Chapter 1

Kenzie’s ringer sounded. That wouldn’t have been unusual except that she had it turned to silent mode during their visit with Lorne Peterson and his partner Patrick Parker. The ring wasn’t just her generic ringtone, but the “urgent” trill that meant it was a work call, and it was programmed to bypass silent mode so that she couldn’t miss it.

Zachary’s head went up and he looked at her, dark eyes surprised. “What’s that?”

He knew very well that it was her ringtone for the Medical Examiner’s Office.

“Sorry,” Kenzie apologized, standing up from the breakfast table. “I need to take this.”

“You’re not supposed to be on call today,” Zachary objected as she hurried away from the table.

“I know that,” Kenzie snapped. Which meant that something serious was going on. A mass casualty event? What would justify Dr. Wiltshire’s calling her when she was supposed to be off all weekend for their visit to the Petersons?

She retreated to the guest room she and Zachary were sleeping in, pulling out her phone and swiping the answer slider so that it wouldn’t go to voicemail before she had a chance to pick it up in private. She closed the door and raised the phone to her ear.

“Kenzie here.”

“Kenzie, I’m sorry to call you on your weekend off,” Dr. Wiltshire apologized, his voice sounding stressed. “Believe me, I didn’t forget you were supposed to have the day off today.”

“What’s happened?”

“The perfect storm. We have an autopsy that needs to be done right away. Urgent political pressure. Which is fine; normally, that would not be a problem and I would just take care of it.”

“Right.”

He was a well-trained, experienced medical examiner, the man who was teaching Kenzie everything she needed to know. There was no one better qualified to do the autopsy.

Especially one that apparently had political repercussions.

“The thing is… I broke my hand.”

“What?” Kenzie heard her own voice go up several notes higher than usual. “How did you do that?”

“A stupid accident. That is not important right now. What is important is that this autopsy cannot be put off, and I’m sidelined. I haven’t had a chance to line up someone who can do overflow work for us while my hand is healing, and they want it done now.”

“Yes. I understand. I’m sorry about your hand. I guess… I’ll say my goodbyes here and get packed and come back. I’ll be a couple of hours.” Kenzie ran one hand through her long, spiraling curls.

“I apologize. It shouldn’t have happened. You need your downtime. But…”

“It is what it is,” Kenzie agreed, shrugging. He couldn’t control the fact that he was getting pressure from above to do the important autopsy immediately. And he certainly had not planned to break his hand.

How bad was the break? He could be out of commission for anything from a few weeks to months of healing and physio. Or if he were unable to regain full use of his hand… Her stomach plummeted at the thought of his having to leave the medical examiner’s office.

“I appreciate it, Kenzie. I’ll be here to provide any assistance or advice. I just can’t do the manual work.”

“Okay. I’ll see you in a few hours, then.”

Kenzie terminated the call and looked around the room. They hadn’t brought much with them. They had only stayed over one night so Zachary would have time to visit his sister Joss as well as the Petersons. Lorne was an old foster father of Zachary’s, the only parent he had stayed in touch with over the years, bonded by a love of photography and Lorne’s dedication to a lost and broken boy he thought he could do something for.

Rather than immediately telling Zachary about having to return to Roxboro and pulling him away from the discussion with his chosen family, Kenzie started packing. Pajamas, Zachary’s meds, and charging cables went into the suitcase. The door opened and Zachary peeked in.

“You’re off the phone?”

“Yeah.”

Zachary looked at her for a moment, then down at the suitcase. The smile disappeared from his face, replaced with an expression of concern.

“What happened?”

“They need me to come back to do an autopsy. Something urgent. Dr. Wiltshire broke his hand.”

“Oh, no!” He sounded immediately concerned for Dr. Wiltshire, which made Kenzie feel guilty because she had expected him to be upset about cutting their visit short and had been prepared to defend herself, pointing out that she had no control over the circumstances. “Is he going to be okay?”

“It sounded like it. He said he’ll be waiting for me at the office, so he must not be at the hospital.” The morgue was in the basement of the police department building, not at the hospital. “I’ll find out when I get there. I didn’t ask for details.”

Zachary looked around the room. “Do you need help with anything else?”

“I’ve got this. Check the bathroom to make sure neither of us left anything in there. And… I’ll make apologies to Lorne and Pat.”

“It’s fine. They understand that sometimes things come up. You can’t exactly control when people die.”

Kenzie appreciated the support. He was being understanding and supportive, but she was angry. It was the first time in a year that she had specifically booked off a full weekend for some downtime with Zachary and his family. She couldn’t blame Dr. Wiltshire for the circumstances, but she was ticked off and wanted someone to take it out on. She closed the suitcase, which was soft-sided and did not respond with a satisfying bang.

“Let’s just get ready.”

Zachary left the bedroom ahead of her and walked down the hall to check the bathroom while she walked the suitcase to the door.

“I’m so sorry,” she apologized to the two men. “I’m not supposed to be on call. Nothing was supposed to happen to interrupt me this weekend. But…”

“Things happen,” Lorne said understandingly.

Pat nodded his agreement. “I’ll put the coffee in travel cups for you. And I could make some breakfast sandwiches while you guys get ready…”

Kenzie looked toward the table, where they had just started to eat the delicious breakfast spread Pat had prepared. She hated having to leave so abruptly. Having Pat make it into sandwiches for them would take a few minutes and be extra work on his part. Still, the alternative was leaving all of the food and not being able to appreciate his efforts. Her mother’s voice in her head told her it was rude not to eat it after he had gone to so much work.

“Uh… sure. That would be lovely.”

Pat brightened at her words, obviously having anticipated that she would say no. “Great! It will take no time at all. Just give me a couple of minutes while you put your bags in the car and say goodbye.”

Kenzie smiled and nodded. Pat picked up the eggs, ham, and other ingredients to make into breakfast sandwiches and retreated to the kitchen.

“Thank you,” Lorne said with a smile, laugh lines fanning out around his eyes and mouth. “You made his day.”

“Happy to help. And it saves us having to stop somewhere on the way for gas station snacks or fast food. My body and my taste buds will thank me for it.”

Kenzie gave the older man a quick hug as Zachary returned from the bathroom, holding up his empty hands to show that there wasn’t anything else to go in the suitcase. Kenzie took the luggage out to the car, leaving him to say his goodbyes.

Chapter 2

Did he say who died?” Zachary asked, as he smoothly maneuvered the car through multiple lanes of traffic, the speedometer climbing.

“He knows it will take a couple of hours,” Kenzie told him. “Slow down.”

Zachary looked at the speedometer and touched the brakes to slow the car down just slightly.

“He didn’t say who it was,” Kenzie said. “And I didn’t stay on the phone to ask. The sooner I get there, the sooner I’ll know everything and be able to get started on it. He said it was political, so I assume…” Kenzie shrugged as she thought about it. “Probably some old guy. Dropped dead in his club or mistress’s bedroom and they want to stay ahead of the gossip and headlines.”

Zachary grinned. “But you’re not cynical or anything.”

“I know too much about how politics works from Dad’s work. Dr. Wiltshire didn’t give me any details, but just the fact that he said it is political makes me assume it’s not someone who just died in their sleep last night.”

“No, you’re probably right about that,” Zachary admitted. He made a quick lane switch that made Kenzie’s heart race. But no one honked and, so far, she had never seen him pulled over by the cops for speeding. If he were, they would probably let him off with a warning if Kenzie apologized and pled that she was trying to get back to Roxboro quickly to get to a law enforcement matter. And maybe it would teach Zachary to take things a little more slowly.

But probably not.

They got into a clear lane, and he leaned back, relaxing, getting into the groove of a highway drive, which always seemed to calm his ADHD brain.

It didn’t take the full two hours to get to the medical examiner’s office, and Dr. Wiltshire didn’t mention anything about the time when he met with Kenzie.

“Again, I’m sorry for doing this to you,” he apologized, “Thank you for making the time. I know this is not how you expected to spend your Sunday. Can I get you something? You probably need lunch.”

“No, I ate on the way. I’m good for a while. So, what have we got?”

The first shock was that it was not an old man. Dr. Wiltshire led Kenzie to her usual autopsy table and pulled back the sheet from a very small figure. A boy, a toddler of two-and-a-half or three, by Kenzie’s guess. Slight build. Blond hair and a round face.

Kenzie shook her head. “I thought you said this was political.”

Dr. Wiltshire sighed. “Michael Wade, son of Crispin ‘Cash’ Wade. Friend of the governor, currently a congressman, moves in all the right social circles.”

Kenzie took this in. She shook her head, thinking about it. “So he and the governor are putting pressure on the medical examiner’s office to have the autopsy done instantly, so there are no questions raised in the newspapers or social media.”

Wiltshire nodded. “People like this don’t want there to be any lingering questions about a death in the family. They want a statement as to the cause of death. A tragic accident, unavoidable, all that kind of thing. We’ll oblige them the best we can. It looks like a simple open-and-shut case, but you can never predict complicating factors.”

“No,” Kenzie agreed. She looked at the body on the table.

It was, at first glance, unremarkable. The child looked as if he had been healthy in life. The cavitation in the front of his skull indicated he had met with a pretty strong force. A car accident or fall from a significant height, most likely. She shuddered, glad that she did not have any children of her own. She couldn’t imagine trying to deal with the sudden and tragic death of a child she had thought healthy and happy. It had been hard enough when they had lost Amanda, Kenzie’s sister, as a young adult, after a long and protracted battle with kidney disease. At least they had known what was coming and knew that she was no longer suffering.

“What’s the story?” Kenzie asked. She picked up the file on the counter, which should have the basic scene details, but she wanted to hear everything Dr. Wiltshire thought might be important from the start.

“Fall from a third-floor window. Apparently, the boy’s caregiver was not with him, didn’t realize he had gotten into a room he wasn’t supposed to be in. There was a balcony. He went climbing like kids do and went over the rail.” Wiltshire’s voice was flat and clinical, removing himself from the situation. There was no point in their getting wrapped up in the emotions of a tragic case. They carried a lot of burdens and couldn’t spend a lot of time and energy grieving over the loss of a person they hadn’t even known. Enough of the tragedy of a case would seep in through the cracks in the walls they built around themselves without their opening the door.

Kenzie nodded and followed his lead, not letting herself think about the family’s loss and the tragedy of a young life cut short. She was lucky to live in modern times when the death of a child was a rare event rather than something that every family went through multiple times. In days gone by, it had not been unusual to lose several children in infancy or early childhood. They were privileged. There were places in the world where that was still true.

She dressed, scrubbed, and tapped the button on the floor to make her initial recording. She introduced the case with the patient name, date, and details of the death they had been given. It was clear that George had already examined the body for any forensic evidence and washed it in preparation for Kenzie’s arrival. Kenzie hadn’t seen him in the outer suite when she had come in. He had probably been called in especially for this case, as she had, and had gone home when he was finished preparing the body for her.

Kenzie proceeded with a gross examination of the body, carefully noting any defects, bruises, cuts, or anything else that might be important later. No birthmarks. A variety of bruises, as was the case for most toddlers. Kenzie studied them closely, and moved the body from front to back and then front again.

“Something of note?” Dr. Wiltshire asked.

“No. I don’t know. There are bruises on his arms, upper and lower, and on both his back and front.”

“Recent? From today?”

He could see the coloring as well as Kenzie could, and had drilled her in the past about the colors the bruises went through from the time they were inflicted until a week or two later. Everyone healed at different rates, of course, but the order of the colors was always the same, and the timeline could be estimated.

“No, nothing that is obviously today. But they wouldn’t be, would they? How long before the accident did he get out of bed?”

“Not long. It wasn’t clear from the report from the police at the scene whether he had been up interacting with a caregiver before the incident, or went straight from bed to the balcony before they knew he was up.”

There would be a number of people to interview, Kenzie suspected, and anyone who was closely connected to the boy might be too distressed to give a clear statement in the first few hours of the investigation.

“The bruises are a variety of ages,” Kenzie observed. “I know that kids get into trouble, some of them more than others. And some kids bruise quite easily. But… it seems like a lot.”

“Make sure they are all documented. You may want to try an alternative light source as well. You may be able to see other bruising under ALS.”

Kenzie nodded. It was tedious to measure, take pictures of, and describe each bruise. And the ones on the shins, knees, and elbows seemed to be the typical accidental injuries of a child just learning to get around in the world. But the documentation needed to be done before moving on to other things.

“What position was the body in when the police got there?” Kenzie asked, as she examined the signs of livor mortis, the settling of blood in the body after death.

“The child was on his back but had obviously been moved. The damage to the skull is in the front. That has to be the position he landed in.”

“Did the parents say they had moved the body?”

“They probably don’t know. It’s instinctive to turn the person over, look them in the face.”

Kenzie nodded. She recorded her thoughts and questions and proceeded. When she had finished with the gross examination, she moved on to the eyes, ears, and mouth. Unsurprisingly, all three showed traumatic changes. That would happen when plunging face-first into the pavement, even falling from just a few feet up. Kenzie took pictures and set aside one eyeball for microscopic examination.

She looked at the mouth, frowning. Dr. Wiltshire looked up at the screen as she took a few pictures and moved the camera in for a closer, enlarged view.

“Observations?” Dr. Wiltshire asked.

“No broken teeth. The blow was closer to the top of the head than the front of the face. But there is significant bruising and tearing of the frenula.”

“There is,” Dr. Wiltshire agreed.

Kenzie met his eyes, then returned to the autopsy. She examined the mouth injuries closely and considered the color of the bruising. Not bright red. Not sustained in the fall.

I hope you enjoyed this sample of

Endowed with Death

By P.D. Workman

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