The Candidate Coroner

by Paul Austin Ardoin

  He straightened up and opened the soda.

  Fenway held up her glass. “Here’s to making it out alive,” she said.

  “I’ll drink to that,” Officer Young said, a sad smile crossing his face.

  The cold bourbon felt good hitting the back of Fenway’s throat, and she intended to sip it but swallowed half of what she poured. Her insides burned a little as the whiskey went down, but it opened up her sinuses and for a moment she felt more clearheaded than she had since the explosion.

  “Well,” she said. “These last two days have certainly been horrible.” And intending to finish the glass, this time, she swallowed the rest of the bourbon in one gulp, and set the glass down on the countertop. “I’m going to get ready for bed. Tell Rachel ‘hi’ for me when she gets home.”

  “Will do,” Officer Young said.

  She turned to go.

  “Oh—” he said. “I know it wasn’t under great circumstances, but I’m glad to finally meet you.”

  “Likewise,” Fenway said awkwardly. “I mean, it’s nice to have met you too.”

  She grabbed her suitcase and walked up the stairs to the guest room. She got the hair dryer and her toiletries out, went into the upstairs bathroom and finished treating her hair. It was quarter past ten when she came out of the bathroom, but Rachel still wasn’t home. She tiptoed to the top of the staircase and looked down. Officer Young was standing by the window, watching outside, although for what, Fenway wasn’t quite sure.

  She went into Rachel’s guest bedroom, took her sweatpants off, and got under the covers in her underwear and tank top. She wondered briefly if she’d be able to relax with everything going on in her head, and then she was fast asleep.

  Part IV

  Sunday

  Chapter Fourteen

  FENWAY GOT INTO HER Accord in front of her apartment complex. She looked in the rearview mirror, and adjusted it so she could see out the back window. She put her hands on the steering wheel before it hit her—why did she have to adjust the rearview mirror? No one drove her Accord but her—did they?

  Then Fenway felt the hands around her throat. “Back off,” a low voice hissed in her ear. “Back off or it won’t be the kid that gets it next time.”

  Fenway sat bolt upright in bed, screaming.

  “Holy shit,” a man’s voice said. “You’re okay—you’re okay.”

  The overhead light came on. Fenway saw nothing but a flash of bright white, and then her eyes started to adjust.

  Where was she?

  Officer Young was standing at the foot of the bed, his gloved hands out in front of him. Rachel was in the doorway, the hallway light streaming behind her figure in shapeless flannel pajamas, her brow creased with worry. It came back to Fenway; she was in Rachel’s apartment.

  “You’re okay, Fenway,” Officer Young said. “You had a bad dream.”

  Fenway was in a cold sweat and felt embarrassed—she didn’t want Officer Young seeing her freaked out.

  “Sorry,” Fenway mumbled, kicking her sweaty legs underneath the covers to attempt to get some airflow. She was still exhausted, and her throat hurt. She coughed, a dry, somewhat painful cough.

  “What happened?” Rachel asked.

  “Like Officer Young said,” Fenway replied weakly. “Bad dream. I dreamed someone was choking me.”

  “Your hands were around your own throat when I came in,” said Officer Young.

  “I must have been trying to pull the hands off me,” Fenway said. She felt groggy and the muscles in her arms and shoulders hurt.

  Fenway shook her head back and forth; her mind was muddy and her eyes were having trouble focusing. “I’m sorry, guys,” she said. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

  “It’s okay,” Rachel said, sitting down on the bed and pulling Fenway into a hug.

  “Someone’s trying to kill me, Rachel,” Fenway whispered. “I’m scared.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she knew it was true: she was terrified. And her body ached, even worse than it had the morning before. Had she been fully awake, she might have wanted to take the words back. But she wanted to go back to bed.

  “I know,” Rachel said, patting her head. “Listen, why don’t you come into my room? You’ll sleep better in there.”

  “In your bed?”

  Rachel raised her head to look at Officer Young. “Don’t get that gross look on your face, officer. She’s been through a lot. She needs to sleep, and someone should be there to calm her down if anything happens again. We can’t have you running in there just because she has a bad dream.”

  “I didn’t have a gross look on my face,” Officer Young said.

  “Okay, fine,” Rachel said.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Rachel rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. She’ll sleep better if she’s not by herself. What do you think, Fenway?”

  “I want to go to sleep,” Fenway said, slurring her words with fatigue.

  “Okay. You can come into my room.”

  “What if they come into the apartment to get me?”

  “I’ve got my gun,” Rachel said. “No one’s going to hurt you.”

  “I think she needs to stay in her own room,” Officer Young said.

  “Why, in case I’m the one who’s trying to kill her?” Rachel scoffed. “You can go back downstairs. I’ll yell if anything’s wrong.”

  Fenway exhaled through her mouth loudly, eyelids drooping.

  “Come on,” Rachel said, “let’s go.”

  “I’m in my underwear,” Fenway said.

  “Oh for crying out loud, Fenway,” Rachel said under her breath. “I’ll get you some sweats for you to sleep in.”

  “Officer Young will see my butt.”

  “You can go back downstairs, Officer,” Rachel said.

  The officer padded back downstairs.

  Rachel got Fenway out of the guest bed and across the hall to her room. She pulled the covers down from the side of the bed nearest the door. Two pillows were vertically arranged, top-to-bottom, as if it were a person in the bed. Rachel pulled the pillows out.

  “Okay,” she said. “You can sleep.”

  Fenway dragged herself over to the bed and flopped down. Rachel pulled the covers up over her and Fenway turned her back to the door.

  But instead of getting into bed herself, Rachel started making noise. The sound of a chair scraping across the carpet made Fenway sit up. She rubbed her eyes.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Rachel said, pulling a straight-backed chair over to the door. “You get to sleep. You need it.” She tipped the chair back under the doorknob.

  “Are you that afraid of people breaking in?”

  Rachel’s face looked confused for a moment, then relaxed. “Better safe than sorry,” she said.

  Fenway looked at the two pillows on the floor Rachel had pulled out of bed, formerly occupying the same space she now did.

  “Are you okay, Rachel?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, nodding. “Just wanted to be extra safe.”

  Fenway started to open her mouth, then didn’t know what she would say.

  Rachel walked around the other side of the bed and got in. She looked at Fenway, who was still in a half-seated position, propped up on elbows. “You good? You ready to go back to sleep?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay.” Rachel turned off the bedside lamp and the room sank into darkness.

  Fenway lay back. She was asleep within seconds.

  IN THE MORNING, FENWAY woke to the smell of coffee. Her whole body ached. She turned her head toward Rachel’s side of the bed; there was no one there.

  She swung her legs out and rubbed her eyes. She didn’t remember at first how she’d come to be in Rachel’s bed, but the memory came back, as groggy as she was and as bad as she felt. The memory wasn’t entirely clear; she seemed to remember Rachel pulling one of the straight-backed chairs in the room in front of the door. It seemed od
d, with Officer Young there to protect them.

  Cautiously, she opened the door to the hallway, and heard both Rachel and a male voice downstairs. Padding over to the guest room, Fenway found her sweats and put them on. She went into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror; she was decent, at least for first thing in the morning.

  Walking downstairs, Fenway smelled sourdough toast added to the mix of aromas. She saw Rachel in the kitchen, opening a jar of jam, and Officer Callahan at the kitchen table.

  “Hey, Callahan,” Fenway said.

  “Hey, Fenway.”

  “Officer Young not here?”

  Callahan shook his head. “His shift ended a couple hours ago.”

  Fenway walked over to the kitchen table and sat across from Officer Callahan. “Your shift start, then?”

  “Yep.”

  Fenway shook her head. “I hate to do this to you guys. With the election on Tuesday and everything, the last thing you need to worry about is focusing on me.”

  “You want some breakfast, Fenway?” Rachel said.

  Fenway looked up at the clock. It was eight-fifteen.

  “Oh, man,” Fenway said. “I slept late. I think I was supposed to be at a campaign breakfast this morning.”

  “I talked to Millicent a little while ago,” Rachel said. “She cancelled the breakfast, but she said she’d call back. I think she wants to talk with you. The arrest of Ivanovich’s son is going to hit the news sometime this morning, and she wants to brief you. She doesn’t want you getting caught by a reporter.”

  “I can always deny knowledge.”

  “Oh, come on, Fenway, I saw the police report before I left last night. You’re the one who tackled him. And you don’t know if a reporter has that on video or if they’ve seen the police report. You get caught lying, then you’re going to be the story. Wouldn’t you rather have the story be Dr. Ivanovich’s white supremacist son who threw a brick through your window?”

  Fenway began to protest. “Sure, but—”

  “I know it’s not fair to ask you to lay low,” Rachel interrupted, “but I don’t control what conclusions people jump to.”

  Fenway was quiet for a minute.

  “You get toast and yogurt and coffee,” Rachel said, putting a slice of sourdough on a plate and filling up a UCLA Bruins mug.

  “Can I help with anything?”

  “Yogurt’s in the fridge.”

  Fenway got up and opened the refrigerator, grabbed a strawberry-banana yogurt, and took the plate and the coffee from Rachel. She was walking to the kitchen table when Rachel’s mobile phone rang.

  Rachel picked up. “Rachel Richards.” A pause as she sipped her coffee. Fenway took a bite of the toast.

  “No, no, she’s here. Well, I know, but with everything that happened—” Rachel paused again. “Listen, I know, but it’s not like we’re talking about a senate race or the governorship.”

  Another pause.

  “Sure.” She held the phone for Fenway to take.

  Fenway reached out. “Millicent?”

  Rachel nodded, placing the phone in her hand.

  “Hi, Millicent.”

  “Hi, Fenway. You’re a hard woman to track down.”

  “Sorry, but that’s kind of the point. Someone is trying to kill me.”

  “I thought they caught the guy. I thought you caught the guy, in fact.”

  “It’s complicated. They don’t think it’s the same guy.”

  Millicent paused. “This is a tricky situation,” she said. “You’re running for office. You can’t look like you’re scared of this guy. You can’t disappear from public view. People will lose faith in you.”

  “What’s their other voting option?” Fenway said. “Vote for the man whose son got arrested for threatening me?”

  “I don’t know how Ivanovich is going to play it,” Millicent said. “He might blame you for it. I heard you broke his son’s arm when you made the arrest.”

  “No,” Fenway said. “Officer Young made the arrest.”

  “So you didn’t break his arm?”

  “Well, uh, he tried to get away and I tackled him,” Fenway said. “And it wasn’t his arm, it was his hand. Or at least I think it was his hand.”

  “Still,” Millicent said, clicking her tongue, “it would have been better if you hadn’t been involved in the arrest at all.”

  Fenway muted the phone and swore loudly and creatively at Millicent. Callahan looked up from the table; he hadn’t heard Fenway curse like that before.

  She took the phone off mute. “Listen, Millicent, I realize this could cause a problem, but I can’t pick and choose who gets the law applied to them. I tackled the guy when I thought he was some random white supremacist, someone who had vandalized my car and my apartment, and who, at the time, I thought was trying to kill me. I didn’t know he was my opponent’s son.”

  Millicent sighed. “I know,” she said thoughtfully. “Before the last couple of election cycles, I would have said Ivanovich was dead in the water. But I’ve seen some weird stuff lately. Some voters might, as crazy as it may seem, react positively to this.”

  Fenway took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You’re the campaign manager. Whatever you think is best—as long as it doesn’t get me killed.”

  Millicent laughed. “Well, I think you should make the speech at the senior center today.”

  Fenway paused. “I don’t know about public appearances, Millicent. That’s an invitation for trouble, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know. You have police protection, right?”

  “Yeah, but as great as Officer Young and Officer Callahan are, there’s only one person on me. They can’t be guarding me against everything someone could do.”

  Officer Callahan shook his head. “Three,” he mouthed, holding up three fingers.

  “Hang on, Millicent.”

  “Three officers,” Callahan said. “We’ve got three people on you. One, like me, will be close at all times. And two other officers will be staking out the area, like the apartment complex, your office, even if you have a dentist appointment or something.”

  “Aw, crap,” Fenway said. “I forgot I have an appointment with the family therapist at eleven today.”

  “That’s Dr. Tassajera, right?” Rachel asked. “How’s that going?”

  “Good enough that he agreed to meet us on a Sunday.”

  “Really?”

  “It’s a make-up session. I think my father suggested Sunday on purpose so the doctor wouldn’t schedule it. So now we get to have a session on a Sunday, as if I don’t have enough campaign events going on.”

  Rachel smiled back, but a little sadly.

  “Fenway?” Millicent said.

  “All right,” Fenway said. “Callahan says there are three officers on me. Two of them are, uh, assessing the environmental danger, I guess. That makes me feel a little better.”

  “So you can make one p.m. at the senior center today after your session?”

  “Sure,” Fenway conceded, though she sounded anything but. “I’ll be done by noon.”

  “Great,” Millicent said. “I’ve got your speech all prepared. I’ll meet you there at a quarter to one.”

  “All right.”

  Millicent hung up.

  Fenway sighed. “I’d feel a whole lot better if there was something else I could do to feel a little more safe. I hate not having my phone, I hate not having my car, and I hate hiding out. I feel like I’m missing out on my life.”

  Callahan nodded. “Yeah.” Then he smacked the table. “Hey, I know something. Vice has bug detectors. They’ve got GPS tracker detectors and other devices too. I mean, some of the newer equipment can fool ’em, but it works on a lot of different things. It’s not foolproof, but I bet it would give you much better peace of mind than not having it.”

  Fenway nodded. “Yeah, I remember wanting to get those bug detectors when I was investigating the mayor’s murder.”

  “So you know where they are?”r />
  “Uh, no,” Fenway said, “I didn’t end up getting them. But that’s a great idea. If there’s a tracking device or a bug anywhere near me, I definitely want to know. And I’m not going to be able to get through my speech at the senior center if I’m looking over my shoulder every couple of minutes.”

  “No,” Rachel said, “I suppose not.”

  “We can get them while you’re getting ready,” Callahan said.

  “Great,” Fenway said. “Then I can keep my appointment with the therapist. Wouldn’t want to disappoint my father.”

  Callahan radioed into the station as Fenway walked upstairs. She selected a dark burgundy pantsuit she had purchased specifically for the campaign trail and paired it with a cream-colored blouse. The outfit was still a little wrinkled from the suitcase, but she decided to hang it up while she showered. Hopefully the folks at the senior center wouldn’t even notice.

  When Fenway had showered and dressed, there were two small, black devices sitting on the coffee table in front of Rachel’s sofa.

  “Those the bug detectors?”

  Callahan nodded. “The bigger one is the bug tracker. Picks up wireless cameras and microphones. I already ran a screen in here. The other one is specifically made to detect GPS trackers on your car. I used it on Rachel’s BMW and our cruisers.”

  “You think someone would put a GPS tracker on a police car?”

  “I’d sure look like a fool if someone did and I didn’t check, right?”

  Fenway nodded.

  “All right,” Callahan said. “Next stop, the therapist’s office, right?”

  “Right,” Fenway said. “Listen—do you have to go in with me?”

  “Not into the inner office,” Callahan said, “but as far as I can. Does he have a waiting room?”

  “Yes,” she said. “The chairs are even comfortable. And your presence will probably piss off my father, who will want to talk about his feelings about his trophy wife spending the night in jail.”

  “Wonderful,” Callahan deadpanned. “I can’t wait.”

  Fenway grabbed her purse as Callahan took the two tracking detection devices and radioed to the other officers to move. Fenway gave Callahan the address of the therapist, said goodbye to Rachel—who perhaps tried not to look too relieved to have the police detail out of her house.