“I hadn’t thought of those things. Seemed cut-and-dry.”

“Probably is. Occam’s razor. Investigations are standard for all unnatural deaths. Can I do anything else for you, Mr. Hart?”

“Doctor, actually. Dr. Hart.”

“Anything else?”

“No,” I say. “That’s all for now.” I hang up and open the door to find Simone standing in front of me with her fist raised, poised to knock. “Had to take a call,” I tell her. “Medical examiner’s office.”

“Zeb Walsh?” she asks. “Nice guy, right?” She doesn’t tell me how she knows this, when she spoke to him, what she said or didn’t, what her game is, just, “Your four o’clock is getting impatient.”

I check my watch. 4:26. “Send her in.”

Alexis

4:27.

Off the clock at five and still a mountain of paperwork to file.

“You coming out tonight, Diaz?” Lincoln asks me. Such a twinkle-in-the-eye kind of guy.

“Not tonight,” I say.

He laughs. “Maybe tomorrow.”

It’s a joke at this point. People want me to share their social lives, because they like their social lives and can’t imagine people not liking what they like. My personal life might as well be string theory—a way of thinking about existence that doesn’t jive with their concept of reality. Brains break around here when I say I’m happy on my own.

If these guys weren’t so annoying, I might be impressed by how hard they work to interpret my independence as low self-esteem. Randos like to tell me, unsolicited, that I’m a catch. They say it like I need convincing, which breaks my brain, because yeah, no shit, I’m a catch. Doesn’t mean I want to be caught. Definitely not by a colleague’s sister’s coworker’s friend’s tutor’s ex, who’s “really nice,” just not the tutor’s type.

“Maybe tomorrow, maybe not,” I tell Lincoln—and fine, I admit it feels good to be invited, despite the odds.

“Suspense.” He rolls his eyes. “See you tomorrow, Alexis.”

Four thirty. Half an hour to knock this out.

Top of the pile: traffic citation from the weekend. Tedium.

Robert Hart. The rainy day guy. Kind of an ass. Where do I know that name? I log into our system and track down his file. Clean record, but his name comes up in conjunction with a recent incident report. Very recent. Fatal accident. Well, shit. So that’s where I know his name.

This morning’s paper is still in my wastebasket. I shake off the dirty Kleenex and rice cake dust, open to the local page and find the death announcement under the “pending” section of the obits. There’s no funeral scheduled yet, no details or picture, but I google the dead kid and find his photo online in seconds.