Page 38 of Guilty Mothers
‘About what?’ Kim asked, sensing the walls were going back up.
‘Just stuff. The things I was just talking about.’
‘But those things were in the past. Why choose that day to confront your mum about them?’
Katie’s expression was closed as she took a sip from the second bottle of water. ‘Am I free to go now?’
Legally they had no reason to detain her. She’d committed no crime, she wasn’t in any trouble, she wasn’t a suicide risk, no family member had expressed a fear for her or their own safety, and other than some eccentric behaviour, she was able to function and hold a perfectly coherent conversation. Kim knew that few of the residents of this facility were able to claim the same thing.
‘You do know that you gave us quite the performance in the holding cells yesterday?’ Kim asked.
Her face showed nothing. ‘Just a bit of light entertainment, some role-play to lighten the mood. Nothing you can keep me here for.’
‘Katie, I think you need help,’ Kim said honestly. How many times had those same words been said to her? And how many times had she chosen to ignore them?
‘Am I free to leave?’ Katie persisted.
‘I think you should stay for a while and learn how to manage?—’
‘Inspector, am I free to leave?’
‘Yes, except for a bit of paperwork, you’re free to leave,’ Kim answered, defeated. Any other response could result in a lawsuit.
‘Thank you,’ Katie said, pushing back her chair before leaving.
A quick glance at Bryant confirmed he was as bewildered as she was.
This visit was supposed to have cleared Katie of murder, and it had, but she was still lying about something. It was more than rage about her past that had driven Katie to her mother’s house yesterday morning.
‘Inspector Stone, I assume,’ said a voice from above.
She ignored the outstretched hand as the man introduced himself.
‘Doctor Michaels. I’m about to assess your prisoner.’
‘Good luck on that – she’s probably halfway out the door.’
‘Ahh, I see. There’s not enough to hold her so I assume you’re hoping my examination will conclude that she is fit for interview so you can extract a confession.’
‘You’re a bit behind the times, Doc. What I really want is for you to take your time, diagnose her and then make her better. But unfortunately, I don’t think you’re going to get that chance.’
TWENTY-SIX
Stacey tried to be kind to the environment where she could and work purely from electronic devices, but sometimes she needed to look at good old-fashioned printouts. Nevertheless, an internal groan sounded inside her every time the printer kicked into life.
Once Penn and Tiff had left for the post-mortem of James Nixon, she’d taken a minute to think about how best to try and cross-reference the mass of information that was available in different places.
It was clearly no coincidence that two pageant moms had been brutally murdered in the space of twenty-four hours, but to find links between the kids, moms, organisers, judges, make-up artists and dressmakers was going to take a lot of work. Finding just one event that both victims had attended was not going to help her. It needed to be condensed. And the only way she could think to do it was a grid system.
She’d narrowed it down to the seven most local events. To go national and international would include too much data, given that she had to record it across multiple years. Katie had only ever done the local pageants, so that was the logical place to begin her analysis.
According to the entrant rosters for the competitions, Katie had done all seven pageants from the years 2006 to 2013.
Stacey entered her name on the left-hand side and filled the grid square with her placement in each pageant. She moved on to the next line and entered the data for Toyah, who had started a year later and ended a year before Katie. Any squares for pageants Toyah hadn’t attended were blacked out to show non-attendance.
Stacey allowed the smile to show on her face. She loved many aspects of her role, but her favourite was data analysis. Using numbers to paint a picture.
From just two lines of data, she could see that Katie had taken the whole thing more seriously. Her rankings were solid whereas Toyah’s were haphazard. Sometimes she was top three, sometimes nowhere and sometimes not even attending.