.

Just enough bitterness filled her tone to make Kate consider her closely. "I'm sorry. I know this is not an easy time."

"No, you don't know," Amie declared, turning on her, some fury spilling out. "This is a betrayal in the worst way possible."

"In what way?"

"What do you mean, in what way ?" Amie repeated, staring at Kate in shock. "My husband just offed himself and didn't give a crap about telling me why or what was so horrible or so hard that he couldn't even begin to deal with it. So, you tell me, Detective. Is it supposed to be easy on me, or I am allowed to feel some betrayal?"

"I'm sure a lot of surviving family members feel that way," Kate explained, "but I'm not sure that your husband's death was a suicide. We are waiting for the coroner to get back to us on that."

Amie stared at them in shock. "What?"

Kate just stared back, not giving an inch, as Amie's gaze went from Kate to Rodney, then back again.

"Are you serious? He left a note. I saw it and assume you did too."

Kate shrugged. "That is just one piece of evidence. Notes can be forged, and who's to say it's even his writing?"

"I told you that I saw it," Amie stated. "It's Robert's writing."

"When did you last see your husband alive?"

Amie stared at her. "I can't believe you're not treating this as a suicide," she replied, an almost hysterical edge to her tone.

"I didn't say we aren't. However, we're keeping our minds open, until we hear back from the coroner."

Rodney walked over to Mrs. Mulhouse, gently pulled out a dining room chair, and helped her sit down. "Just let us do our job, and then we'll all know for sure." And, with that, Rodney asked several questions to which Amie responded readily.

Yet whenever Kate brought up something, Amie clammed up and glared at her—a reaction that Kate found very interesting.

She didn't generally get the hate so specifically directed her way, but having brought up the fact that it may not have been a suicide was apparently enough for Amie to rule Kate out as being a nice person. Rodney was not tainted in that way, and, since he obviously had a better line of communication with Amie, Kate quickly headed back into the home office, where the body was located.

Smidge looked up at her and asked, "How is she?"

"Not quite the way I would expect."

He nodded. "Yeah, that was my take too."

"Was she here when you arrived?"

He nodded again. "She was kneeling on the floor beside our victim, and I had something to say to the cop who didn't secure the scene."

"What was she doing?" Kate asked instantly.

"Just sitting here, bawling her eyes out."

Kate lowered her voice and asked, "But was she really, or was it just for appearances?"

"That's for you to tell me," he replied. "I don't understand women at the best of times, so it's hard for me to pinpoint what she was up to. Still, I was skeptical of it."

Kate nodded. "Yeah, she already made me suspicious because she's incredibly feisty and defensive over having to answer my questions, but it seems she'll talk to Rodney just fine."

Smidge snorted at that. "At least she'll talk to one of you."

"Which is always why it's a good idea to come in twos," Kate noted, with a knowing smile in his direction. "Who knows what goes through anybody's mind at these times?"

"And we never really know how we'll react until something happens," he pointed out.

She nodded. "I'll go through this office, unless you want me out of the way."

He looked around. "Yeah, I need you out of the way."

"Good enough," Kate said. "Any problem with my going up to the bedroom?"

"I haven't been up there yet, so go ahead. Our focus will be here on the crime scene."

"Right," she muttered, and she quickly walked upstairs to check out the master bedroom. Once there, she made a cursory check in one of the night tables, which interestingly enough was loaded with condoms. She wondered how many married couples still used condoms as a method of birth control or whether Mr. Mulhouse kept them for other encounters.

Kate moved to look over on Amie's side and found birth control pills. In the bathroom, she found various sex toys in one of the cabinets. Making notes, but not seeing anything terribly unusual at this point, Kate continued her search, wondering what had been going on in the dead man's head, even as she felt a steady nudge in the back of her own mind that this wasn't a suicide. Just no way. Sure, somebody could have rearranged things at the scene afterward. Regardless, she would try to keep an open mind.

Once she was done searching the upstairs, she went back downstairs and walked over to Smidge and, in a low tone, asked if he had a time of death for her .

He checked his watch, then spoke. "It's ten in the morning now, and, judging by the state of the body, I would say probably between three and six this morning." Smidge added, "Of course I'll provide something more precise when I get back to the office."

"Good enough." Kate returned to the kitchen, where Rodney was in a very solicitous mood, making tea for Amie. When Kate entered the adjoining dining room, Amie stiffened and glared at her. Noting the belligerence, for whatever particular reason, Kate asked, "Amie, where were you between three and six this morning?"

She frowned at her in astonishment. "Here… asleep."

"And your husband, when did you last see him alive?"

"Last night," she replied, stifling a sob. "We both went to bed around… I would say around eleven o'clock. I read for a little bit, and he went straight to sleep."

Kate nodded. "Do you have any idea why he would do something like this?"

"Yet you already told me that it wasn't a suicide."

"No, I didn't," Kate corrected. "We must cover all avenues."

"No, my God, no.… I don't know of any reason," she muttered. "I thought we were happily married."

"Just because he took his own life, or may have," Rodney interjected, "it doesn't mean he didn't love you."

She stared at him. "How is that love?" she asked bitterly, and a sob escaped her. "How is doing something like this to anybody love ?"

He didn't know what to say to that, and Kate quickly asked Amie a few more questions. "Did you have anybody over last night? Was anybody here who could confirm what you're saying? "

"Of course not." Amie stared at Kate as if she were quite stupid.

That attitude was starting to really grate on her.

"The two of us, we were asleep," Amie declared, raising both hands.

"So, after you got up, then what?"

"What do you mean, then what ? I got up. I had a shower, got dressed, and came downstairs."

"Were you surprised that your husband wasn't there in bed with you?"

"No, he always gets up ahead of me," she stated, turning to Rodney. "I tend to be a get-up-and-go kind of person, more or less. He, on the other hand, needs a little more time, and that's why he likes to get up early and have a cup of coffee on his own." Glaring at Kate and sounding defensive, Amie added, "That's not unusual, you know?"

"Of course not," Kate agreed, with a nod. "Whatever makes a marriage work, makes a marriage work." Amie seemed to relax slightly at that, but then Kate blew it with her next question. "Do you have any reason to suspect that he might be having an affair or trouble at work or anything that would give you some indication that he would do this?"

Amie stared at her. "Did you say, affair ?" she asked, with wide eyes and an ominous tone.

Kate sighed. "I'm trying to figure out why he would have done this, and I would really appreciate it if you could bear with me a few more minutes. Then I'll be out of your hair."

Amie rolled her eyes at her. "I don't have an answer for what he did. No one wants to understand why he's done this more than me, I can assure you."

"So, you don't know if he had a recent medical diagnosis or anything of that nature that may have been too much for him to handle?"

"Not that I know of."

"And you don't know if he was having an affair or some dalliance of that nature?"

"God no, nothing of the sort."

"Did he get fired, or was he struggling at work? Anything?"

And that anything part set off Amie again. Kate listened to Amie ramble on about how their marriage was perfect, how she had no idea what was going on, and how dare Kate imply that anything was wrong.

With a headshake, Kate turned and headed back into the home office, where Smidge gave her a hint of a smile.

"I hear you're as sensitive as always with the bereaved."

She snorted. "Apparently I'm not sensitive at all. Not sure why people can't just answer a question," she muttered, shaking her head.

He burst out laughing. "You don't think it has anything to do with the way you asked her?"

"I'm sure it does," she conceded, staring at him, "but the facts remain. We have a dead man, and nobody is prepared to discuss how that happened or why."

Smidge nodded and looked down at the body that even now was loaded onto a gurney. "I can only give you the little bit I have," he shared, as he lowered his voice. "As you pointed out, he didn't commit suicide, unless somebody tampered with evidence here… and that is always possible."

She nodded. "I was considering that, but I forgot to ask about security, damn it."

"There is security. I already checked, but nobody was in or out in the wee hours of the morning. "

She frowned at him and nodded slowly. "Was it shut off at all?" He shook his head. She lowered her voice and asked, "What about earlier?"

He frowned at her. "I only checked the relevant time period."

"Fine," she replied. "I'll grab the security tapes and go through it all."

"You're thinking somebody else came in earlier?"

"I'm not sure what to think at this point," she admitted, "but… it's a little off."

"Yeah, you're not kidding," Smidge muttered, "but I trust that you'll figure it out."

She laughed. "As well as can be, anyway." Heading back into the dining room, Kate found Amie sobbing quietly. Looking over at Rodney, Kate shared, "We'll need to get the security camera footage."

Amie was startled, then nodded. "I don't have much to do with the system. The tapes are in his office."

Kate nodded. "Fine. I'll collect them to review back at the office." And, with that, she quickly left again, not wanting to be very close to Amie, yet not exactly sure why. All the potential reasons why weren't the easiest for Kate to consider in her head either.

With the security camera videos collected, she rejoined Rodney and motioned to him. "Time to head back to the office, huh ?"

He nodded, then looked over at Amie Mulhouse. "Your friend should be here in a few minutes."

She continued to sob and nodded. "Thank you." She eyed him a little desperately. "You've been very kind." Then her gaze fell on Kate, and she stiffened. "At least the police department has somebody who's nice. "

Kate gave her a flat smile. "I'm focused on investigating your husband's death," she murmured, and, with that, the two of them left.

As soon as they got outside, Rodney noted, "She didn't like you much, did she?"

"Yeah, you're not kidding." Kate shrugged.

"Of course you did imply that her husband was murdered and having an affair, so that didn't help."

"I'm not here to help killers get away with their crimes," she stated. "I'm here to figure out exactly what's going on."

"Do you really think he was murdered?"

"Yeah, at this very moment, I sure do," she declared, "or did you not get that memo?"

"Does Smidge agree with you?"

"Yep, he does, unless somebody tampered with the evidence at the scene," she clarified. "Then that would be a whole different story. His forensics team is on it, and I will follow up with that and the security footage."

"You probably could have checked the security there."

"Smidge already did, and nobody was in or out during the wee hours of the morning."

"So, Mulhouse really did commit suicide."

She frowned at him. "That is not a deduction I'm prepared to make based simply on the fact that the security wasn't accessed in that time period."

He shook his head. "You don't really think Amie did it, do you?"

Kate groaned. "Could you keep the bleeding-heart sympathy for other cases?" She then glanced at him in exasperation. "Not one where we potentially have a murder by somebody who would have been in the house at those hours, and, according to her, she was the only one in the house."

His lips snapped shut, and he got behind the wheel of the car. "That doesn't mean she had anything to do with it," he replied stiffly.

She groaned again. "Look. Call her on your free time. Do whatever you want, but please keep personal feelings out of the case."

He winced. "I sounded a little defensive, didn't I?"

" Ya think ?" she asked, with a sigh. "I'm not accusing her of anything, but I really don't want to fight you and Amie every step of the way through this investigation."

"Ouch." He shook his head.

"Yeah, how do you think I feel?" Kate muttered, and, with that, he remained silent until they got to the office. Once there, she pulled in all the statements and reports available so far from the various officers who had been on the scene. She would return to revisit the home as soon as she got more information from Smidge. However, right now, she didn't have a whole lot. Just as she finished typing up her notes from her initial interview with Amie, Smidge phoned.

"You want to come down?"

"On my way," she replied, as she looked over at Rodney, who was busy talking with Lilliana. Kate hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and announced, "I'm heading down to the morgue."

They both ignored her, as the morgue was not the place for them, if they had any other option. As for Kate, she didn't mind. Knowledge could be found in that morgue, plus a sense of serenity and peace. So, needing answers, Kate knew that would be the place to find them.

She also understood that most of the team had a problem with Smidge, and it didn't help that Smidge had a problem with all of them too. That generally included her as well, yet she and Smidge had managed to forge an understanding. As long as she got along with him, or anyone really, she was more than prepared to bend over backward to make happen whatever Smidge needed, particularly if he would also make happen whatever she needed as well.