Endowed with Death, page 5
Tuttle nodded his agreement.
“Anything else? In here or the nursery?”
“I’m not seeing any blood spatter using the ALS. Or any areas that have been bleached. I mean…” Kenzie shone it around the toilet’s base, “you can see that bleach has been used here, but that’s perfectly normal for a bathroom. Especially a little boy just learning to use the big potty.”
“And then we’re on to the other room.”
Kenzie nodded. She was reluctant to move on to the room with the balcony, but she obviously had to.
9
“Were you in here at all yesterday?” Kenzie asked, looking around the room.
“Briefly,” Tuttle confirmed. “We were told that he had wandered in and climbed over the balcony rail, so we took a quick look around to ensure that everything matched their story.” He shrugged. “There wasn’t anything to refute it. Nothing that we found, anyway.”
“What was it like?” Kenzie asked. “How did the household feel? Were there people in here?”
He considered her questions. “It was late morning. Everybody was a bit frantic, as you can well imagine. Wanting to do something when… it was too late to do anything. The glass doors were thrown all the way open…” He thought about it. “I don’t think a child would open it all the way. More likely he just squeezed between them, and whoever came in here to see what had happened pushed them open the rest of the way. Went to the balcony, looked down…” Tuttle shook his head. “We didn’t measure trajectories or anything. He fell close to the house, as would be expected in a fall. It is a long distance. A child falling onto concrete from up here, on his head… No one thought he had a chance.”
“Did anyone attempt CPR?”
“I don’t think so. None of the emergency responders. If one of the staff did, they neglected to mention it. It was clear from the condition of the body that there was no point. It was obvious he was too badly injured. The deformation in the skull…” He shrugged expressively.
Kenzie nodded. From the sparse notes on the file, it didn’t sound like anyone had attempted any lifesaving measures, but it was essential to establish all of the facts as early as possible.
Kenzie shone her light on the handles of the balcony doors and along the carpet in front of them. No signs of blood there.
“We need fingerprints taken here,” she indicated the handles, “and out there on the railing.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Tuttle agreed. “And we’ll need elimination prints from anyone who might have touched them.”
Of course they were always phrased as elimination prints, even when their purpose was to identify possible suspects. Everyone who had touched the door handles around the time of the boy’s fall was a suspect.
“No one actually saw him fall, obviously,” Kenzie suggested.
“No. No one claimed to.”
If someone had, he would be lying, since things had not happened that way. If someone claimed to have seen him fall, then either he was the person who had dropped the body off the balcony, or they knew who did.
“Is there normally anyone back here that time of day?” Kenzie gazed through the doors at the big blue pool.
“I don’t know how much they use the pools and how much they just lounge beside them,” Tuttle said. “It didn’t look like anyone had been in it. No water on the deck that I noticed. There are some lounge chairs with fresh towels beside them. It was late morning, so it’s possible that someone had been in earlier, or that someone would be out getting a bit of sun. But no one said that they had been outside. We’ll have to follow up on that a little more carefully.”
“It’s a bit chilly to be swimming.”
“The pool is heated.”
Of course it was. Kenzie could imagine jumping into the warm water on a brisk fall day. It would be perfect. Until she had to get out, of course, into the cool air again.
Had the killer considered putting Michael’s body into the pool? But doing so would not hide the broken skull. They would still have to be able to explain that, and there was no way the boy could have hit the side of the pool with enough force while swimming or playing in the pool to do the damage he had sustained.
Kenzie left the window to look around the rest of the room. It was the sitting room of a suite, but did not appear to be in active use. Guest quarters, Kenzie guessed. Not in constant use. Would the door usually be left open so a child could wander in? Could Michael manage doorknobs? Did he wander a lot?
“Who was supposed to be caring for him?” she asked. “He must have been under someone’s supervision.”
“According to the statements we got yesterday, he was supposed to be sleeping in his room. No one was sitting watching him sleep.”
“Late morning? Almost noon? Why was he still in bed? I don’t know of any kids that sleep that late.”
“Maybe he had gone down for a nap. Or maybe he was up late the night before.”
“Maybe a nap,” Kenzie conceded. He could have been up and around in the early morning, then worn himself out and been put down for a sleep. Toddlers that age still napped, didn’t they? Amanda had napped even older than that, when she was five or six. In the afternoon, not the morning. But Amanda had been sick. Her energy had been low because of her kidney disease.
Kenzie shone her light all along the walls and carpets, looking for any sign of blood or anything else suspicious. But the room appeared to be spotless under the ALS as well. There were no toys that might indicate the boy had wandered in there on his own or often played there. If he had interrupted someone in the room and been killed there, then they had cleaned it up or covered it up well.
Thinking about the possibility of evidence being covered up, Kenzie checked the walls behind the paintings and the carpeting under a fancy silk rug, but they all appeared to be clean as well. She shook her head at Tuttle. “I don’t think he was killed in here. There’s no sign of it. We’ll need to check the other rooms on the floor.”
He grunted. “Why don’t you go back to the nursery and call Hilda about seeing the rest while I take care of the fingerprints and check the balcony. You might find out who is available for further interviews as well. See if their statements today match their statements of yesterday. Ask any of the questions that have been prompted by your autopsy.” He paused. “But don’t ask any questions until I’m with you. Just see who is available.”
Kenzie nodded her agreement. It would be essential for her to have a witness, and she was not a trained police interrogator. Tuttle would get her back on track if she messed something up.
She stopped at the windows again, looking out at the balcony. She wouldn’t touch the doors to open them up until the fingerprint evidence had been gathered. But then she should make a careful examination of the balcony and see if there was any blood out there.
“If you want to leave the ALS here, I’ll check after I print,” Tuttle told her, guessing her line of thought.
“Okay, yeah. The floor of the balcony and the railing especially. Whoever threw him over the edge might have rested the body on the top rail before pushing it off. Bodies aren’t as easy to move as you see on TV.”
“No,” he agreed. “Though a child that age does not weigh very much.”
“Still awkward. Would either of the parents have been able to lift him over the railing?”
“Either one, I would think. Mrs. Wade is tall and doesn’t look like a weakling. Cash is…” Tuttle shrugged. “I don’t think any man would have a problem lifting that little boy over the railing. And Cash is built like a bull.”
Kenzie nodded. “Okay. I’ll go back to the nursery and let you do your thing here.”
She left the ALS with him and went back to the nursery to have one more look at it and call Hilda for permission to search the rest of the rooms on the floor.
10
Hilda returned to the nursery at Kenzie’s call, and considered her with a pinched expression.
“You said you would only be a few minutes. That you just needed to look at this room and the one with the balcony.”
“We would like to look at the rest of the rooms on this floor. We need to gather evidence.”
“You can’t have the run of the entire house.”
“This floor—”
“And when you are finished snooping through this floor, you will want to look at the other floors. This is a private home. Citizens have the right to privacy. You don’t need anything in any of the other rooms. Mr. and Mrs. Wade’s rooms. The child wandered into a room where he was not allowed and climbed over the rail. That is what happened. You can’t make it into something else. You don’t need access to any other rooms. Leave this family to their mourning.”
Kenzie hadn’t even heard any voices on the floor while she and Tuttle had been there. Either the Wades were somewhere else, or the soundproofing in the house was very good.
“If you don’t give permission for us to see those rooms, then we will need to get a warrant,” Kenzie advised. “Because we do need to see them. Getting a warrant will cause extra publicity in this case. There will be rumors. Is that what you want?”
There would soon be rumors and more people involved anyway, but Kenzie knew that Hilda did not want any of those things to happen and would do what she could to avoid them.
“I can’t,” Hilda said stoically, shaking her head. “I’m not allowed to give you permission to search any of the rest of the house.”
“Then you’d better call them and explain the situation.”
Hilda stared at Kenzie stubbornly but, eventually, she caved. “I will talk to them again. But you will not get permission.”
Kenzie nodded her understanding.
“Where is the other one? The detective? He’d better not be snooping anywhere else.”
“He’s in the other room, gathering some evidence. He won’t go anywhere else.”
“He’d better not,” Hilda affirmed. “Or there will be trouble. Mr. Wade knows the governor. The attorney general. The police commissioner. If either of you steps out of line…”
“Haven’t we followed your instructions while we have been here?”
She glared at Kenzie for a moment, then nodded. “Good. See that you do. You stay here until I get back to you.”
“I will.”
With one more glare, Hilda left the room, her hand immediately going to her pocket to retrieve a cell phone. But she didn’t use it while within Kenzie’s sight and hearing.
While Hilda was gone, another woman appeared in the doorway of the nursery. She peered inside, a frown on her face, and saw Kenzie.
“Oh, there is someone in here. Who are you?”
“I’m Dr. Kirsch. With the medical examiner’s office. We’re just following up on…” Of course, anyone in the household knew what she was following up on. Kenzie made a little motion to indicate the nursery and what had happened the day before.
The diminutive woman’s eyes welled with tears. She shook her head. “My poor little Michael. I just can’t believe it. How could such a thing happen?”
“Come in,” Kenzie motioned for her to enter, indicating the rocking chair beside the bed. Kenzie perched on the edge of the bed while the woman sat down. “Are you the…” Tuttle had said that the boy’s mother was tall so, clearly, it wasn’t this woman. And she was too old to be Michael’s mother. Maybe a grandmother?
“I help take care of Michael. Or… I did.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. This must be particularly hard on you, then.”
She sniffled and dabbed at her nose with a tissue. “Yes. I just can’t get over it. That poor little boy. He was the light of my life.” She wiped her leaking eyes with her palm. “You might think I’m being dramatic saying that, since he wasn’t my own child, but it’s true. He was the bright spot in my life. A child brings so much joy and life into your life.”
Kenzie nodded. She tried not to think about Amanda and how Kenzie had been a second mother to her and had helped raise her. When she had died… it had left a great hole in Kenzie’s heart. She had never considered having a child of her own after that heartbreak. She didn’t know how she could handle it if something were to happen to a biological child. She didn’t know how she would be able to go on.
“I know what you mean,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
The nanny nodded her head and sniffled some more. “My name is Sylvia Arnold.” She held out a wet hand momentarily and then withdrew it, changing her mind. “I’m sorry; I should have introduced myself.”
“That’s okay. Can you tell me what you saw yesterday? What you observed personally?”
Sylvia looked uncertain. She shook her head. “It was such a shock. I came here to check on him.” She looked around the room as if she might find something of importance or comfort. “He wasn’t here. Usually, he stays here to play. But he wasn’t. So I looked for him. When I realized what had happened, saw him out there by the pool…” Her eyes swam with tears and she shook her head in disbelief. “I couldn’t make myself believe it. How could such a thing happen? That baby. That poor boy.”
“What happened? Do you know?”
“He had climbed out over the balcony railing and fell… I couldn’t believe it. I still can’t. What would possess him to do that?”
“Was he… an active child? Did he take a lot of risks or not seem to understand when something was dangerous?”
“What child understands all of the dangers, even when they are told? It’s built into their nature. They need to experiment, push outside the boundaries, explore the world around them. That’s what children do.”
“It is,” Kenzie agreed. “They have to separate from their parents at some point and find things out on their own. But he was still pretty young. Kids that age are not usually so daring.”
She blubbered, wiping her nose and eyes. “You must think I’m so silly, he wasn’t even my child, but I can’t help it. I’ve been taking care of him since he was a baby. He was so special to me.”
“Was someone supposed to be with him? What was he supposed to be doing?”
“I couldn’t be with him. I had been given other tasks to do. They said… that he would be fine. He would be with one of the other staff members or his parents. They could all look after him. Everybody chipped in now and then. I couldn’t be with him twenty-four hours a day. I still needed to sleep, have days off, run errands…”
“Of course you did. I’m not saying that you did anything wrong in letting someone take care of him. I’m just curious about what the arrangements were.”
“I was to be helping out in the kitchen for a few hours. I thought everything would be fine.”
“I heard he was sleeping, and this happened when he got out of bed without anyone realizing it.”
“Sleeping?” Sylvia repeated, looking puzzled.
“Yes, I was told that he was asleep. That he had gotten out of his bed and gone into the other room and climbed out before anyone realized that he was up.”
Sylvia nodded slowly. “He might have been down for a nap, maybe. He was up early in the morning. Maybe he was tired or was not feeling well.”
“How was he the last time that you saw him?”
“He was fine. He seemed…”
“Happy?” Kenzie suggested, when Sylvia couldn’t seem to come up with the right word to finish her sentence.
“Yes. Well… not, maybe not happy. He was a little stormy. He was like that sometimes. But I knew how to handle him. He just needed some attention. Maybe he was cutting a tooth.”
“Right. So he was grumpy? Upset?”
“His cheeks were red… I would probably have given him a pain reliever, in case it was his teeth. That usually helped.”
Kenzie wondered how often painkillers were required for injuries rather than teeth. Of course being hurt would make a child grumpy and harder to deal with. And from what she had seen, Michael was probably hurt a good amount of the time.
“Was he a moody child? What was he like?”
“He was colicky when he was young,” Sylvia admitted. “He cried a lot and was hard to settle. His mother was at her wit’s end. I would rock him.” Sylvia rocked the chair. “Hold him for hours until he settled, and we both fell asleep here.”
“Did they ever take him to a doctor to see if it was something physical? Something they could do something about? Maybe reflux medication or a different diet?”
She shrugged and shook her head. “It was just colic. You can’t do anything about colic. Just wait for them to outgrow it.”
Kenzie nodded slowly. Had Michael been colicky? Or had the abuse started way back then, and he was crying in pain? Or maybe both—he’d been colicky, which had precipitated the abuse.
“Did someone change the sheets on the bed yesterday?” Kenzie asked.
Sylvia shook her head. “Wednesday is the day the bedding is changed.”
“Maybe he wet the bed? And it needed to be changed earlier?”
“He was dry when I got him out of bed.”
“But then he apparently went back to bed. Maybe he had an accident during or after his nap. Maybe that’s what woke him up.”
Sylvia shrugged. “If he did, no one said anything to me about it. That wasn’t normal for him. He was dry during the day. Sometimes, he still had accidents at night, but not during the day. He was very good.”
“So you don’t know who would have changed the sheets or why.”
“No. What makes you think they were changed?”
“I could see that they were fresh, unused sheets. Still starched and ironed. They hadn’t been slept in.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think that could be true.” She didn’t offer any further explanation as to why someone might have seen fit to change the sheets on the bed after the child had died. They wouldn’t be expecting anyone else to sleep in the bed anytime soon.
“Michael is the only child in the house, right?”
