Currying Death, page 3
“I’m very sorry to hear it,” Dr. Brandon said with what sounded like real feeling. “As medical professionals, we should be used to the fact that we can’t properly diagnose or treat every patient. That we will lose some of them. But it is still very difficult to face.”
“Well, if you send that file to the medical examiner’s office, I would be extremely grateful. The sooner I get it, the sooner I can make a ruling. Just like you waiting on your lab results. And if you think of anything else or want to bring anything to my attention, please feel free to call. Sometimes a patient says something, or you get a feeling from them that points you in a certain direction, even if you were unable to prove anything.”
“Of course, of course,” Brandon agreed. “Good luck.”
As Kenzie opened the door, she could hear voices at the front door. Not just in the living room this time. And she knew the voices. Carlos and George. Her transportation team. She walked out to meet them as they brought a gurney in the front door and had to move a few things to the side so they had a clear path through to the hallway and bedroom.
“Doctor,” George greeted with a nod. “End of the hall?”
Kenzie moved out of the way. “Yes. Bit of a tight squeeze. You might need to leave the gurney out here and carry him to it.”
They nodded and didn’t tell her they were the experts in sorting out a situation like that. But of course they were. She sometimes helped with the transportation, but she was far less skilled than Carlos and George. They would suss out the situation quickly enough and figure out how to approach the move.
“He’s a big guy,” Kenzie warned. Also unnecessary.
“You’re finished with everything in here?” George asked as he moved into the bedroom and looked around. “Nothing else that needs to be collected or documented?”
“If you could take a couple of overhead shots of the body. Other than that… unless there is something unexpected underneath him, I think we have everything we need.”
George and Carlos moved together in a sort of choreographed dance. No words were spoken, and they seemed to anticipate each other’s movements without any instruction.
5
Kenzie looked at her watch. It had taken some time to get everything done, and there wasn’t much point in her returning to the medical examiner’s office. She would only have a few minutes there, unless she decided to work late and start on the autopsy. But Zachary was supposed to be home, so she needed to spend time with him. And the body was still in rigor. It would be much easier to do the autopsy the next day when rigor was released.
She called Dr. Cook to let him know that she was going to return home from the scene. She had already cleared everything off her desk and locked it up, so she didn’t need to go back to take care of anything. It could all wait until the next day.
“I’ll see you tomorrow then, Kenzie,” Dr. Cook told her. “You have a good night.”
After seeing the transport crew off, Kenzie headed for home. She tried calling Zachary, but he was not answering his phone. Maybe with a client, or maybe just so focused on whatever he was doing, he hadn’t noticed the phone ringing. Cell phones were a great convenience, but Zachary sometimes didn’t pay any attention to his, even with the volume turned up. When he was hyperfocused on something, an earthquake probably couldn’t shake him. Not that they got earthquakes in Vermont.
The snow was off the ground and they had entered what locals tended to refer to as “mud season.” The state was on the verge of spring, but it would be a couple of weeks before everything greened up and it looked like the Vermont on postcards.
“I’m home,” Kenzie called out as she emerged from the garage into the kitchen and hung up her outerwear. There was no response. She pried off her shoes and looked through the doorway into the kitchen. Zachary was not sitting in his usual place on the couch with his laptop computer.
She raised her voice. “Are you home?”
There was no reply, only stillness. No sound from the shower or anything else to indicate that he was home and just hadn’t heard her. Kenzie took a short walk through the house to confirm it was empty.
She opened the calendar app on her phone and switched to Zachary’s calendar. He didn’t always remember to put his appointments into it. Sometimes, Heather picked up commitments that Zachary had forgotten and added them to it. Kenzie tried to add any dates or other joint appointments to make sure that he was aware of them. As long as he remembered to look at his calendar, of course.
She was in luck, and his calendar showed him out at a meeting with someone named Kymchuk. Kenzie wasn’t familiar with the name. Not Zachary’s mechanic or dentist or other professional service she was aware of. Maybe a new client. That would explain his not answering his phone when she had called.
The meeting might go later than planned but, if it ran on schedule, Zachary should still be back in good time for supper. He might already be on his way home. She didn’t bother checking their location-sharing app and started dinner preparations.
Her instincts were right and, within ten minutes, she heard Zachary letting himself in the front door. After a brief door-locking ritual, he made his way to the kitchen.
“You beat me home!”
Heedless of the hot pots on the stove, Zachary reached around Kenzie and gave her a quick hug and kiss. She moved back from the stove and snuggled into him for a minute. An aromatic blend of garlic and tomatoes filled the room as she simmered the sauce.
While he often looked like a homeless bum—quite intentionally so—today Zachary wore a fresh, collared shirt and khakis and still smelled faintly of shaving cream. Definitely a client meeting. She kissed him and withdrew to check her pots and make sure that the pasta was not about to boil over.
“Who is Kymchuk? New client?”
Zachary nodded. He undid the second button on his shirt to loosen it further, getting comfortable. He turned to the cupboard to get out the plates and set the table.
“Yeah. Initial meeting today. Everything looks good. Paid a retainer. I’ll set up the file and get my notes down…” He was clearly planning the administrative steps out loud that he would need to follow to open the file. Administrative work was not his strong suit, but his sister Heather, now working as his administrative assistant and junior investigator, would make sure that he followed the new file checklist and wrote down all of the information she needed to open the file, set up the timekeeping and billings, and all of the behind-the-scenes stuff that was not Zachary’s forte. Having raised two kids with ADHD, Heather had a lot of good, practical solutions up her sleeve to help keep Zachary on track, and seemed to enjoy doing it.
Kenzie put a colander in the sink to strain the pasta as soon as it was cooked.
“What kind of file?”
“Interesting one…” Zachary added cutlery to the table setting and stood there looking at it for a minute, lost in thought.
Kenzie let it go. He would undoubtedly fill her in once he was ready. When they were sitting down at the table and he didn’t have to focus on his chores and everything else he needed to remember. They worked together in silence while Kenzie finished the hot dishes and Zachary pulled together a salad he probably wouldn’t touch.
When they were sitting down at the table and Zachary had a mound of chicken penne arrabbiata in the middle of his plate, he picked up the conversation as if there had been no lull.
“Mostly surveillance work. Client suspects that his daughter may be having domestic problems and wants some physical evidence.”
“Domestic problems?” Kenzie repeated. It was obviously the client’s turn of phrase, not Zachary’s.
“Thinks the husband is abusive,” Zachary clarified. “Wants to know for sure.”
“So you’re surveilling them at home? Seeing if you can catch him in the act?”
Zachary nodded and shoveled food into his mouth. He caught a look from Kenzie and dabbed at the sauce on his face with his napkin. He chewed for a minute and went on with the conversation.
“I’ll get some bugs and micro cameras set up and be able to monitor the situation in the house from a distance,” he told her. “I won’t be in harm’s way.”
Kenzie was glad for this reassurance. She had pictured him watching through windows, rushing in to try to interfere when the daughter’s spouse decided to lay hands on her. If he was just watching or recording remotely, she didn’t have to worry about his tackling an abusive spouse himself. He could call the police or provide the footage to his client without ever having to get involved in the situation physically.
“How will you get bugs and cameras into the house?” she asked suspiciously. That seemed like a dangerous prospect in itself. Especially with someone suspected of being violent.
“He works during the day. I should be able just to use cameras that stick on the outside of the window and never go into the house but, even if I need to go inside, no one should be around during the day.”
“That’s good.” Kenzie helped herself to more salad. She was trying very hard to eat healthier and lose a few of the pounds she had put on the last couple of years. “I don’t want you getting in this guy’s way.”
“Yeah. And, of course, I’ll be doing background on him. See if there are any previous arrests for violent behavior, track down a few former girlfriends and see if they will talk about him.”
“What does the dad expect to get out of this? Does he think that he’ll be able to talk her into leaving the relationship?”
“That’s the idea.” Zachary shrugged. “He hopes he’ll be able to talk her into moving back home if he explains that he knows what is going on. Sometimes, people are afraid to leave because they don’t want people to know about the abuse. If he already knows what is going on… maybe she will be okay with talking to him about it and he’ll be able to talk her into coming home.”
Kenzie nodded. “I hope so. It’s nice that he is trying to help her, but there might be better ways. Hiring a private detective to look into her partner is probably not the best approach.”
Zachary shrugged with one shoulder. “I’m sure he’s also trying to get through to her in other ways. Or will, once he knows whether he’s right or if he’s just seeing things because he doesn’t like the guy. If I go back and tell him that no, there’s no indication that the guy is actually abusive… maybe he can just move on and focus on his relationship with his daughter in other ways.”
Kenzie’s mind drifted to Scott Robertson. So far, she had only talked to the girlfriend and the roommate. Next on her list would be Scott’s family, if he had any. Talking to immediate family was never easy. Robertson had been so young to die of a heart attack or whatever other illness he was suffering from; it was sure to be a shock for the family. Hard to get past that.
“How was your day?” Zachary asked.
Kenzie glanced at him and saw he was studying her carefully. He had probably noticed her attention drifting away from their conversation and knew she had something else on her mind.
“Got a callout this afternoon. I thought it was going to be an elderly man who had died in his sleep. That was what the call sounded like when it came in. But it was just a young guy. Twenty-seven.”
“Wow. Yeah, that is young. What was it? Did he just die in his sleep or was it something else?”
“I’ll do the autopsy tomorrow. I’m not sure at this point. He had health concerns, but I don’t know for sure what it was that actually caused his death. Maybe a virus. Maybe something undiagnosed. He’d seen the doctor a number of times but didn’t get far. The doctor ordered some lab tests recently, but they weren’t all back yet, so he wasn’t sure what the patient was dealing with.”
“You don’t think it was anything other than natural causes?”
“No red flags or alarm bells. No sign of violence. Not the kind of person who appeared to be involved in drugs or a gang. More the intellectual type. I would say introverted, but that’s just my sense. I would have to talk to more friends or family members to get a better sense.”
“Yeah. Maybe he was just… frail.”
Kenzie grimaced. That did not seem like the right word to apply to Scott Robertson. Words like frail or vulnerable made him sound delicate, and he had been a hefty man. But it might still be correct. Given the number of things the girlfriend had said were bothering him recently, it seemed like he had been vulnerable to something.
6
The cat inhabited Kenzie’s dreams.
She didn’t know why she couldn’t get the animal out of her head. She was not an “animal person.” She had never had a pet growing up. During her sister Amanda’s illness, no one had the time to take care of an animal too. Even if they had the time and money for it, there was just no more emotional space for something like that.
Kenzie had been shocked when her mother had adopted Lola, a dog that had been adjacent to one of Kenzie’s cases. She had never known that Lisa had any interest in animals. Apparently, she had been wrong.
The cat kept worrying her. There was no reason why Kenzie should be concerned about Cuddles at all. She wasn’t Robertson’s cat. His death would not impact her life negatively. In fact, now that Robertson was gone, the cat would have the run of the apartment rather than being confined to a certain room or locked out of one of the rooms. Her life would be better with Robertson out of the apartment.
But every time she dropped off to sleep, the cat was there. Sometimes it was yowling outside the window and Kenzie was trying to call it inside to keep it safe from whatever hazards were out there for a cat. Somebody could hurt it. There were animals out there even though they were within the town. Even more dangerous, there were cars.
Sometimes in her dream, she was trying to catch the cat inside the house. But it always kept ahead of her fingers, and she was never able to grab it. The house grew bigger and more twisted and complex in her dreams, giving the cat more dark hiding places and making it impossible for Kenzie to ever find her. She saw the cat in the closet again, back in Robertson’s room. Digging around. Trying to pull together a little sleeping nest? Looking for something else? Agitated by an unusual smell? Something dangerous? Someone who wasn’t supposed to be there or who she thought was a danger to her people?
Had the cat even liked Robertson? Who knew if she considered him one of her family members or not.
“Get over here!”
Kenzie startled herself out of sleep shouting at Cuddles as she tried to catch her again. She woke up Zachary, who was not a good sleeper and rarely got more than a few hours of sleep.
He jolted awake beside her and turned over. “Kenzie? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” Kenzie tried to smooth things over quickly. “It was just a dream; go back to sleep.”
But he didn’t close his eyes and go back to sleep without saying anything else. He moved closer to Kenzie and put his arm around her in a comforting hug. “Are you okay? You had a nightmare?”
“No… not even a nightmare. It was just… a dream. A silly dream about a cat.”
“A cat?” Zachary chuckled. “What about a cat?”
“There was this cat at the call I went to this afternoon. It was nothing; you should just go back to sleep.” She tried again to persuade him to try to go back to sleep instead of staying up talking with her about something so inconsequential.
He put his head down on the pillow, still holding her enfolded in his embrace. A car drove past the house, tires swishing on the wet road.
“What did the cat do?”
“Nothing. Well, first it scared me because it was in the closet and I thought a person might be hiding in there somehow, even though it had been hours since the patient had died. But it was just the cat. And then there was an argument between the roommate and the girlfriend, I guess the patient was allergic to cats and the girlfriend was really angry about the roommate bringing an animal into the apartment. But the cat itself was fine. I’m not worried about it.”
“It was just strange enough to make it into your dream.”
“Yes,” Kenzie agreed. She didn’t tell him that it was in more than one dream; that would just convince him that it was more significant than it was.
The only significance was that Kenzie would be performing the autopsy the next day and Cuddles had been at the scene when Robertson had died.
“Why would the roommate buy a cat if he was allergic? Didn’t he know about it? Or did he not start being allergic until later?”
“I didn’t get any details, to be honest. I assume he knew he was allergic already, or the girlfriend would not have made such a big deal of it.”
“Yeah.” Zachary snuggled against her. “And what were you dreaming about it?”
“It was outside and in danger, and I needed to catch it to keep it safe.”
“But you’re not worried about the cat?”
“I really am not! It wasn’t even the patient’s cat. The cat is fine.”
They stayed like that for some time, and Kenzie started to drift off to sleep again. She was aware of Zachary loosening his grip and withdrawing from her. She was just on the edge of sleep, too far gone to call him back and tell him to stay with her.
Besides, he wouldn’t. He might stay a few minutes extra, but he would still get up and go to the living room to work. Now that his sleep had been interrupted, he was unlikely to go back to sleep again.
7
Kenzie felt far from well-rested when her alarm went off in the morning. She hadn’t ever found that restful state of sleep, but had been in and out of consciousness, restless, with her mind working away, all night. Maybe she was coming down with something.
She got up anyway. There was plenty of work to be done, and she didn’t want to end up feeling rushed because she had slept in. Even though Dr. Cook was perfectly okay with her setting her own hours, he was a morning person and was nearly always in the office before her. Unlike Dr. Wiltshire, who typically arrived later and gave Kenzie time to get everything sorted out before he came in. She preferred to be the first at the office; it made her feel more in control of her day. With Dr. Cook already there when she arrived, she always felt like she was playing catch-up, even if he didn’t mind her taking a bit of time to organize herself in the morning.
