Chapter 3
Eden couldn’t help herself. She picked up her phone, and, as soon as Eric answered, she asked, “Did you get the autopsy results?”
“Good morning,” he muttered, yawning.
She winced and quickly checked the time. “Sorry, I guess it’s a little early.”
“Yes, it absolutely is a little early,” he confirmed, “particularly when that is also not my only case. I was out working on another case into the wee hours last night.”
This time she really did wince. “Okay, … well, I’m really sorry.”
“Hey, don’t let me pressure you into feeling sorry,” he quipped, but enough laughter filled his tone that she realized he wasn’t angry with her.
“I should have at least looked at the clock.”
“What time is it?” he asked, as another yawn engulfed him.
“It’s seven.”
“Is it really?” he asked. “Dang, I guess I got some sleep then after all.”
“Good, I’m glad somebody did,” she muttered. “So what about my question?”
“I have no idea if we have the autopsy results back or not,” he admitted. “Again, I’m not awake, and, as of last night, we did not have them. If they’re in now, I don’t know yet because I haven’t had a chance to check my emails, because—”
She groaned. “Let me guess, because I just woke you up and because you’re not up and moving yet?”
“Nope, I’m sure not,” he stated, with a chuckle. “I will do my best to get there soon though.”
“Right,” she muttered. “Will you call me back and let me know?”
“I will,” he said, his voice gentling, “and, just so you know, I won’t even call at seven in the morning.”
“You could though,” she pointed out. She needed him to understand what she was going through, without telling him that. “I haven’t had a good night’s sleep since.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he replied, “but remember that we don’t know that the autopsy will give us any definite answers.”
“I understand, but that in itself will be an answer.”
“But not an easy one,” he noted. “I mean, we want answers. We want to know how, why, when, and by whom, but we don’t always get that. Particularly in the world I live in, we often don’t get anything even close to that.”
“I don’t think I could do your job,” she muttered.
He paused, and, when he spoke, his tone was serious. “I never did ask you what you did for work.”
“I’m a graphic designer and work part-time at home but go into the office for one to two days a week.”
“Does that give you enough work to survive?”
She gave a brutal laugh. “What constitutes making a living can be subjective these days, but there is more than plenty of work, as long as my brain is functioning enough to do it,” she clarified.
“I used to work remotely, until everybody was ordered back into the office. I decided I didn’t want to burn the midnight oil anymore, but, of course, the work-life balance thing comes at a cost,” she conceded.
“And now, when something like this happens, the cost is even higher because it’s much harder to get my act together and to produce, especially when I’m devastated over a turn of events that I’m not ready to accept. ”
“Of course,” he acknowledged. “However, I don’t want to sound the alarm, but you do need to be prepared for the fact that there may never be any answers, other than just the reality that she’s dead.”
Eden considered that and then sighed. “I know that’s a possibility,” she acknowledged, “but you’re right. I’m not at all ready to accept that.”
“I hear that,” he said. “I have seen enough to know that grief is a hard thing to make peace with. Anyway, let me wake up, have some coffee, check my emails, and get into the office.” She heard him moving around on the other end. “Then I will give you a call.”
“Fine,” she muttered, ending the call. She wasn’t exactly the nicest to him, considering she needed his help. However, she wasn’t doing very well at currying any favors right now.
It was so damn hard to sit here and wait, knowing that other people had access to information and didn’t seem to be particularly bothered to share it. Then she chastised herself for that assumption.
“Don’t be an idiot,” she muttered. “You don’t know anything about what Eric was doing or about the other cases he’s working on.” He was a detective in a big station. Of course he would be working on multiple cases at the same time.
She got up and poured herself a second cup of coffee and sat back down, staring at the work in front of her. She really did have work to do, but it was so darn hard to focus, and yet she abso-fucking-lutely needed to because this would not be an easy week if she couldn’t get her act together.
She had things that needed her attention, and dealing with work wouldn’t come easy when she didn’t have any interest in doing it.
Knowing she needed to do something to switch this all around—and realizing just how far behind in her work she was—she got up, walked into her living room, and turned on the music that she preferred.
In this case it was sound bowls. Then she dropped herself onto a yoga mat and into a light meditation, her entire focus on trying to get back on track with her work.
She couldn’t do anything for Debbie at this point, but Eden definitely needed to do something for herself.
When she finally pulled back out of it, she heard her phone ringing.
She glanced down, surprised to see it was Eric. “Hello,” she said, her voice still almost disengaged from the world around her.
“Are you okay?” he asked sharply.
She gave her head a shake. “Yes, yes, of course.”
“Did I … disturb you or something?”
“Or something,” she replied, a note of humor in her tone. “I was literally just coming out of a meditation.”
He paused, then asked, “You do that too, huh?”
“What do you mean too?”
“Every once in a while, when I can’t get any work done,” he began, “I drop into a meditation in order to clear my head and to change everything going on around me.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I was trying to do. I’ve been unable to focus on my work, and I needed to pull it together. I’ve still got bills to pay, and I have a commitment to my employer, but Debbie’s death has all been so very distressing. It’s been difficult.”
“It might be distressing, but having your own life fall to pieces because of what happened to Debbie won’t help anyone.”
“You can preach that all day long,” she countered, “yet it doesn’t change the fact that I still need answers. My mind won’t quit churning this over and over.” She didn’t tell him how her mind always did this, filling with thoughts seemingly out of nowhere.
“I did get a partial autopsy report back.”
“Anything you can tell me, and why partial?”
“We don’t yet have the tox screen back, but no obvious cause of death was found, which we told you already. Nothing suspicious was found in the autopsy. For all intents and purposes, her heart just stopped, which—considering her pre-existing heart condition …”
Eden stared down at the phone, not sure what to say to that.
“Are you okay?” Eric asked.
She shrugged, trying hard to shake off the feeling of despair. “Does that really happen?” Her voice shook and broke.
“Yes, not often, but we do sometimes have autopsy results where we find absolutely no cause of death. However, considering the number of pill bottles beside her, we’re assuming that will be the cause, but we won’t know until the tox screen results come in.”
Eden was silent for a long moment.
“Obviously, at this point, we’re waiting for the tox screen to know exactly what she took or … was given.”
“It just never occurred to me that this would happen. She was the opposite of suicidal. Someone else must be involved.”
“If we can’t prove it,” he began, “then this goes nowhere.”
She was stunned and could only stare down at the phone. “But that’s so … wrong.”
“It might be wrong,” he conceded, “but again it all comes down to what we can prove. So, if we find no proof of any wrongdoing, I can do absolutely nothing about it.”
She closed her eyes and sank back, tears wanting to rip through her. Yet, for the most part, she was able to hold them back as she contemplated everything he just shared.
“I know that’s not what you want to hear, and, until we get that tox screen, we won’t have anything more conclusive to go by.”
“So, what then? It’s just case closed? What does that mean?” she whispered.
“Not necessarily,” he clarified. “You need to wait and let us figure it out. I do have to talk to the team and see if anything pops up, but I will need a cause of death first.” He took a deep breath and added, “And I can’t just create that out of nothing.”
“So, you can’t prove murder if you don’t have a cause of death?” she asked.
He thought about it and replied, “Murder may have been done here, but we would have to prove that they did something first, and then try to find the way that whoever may have done this … if somebody did this,” he corrected emphatically.
“It is something that I would have to look at from a completely different angle. Nothing about this is easy.”
“No, it’s not,” she grumbled. “Believe me that I know that.” She heard his heavy sigh and added, “I’m not trying to make this a bigger deal than it is.”
“Are you sure?” he asked, with a note of half-hearted humor. “I mean, I get it. She’s your friend. She’s dead, and you can’t quite accept what happened here.”
“It’s got nothing to do with the way of it all,” she declared, “but it would be very hard for me to accept that she’s just gone, with no reason, with no explanation as to what happened.”
“And I get that. I really do. You’re not the first person to have somebody die and to not know how or why.”
“No, I might not be the first, and I understand that.” She paused. “So now you’ll try and tell me that this happens, and, yes, it’s a shame, but you can’t do anything about it?”
“Don’t jump the gun just yet. I will do whatever I can do, … if there is anything I can do,” he stated, his tone firm. “I’ll get off the phone now. If I have news, I will contact you.” Without saying anything else, he ended the call.