"I'd think you'd have lots of those, both men and women."

"I'm more of a loner really. I paint and I fight in pretend battles."

"And you do them both extremely well," she said.

"Yes, you do," said another voice.

They looked over as King came walking in.

"Hey, Eddie," he said.

The men shook hands while Mich.e.l.le looked on self-consciously.

King glanced around at the art on the walls. "You've really got a tremendous eye."

"You sure my mother didn't pay you to say that?"

King looked at the wall of Civil War memorabilia. "An interesting collection."

"One of my few hobbies." He grinned at Mich.e.l.le. "You know, Sean, we need to get you into reenactments. I can see you up on a st.u.r.dy steed charging right into the teeth of a Union battery, sleeping with the mosquitoes and eating hardtack until your arteries pop."

King glanced at Mich.e.l.le and smiled. "The day you see that is the day the sky falls and kills us all," he said, paraphrasing Mich.e.l.le's response to Lulu's pole-dancing offer.

Eddie was about to say something when King's cell phone rang. He answered it, listened and then clicked off, his features very troubled.

"That was Sylvia. Kyle Montgomery's been found dead."

"What!" exclaimed Mich.e.l.le.

"Who's Kyle Montgomery?" asked Eddie, bewildered.

"Sylvia Diaz's a.s.sistant," answered Mich.e.l.le. "Was he murdered?"

"Sylvia's not sure. She said it looks right now like a drug overdose, but she's not convinced. She wants us to meet her at Kyle's apartment. Todd's there too."

The two hustled out. Mich.e.l.le called back over her shoulder, "Eddie, I'll give you a call. Thanks."

As they exited the building, Eddie looked at the wrapped portrait. "But you forgot your paint-" They were already out of earshot. He shrugged in disappointment and carried the painting upstairs.

CHAPTER 59.

THE FORENSICS TEAM HAD FINISHEDby the time they reached Kyle's apartment. He was still on the bed, his lifeless eyes fixed on the ceiling of the small, dank apartment.

Sylvia was looking down at him when King touched her on the shoulder. She turned, and there were tears in her eyes. She dabbed at them with her hand and straightened up, a.s.suming a more professional appearance.

"It's okay, Sylvia," said King. "You two weren't best friends but I know it still hurts."

She blew her nose into a tissue and nodded at the techs standing by. "You can take him."

They placed Kyle in a body bag and carried it out.

Todd Williams came over to join them.

Mich.e.l.le said, "So itwas a drug overdose? We're not looking at another serial killing?" a drug overdose? We're not looking at another serial killing?"

The chief shook his head. "No watch and no dog collar thing going on."

King was staring at Sylvia. "But on the phone you said you weren't sure it was a drug overdose."

"Certainly, we found indications that it was," she said slowly.

Williams added, "A syringe, rubber tourniquet and a needle mark on his forearm."

Sylvia said, "We need to run tests on any residue in the syringe to see what it was. That'll take a few days. And I'll run toxicology on the body fluids, but we won't know the results of those for at least two weeks."

"You can't tell from the autopsy what was shot into him?" asked Williams.

"Yes and no. If it was heroin, for example, which is a respiratory depressant, there might be some slight heaviness or congestion in the lungs and a foamy mucus in the airway, but it would be far from conclusive. The fact is, if he died of an overdose, the autopsy alone won't reveal what it was for certain. We have to rely on the toxicology results for that. If it was cocaine, the tox report will pick that up. If it was heroin, 6-monoacetylmorphine, a metabolite of heroin, will be found in the body. That's pretty conclusive proof of a heroin overdose."

"Maybe it was a drug from your office."

"Possible, but if the screens find 6-monoacetylmorphine in Kyle's blood or urine and don't find the presence of aspirin or Tylenol, that will be proof enough that it's not a prescription opiate narcotic in his system."

"Tylenol or aspirin?" asked Williams.

"Yes, because prescription opiates are frequently combined with those medications. That's not the case with heroin or cocaine or other street drugs."

"Who found him?" asked Mich.e.l.le.

"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 p.r.o.nto," 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 Mich.e.l.le.

"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 d.a.m.n 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 Mich.e.l.le drove off, Mich.e.l.le 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." 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, Mich.e.l.le. The last thing you need right now is for your judgment to be clouded."

Mich.e.l.le 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 ofstuff like that. And none of us are immune to it." like that. And none of us are immune to it."

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

"We're going to see Roger Canney. It seems he came into a substantial sum of money right around the time of his wife's death. Its origins are unclear."

"That's interesting."