The Candidate Coroner

by Paul Austin Ardoin

  But as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew Rory had been killed by the explosion.

  The EMT asked her a few questions, and she had to read his lips. It was Friday. She was in Estancia. She told him her address. She told him the year. He seemed satisfied.

  She turned her head, and a twinge of pain made her grimace—a muscle had been aggravated or pulled—and looked McVie in the face. She recognized the look. Deep concern, yes, but more. It was the look he had when a witness was hiding something.

  And Fenway hadn’t been exactly forthcoming, had she? She hadn’t told him about the spray paint.

  She hadn’t told him about her Russian Lit professor, either, but she didn’t think it was any of his business. The ringing in her left ear started to subside and she started to hear, faintly, the sirens and the shouting.

  “I have a lot of information you need to know,” Fenway said.

  McVie nodded. “After you get checked out,” he said.

  “I can handle it. My hearing is starting to come back. It’s not that serious.”

  “You were in an explosion, Fenway,” he said. “It is that serious.”

  “That’s why I need to give you information as soon as I can,” she said. “My ears will get better with time. There’s nothing they can do to treat it.” And even as she said it, the pressure lessened in her left ear. The right one was still ringing.

  McVie folded his arms and considered for a moment. “Then you need to get to an interview room. You’re a witness. I don’t know if this was a terrorist attack or what.”

  “It was murder.”

  “Murder?”

  Fenway nodded. “There was a teenaged boy in the minivan that blew up.” She swallowed, hard, and her right ear depressurized a little; the ringing’s volume cut in half. “I think they targeted me.”

  McVie looked incredulous. “What would you be doing in a minivan?”

  Fenway cleared her throat. “My car was getting, uh, cleaned.”

  “Cleaned? You went to some sort of long-term car wash?”

  “Uh—no.” Fenway looked down. “There was graffiti on it.”

  “Your car got tagged?”

  Fenway paused. “I don’t want to talk about it out here. We can get to the interview room first.”

  McVie nodded. “Of course. We definitely shouldn’t speak out in the open.” He looked up at the parking garage, smoke still drifting off the second floor. He set his jaw, but there was a tired look in his eyes. “I’ve got to take care of some things first. I think we might get some other agencies involved here.” He got on the radio. Fenway tried to hear what he was saying, but the tinnitus in her right ear made it hard to concentrate. She strained to hear him, tried to read his lips, but she couldn’t make out what he was saying. And there were still sirens.

  Fenway closed her eyes, but the ringing didn’t go away. She put her head down and opened her eyes again and looked at the ground. The asphalt was black and rough and didn’t even look windblown. Fenway didn’t know what she expected to see; maybe something morbid, like Rory’s shoe.

  Soon Officer Celeste Sandoval appeared at McVie’s side. “Fenway?”

  Fenway looked up.

  She offered Officer Sandoval a weak smile, but wasn’t even sure if the sides of her mouth turned up at all. She was suddenly hit with a wave of exhaustion. The noise, the smoke, the commotion.

  “Fenway?”

  “I’m sorry, Officer Sandoval—what did you ask me?”

  “I asked if you’d come with me to the station. We need to take your statement.”

  Fenway looked at her Accord. It had been freshly detailed not an hour before, but there was already a cloud of dust descending on the car. Not dust, Fenway thought with a shiver, but ashes from the minivan and from Rory.

  “I can’t keep my car here,” she said.

  Sandoval shook her head. “We’re going to need to process it for evidence.”

  “I was the target, Celeste.”

  “Let’s talk inside, Fenway.” Sandoval turned to walk toward the station. Fenway walked a couple of steps behind her, slowly, deliberately, as if she were testing out all her limbs to make sure they worked, to make sure they were still there.

  The footfalls on the street and then the sidewalk seemed to thump in Fenway’s ears. She could feel the vibration of her foot hitting the ground all the way up to the top of her head, overpowering the sound of the sirens. Everything seemed to be going in slow motion: the steps they took around the small amphitheater, Sandoval’s coughing as they approached the entrance. Then they were inside; the officers and workers shouting and trying to coordinate responses and the phones blaring their ringtones—it all seemed louder than it had been outside.

  Sandoval led Fenway into the interview room. Fenway started to go to the side of the table nearest the one-way mirror, but Sandoval cleared her throat and shook her head, and Fenway went to the other side.

  The side where suspects and witnesses sat.

  Suspects and witnesses.

  Her father and Charlotte.

  Had Dez gone to pick them up yet? Had they been in the parking garage? If they had gone to see her father and Charlotte, then certainly Fenway would have heard about it—she’d have gotten a call, either panicked or angry from her father.

  She pulled her phone out of her purse. Sure enough, the screen—miraculously not cracked or broken when she had been thrown against her car—showed two missed calls from Nathaniel Ferris.

  She started to call her father back and then thought about the minivan blowing up in the parking lot.

  Someone—maybe a group of someones—first graffitied her car. And then they blew up the car she was driving.

  She looked at the phone in her hand and pulled the case off. She turned it over. There was no battery cover. She dug around in her purse for a paper clip.

  Sandoval was looking at her with bemused interest.

  Fenway found a metal paper clip, straightened part of it, then popped out her SIM card.

  “You think someone’s tracking you?” Sandoval said.

  Fenway nodded. “A lot of weird stuff happened today.”

  “That wasn’t your car that got blown up.”

  “But that’s the car I drove today.”

  The color drained from Sandoval’s face.

  Someone must be following her. Fenway tried to remember who was in the complex’s parking lot that morning. It had seemed strangely empty—but then, she was almost never in the parking lot in the middle of the day. Maybe it was always empty. She didn’t know. But if someone had been watching her, they would have easily seen her get into the minivan, drive to work and into the parking garage, then leave the car and go into the building.

  It raised a question in her mind: why not simply blow up the Accord when she was at her apartment? Surely that would have been the easiest way to kill her.

  She looked up. Officer Sandoval was staring at her expectantly.

  “I’m sorry, Celeste,” Fenway said. “I’m, uh, I’m not all here.”

  “Blast shock,” Sandoval said.

  “I guess.”

  “Can I get you anything? Coffee? Anything from the vending machine, maybe?”

  Fenway nodded. “Coffee would be good.”

  Sandoval looked at Fenway. “You okay in here a few minutes? I might have to make a fresh pot.”

  “No, don’t do it if you need to make a new pot. I don’t want—”

  “Come on, Fenway, you’ve been in a, uh, traumatic situation. I don’t mind.”

  “You don’t—”

  “I insist.”

  Fenway sat back and nodded. Truth be told, she’d rather have a latte from Java Jim’s—although maybe they would have closed after the minivan exploded. Sandoval gave Fenway a thin-lipped smile and closed the door behind her.

  Fenway got a look at herself in the one-way mirror. Officer Sandoval had said blast shock, and Fenway looked it. Her hair, usually in natural curls, was wild and frizzy
, almost like a cartoon drawing of a character that gets its hand stuck in a light socket. Her face had a look she recognized as impassive pain—she had had a similar look when her mom told her she had been diagnosed with leukemia.

  Fenway got a sensation like she was lifting up from her body, then looking down at herself, looking at the beige brick walls, the aluminum table, the light-skinned black woman sitting on the wrong side of the table, trying to catch her breath, trying to keep it together.

  Maybe she should let that girl go. Maybe the girl at the table could cry and sob and bang and mourn for Rory. Because from up above the table, it looked manageable. It looked like she could look at the facts while the girl down there let everything out.

  Fenway saw, from her virtual perch on the ceiling, the girl’s shoulders start to shake. Fenway was glad she was up above the table and the girl was down there. The girl was getting overwhelmed with emotions and feelings, and she was breaking down. Good, Fenway thought. Dr. Tassajera would think it was good, too, she was sure of it. Can’t push everything down, you’ll snap.

  So Fenway had time to think, floating there in the interview room.

  Too many strange things had happened in the last forty-eight hours.

  First, Lana contacting her about reopening the inquiry into her husband’s death. Second, the dead landscape architect with a hole in his forehead. Third, the missing Mrs. Potemkin, almost certainly the mistress of the dead man—one of the many mistresses, if the widow could be believed. Fourth, the graffiti on her car. And fifth, the minivan blowing up, killing Rory—a kid with his whole future ahead of him.

  Was it possible that all the strange things were somehow related?

  Certainly Jeremy Kapp and his mysterious mistress were. Was there a common denominator in each one?

  Fenway could only think of one: her father.

  Lana’s husband had been an employee of her father’s oil company.

  The dead landscape architect had been sleeping with her father’s wife. And been killed by her gun.

  And her father—no, there was no real connection to the graffiti or the minivan blowing up. Unless you counted Fenway as a connection too.

  The door opened and Officer Sandoval came in bearing two coffees. She saw the tears running down Fenway’s face and immediately set the coffees down and gave Fenway a hug.

  And Fenway hugged her back, fiercely, no longer floating above herself, the grief for the dead teenager washing over her, the aches in her body turning up in volume, the sobs pulsing in her ears as the ringing subsided. It had been a long time since she had cried because she was scared.

  But she was scared. Someone wanted to kill her.

  “I’m going to drive you to the hospital,” Officer Sandoval said. “I think you’re in shock.”

  “No, I’ll be okay,” said Fenway, her sobs subsiding. “Just give me a minute.”

  “That wasn’t a request,” Sandoval said gently. “Let’s go.”

  “YOU USED TO BE A NURSE, huh? They make the worst patients.” The woman’s nametag read “Geraldine Upton, R.N.” She wore baby blue scrubs and bright white athletic shoes. She took Fenway’s blood pressure. The nurse looked to be in her sixties, and her deep brown skin was several shades darker than Fenway’s.

  “I’m fine,” Fenway insisted through the ringing in her ears. “I need to get back to work.”

  “You’re proving me right. It’s a little high. One-forty over eighty-five.”

  Fenway sighed. “Geraldine—can I call you Geraldine?”

  “I go by Geri.”

  “Sorry. Geri. But I’ve treated blast victims before. And I don’t have any signs of concussion. I didn’t lose consciousness. I don’t have any broken bones. I just have a bad ringing in my ears. And the car that blew up was the one I was supposed to be driving. I’m understandably a little wound up.”

  “You don’t get off that easily, missy. I’ve treated blast victims too, you know, and the shockwave you experienced is nothing to ignore. You must know blast victims don’t always know when they’ve been knocked out.”

  “But I do know the symptoms.”

  “So you won’t mind if I ask you for your name.”

  Fenway sighed. “Fenway Stevenson.”

  “Address?”

  “6448 Kenneth Avenue, apartment two-fourteen.”

  “Any headache?”

  Fenway shook her head.

  “How’s your vision?”

  “Clear. No issues.”

  “You’ve got a bump on your head. Does it hurt?”

  “Where?”

  “Right about there.” Geraldine Upton ran her finger over a spot about an inch and a half above Fenway’s hairline.

  “Ouch. When you touch it. But not otherwise.”

  “Do you remember hitting your head?”

  Fenway’s lips twitched. “No.”

  The nurse sighed. “Then I strongly suggest you let us keep you for observation tonight.”

  “I’m in the middle of—” Fenway said. Then she realized the sheriff had taken her off the investigation.

  “What are you in the middle of?”

  “I was going to say an investigation. But the sheriff took me off it earlier today.”

  The nurse narrowed her eyes but tried to keep her tone conversational. “Did you forget?”

  “No. Not exactly. I don’t want to be taken off the case.”

  The nurse nodded and made a note on the paper on the clipboard.

  “I didn’t forget. I’m—uh—stubborn.”

  “I’m sure you are, Miss Stevenson.” The nurse gave her a knowing smile.

  “Oh—I am in the middle of a campaign, too.”

  “Stevenson for Coroner. I know. I got a lawn sign.” She smiled. “Did you forget you were running for reelection?”

  “No. I mean, not really.” Fenway lowered her voice. “I love the job. I hate campaigning.”

  The nurse’s smile got wider. “You’re a horrible patient, Miss Stevenson, but I like you anyway.”

  “So you know I have work to do.”

  “And you know we need to keep you overnight.”

  Fenway knew she could refuse treatment and walk out—but then she remembered, two years before, back in Seattle, a man she had seen in the emergency room after a car accident. He had refused treatment. He had gone home and collapsed from internal bleeding. He had been rushed back to the hospital in an ambulance but died on the operating table.

  And she was sure she forgot because she was just being stubborn.

  But she didn’t remember hitting her head.

  So she nodded and thanked the nurse, and waited for the doctor to see her.

  Part III

  Saturday

  Chapter Ten

  FENWAY ITCHED TO GET out of the hospital, and the interminable waiting—for the doctor, for the first batch of questions, for the brain scan, for the second nurse with the blood draw, for the second doctor who tested her reflexes and looked at her bruises, especially her recently healed left hand—was excruciating. The doctors did a lot of grunting and tut-tutting.

  She reluctantly agreed to overnight observation—the hospital lab was backed up, and brain scan results wouldn’t be back until the early morning—and got situated in her shared room. She didn’t realize how exhausted she was until she lay down, and even with the beeping of the machinery and the nurses coming in and out, she fell asleep quickly.

  The nurses woke her up several times during the night. Each time, Fenway felt like she had just fallen asleep.

  When morning finally arrived, Fenway’s joints and muscles complained; she’d known, picking herself up after the explosion, that she was going to feel it later, and she did.

  The first nurse who came in told her that the results from the brain scan were back, and after a half-hour wait that felt much longer, the doctor came in to discuss them. As expected—although Fenway had a moment of panic before the doctor read the results—everything came back normal.

 
“No concussion, no sign of any brain trauma,” the doctor said, a little too jovially. “So we can get you out of here as soon as the paperwork clears. Should only take an hour or two.”

  After the doctor left and the nurses checked on her for what Fenway hoped was the last time, she dressed, taking care not to make the rip in the shoulder of her dress worse. She didn’t dare put her SIM card back in or turn on her phone, so she sat on the hospital bed. She turned on the television—nothing worth watching on Saturday morning, so Fenway stared dead-eyed at the screen, thinking about who might be behind the bombing and coming up blank. Fenway started to wonder how crazy Millicent would be without a candidate for all the scheduled campaign events.

  The door opened, and Fenway started to get up, but it wasn’t a nurse with her release paperwork. Instead, Officer Sandoval entered, followed by Sheriff McVie, who was holding a cardboard tray with three Java Jim’s coffee cups.

  “Hey, Fenway,” McVie said. Concern had set deeply in the lines of his face, and he looked like he hadn’t slept well. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m sore,” she said. “Feeling it today. But no concussion, so I can get out of here.”

  “That’s great news.” Sandoval sat on the chair next to the bed. “The getting-out-of-here part, not the pain part.”

  “I hope one of those coffees is for me,” Fenway said, eyeing the cups.

  “Sure is.” McVie held out one of the cups. “Large latte.”

  “You remembered,” Fenway said.

  Fenway took the latte from McVie and sipped. Java Jim’s tasted a hundred times better than the hospital coffee. It felt good going down and it calmed her a little.

  “I can’t stay long,” said McVie. “I’m meeting with the FBI in about twenty minutes.”

  “The FBI?” asked Fenway.

  “They’ve mentioned the T-word.”

  “T-word? Oh—terrorism.”

  “Right.”

  “And Officer Sandoval has some additional questions,” McVie said awkwardly. “And I heard that she, uh, wasn’t showing up with coffee, so, uh, I decided to tag along.” He eyed the room; there was nowhere else to sit but on the bed itself. McVie remained standing.