She Wore Mourning

by P. D. Workman

  “Is that what you hope happened?”

  “Yes. I’d rather not think there was someone out there who took him to hurt us. Or intending to hurt him. The police didn’t think there was anyone else involved. I just want to let him rest.”

  Zachary thought about Isabella’s jewelry, all the parts of Declan that she wore on her body and her skin. She hadn’t been able to lay her child to rest. Zachary couldn’t think of anything less restful than dangling in Isabella’s constantly moving layers of jewelry.

  “Okay.” Zachary nodded. “Thank you for your time. I’ll let you know if I have any other questions. Feel free to call me if anything occurs to you.”

  “I’d rather you called before showing up here.”

  Zachary didn’t apologize for the surprise visit. Sometimes, it was helpful to catch people off-balance. He stood.

  “And, Zachary…”

  He raised an eyebrow at Spencer and waited.

  “I do worry about my wife. Quite a bit. I’m hopeful that having the Raymonds back in town will have a positive effect… distract her from her grief and give her someone to talk to. Because…” His lips pressed together. “I don’t know how much longer she can go on like this.”

  Chapter Seven

  Zachary recognized the phone number that popped up on his call display and smiled.

  “Hi, Kenzie.”

  “Hey, just thought I’d call and check in on my new PI buddy.”

  “I’m glad you called. I wouldn’t mind having someone to discuss this case with…”

  Zachary didn’t need someone to talk it over with, but it was the first thing that came to mind. And he wasn’t lying; he wouldn’t mind discussing it with her.

  “Oh, yeah?” Kenzie asked brightly. “How about I treat you to a sandwich at It’s a Wrap. I love their artisan breads.”

  He hesitated. It wasn’t that he didn’t like them too, but it was Bridget’s favorite sandwich shop, and he didn’t want to risk running into any of her friends there. What were the odds that any of them would approach him? They would all be on her side and wouldn’t have anything to say to him.

  “Yeah, sure. That sounds great,” he agreed. “We could get a booth for a little privacy…”

  “Perfect. We should probably hit it early, before the lunch crowd. Do you mind meeting at eleven?”

  “Works for me. You’re not working today?”

  “No, I have a doctor’s appointment today and just took the full day off. I’m free until two-thirty.”

  “Doctor’s appointment? Anything wrong?”

  “No, it’s nothing. I’ll see you there? At eleven?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Zachary hung up his phone and decided he’d better shower and shave to make himself presentable. No point in showing up looking like some homeless guy. The look might help him blend in with a crowd while on a job since people didn’t want to look at the less fortunate, but it wouldn’t work for a date.

  He again made sure he was at the restaurant before Kenzie, cornering a booth for them. She wasn’t far behind him. They gave the server their orders and exchanged some pleasantries.

  “Did you really have some questions about the case?” Kenzie asked, raising one brow mischievously.

  “Well… not so much that I had questions, I just thought it would be nice to talk through some of the details.”

  She nodded. “Sure.”

  “You said that one of the signs of drowning is bruising. From holding the victim down.”

  “Right.”

  “The boy did have bruises.”

  She shook her head. “Not that were typical of drowning. Did you bring it with you?”

  Zachary dug the report out of his bag and slid it across to her. She turned quickly to the appropriate page. “Shins and knees, elbows. All typical of little boys—and girls—in their regular play. He had several bruises, and they were different ages. Fell down one day. Walked into a coffee table another. Skinned elbows on a trampoline a couple of days later. All kids have those kinds of bruises. If he had been drowned, we would expect to see bruises on his neck or back. Those are the kind of bruises a drowning victim gets.”

  “Ah.” Zachary nodded. He hadn’t been too concerned about the bruises. He had thought that they looked pretty innocuous, but he wouldn’t know without asking. There could have been something atypical there that he simply hadn’t been able to see.

  “Now what about the nail scrapings?” he asked. “We didn’t get time to talk about those before. Why did they do nail scrapings? Are they looking for DNA? Seeing if he tried to fight back against an attacker?”

  “Sure. That’s part of it. Skin under the nails is always a big red flag. Sometimes you can find other evidence as well. It’s like a mini archeological dig.” She flipped through the pages and worked her way down the list of what they found under Declan’s nails. “The victim had soil under his nails, consistent with what was in his yard, not around the pond. He had no foreign DNA under his nails, so, no, he didn’t fight off an attacker. He had a mixture of oil and mineral pigments… oh!” She laughed. “Paint, of course. An oil-based paint. Mostly green.”

  “Paint.” Zachary mulled it over, wondering if it was significant. “I guess as the child of a painter, that shouldn’t come as any great shock. He must have been around his mother’s work. Probably instructed by her and encouraged to produce his own paintings as well.”

  “I would think so.”

  Kenzie continued to flip aimlessly through the medical examiner’s report, looking for anything else of interest. “Was he autistic?”

  “No. Not that anyone has said. Why? What’s in there that would make you think—”

  “Don’t get excited. It’s not anything I saw. I just wondered because a lot of the children who are attracted to water and drown have autism. I don’t know any real stats. Just that it seems like a high percentage.”

  “No, he wasn’t autistic. From what the family tells me, he didn’t even like the water. He’d avoid it when he could. I wondered whether there were steep or crumbling banks, and he fell in by accident before he even saw it, but I saw the police photos yesterday, and it had pretty shallow banks. To drown in it, he would have had to walk right into it.”

  Kenzie frowned. “Pretty unlikely if he was afraid of water.”

  “It’s the only argument against it being an accident that I’ve come across yet. I know that kids can drown in a very small amount of water… but to drown in the pond, he had to actually be in it. A kid doesn’t just lie down on the shore and stick his face into two inches of water. And his body was found floating in the pond. He had to walk out into it.”

  He hadn’t put the thought into words before. Kenzie frowned, and Zachary felt a chill. Was Molly right? Had a third party drowned the child?

  The server brought them their sandwiches, and for a few minutes, they both just ate, enjoying the fresh, crusty bread and thinking over the problem.

  “Maybe there was a dog or something else that attracted his attention,” Zachary said. “His father said he loves dogs. If he saw one swimming in the pond and thought it was in trouble, or just wanted to see it or pat it… who knows? He could have been trying to retrieve a ball or a Frisbee.”

  “None were found at the crime scene. Could have been an animal, even a fish near the surface and he thought he could grab it. If he was afraid of water, then presumably he couldn’t swim.”

  “I would guess not.”

  Zachary’s eyes caught on a man walking toward him. A big, broad man with the physique of a halfback. His face broke into a smile when he recognized Zachary.

  “Look who’s here! Zach, my man! It’s been too long! How the hell are you?” He reached out his hand to take Zachary’s, but Zachary’s attention was caught by the thin blonde woman behind him. He froze, not taking Joseph Reichler’s hand, not saying anything, his brain seizing up in his panic at seeing her there.

  His own reaction was mirrored by Bridget. She swore w
hen she saw him.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded. As if it was obviously her place and Zachary had no right to be there.

  Joseph was turning to look at Bridget with dawning comprehension, realizing belatedly that she and Zachary had a history and might not want to run into each other in such a public place. “Oh, ah, Bridge…”

  Kenzie stared from one of them to the other, waiting for someone to explain to her what was going on. A server came over, and blithely blind to their expressions and body language, asked whether they would like to be seated together.

  “Maybe we should go somewhere else,” Joseph said weakly. “I didn’t mean to…”

  “I’m not going anywhere else,” Bridget insisted as if she owned the place. Like she got her favorite sandwich shop in the divorce. Like she had the right to demand that he vacate immediately. Zachary looked down at his half-eaten sandwich, no longer hungry. The first half sat in his stomach like a bowling ball. He looked at Kenzie, wanting to suggest that they leave.

  Instead, Kenzie stuck out her hand toward Bridget and introduced herself. “Kenzie Kirsch. You must be…”

  Bridget looked down at Kenzie, her face flushing pink. She was practically quivering with indignation. “Don’t you be taken in by him,” she warned. “Don’t be taken in by the whole hurt-puppy, tragic past act. He’s impossible to live with, and not fixable. Move on and find one that’s whole, instead of wasting your time on this loser. Do you hear me? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  “I hear you.” Kenzie’s voice was low and clear, unflustered. “And I think maybe you’d better move on.”

  “I should move on?” Bridget was outraged. “Why the hell should I move on? This is…” It seemed to occur to her for the first time that she didn’t have an excuse for her behavior. She didn’t own the place or have a restraining order on Zachary. He had the right to eat wherever he wanted, with whomever he wanted. “You’re a nice-looking girl,” she said to Kenzie in a quieter voice. “He always did have a good eye for beauty. Believe me; you do not want to be roped into a relationship with this man. You will do nothing but suffer.”

  “Thank you for your advice,” Kenzie said coolly, as if it happened every day.

  Joseph was making apologetic gestures to Zachary, trying to get Bridget to move on and leave him alone. Just to keep walking. They could find another restaurant. There was no reason it had to be the same one as Zachary.

  “My old friend,” he said to Zachary apologetically. “I’m so sorry. I never meant…”

  Zachary jerked his head at Joseph to just go. No apology necessary. If he left, hopefully, Bridget would follow. Joseph backed away, and after a moment of mulishness, Bridget followed him, whispering imprecations the whole way.

  Zachary closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. He was afraid to look back at Kenzie, his ears burning. He felt like rushing out the door, but he couldn’t end a second date like that or she’d wonder what the heck was wrong with him.

  “Your ex, I assume,” Kenzie said in amusement.

  Zachary gave a hollow laugh and opened his eyes to look at her. “That was only slightly awkward, right?”

  “That was classic. I don’t think we could have designed a better scene if it had been planned and directed. Congratulations.”

  “On creating the perfect scene?”

  “On getting out of that relationship. Are you telling me you would still want to be together with her?”

  Zachary shook his head, but more in confusion than denial. He still loved Bridget, no matter how badly she had treated him. He would have gone back to her if he had thought there were any hope of reconciliation, but there simply wasn’t. She was lost to him forever.

  “Were you actually married? Or just dating or living together?”

  “We were married,” he admitted.

  “I thought so. That kind of anger doesn’t come from just dating. It had to be marriage.”

  “I don’t know what you must think of me. If you want, I can just pay for this now, and we can get out of here…”

  “No need for that. I’m perfectly fine where I am. She’s gone away, so you can relax. I don’t think she’ll be coming back. In fact, I don’t know if she’ll ever be coming back here again. It’s always going to remind her of you and how she made a fool of herself now.”

  “That won’t stop her.” It wasn’t their first scene. It wouldn’t be their last. Sooner or later, one of them was going to have to leave town. The only way Zachary was leaving town permanently was in a coffin.

  “Relax. Honestly, I’m fine. It was all very entertaining. Tell me all about her and what a witch she is.”

  “She was the love of my life,” Zachary said hopelessly. “We were once so happy. I don’t even know where to start. We lived and breathed for each other, but over time… things happened. Feelings were hurt. We had to weather some storms that… most marriages just don’t survive. Ours didn’t.”

  “I’m sorry.” She lowered the eyes that had been dancing with amusement just a moment before. “Here I am making light of something that was really tragic to you. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad.”

  “You didn’t. There’s not much that could make me feel worse than that. When I think about how much in love we used to be, and how it could turn into that…”

  “She’s jealous.”

  “What? She’s not jealous. She’s angry. She thinks that I… we disagreed on a very important subject… and I think she blames me for what happened to her. She’s not jealous of me. She doesn’t want anything to do with me.”

  “I beg to differ.” Kenzie reached across the table and put her warm, smooth fingers over his. “I saw her face. She was shocked to see you here, but she didn’t get really angry until she saw me.”

  “She can’t be jealous. She hates me.”

  “No, she doesn’t. She’s angry with you, but she doesn’t hate you.”

  Zachary shook his head. “You only saw her for a few seconds. I’ve lived with her. I’m the one who has had to live through this disastrous divorce. I know.”

  “Okay. You know. Let me just say that she has no right to treat you that way, and I’m sorry you had to put up with that crap. You deserve better.”

  Zachary shook his head. If Kenzie knew all about everything, he was sure she wouldn’t say that.

  “Don’t let her get to you,” Kenzie advised.

  “Yeah.”

  “Let’s go across the street for dessert. They have these fantastic, chocolate-mousse-filled croissants. They are just to die for. I don’t think I can eat a whole one myself, so even if you’re not in the mood to eat the rest of your sandwich, you still have to help me with dessert.”

  Zachary couldn’t help but smile at this. Chocolate-mousse-filled croissants sounded like a pretty good solution to his troubles.

  Zachary’s next step was to develop a map of the area surrounding Isabella’s house. The police had done plenty of sketches of the crime scene and the route from the back yard to the pond, but Zachary had something different in mind.

  He started with the list of sex offenders that the police had identified and spoken to and pinned each address on a digital map. Then he went to a few other sites to track down houses that had been reported as marijuana growing operations, where violent crimes had been committed, or which had been condemned by the Board of Health. The pins on the map became thicker. Zachary knew that any other neighborhood would look the same. No one could escape all the sickos.

  Once he had his map finished, he would take a drive around the neighborhood, checking out each of the houses in question. Chances were, everything would be quiet, and nothing would seem off. But maybe… maybe someone would object to his surveillance, or a face would be familiar, or someone would act in a way that identified them as a suspect. The police should already have visited most of the houses, just as they had the sex offenders, but there were no notes on the file he had reviewed saying that they had. It was always possible that he
would turn up something more.

  Checking out all the pinned locations on his map had turned out to be an all-day affair. Zachary had only expected it to take a couple of hours, but he had obviously made his canvassing area too big. He had gone according to the area the police had used for the sex offender canvass, but they had plenty of cops to run them down, and Zachary had only his two feet. At least he didn’t need to interview everyone, just to snoop around.

  He did end up talking to a few people when he was confronted by homeowners or neighbors who didn’t like him sneaking around, but mostly his reconnaissance was ignored. People who wanted to know what he was doing backed off pretty quickly when he explained he was investigating Declan Bond’s death. Most of them.

  He was footsore and spirit-weary when he got back to his apartment at the end of the day. Second-guessing why he was still investigating the case. Everything pointed toward an accident. There was no malevolent force behind young Declan’s death. Just a child who had wandered out of an enclosed yard while his mother’s back was turned. Tragic, but there was no one to blame.

  Zachary could see from the end of the hall that there was something taped to his door. His stomach tightened. A notice from the landlord that his rent was going up or they’d had to access his apartment because of a burst pipe? A neighbor who had some complaint about him? He drew up to the door and looked at it.

  Drop the investigation.

  He stared at the note.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d been told to back out of a case, but it was usually face-to-face with a lover who had caught on to his surveillance and was furious about it. A couple of times by the police, who felt like he was interfering with one of their cases with an accident reconstruction or interviews with the victims. A note on his door; that was a first.

  Zachary tried the handle and found, to his relief, that it was still locked. He had envisioned the scene from a bad TV drama; finding the door unlocked and walking into his apartment to find that it had been tossed, maybe a dead body left in the bathtub or something equally sinister.