Endowed with Death, page 8
“Who’s he going to call?”
“He’s already been making calls. Got Detective Tuttle blocked in requesting a warrant to search the rest of the house. And Lisa called this afternoon.” Kenzie wrinkled her nose to express her displeasure at this development. “To tell me that I need to be careful not to rock the boat, and won’t I make an exception for an old friend?”
“Cash Wade is an old friend of hers?”
“I guess. I didn’t know there was any connection between them, but she says that his family has been in Vermont almost as long as hers.”
“Which means…?” Zachary knew better than to speculate on the political world the Kirsches were a part of.
“Which means he is a new money Vermonter. Not as high on the social scale, but still significant. And maybe if he has enough money, he can buy the rest of what he needs.”
“They always can.”
“No, not always,” Kenzie disagreed. “You need a combination of blood, breeding, money, and influence. All the money in the world won’t buy you the rest.”
15
“I can’t believe that they were able to hide the abuse,” Kenzie mused. “The people in the household must have known. Anyone that they did things with socially must have known. I know you told me about them making sure they didn’t bruise his face and keeping him in long sleeves and pants when necessary, but they couldn’t hide it from the nanny who bathed him. What about the children he played with? Swimming? They have three pools!”
Zachary shrugged. “He wouldn’t necessarily have had suspicious injuries all the time. If he did, they could say he was sick and couldn’t go swimming or have any playdates. They could tell people that he was sickly or had an immune disorder and couldn’t go out to visit. They have a social life. They can go wherever they want to without him. And at home, it’s just the staff. Just the nanny and anyone else who took care of him, if there was anyone. It could even be the nanny. People do hide it, Kenzie. No one wants to believe their friends are abusive. They’ll look the other way and believe whatever excuses they are given.”
“He must have been in terrible pain much of the time. And it doesn’t seem like he saw any medical professionals. Maybe a doctor who came to see him at the mansion if he was sick, but they couldn’t call him if the boy was bleeding internally or had any suspicious bruises.”
“The rich pay them off. The poor… wait and see if the child survives. If not… dump or bury the body somewhere and never tell anyone what happened.”
He stared off into space, and Kenzie didn’t want to know what he was remembering. Whether he was thinking of something that had happened in his own family, or a foster family, or to someone like Ben Burton, who had hired him to find out what had happened in his past and discovered a tragedy he had kept locked away for far too many years.
“We should probably change the subject,” Kenzie suggested.
Zachary nodded.
The pizza arrived, and they decided to be decadent and watch in front of the TV instead of visiting at the table. Dr. B, who led their couple’s therapy, suggested they turn off all screens for supper and focus on each other. But they had already done that, discussing the difficulties Kenzie was having with her job, and they needed to just relax and not think about it anymore.
At bedtime, they exchanged massages, working on the knots in each other’s muscles to help them relax for sleep. But Kenzie knew that Zachary was doing a much better job on her than she had done on him. Her massage of his muscles had been too short, and she had not really put the attention into it that she should. She hit the spots that she knew usually got sore when he was sitting on the couch hunched over his computer, but she had not really explored any other areas. She was so tired that giving him a massage made her more sore and took energy she didn’t have. He could tell that she was tiring and had insisted it was her turn for a massage when really, she’d barely touched him.
Zachary, on the other hand, worked his way over Kenzie’s back, neck, and limbs slowly, kneading at the sore and knotted muscles, rubbing fragrant lotion into her skin, and generally making her feel relaxed and safe and ready for sleep. She kept dozing off while he worked on her. Eventually, he put the bottle of lotion to the side, pulled the blankets over her, and lay beside her running his fingers through her curly hair and rubbing her scalp as she drifted off the final time.
Kenzie awoke a couple of hours later to an animal-like cry from Zachary, followed by staccato, broken sleep-babble as he tried to reason with his demons. Kenzie fought her way through the sheets to put her arm around him.
“Zachary. Zach. It’s okay. Wake up.” She stroked his short, stubbly hair and neck, waiting for him to surface. “You’re just dreaming, Zachary. Wake up. You’re okay.” She knew better than to grab his arm or shake him. Nothing that might make him fight back, thinking she was the enemy.
“No!” His body convulsed as if he’d been hit or had flinched to brace for a blow. Then softer, “No.”
She thought that the second “no” was a conscious echo. Repeating himself and trying to orient himself to his surroundings and figure out what was happening.
“It was just a dream,” Kenzie told him again. “You’re safe. You’re with me.”
She knew she should say “Kenzie” instead of “me,” because how was he supposed to know which “me” she was? Waking up out of a dream, he might think her to be Bridget, or his mother, or some other woman from the past. But calling herself by name felt awkward and a little silly.
“Kenz?”
“Yeah. You’re okay. Do you want to tell me about it?”
He cleared his throat and moved around restlessly, looking around the room, re-establishing himself in space. This was where he belonged now, but he hadn’t lived with her for long enough to automatically know where he was when he woke up. She knew he still thought he was in other places first. An old apartment, a place he had lived in with Bridget, maybe Bonnie Brown, an institution he had spent time in as a child.
“No, just a dream,” he murmured.
“Yeah. Was it something from the past?”
“No.”
She knew it wasn’t the fire. She could usually tell when it was the fire. He was far more frantic, shouting to his family, curling up in a ball with his arms over his face, trying to hide from it, just as he had done as a ten-year-old.
“No,” Zachary repeated. “Your case. I think it was just because of your case.”
Michael Wade. It wasn’t a shock that he would dream of the abused child. He had spent much of his childhood being abused and trying to protect the other children from abuse. If he had been in the same home as Michael, he would have tried to protect him. Hide him, step in front of the blows, distract the abuser with something else. A punishable offense that could not be ignored.
“I’m sorry.”
“S’okay.” Zachary felt for Kenzie and pulled her gently closer, tucking her against his body, his warm breath on her hair, arms around her protectively. “Not your fault.” She snuggled into him, enjoying the closeness even though she had been jerked out of a sound sleep by his nightmare.
“You’re one of the good guys,” Zachary went on, his voice a low murmur, barely more than a whisper. “You’ll protect him. Find out who did this and put him behind bars.”
“I can’t arrest anyone. But I’ll give the police everything I can, and they’ll get him. They’ll take care of it. They won’t let a child beater go free just because of his money.”
Zachary gave a grunt of disapproval at the mention of the abuser going free. Kenzie stroked his jawline and neck, and rubbed the back of his head with its short stubble. He purred at that. Kenzie hoped that if she could keep it up long enough, he would drop back off and get a nice long night’s sleep. She knew from experience that it was unlikely, but she could try.
“When will it happen?” Zachary asked. “When will you release your report and they will be able to arrest him?”
“I’m still waiting for some test results back. Going to go over some slides and samples tomorrow. Not a lot. Some tests can take months to get back, but I can release my initial findings before that. I’d really like to go over everything with Dr. Wiltshire first. And… I need to read over the parent and witness statements. I should have done that today, but I didn’t have time to finish everything. I want to do this right. To make sure that all of my conclusions are rock-solid and no one can fight it.”
“Yeah.” Zachary stretched and relaxed, kissing the top of Kenzie’s hair. “But be careful. You know guys like this. You don’t want him gunning for you.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to stop him from being upset with me. He isn’t going to like what I have to say. Hopefully, they’ll be able to arrest him quickly. I’ll coordinate with the police… make sure their investigation has run parallel to mine and come to the same conclusions. They know Michael was being abused. They don’t doubt that.”
“That’s good.” Zachary rubbed Kenzie’s back.
She closed her eyes briefly, luxuriating under his touch and, without meaning to, drifted off to sleep again.
16
When Kenzie awoke in the morning, she was alone in the bed. Zachary always got up before she did, so that was not unusual. She hoped that he had been able to get back to sleep after the nightmare and hadn’t been up since then.
She pulled on her housecoat and wandered into the living room, unsure whether she would find him asleep on the couch or hard at work. He was at his computer, tapping away. But not so lost in his work that he didn’t notice her approach.
“Morning,” he greeted. He squinted at her for a moment. “Have a nice sleep?”
“Yeah, it was good. How are you doing? Did you get back to sleep?”
He shrugged. “No. Couldn’t settle back down again.”
Which meant he had probably only gotten a couple of hours of sleep.
“You might want to take a sleep aid tonight, then,” she said neutrally. If she told him he had to or really pushed for it, he would resist. It was better if he felt like he could make that decision for himself and her suggestion was only a thought to consider. He was the one who knew his brain, his meds, and his sleep requirements. As much as Kenzie wanted to insist, to dictate how he handled it and force him to take the meds she felt he needed, she couldn’t do that. She needed to let him make his own choices.
And he’d been doing well at it. He was in a good place. So far.
One short night’s sleep like that might throw him off the rails in December, when his traumatized brain was trying to figure out how he could survive the Christmas season, but now he was still in a good place, and he would handle it just fine. As long as she didn’t keep bringing up child abuse cases that kept him awake at night.
She had seen terrible things before. She didn’t need to take them home to Zachary.
“You want coffee?” Zachary asked.
“No, not yet. I’ll get myself together first. Just wanted to say good morning.”
Zachary nodded, smiled, and looked back down at his computer.
There were an unusually high number of messages on the office’s voicemail system with queries or instructions about the Wade case. Lots of reporters and curious members of the public were hoping to learn more about the case. A few calls from government officials who “had an interest” in the case and wanted to know how things were going. A polite call from a funeral home saying that they had been authorized by the family to pick up Michael’s remains and would she please call as soon as they were ready for transport.
There were no threats. No angry tirades from Cash Wade himself detailing what he would do to her if the autopsy results were not satisfactory. Apparently, that kind of thing was reserved for the confines of his home, when there was no one but his own staff to overhear. People he knew he could control.
Dr. Wiltshire had left a couple of messages with things that he hoped she would have time to follow up on, but which Kenzie highly doubted she would be able to get to. Where was he? She had assumed that he would still come in to deal with the desk work, at least, and to go over everything with her before she released her findings in the Wade case.
After taking care of the administrative functions that could not be avoided, Kenzie had Julie take over the reception desk and phones, and shut herself in the boardroom away from the constant ringing to review the statements on the Michael Wade case.
Cash Wade’s statement was brief, and pretty much what she expected after speaking to the detectives and the nanny. He was in a different part of the mansion from Michael and, as far as he knew, Michael was sleeping in the nursery. The first that he knew something was wrong was the shrieking of the nanny. It was clear that it was more than just an argument with someone on the staff, but that something was really wrong.
He had hurried toward the sound, but then been distracted by the sound of staff members rushing downstairs and outside to the pool area. He had looked out a window and seen them gathering around something on the poolside deck. The screaming nanny forgotten, he followed to see what was going on. And that was when he had seen his son lying on the ground, unresponsive. Looking straight up, he could see the balcony overhead and knew that was where he had fallen from. He concluded that the nanny had not been watching the boy closely enough.
Which was a bit odd, because if he blamed the nanny, why was she still at the mansion? Why hadn’t she been terminated on the spot? Even if he didn’t blame her for his son’s fall and death, it would still have made sense to let her go after his demise, since there were no other children for her to take care of.
But Kenzie had been under the impression that Sylvia also had other household duties. She had not introduced herself as the nanny, so maybe that was something she had only taken on as they had needed her to.
Still, Cash had not yelled at her for talking to Kenzie or being in the nursery. He had not made any bitter accusations about how his son would still be alive if she had only done her job. But maybe that was just Hollywood stuff. In real life, people didn’t behave like they did in the movies. The scenes written for the silver screen were just that—scenes invented out of someone’s imagination for the best dramatic effect. In real life, maybe someone like Cash kept his mouth shut and let the housekeeper or his lawyer deal with Sylvia’s employment. Maybe he didn’t even think about what her part in his son’s death had been while he was trying to get the prying detective and assistant medical examiner out of his home.
Or he was waiting until they were out of the way to lay into her.
Or he didn’t blame her at all.
Because he knew that she had not been the cause of Michael’s death.
Maybe.
Kenzie went on to the mother’s statement. Terri-Lyn Wade.
She also claimed to have been elsewhere in the building. Unlike Cash, who claimed he had been conducting business, she said she had been eating a late breakfast after her Pilates workout, which was her usual routine. Kenzie didn’t judge her for starting her day so late. Before Kenzie had gone back to medical school, she’d followed a similar schedule, going to events in the evening, with plenty of socialization going on into the early morning hours, eventually crashing at home and sleeping until mid-morning or later. She didn’t have a Pilates class, but she frequently didn’t have her breakfast until many people were contemplating lunch.
Terri-Lyn had also been startled by Sylvia’s screams. She had been on the main floor in the breakfast room, with windows at the front of the house rather than the back, so it wasn’t until people started shouting and running toward the pool that she knew something had happened outside. She initially thought that the staff would take care of whatever had caused the disruption, but eventually decided that she’d better see what was causing all of the commotion.
A couple of staff members had blocked her way, not letting her go right up to her son, telling her she didn’t want to see him like that and that there was nothing she could do. Cash would not allow her to get close, no matter how she begged. She didn’t see his face before they zipped him into a body bag and took him from the house, and could only imagine the extent of damage that had been done by the fall.
Rather than blaming the nanny, she blamed herself for not going to check on Michael after her Pilates session and for the fact that he had been able to get through the sliding doors to the balcony. Rather than abdicating responsibility as Cash had, she blamed herself for things she probably had no control over. Whoever had used the balcony last and had not fastened the doors securely. Maybe a faulty door lock. The fact that Michael had been sleeping alone and she hadn’t known that he had gotten out of bed on his own.
All of the things that she should have done or foreseen because she was the mother.
Even if there was no way she could have controlled ninety percent of them.
Her son was dead, and she blamed herself for it.
Kenzie smoothed the report pages as though they were crumpled or wrinkled, but they were not. She pictured the two parents. Cash she had met, so it was easy to put those words in his cultured, angry voice. Terri-Lyn was more difficult because Kenzie had never met her. Was she a small, mousy woman who always let Cash push her around? A strong independent woman who did her own thing and was only married to Cash for convenience and money? Something in between? Kenzie had met all types in the upper echelons of the Vermont social structure.
Tuttle had said that she was tall and well-built. She had been doing Pilates so, in theory, she should have strong core strength. Not a little old lady. Not a shrinking violet, Kenzie suspected. Someone who could stand up to Cash when he got carried away with his orders and tried to control her life as well as the rest of the mansion.
