Page 99 of The Session

There was a kitchen, a small bathroom, and a bedroom. Mark opened the mirror to the medicine cabinet. There he found an assortment of pills and over-the-counter painkillers, as well as shaving cream and plastic razors.

Often, people who were experienced users had other paraphernalia like lighters, tweezers, roach clips, and, in some cases, vitamins that took the edge off certain recreational pharmaceuticals.

Other than a large bottle of multivitamins, Mark didn’t see anything that suggested Kevin was using drugs.

But that didn’t really mean anything. It just meant that the obvious signs weren’t there. They could have been sanitized.

Mark retraced his steps back to Kevin’s bedroom. There was a queen-size mattress with colorful sheets next to a nightstand opposite an open closet with empty racks and shelves. It looked like what you would find at an Airbnb rental—clues that somebody lived there, but no direct evidence.

The kitchen was small. There was a breakfast nook against one wall next to a window, and then a refrigerator and sink below another window. The stove was a small gas range resting on the counter. No dishwasher.

Mark admired that Kevin was willing to give up all the niceties that had been made available to him to live a somewhat simpler life. Although a Caribbean beach house overlooking a million-dollar view wasn’t exactly Mark’s idea of simple.

Inside the refrigerator was a half-empty twelve-pack of Diet Coke, a six-pack of Heineken with only one bottle left, and an entire shelf filled with bottled water.

Mark walked back to the sliding glass door and stared out at the small jetty where Tru said Kevin’s body had been found.

Waves gently crashed against the rocky outcropping. Mark could easily visualize how the kayak could wash partially ashore. If Kevin had been murdered and that was the scene of the crime, there would be no evidence. All footprints and debris that might have indicated foul play would have been washed away by sea and storms.

Mark turned around to face the living room. The only evidence he could reliably count on would be here, but he was not a detective or a forensic technician. He didn’t have a fingerprint kit, luminol, or anything else other than what he’d brought with him.

You’re not a detective, but you are a paramedic, Mark told himself.

He glanced back at the outcropping in the bay.

If we found your body out there, we would immediately suspect drowning and then look for a cause, Mark thought, then returned his attention to the living room.

“But if I found you lying unconscious on the floor here, where would I look?”

Mark’s instincts took over and he walked back into the kitchen, opened the cupboard beneath the sink, and pulled out a plastic garbage container.

He slipped on his gloves and sifted through the trash. It was just a few paper towels, bottles, and bottle caps. Nothing rotting that would cause the people who cleared out Kevin’s belongings to feel the need to take the bag with them.

Mark used his phone to take photographs of the interior, then began to sift through the debris.

Aside from the paper towels and two empty water bottles, there were two Heineken bottles. But when Mark dug deeper, his hands touched metal, and he retrieved five bottle caps.

Counting the bottle in the refrigerator, there were a total of six bottle caps, but only three bottles accounted for. Where were the other three?

He returned to the bedroom and looked more closely at the area around the mattress. He got down on his hands and knees and looked under the bed. The floor was relatively clean, but he could smell a scent like dried beer, as if there had been a spill that evaporated.

He did another circuit around the house, looking in cupboards and drawers, checking for the missing bottles. They weren’t anywhere to be found.

Mark walked out to the deck and peered over the railing. The water was crystal clear, and he could see all the way to the bottom, where rocks formed the foundation around the wooden pillars supporting the house. He didn’t take Kevin for the kind of person who would casually toss beer bottles into the ocean, and he didn’t see a collection of beer bottles under the waves.

Mark took a seat on a wooden beach chair that faced the bay. The missing bottles by themselves didn’t say much, but they did fit a tentative theory he was entertaining.

If Kevin was killed and drugs were found in his system, that would suggest they had to get there somehow. Spiking a beer bottle with an overdose of fentanyl or another drug could be a possibility. If he was by himself or around somebody who wasn’t cooperative, Kevin might have been incapable of calling for help. Placing him in a kayak and releasing him into the bay wouldn’t have been difficult.

In Mark’s experience, the severely inebriated and stoned were somehow drawn to dangerous water like magnets. So many drunk and incapacitated people managed to drown on the waterfront by Austin, Texas, that it began to fuel rumors of a serial killer.

“Okay, Kevin. Everybody seems to agree that you were probably under the influence of a drug when you died. The question is, Was it voluntary or not?” he asked the house. “Did you sit out here in the morning and have a beer or two before the day began? Did other people know that? Did you have company? Maybe somebody you knew?”

Mark stood up and looked back into the living room, then to where Tru said Kevin’s body was found. Assuming he became incapacitated at the house, somebody would have had to carry or assist him into the kayak. The easiest way to do that would have been to pull the kayak into the water near the beach house, place Kevin into it, and then paddle him out toward where he was found.

Mark walked around the deck and down the steps to where the kayaks rested underneath the tarp. Last time, he took a photo because something had stood out to him. When he looked at the image later, nothing glared back at him. Still, he’d had a glimmer of a thought about what might have happened.

Drowning Kevin might not have been easy and could have required significant force. Even if drugged, a drowning body can flood the nervous system with adrenaline, turning the victim suddenly alert and more than able to fight back.