Endowed with Death, page 22
“I guess I’ll see you at the autopsy,” Tuttle said. “You’ll hold off until I can get there?”
Kenzie looked at her watch. “It’s possible I could fit it in this afternoon, but it would be a squeeze, and all the stars would have to align correctly. Let’s not rush it. I’ll start in the morning.”
“Okay. Works for me. Don’t know how long we’ll be here. And we’ll want to go over everything you have on her,” he nodded toward the body, “from your investigation into Michael Wade’s murder. Any statements she made, testimony of other witnesses, whatever. We want to make sure everything is shared.”
Kenzie nodded.
She noticed that, for the first time, Tuttle had referred to Michael Wade’s death as a murder.
43
Kenzie arrived home late, which she knew was not a good thing. It was Friday night. Date night. She had intended to be home in good time. She tried to even get off a little bit early Friday afternoons to make it seem more special for her and Zachary, more like a break, even though she usually worked at least a few hours on Saturday and didn’t take the whole weekend off.
Dr. B had suggested that they get out of their comfort zones and visit different venues from where they would normally go to. They both tended to stay home to relax, to cuddle up in front of the TV, which was a fine choice of activities but did not provide as much opportunity for chatting, learning about each other, and opening up. As they visited museums, fairs, and other cultural and tourist sites, they would naturally have more things to discuss, they would broaden their world and have more questions for each other about what they liked or disliked and get to better understand their very different backgrounds.
They had talked about going to an art show today, followed by milkshakes or another treat to make sure they both enjoyed the evening, even if one or both of them hated the show. All this came crowding back to Kenzie as she removed her shoes and outerwear after returning home. She let out a long sigh. It would be hard to raise the energy to do that tonight. She was already wiped out. They would need to eat supper, then spend at least an hour at the art show, and she would probably fall asleep drinking her milkshake. Like one of those funny videos of a toddler face-planting in his mashed potatoes or commuters nodding off on the bus or train, heads tipped back, glasses askew, snores vibrating.
She heard Zachary close his laptop in the living room and the couch springs squeak as he stood up. He walked across the room and smiled at Kenzie as she hung up her jacket.
“Long day for you,” he observed.
Kenzie rolled her eyes. “Man, was it ever,” she agreed.
“You look beat.”
“I am. But,” she kept her tone light as if she weren’t dreading it, “tonight is date night, and we have plans.”
Zachary grimaced. He looked at her and then at the clock. “What if I used a veto tonight?” he asked. “I’m not sure I’m in the mood for an art show and you look ready to collapse. It’s not actually supposed to be torture.”
Kenzie chuckled. “No, that’s not the intention,” she agreed. “I am tired.”
“I think it’s too much tonight. If we feel like it, we could try again tomorrow night. Tonight, why don’t we just stay home? I know we’re supposed to get out to explore the world on date night, but we’ve been doing really well at that, and I don’t think it would hurt our relationship to take a break from it just once.”
“We’ll get back on track again next week,” Kenzie said.
Zachary looked relieved. “Okay. Why don’t you have your shower and I’ll order us something adventurous for dinner. We can play Truth or Dare to learn more about each other.”
They had never played Truth or Dare. Kenzie was surprised that Zachary even knew the game. It was a friend or party thing, and he’d not had close friends growing up in foster care. She laughed. “I don’t know about Truth or Dare, but I’ll take the rest.”
“Fair enough.”
“And it’s not your veto. I agree. It would just be too much tonight.”
He nodded cheerfully. “Okay. Off you go. Wash away the day.”
Kenzie gave him a salute and headed for the bedroom and en suite bath.
Zachary’s “adventurous” dinner turned out to be pizza, one of their old standbys. Kenzie had to admit that she took comfort in the familiar cheese and garlic-laden fare. She felt like she had been stripped bare and wrung out that week. The difficulty of an autopsy on an abused child, finding out she knew the victim’s mother, the political pressure, and then the murder of Sylvia had all added up to feel like an overwhelming burden.
But she did her best to put it all aside during her time with Zachary. She asked him about his work and tried to focus on him for a while, giving her more time to unwind before she talked to him about her day. She was feeling much better after her shower, more like a human being, but she was still pretty raw.
The good food and conversation helped.
“Do you think we could go visit Joss this Sunday?” Zachary asked. “Since we were interrupted last week? Or do you need to be at the office catching up on everything? I understand that you might need to put in more hours than usual. Or to take a break and not have to think about going out of town. Dr. Wiltshire being gone during all of this is stressful for you.”
He’d been listening.
Kenzie shook her head. “I don’t know how things are going to work out this weekend, so don’t promise anyone anything. If it works out, we can buzz down there for the day, but not the whole weekend. If not, we’ll just push it forward another week.”
“Sure.” Zachary took a big bite of his garlic cheese bread and asked a question Kenzie didn’t catch.
“You want to try that again without a loaf of bread in your mouth?” Kenzie asked, laughing.
He chewed and swallowed, cheeks reddening. “Sorry. That was rude. That habit of grabbing the food I want before anyone else can get it reasserts itself…” He licked his lips and wiped a few crumbs away. “How is Dr. Wiltshire doing?”
“Well, hard to say. I’m not seeing very much of him. But he at least has had his hand surgery. It has an external fixation cage that looks very space-age. But he’s still in a lot of pain, trying to balance the painkillers with their side effects so he can get a little bit of productive time in. I’m hoping that in another week, it will at least be healed enough that he can back off on the painkillers and be there to sign documents, approve things, and consult on cases. I can do the autopsies without him, but I’m very slow and have to keep looking things up to make sure I don’t miss anything and that it is all well-documented. It’s a lot faster with him directing me.”
“You’ll be releasing your report on Michael Wade soon?”
“Yes. That should cause another explosion in the media. More accusations, gossip, and conspiracy theories.”
“There are some interesting rumors about how Dr. Wiltshire broke his hand.”
Kenzie had another bite of pizza and contemplated this. “Are there. It’s interesting because he hasn’t told me exactly how he hurt himself. Of course he isn’t required to tell anyone. It’s his own business. But still… it is strange that he wouldn’t. We work together. I’m a doctor. He knows he can trust me. I’m not going to make fun of him or something.”
“Maybe the way he broke it was embarrassing.”
“What, you mean like ‘tripped over my dog’ embarrassing, or ‘fell off the bed during sex’ embarrassing?”
Zachary laughed loudly at that. “Have you ever actually done either of those?”
“I’ve never broken my hand,” Kenzie told him. Which, of course, did not answer the question and kept things interesting.
Zachary continued to chuckle. “Okay, well, I was hearing more along the lines of broken by a bookie he owed money to or slammed it in the car door because he was distracted by a girl walking by.”
“He implied that it might have been a golfing accident. I’m not sure how you smash your hand while golfing, but I guess if you swing into a tree or get in someone’s way, it would be possible…”
“You can break bones doing anything,” Zachary said authoritatively.
“I suppose so. I honestly don’t even know if he plays golf. He jokes around about it sometimes, but he hasn’t mentioned participating in a tournament, going out with buddies, or coming back on a Monday and telling me about a good score he got on Sunday. Just jokes about how his wife needs him to have a hobby that will keep him from spending too much time at home when he retires.”
“Well, golf is one of those hobbies that will eat up hours of time.”
Kenzie agreed. “I don’t even know for sure if he is married, or if that’s just a line he gives me, like a comedian doing stand-up.”
She thought about Sylvia’s room; all of the pictures around it of Cash, Michael, and other children she had apparently taken care of, whether they were her own, Cash’s siblings or cousins, or another family altogether. She might have left the Wade family’s service after Cash was too old for a nanny and rejoined them later when Michael was born.
But Terri-Lyn had said that Sylvia had recommended she get pregnant, so she had already been in place before Michael was conceived.
“Dr. Wiltshire doesn’t have any pictures of his wife or children on his desk or in his office.”
Zachary pursed his lips, thinking about it. “Certainly not a requirement, but it does make me wonder. Does he mention his wife by name? Or any children?”
“No, he always says ‘my wife’ or ‘Mrs. Wiltshire’.”
“I would wonder about that too.”
He looked like he wanted to say something, but didn’t open his mouth and ask. Which, for Zachary, showed great restraint, as he normally blurted whatever came to mind.
“What?”
“I heard that there was some more activity at the Wade residence today. I wondered whether you were involved in that. Or whether you heard anything about it.”
“How did you know about that? I don’t think a statement has been released.”
“No, but I was doing some research on him. You know, checking to see what is true from all the rumors swirling around. And then the story broke that there were all kinds of police at the estate. More than when Michael died. And mentions of other vehicles, including a white van.”
Kenzie nodded slowly. George had used the unmarked van for transport, rather than the one painted with the logo for the Medical Examiner’s office, trying to be discreet in the transportation of the body. But Zachary suspected the significance of that vehicle. Maybe others had too.
“Yeah. I was back there today.”
“And not to investigate Michael’s case.”
“Well, it is probably related. But no, we weren’t back there because of Michael this time.”
“Figured.”
Kenzie leaned back in her chair and stretched. She should exercise some restraint if she were going to avoid putting on more weight. She was determined to take off what she had put on lately, but that wasn’t as easy to do as it seemed like it should be. Especially on stressful days when one of them decided they needed to order comfort food.
“This other death was not Cash Wade,” Zachary said, “Or we definitely would have heard about it.”
“No. It wasn’t Cash.”
She gave him a warning look, letting him know she wasn’t about to play twenty questions about who it was and the accompanying details. Not when there was so much speculation in the media. Once she had done the autopsy and had something to say, she would release it publicly, and she and Zachary could discuss it.
“He is in a lot of trouble,” Zachary commented.
“He is? Because of the rumors?”
“No. Financial is way up there. You wouldn’t think it would be a problem for him to support himself with all the wealth he inherited. Or will inherit one day.”
“Will inherit? I thought that his parents and grandparents were all dead.”
“But a lot of what he has was left in trust. So he can only access a certain amount or use it for a certain purpose. That makes it a little bit harder.”
“How much financial trouble is he in?”
“There is speculation that he will file for bankruptcy by the end of the year.”
“And you think that is true? Not just his detractors trying to make people think he has a problem?”
“His credit rating is pretty bad. He’s been defaulting on a lot of loans and payments.”
Kenzie shook her head. “I never understood how the wealthy could end up in such trouble. If you have that kind of money, you should be able to pay the bills. If you can’t, you need to find a way to cut the bills down.”
“Can’t disagree with you there. I always thought that if you had enough money to live on, you were set. But from what I have seen… no one is ever satisfied with what they have. They always want to spend more than they have. They’re always trying to make more. Win more. Make these deals that are too complicated to understand, to get around paying taxes.”
Kenzie nodded.
“Why didn’t you end up like that?” Zachary asked curiously. “Your family is very wealthy. You could have lived a life of leisure. Lived like your mom, just going to events and being seen, raising money for causes other than herself. You could have done anything, really, and you decided to be a medical examiner. To work for a living and pay for everything yourself,” he gestured to the contents of her modest home, “rather than paying with family money. You could have something much nicer than this and not have to work.”
“That didn’t really appeal to me. I did it for a while after school… just drifted and went where I felt like going, with the people I felt like going with. But none of them were serious relationships. It wasn’t a very fulfilling life.”
“And you’d rather be living like this? Working long hours around stinking corpses? Exhausting yourself with a new case because you want to… uncover the truth.”
Kenzie smiled widely. “Yes. Exactly.”
“You’re amazing.” He pushed his plate away as well, signaling that he was finished with his meal. “Bridget was just the opposite… working class stock, but she wanted to be rich. She wanted to be elite. Someone like your mom. So she cultivated those friendships…”
“And Gordon.”
“And Gordon. He’s the one who fulfilled those dreams for her. She was well on her way, just by knowing the right people. She knew what she wanted. And she was willing to… do whatever it took to get it.”
Including dumping Zachary when she realized he would not be a part of that picture. He wouldn’t fit into that lifestyle, no matter how hard she tried to train him. She had thought that she could take an impressionable, broken man and shape him into what she wanted him to be.
She had not understood that Zachary’s depression, PTSD, learning disabilities, and all of his other issues could not just be smoothed over and that he could not be forced to be a different person from who he was. There would always be friction, and he would never fit into the society she had imagined for him.
44
It was Saturday morning, and no one was sleeping in with their families or getting a few holes in on the golf course. Kenzie performed the autopsy, with George on hand to help her with anything physical. Baker and Tuttle watched from the observation room.
The body was fresh, so there wasn’t too much of an odor, and the big exhaust fans whisked that away quickly, with fresh air being pumped into the room continuously. A lot nicer than a lot of morgues where the air circulation was neglected. They had tables that were easy to raise and lower with a press of the foot, voice-controlled computer systems. The observation room allowed law enforcement to observe without being underfoot. Their mics were muted unless they needed to ask a question, so Kenzie didn’t have to listen to an endless discussion of the previous night’s game or a new love interest. She could stay focused on the job at hand and tune everything else out.
She started, as usual, with a gross examination of the body, top to toe, front and back, noting the patient’s height, weight, age, build, identifying marks, and anything else appropriate, followed by a catalog of external injuries. Sylvia’s body was unremarkable. She was in good shape for a woman of her age. No surgery scars. Nothing to indicate that she’d had heart surgery. Although angioplasty would not leave any scarring on the chest. Kenzie carefully checked the usual incision sites for an angioplasty catheter and found none.
There were a few bruises on the body, but nothing of particular concern. Older people often bruised easily, and bruises on knees, shins, and forearms were very common. Kenzie didn’t see any that would have suggested restraint or a fight.
She examined the eyes and ears carefully.
“Some minor petechial hemorrhages in the eyes,” Kenzie observed, focusing the camera to take a few pictures for the file and for the detectives to see. “While this can be a marker for asphyxiation, it is not always present in asphyxiation cases and can also be caused by things like coughing, crying, or vomiting. We all observed Mrs. Arnold crying recently.”
Nothing that caught her interest in the ears. They looked healthy. No recently ruptured eardrums. No significant scarring.
Kenzie studied the throat with the magnifying glass and under the alternative light source. She couldn’t see any bruising. She had hoped there would be, providing her with a quick answer. She took x-rays of the head, throat, and torso, looking for any sign of violence. Despite the lack of bruising, she had still thought she might find a broken hyoid. At first, nothing was notable on the x-rays, then Kenzie spotted a hairline fracture.
“Here on the sternum,” she pointed out the fracture line to George, who moved the mouse point around and clicked several times to mark it. “Fractured sternum can occur when someone is given CPR. We know that none of the police at the scene gave her CPR. She was already long dead by the time she was found. Did the killer try to revive her with CPR? Was it an accident rather than homicide and someone hid the body afterward simply because they were afraid they would be blamed or it would bring the family more bad press?”
