The Candidate Coroner

by Paul Austin Ardoin

  “She’s checking to see if the Potemkins—well, Jeremy Chauncey Kapp and his mistress, whoever she is—left any fingerprints on paperwork in the hotel files.”

  “Of course. I should have asked for that before I left.” He cleared his throat. “As soon as she gets back, then. Don’t move until she takes it off your hands. If the earring turns out to be Charlotte’s, neither one of us can work on the case.”

  “Of course. Because she’s my stepmother.”

  “And because she’s married to the guy who’s bankrolling my campaign for mayor,” McVie said. “Oh, Barry Klein will have a field day with this if it gets out.”

  “Okay,” Fenway said.

  Fenway hung up. She waited for ten minutes before Melissa appeared on the path.

  “Ten minutes—that was quick.”

  “She called someone when I asked to see the files. Took a while. Then she told me to get a warrant. I didn’t have the strength to argue.” She folded her arms. “I thought you were going to meet me at the van.”

  Fenway held up the evidence bag with the earring.

  “What’s that?”

  “I think it’s my stepmother’s earring.”

  “Where did you find it? In the villa?”

  “No, the planter.” Fenway pointed to the dirt where she had pulled the earring loose from the stems. “Right there. And since she’s my stepmother, McVie told me to give it directly to you.”

  Melissa rolled her eyes, taking the evidence bag from Fenway. “As if walking a hundred feet is going to make any difference.”

  “That’s our Boy Scout.”

  They both searched the planters directly in front of the villa, but found nothing out of the ordinary.

  It was nearly eleven o’clock when Melissa dropped Fenway off at her Accord, promising to log the earring into evidence.

  Fenway, lost in thought on the drive to her apartment, struggled to explain to herself how that earring could have gotten to that particular spot without Charlotte being involved somehow in the murder.

  When she pulled into her apartment complex, there was a floral delivery van with its hazards on blocking her parking space. The clock in her car read eleven-fifteen by the time she pulled into an open space next to the reserved parking, and she sprinted upstairs.

  She wrapped her hair and jumped into the shower, soaping herself down quickly, and she was out in less than five minutes. She went into her bedroom, and put on the dress Millicent had selected for the luncheon. The dress was a bright electric blue, a color she never wore, fitted through the shoulders and waist with a flared knee-length skirt. She had objected that it looked too casual on her five-ten frame, but Millicent said it was perfect to fit in with the teachers: professional, but not trying too hard. She took the index cards off her bedside table.

  She grabbed her purse and ran through the speech once in her head, wondering if she’d recognize any of her teachers from her younger days in Estancia.

  She got to the parking lot before she noticed it.

  On her silver Honda Accord, all down the driver’s side, was a large word, spray-painted in capital letters in neon green.

  Fenway wanted to throw up.

  THE FIRST TIME FENWAY heard that word—as her father had called it—was when she was in first grade. She attended the Montessori school in North Estancia. Benjy Prescott had pushed her off the swing, and she said she was going to tell Miss Trudy. And Benjy Prescott had pointed at her and said it. Benjy had been given a time out and apologized to Fenway, but the apology was for calling her names, not for pushing her off the swing.

  Her mother often picked her up from school, or sometimes her father’s driver, but that day it had been her father, Nathaniel Ferris himself. Fenway hadn’t seen him all week—he had been off on a business trip—but he had landed earlier in the day and hoped to take Fenway to get ice cream. Fenway told him what Benjy had said. His face had clouded over. He asked her questions about Benjy Prescott. Fenway had been mad that he pushed her off the swing and never said sorry.

  Nathaniel Ferris had launched into a rambling explanation and Fenway lost the thread of it twenty seconds in. But she noticed the next day Benjy wasn’t there; in fact, he never came back, and the Montessori school had brand new playground equipment installed about two weeks later. That was also when she started to notice her skin was darker than everyone else’s. And Benjy Prescott’s friends started avoiding her.

  FENWAY FOUND HERSELF inside her apartment again, calling Millicent Tate.

  “Fenway for Coroner, Millicent Tate’s office,” said a familiar smooth baritone on the other end.

  “Hi, Marquise,” Fenway said. “Is she in?”

  “She’s making donor calls.”

  “I’ll hold.”

  “She’s got about a dozen calls left,” he said.

  “It’s urgent. Please have her talk with me when she’s through with her current call.”

  “Will do, boss,” Marquise said. He put her on hold, and the radio commercial of Fenway Stevenson for County Coroner came on. It did well with the focus group, Millicent had said.

  “Hey, Fenway,” Millicent said. “What’s up? Everything okay?”

  “Nope,” she said, far more cheerfully than she felt. “I need something fixed fast.”

  “Oh my God. What is it? Are you pregnant? Have you been arrested?”

  “Someone spray-painted something on the side of my car. I need to get it off right now.”

  “Spray-painted something.”

  “A racial slur.”

  “A what?”

  “Some asshole spray-painted nigger on my car.”

  There was silence for a few seconds.

  “Millicent, are you there?”

  “I’m sorry—I—I’m stunned, I guess.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m stunned too, but I’ve gotta get to the teachers’ union luncheon, and I’m not going to drive anywhere with that on my car.”

  “Of course, of course,” Millicent Tate said quickly. She thought for a moment. “Where is your car now?”

  “At my apartment complex.”

  “Okay. Hang on two seconds.”

  Millicent Tate put Fenway on hold and the radio commercial played again. The commercial ended and some bland instrumental pop song came on, then after about a minute faded out, and the commercial started again.

  Millicent picked back up. “Okay, I’ll get someone over there right now, and I mean, right now, to take the car and get it cleaned up. When did this happen? Last night?”

  “No. About ten minutes ago. I came home to change clothes and when I came out it was on the car.”

  “In broad daylight?”

  “Yeah, imagine that. A racist, right here in Estancia. I’m so shocked you could knock me over with a feather.”

  “Okay, Fenway, stop it. I’m on your side. I’m trying to fix this. Do you have any idea who did it?”

  Fenway’s hackles raised. Millicent Tate might be on her side, but Fenway was sure she had never had anything spray-painted on her car, or been taunted by a group of first graders for her skin color. But she paused and took a deep breath, trying to remember what her goal was in this interaction, and it wasn’t trying to make Millicent Tate more sensitive. “I can’t imagine anyone who’d do this. Maybe Barry Klein or Richard Ivanovich, but that seems, uh, counterproductive.”

  “Klein?”

  “He doesn’t like me. He never has. I didn’t tell you what happened a few months ago.”

  “With the pictures in your professor’s office?”

  “Oh, I guess I did tell you.”

  “Your father told me. I wondered why he wanted to spend so much money on me, and then I found out it was personal. He doesn’t care for Dr. Klein.”

  “That’s probably the only thing my father and I have in common.”

  Millicent Tate laughed. “Oh, sure. Right. That’s a hoot.”

  Fenway bristled. She and her father had nothing in common. He threw money at problems, never
wanting to spend time and effort of his own. And as much as he loved clashing with everyone when it came to his precious oil company, he ran away from interpersonal conflict.

  Millicent Tate was still talking. “Okay, listen, Rory is on his way. Meet him at your car with the key. He’ll trade you for his car and you’ll have your Honda back tomorrow morning. Maybe even sooner. If this is still fresh, we might be able to get it off with acetone or carnauba wax.”

  “You sure know a lot about getting spray paint off.”

  “I know a lot about a lot of things. That’s why I get the big bucks.”

  “What does Rory drive?”

  “Does it matter? You’ll get to the luncheon. Personally, I wouldn’t care if it’s an ice cream truck. But if you don’t want to drive it, what do I care? Take the damn bus. Listen, I gotta go. Anything else?”

  “No. Thanks, Millicent.”

  “I’m glad it wasn’t anything serious.” And she hung up.

  Fenway sighed. It wasn’t anything serious. Millicent was nothing if not ruthlessly efficient. Insensitive, perhaps, but ruthlessly efficient.

  She walked down the stairs again, pulling the Honda key off her keychain. It was almost lunchtime, but the apartment complex might as well have been deserted. Everyone was at work or school or running errands. She heard a door open and looked up. Her neighbor from the third floor was leaving his apartment. Fenway saw him walk down the two flights of stairs and turn toward his car, parked on the street. He didn’t give the spray-painted Accord a glance.

  A decade-old Chrysler minivan drove into the complex; Rory was behind the wheel. He stopped in front of Fenway and got out of the car, leaving it running.

  “Hi, Miss Stevenson,” he said.

  “Good to see you again, Rory. They’ve got you working on your day off?”

  He grinned sheepishly. “Yeah.”

  “How are you doing on those lawn signs?”

  “Slower today. More people are at work.”

  “But you’re still ahead, right?”

  His grinned widened.

  “So they decided to let everyone else catch up to you and they sent you over here?”

  “I’m happy to do it, Coroner. But I’m sorry to hear about what happened to your car.”

  Fenway shrugged, although she felt like punching something.

  “My dad owns an auto-detailing shop,” Rory continued. “He gets graffiti off cars all the time. Miss Tate told me the graffiti’s less than a half-hour old, so it should be real easy to remove.”

  She nodded. “I appreciate it. Millicent said I could borrow your car?”

  Rory nodded. “It’s my dad’s, so be careful with it.”

  “No problem,” Fenway said. “You’ll be all right driving it?”

  Rory nodded. “The sooner we get it to my dad’s shop, the sooner we can get it off.”

  “Your dad’s okay with billing me?”

  Rory shook his head. “No payment needed. It’s gonna take my dad thirty minutes and some acetone.”

  “I insist, Rory. Have him bill me.”

  “No, ma’am,” Rory said, surprising Fenway with the force of his words. “My dad was clear you were not to pay for this.”

  “Okay then. Please tell him thank you.” She handed Rory the key and he nodded, then walked across the lot to her car. She climbed in the minivan and drove out of the parking lot, leaving Rory and her Accord behind her, trying to get the incident out of her brain, and her speech into it.

  She was aware she was breathing a little faster than usual and made an effort to calm down, inhaling deeply in through her nose and exhaling slowly through her mouth.

  She got to the luncheon only ten minutes late. Millicent had called ahead and said Fenway had car trouble—you have no idea, Fenway thought—and the speech went smoothly enough. Fenway faltered a couple of times, but her teacher jokes got decent laughs, and her lines about supporting school funding went over well. She didn’t eat, but shook a lot of hands afterward and felt sure that everyone could tell that her smile was fake, finding herself back in the minivan just after one o’clock.

  She set her purse on the passenger seat and closed her eyes, trying not to think of how much she hated campaigning.

  Her phone rang.

  It was from the 360 area code—north of Seattle. Maybe one of her friends from undergrad. But probably not. Probably, instead, a homicide detective from Bellingham.

  She had been waiting for—and dreading—this phone call for weeks.

  She cleared her throat before answering.

  “This is Fenway Stevenson.”

  Chapter Six

  “MISS STEVENSON, HELLO,” said the voice on the other end. The voice was buttery smooth and quite deep. Fenway thought he could have sung bass in a choir. Or love songs, all the girls throwing themselves on stage.

  “Good morning,” Fenway said. “To whom am I speaking?”

  “This is Detective Deshawn Ridley with the Bellingham Police Department, MCU.”

  “MCU?”

  “Sorry, the Major Crimes Unit.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  There was a pause. “You don’t sound surprised to hear from me.”

  Fenway hesitated. She was wondering how to respond to this. She had rehearsed what she’d say once they told her Professor Solomon Delacroix was dead. But she’d forgotten to rehearse the part up to this.

  “No,” she said. “I’m the county coroner, and I get calls from other cities’ police departments all the time, sometimes out of state.”

  “I see,” said Detective Ridley. He waited for her to continue, but Fenway was familiar with this technique—waiting for the interviewee to speak first. He wanted to see if she’d offer anything on her Russian Lit professor. The silence stretched out for fifteen, twenty, thirty seconds.

  Fenway tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. In the end, it was Fenway who spoke first. “Did you call for a particular reason, Detective? I’m investigating a murder here, and I’m on my way to see if some evidence has been processed.”

  He cleared his throat. “Yes, of course. This won’t take long. I don’t know if you saw this, but Professor Solomon Delacroix passed away at the end of July. I believe he was one of your professors at Western.”

  “He was,” Fenway said. “Before I transferred to the BSN program. I saw the article online a couple of months ago.”

  “You had a German lit class of his, didn’t you?”

  “I believe it was Russian,” Fenway said. The minivan was getting warm inside, and she started the engine and turned on the air conditioning.

  “Originally, the police thought his death was accidental. But we uncovered evidence that suggests he was murdered.”

  “If you’re looking for some insight into the forensics of the case,” Fenway said, “I’m afraid I’d have to recuse myself. A conflict of interest.”

  “No, that’s not it,” said the detective. “We’ve discovered he’s been misbehaving with students. With many students.”

  “Ah,” said Fenway.

  “Yes.” He paused again—an uncomfortably long pause. Just as Fenway was about to ask if he was still there, he cleared his throat. “And I hate to bring this up, but in the course of our investigation, we discovered you are one of the students he’s misbehaved with in the past.”

  “Yes,” Fenway said. “Although saying he misbehaved inaccurately categorizes what he did. He raped me, Detective. Once, in his office. I stuck it out in his class, I got an A, and then I changed majors.”

  “I apologize for my choice of words. Some people prefer more delicate terms.”

  “No need to apologize, Detective. I certainly understand the need for discretion in front of rape victims.” She could hear him shift uncomfortably.

  “Let me get to the reason for my call, Miss Stevenson.”

  “By all means.”

  “You live in California, yet your car was in the long-term lot at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, and was driven out o
f the lot the day before Professor Delacroix was murdered.”

  Silence again. Fenway figured the detective wanted her to say something, to respond to a question that hadn’t been asked. This time the silence stretched on until Fenway was sure he knew they were both playing a game.

  “Are you still on the line, Detective?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Another fifteen or twenty seconds of silence.

  Fenway sighed. “Detective, you said you’ve called me for a reason, but you haven’t asked me anything. You tell me a fact, and then you’re quiet for a long time. Do you need more time to organize your notes? Perhaps we can schedule some—”

  “No, Miss Stevenson,” Detective Ridley said. “I thought I’d give you an opportunity to explain yourself.”

  “Explain myself?”

  “Yes. Why was your car driven out of the Sea-Tac long-term lot the day before your professor was murdered?”

  “Detective, I’m sure you’re quite good at your job.”

  “What does that—”

  “Which means you’ve undoubtedly done your research. You have probably found out I was on a flight from Seattle to Estancia on Coastal Airways the previous Saturday. I haven’t been found on any flight back to Seattle, because I haven’t been back to Seattle. You may have found out I was in the middle of investigating the murder our town’s mayor. If you found that out, you probably also discovered I was in the hospital several hours after the professor was killed. How am I doing so far?”

  The detective was quiet for a beat, then said, “You’re batting a thousand.”

  “In that case, it sounds to me like you’ve established facts where you can be reasonably confident I wasn’t in the state when the professor was killed.”

  “Okay,” the detective said. “But this parking thing doesn’t make any sense to me. And fine, fine, I’ll go ahead and ask the question. How did your car get out of the long-term lot?”

  “I’ll be happy to answer that, and I’ll even give you a little background.”

  “Aren’t I lucky.”

  Fenway ignored the snide comment; she hadn’t made this easy on him. “I’d driven up to Seattle to get a few things out of storage, but I was called back by work because of the mayor’s death. I had to fly back down, last minute, and I left my car in the lot. My father has a private plane, and he told me he flew one of his employees up there to drive the car back down.”