“Now that Kyle is dead, can’t you get someone to help you?” said King. “They can send someone from Richmond or Roanoke.”
“But on such short notice it won’t be right away,” said Sylvia.
“But if he did die of an overdose, it won’t matter. You said you won’t have confirmation for a couple of weeks,” said Williams.
“But there might be other evidence that’s slowly disappearing as we speak,” said Sylvia sharply. “The body speaks to us after death, Todd, but the longer you wait, the softer the voice becomes.”
“Well, I’ll help you,” said Williams. “I need to attend the post anyway.” He added, “It’s becoming damn routine.”
As they were all walking out, King stopped Sylvia. “Are you okay?”
She looked at him with a sickened expression. “I think it’s possible Kyle committed suicide.”
“Suicide! Why?”
“He may have suspected I was on to his drug dealing.”
“But killing himself, that’s a little drastic. And the guy struck me as spineless. And there was no suicide note either.”
“Cowards kill themselves, Sean. They’re afraid to face the consequences of their actions.”
“And, what, you’re blaming yourself?”
“If it was suicide, I can think of no other reason than my suspicions.”
“That’s not fair to you, Sylvia. You didn’t ask the guy to steal drugs.”
“No, but—”
“Before you beat yourself up over this, why don’t you do the post? As good as you are, you can’t predict what happened until you do that.”
“But even the post won’t tell me if the overdose was accidental or intentional.”
“The bottom line is, it was Kyle’s choice. You had no control over it. And life is full of enough legitimate guilt without us adding the guilt of others to our burden.”
Sylvia managed a weak smile. “You’re a very wise man.”
“I’ve had lots of practice. Primarily dealing with my own stupid mistakes.”
“I’ll call you when I’m done with the post.”
“I sincerely hope this is the last one you’ll have to do for a long time.”
As he started to turn away, she said, “Last night was the most fun I’ve had in years.”
“I can say the same.”
As King and Michelle drove off, Michelle looked over at him. “Am I wrong, or have you and Sylvia rekindled your romance?” He shot her a glance but said nothing. “Come on, Sean, don’t feed me that line about my being your partner and not your shrink.”
“Why not? It’s still a valid point.”
She slumped back in her seat with a defeated expression. “Okay. Fine.”
“What do you care anyway?”
“I care because we’re right in the middle of a very complicated murder investigation, and we don’t need the best detective on the case and the brilliant medical examiner being distracted by a romance.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were jealous.”