Hour Game

"I did," said Williams. "After you called me this morning, I decided to handle it myself. I came here with a deputy. We knocked. There was no answer. His Jeep was parked in front, so we figured he was here. We called his apartment and his cell phone, but there was no answer. We didn't have a warrant to go in, but it was suspicious enough that I went to the super's office and got them to open it. That's when we found him."

"The core body temp and degree of rigor mortis suggest he's been dead less than twelve hours," opined Sylvia.

King checked his watch. "So sometime after midnight or so?"

"Yes."

"And no one saw anyone enter or leave the apartment?" asked King.

"We're still checking on that," said Williams.

"Okay, we need to find this mystery woman at the Aphrodisiac pronto," said King.

"I'm heading over there today," said Williams.

"We'd like to go with you, Todd," said King. "Can you hold off for a couple of hours and meet us there? We'll call you."

"I guess that won't hurt."

"When are you going to do the post, Sylvia?" asked Michelle.

"Right away. I've canceled my patients for the day."

"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 thebrilliant medical examiner being distracted by a romance."

"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were jealous."

"Oh, please!"

"I said if I didn't know better. And don't worry, right now everything else takes a backseat to this case." He paused and added, "I saw you and Eddie hugging."

She looked at him angrily. "You were spying on us!"

"No, I peeked in the window as I was going to the door to see if you were in there. I didn't know you two were trying to crawl inside each other's bodies."

"That's so unfair, Sean. I was just thanking him for a painting he did of me."

"Oh, he painted a portrait of you? That should make his intentions quite clear."

"He's unhappy."

"And it's not your job to fix that unhappiness," he retorted. "So just let it go, Michelle. The last thing you need right now is for your judgment to be clouded."

Michelle looked ready to argue but remained silent.

King continued, "He's an attractive, fun and nice guy who's had more than his share of tragedy, and to top it off he's caught in a miserable marriage. You wouldn't be the first woman in history to want to help a man like that."

"You sound like you've experienced stuff like that."

"The world is full of stuff like that. And none of us are immune to it."

"Okay, okay, I get the message. So where to now?"