Free An Act Of Murder by Linda Rosencrance

over?’ But she said no and that she needed to talk to Kim immediately,” Maureen said.
    Maureen asked Rachel why she wasn’t coming to be with Kim, but Rachel said she didn’t want to talk about it and repeated her request to speak with Kim. So Maureen woke Kim up and told her Rachel was on the phone. When Kim found out that Maureen had initiated the call to Rachel, she was none too happy.
    â€œWhy did you do that?” Kim asked.
    Maureen explained that she needed someone to help her take care of Kim and Sarah. Kim angrily pulled the telephone out of Maureen’s hand, stormed up the stairs, went into her bedroom, and slammed the door shut.
    â€œI’m thinking this is the strangest shit,” Maureen said. “I could not figure out what was going on.”
    While Kim was on the phone with Rachel, Maureen called Mike on her cell phone to see how he was doing. Although Maureen wanted to go home to help her husband deal with the death of his best friend, she knew she couldn’t leave Kim alone. She had to wait until Kim’s mother arrived from Pennsylvania.
    After almost an hour Kim emerged from her bedroom and went downstairs. She was visibly pissed off.
    â€œShe thinks I killed Steve,” Kim said to Maureen.
    â€œWhat would give her that crazy idea?” Maureen asked.
    â€œBecause we were out in a bar one night and I was drunk and I was mad at Steve about a fight we had and I said I wanted to kill him,” Kim said. “So she thinks I killed him.”
    â€œShe’s crazy and that’s nuts, Kim,” Maureen responded. “Why would she think that over just a stupid drunk conversation? Just forget about it.”
    But Kim couldn’t seem to forget about it. Still angry, she began to pace around the house like a caged animal. And once again she started talking about no one letting her see Steve. She was acting really crazy, but she still wasn’t crying, Maureen said. Finally Kim’s mother showed up with Sarah. Lois and her husband had picked Sarah up at the hospital, where she was taken after injuring herself at the home of the babysitter.
    â€œBut her mom is kind of a nervous Nellie and she was no help at all,” Maureen recalled. “All she could do was talk about how high her blood pressure was and how she was going to have a nervous breakdown, and she kept saying, ‘Oh, my God, what are we going to do?’ And I’m thinking, ‘I’m never getting out of here.’”
    At long last, the counselor arrived, and Kim, her mother, and the counselor took Sarah into the family room to tell her about her dad. Wanting to let them have some privacy, Maureen went into another room.
    â€œTo this day I have never heard anything more horrible than the way Sarah cried,” Maureen remembered. “She screamed so loud. It was so horrible I put my hands over my ears and hummed so I couldn’t hear her.”
    After hearing that her father was dead, Sarah went up to her room. For the rest of the day Kim slept. Maureen couldn’t understand how she could sleep at a time like that, but she figured maybe she was mentally exhausted. While Kim slept, Lois and Maureen sat around and talked. Jenny finally showed up with her husband and daughter in tow—something Maureen thought was a bit strange. But she was kind enough to bring food for everyone.
    â€œI found out the reason Jenny wanted her family along was because she knew that Kim knew that Jenny knew that Kim killed Steve because she had told Jenny the plan beforehand,” Maureen said. “And Jenny wouldn’t come over alone because she thought if Kim could really go through with killing her own husband, who’s to say she wouldn’t kill Jenny as well to keep her quiet. She was terrified and she didn’t want to come over unless her husband was with her. And Rachel didn’t want to see Kim at all because Rachel was the person Kim laid out the entire plan