“Uh… why don’t you get me a beer? I’m not sure what the lady will want.”
“Sure. Any preference?”
“No. Whatever’s on tap.”
He kept an eye on his watch, but it was still too early for Kenzie to show up. When she eventually arrived, a quick glance showed Zachary that she was ten minutes early.
“You’re here already,” Kenzie observed with a smile. “Neat printing and prompt. Have I finally found the perfect man?”
“Not perfect by a long shot,” Zachary said with a sigh. “But the longer I can keep you fooled, the better.”
“Ha.” She sat down across from him. “Then you shouldn’t be telling me!”
The waiter came over to take Kenzie’s order. She eyed Zachary’s beer for a moment, but then ordered a glass of wine.
Small talk wasn’t the easiest for him, so after perusing the menu and ordering, it wasn’t long before Zachary was digging the medical examiner’s report out of his case. They pushed their chairs together so that they could look at it at the same time instead of being across from each other.
“You sure you want to discuss a medical examiner’s report over dinner?” Kenzie challenged. “Do you have a strong stomach?”
“I’ve already been through it. There’s nothing too disturbing. It’s not bloody.”
“Bodies in water bloat up pretty quickly…”
“I’ve seen the pictures already,” Zachary said firmly. “I’m okay with this. Really.”
It wasn’t until after he said it that he wondered whether she was trying to bow out. He had assumed that she would be perfectly okay with discussing the report over dinner. It had been her idea, after all. She was around the stuff all day, so he wouldn’t expect her to be squeamish. But it seemed too late to take his words back.
“That is… unless…”
Kenzie laughed. “No, I’m fine with it. Thanks for asking. Let’s go through it, then.”
She took the medical examiner’s report from his hand and laid it flat on the table, starting in on a lecture on drowning victims, what a medical examiner would expect to find, and what might look different between an accidental drowning and foul play.
“There was no bruising,” she pointed out, turning to a page with a series of photos of the body, both front and back. “If you’re going to hold someone under the water, then even if it’s a little child, there’s going to be a struggle, and there’s going to be bruising.”
Zachary nodded. “Okay. No bruising.”
“I’m sure you’ve seen this one on your favorite forensic show on TV. Someone is drowned in their bathroom, and then their body is disposed of in the river. How do you tell they were drowned somewhere else?”
“Analyze the water in the lungs.”
“Right. This is the analysis of the lungs. Their weight, showing they were waterlogged. Then an analysis of the pH, the salinity, the diatoms, any particulates…”
“Diatoms?”
“They take a sample of the water in the pond, and a sample of the water in his lungs, and look for diatoms. It’s a unique profile. Like fingerprinting.”
“Oh.” Zachary nodded. He looked at the text of the report. “And they determined that Declan drowned in the pond.”
“Right. He couldn’t have drowned anywhere else, or the profile of the water in his lungs would have been different.”
“Particulates?” Zachary asked, trying to keep track of all that she was saying.
Kenzie pointed to the section in the report. “When someone inhales water, they also inhale whatever else is in the water. Silt, bugs, plant life…”
“Okay. Right. So that goes back to the pond as well, demonstrating that he drowned there.”
“Yes.”
“But why so much time spent on tying him to the pond? He was found floating face down in it. Isn’t all that already established?”
“We have to double-check everything. Assume nothing.”
“Right.”
“The next few pages are blood tests…” Kenzie leaned closer to show Zachary. He could feel the heat of her body, and focused for the first time on the black knit dress she was wearing, which clung to her in all the right places. He could smell her scent and his own deodorant as he started to sweat.
Their waiter returned with their steaks, carrying them over on sizzling hot plates.
“Whoops, make some room, folks. Hot plates coming through.”
Zachary grabbed the medical examiner’s report and case off the table so that the waiter could put the plates down.
“Looks great,” Kenzie told the waiter. He checked on whether they needed refills, then left them to their dinner.
“The blood tests were all normal?” Zachary asked. “I don’t need to check what each measurement means?”
“Everything falls within normal parameters. Nothing suspicious.”
Zachary nodded, and they both dug in. For a while, they ate in silence.
“So how far do I go?” Zachary asked. “We review the medical examiner’s report. There’s nothing suspicious. Everything I do is chargeable. I could interview a million people, and it wouldn’t have any effect other than to run up the bill.”
“Well…” Kenzie chewed, considering. “Why did the grandmother hire you?”
“Peace of mind.”
“She wants to be sure it was an accident.”
“Well… no. She’d rather I found evidence of foul play.”
Kenzie’s cutlery clattered. She stopped eating and stared at him. “What?”
“She thinks it would ease the mother’s guilt if I found evidence that there was a third party involved. She wouldn’t have to blame herself for letting Declan wander off under her watch.”
“Hmm.”
Kenzie ate. Zachary paid attention to his own meal.
“I think, either way, they get some peace of mind,” Kenzie said after a while. She was still chewing on her steak and potatoes. “They either get reassurance that there wasn’t any foul play, little Declan didn’t suffer at anyone’s hands, he just slipped away in a few moments. Or they get to let go of a little of the guilt. If there was a mysterious third party involved, then they weren’t negligent. There was nothing more they could have done to protect him.”
“You think they’re going to be happy with
