The Incumbent Coroner Read online

  “But you called him up?”

  “Um,” Fenway said, “he lives really close to the storage unit.”

  “Did you call any of your other friends?”

  Fenway averted her eyes.

  “You better hope he’s still hot,” Dez said. “And you better hope he’s not rooming with one of those assholes who said you weren’t black enough. Or you better start thinking of excuses why you need to sleep on the couch.”

  “This is a bad idea, isn’t it?” Fenway said, biting her lip.

  “You’re driving a thousand miles in your new Accord for a booty call,” Dez said. “I don’t know, I’m terrible with relationship advice. But he’s not married, and he’s hot. At least that’s something.”

  PART II

  SATURDAY

  Chapter Two

  Seattle. Saturday afternoon. Fenway flipped down the visor and looked at herself in the mirror. In the hotel room in Grants Pass that morning, she had spent a long time getting ready. Her hair looked fantastic in spite of the six hours in the car, still cascading in ringlets on either side of her face, almost touching her shoulders. Her eyeliner and mascara accentuated her large, dark eyes, but she hadn’t overdone it. Her lipstick needed just a little touching up, but other than that, her makeup was great; not overdone, just a clean, put-together look. All the stars were lining up.

  She looked one last time at what she was wearing. She had on a scarlet polo dress, with five buttons below the navy blue collar. It was contoured to her body, which she knew Akeel would like, but wasn’t too forward in its sexiness. It was a little shorter than she might usually wear, but the cut of the dress was casual enough to wear sneakers with it—she wasn’t in the mood to wear heels, hot ex-boyfriend or not.

  She hated herself a little bit for caring this much about how she looked for Akeel. She wouldn’t care this much how she looked for McVie. McVie who read novels. McVie who liked concerts. McVie who looked in her eyes when they were talking. Not all their talk was about their work, his as sheriff, hers as coroner. But McVie had made it clear he wanted to work things out with his wife. So here she was.

  She looked at the small apartment building—Akeel had one of the three upstairs apartments in the converted Victorian—and saw him at the window, watching her car, watching her.

  And, she saw clearly, not wearing a shirt.

  Apparently he wasn’t interested in pretense.

  She shook her head, popped the trunk, and opened the car door.

  She took her suitcase from the trunk, keenly aware that he was watching her. When she’d walked up the seven steps to the landing, Akeel was already there, behind the door.

  “Hey, babe,” he said. “You changed your hair. I like it.”

  “Hey, Akeel,” Fenway said. “Didn’t your mom ever tell you you’ll catch cold if you don’t put on a shirt?” Cold? Hell, the danger was fever: his abs hadn’t lost their definition in the two years since she had seen him. She thought of what Dez had said and breathed a sigh of relief.

  “What my mamma told me was that I better have someone to keep me nice and warm.” He pulled her to him. Even in her sneakers she had two inches on his five-eight frame. “I can’t catch cold when you’re so hot.”

  Fenway rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, Akeel,” she said, stepping out of his embrace.

  “That’s a great dress, too,” he said. “Looks all innocent, like you’re about to go on a picnic or something. It’s like ninja-sexy.”

  “Ninja-sexy?”

  “Yeah, it looks all sweet and nice at first, not like a sexy dress, and then it sneaks up on you and suddenly, pow! You don’t know what hit you.”

  She could feel the color rise to her cheeks. “Okay, Cyrano, take this suitcase upstairs before we make everyone puke.”

  “Ain’t no one out here but us,” he said.

  “I hope there’s no one in there but us either.”

  Akeel smiled. Fenway smiled back and followed him upstairs.

  Her hands were on his muscular back as soon as the door to his apartment closed behind them. Her left hand snaked around to his stomach, then started to loosen his belt. She kissed his shoulder.

  “You’re not wasting any time tonight,” he said. He put the suitcase on the floor. She put her purse on the end table, still kissing his back.

  “Only got one night in town,” she breathed into his ear. “Wanted to make it count.”

  “One night?”

  “We’ll see how it goes.”

  They made it to the sofa, although his jeans did not.

  It was easy to get comfortable with him again, Fenway thought. Their bodies went well together. She liked how they fit. She liked the way his skin smelled, liked how his hands were so strong and confident on her back, on her shoulders, on the sides of her face as he kissed her deeply.

  Her phone rang in her purse.

  When she realized where the ringing was coming from, their clothes were mostly off, and he was kissing her, up and down her body. The phone stopped ringing after about twenty seconds. Then it rang again. She ignored it again, and it again went to voicemail. They were in a rhythm, and she didn’t want to lose it.

  The phone rang again.

  And, excruciatingly, Akeel stopped. “You got a boyfriend in Cali wondering where you are?”

  “No,” she said. “I hardly know anyone there except co-workers. And they know better than to call me on vacation.”

  “You gonna get that?”

  “No, I’m not going to get that,” Fenway said. “I want you to keep doing what you were doing.”

  “Your phone is breaking my concentration. And believe me, you want me to have my full powers of concentration for this.”

  Fenway sighed. “Fine. I’ll tell them to go away.”

  She pulled herself up on the sofa and grabbed the phone out of her purse. “It’s Dez,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “She’s my co-worker.” Fenway answered the call. “Hey, Dez. This better be important. You don’t have any idea what I’m—”

  “Mayor Jenkins is dead, Fenway.”

  Fenway stopped. “Wait, what? The mayor? Dead?”

  “Yes.”

  “What happened?”

  “Stabbed,” Dez said. “They found her at Cactus Lake Motel about fifteen minutes ago.”

  “Cactus Lake Motel? Was she trying to stop a drug deal? Was she trying to make a drug deal?”

  “I can’t say,” Dez said. “Where are you? Have you made it to Seattle yet?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. With Akeel.”

  “Good. We booked you on the next flight back. Five-thirty. Coastal Airways flight out of Sea-Tac.”

  “Out of Sea-Tac? But I’ve got my car here.”

  “Just leave it in long-term, Fenway. The county will pick up the tab. You can go back and get your car in a few days.”

  “No one else can do this?”

  “Are you or are you not the coroner of this county, Fenway? You don’t think the mayor getting murdered is important enough to cut your vacation short?”

  Fenway stood up and padded half-dressed into the kitchen, away from the disappointed Akeel. She lowered her voice. “Is there any way I can leave tomorrow instead?”

  Dez’s voice was sharp. “Did you hear me say who died? Alice Jenkins. First black judge in this county. First black mayor in this county. First black anything-that-matters in this county. Not the first black woman, the first black person, period.”

  “I guess I didn’t know that. I’m sorry. I’ll be on that flight.”

  “I’ll see you when you land.”

  Dez clicked off.

  Putting the phone in her purse, Fenway avoided Akeel’s eyes. She had to be out of the apartment in thirty minutes. And she had caught a chill.

  Chapter Three

  The security line at Sea-Tac was long, and she realized as she sat on the airplane that she didn’t even have a book to read. She j
ust stewed about Akeel complaining about how the talk of murder had ruined the mood, wasting their remaining half hour together. And then she thought about the mayor, murdered in a motel room, and her mood grew worse.

  At eight o’clock, Fenway walked out of the baggage claim area at the Estancia airport. She saw Dez waiting for her in her red Chevrolet Impala and got in.

  Dez’s silence spoke volumes about her dark mood as well. Fenway braced herself for a snarky comment about her too-short dress or the casual white sneakers, but it never came. Fenway had never seen her so quiet—Dez just nodded in greeting, then drove out of the airport straight to the freeway and exited onto the state highway, up into the hills toward Cactus Lake.

  As dusk approached, the fog settled in, as it did around Estancia nearly every evening in the summer. They drove on the winding uphill road in silence for twenty minutes until they burst through the layer of fog.

  Fenway blinked, barely believing the stark contrast between the fog and the sudden clearness, even in the twilight. She looked behind her; the grey mist obscured the town, the beach, and the ocean as far as she could see.

  She turned around and out of the corner of her eye saw the sign for the turnoff for Cactus Lake. Fenway would have missed the turnoff had she been driving. Dez turned her wheel to the right and braked for the stop sign at the foot of the exit.

  The pine and ironwood trees became scrubby along the side of the road, a thousand feet above sea level. Dez made a left turn onto the frontage road and pulled the Impala into the cramped parking lot of the Cactus Lake Motel. The motel sign had lost two of its letters, but their dust-ridged outlines were still visible. They pulled in next to a Dominguez County Sheriff cruiser; it had to be McVie’s. He would certainly lead the investigation for a death as high-profile as this. The crime scene unit van was already on the scene. Fenway wondered if Dr. Yasuda had made the trip from San Miguelito, or if she had sent one of the techs.

  Dez killed the engine and they both got out of the car and walked toward the motel office. Through the open door, she could see Sheriff McVie, tall and muscular and chiseled, looking professional in his black uniform. Fenway felt her mouth go dry. Even from this distance, she saw the gold band still around his left ring finger.

  A middle-aged white man with a large pot belly stood heavily behind the counter. He looked sad and a little bit nervous.

  McVie looked up when Fenway and Dez stepped through the threshold of the office.

  “And this is the coroner with one of our sergeants now,” McVie said.

  Dez stepped up to the counter and pulled out a business card. “I’m Sergeant Desirée Roubideaux,” she said to the man, who grew more pale by the second. “Did you make the 911 call?”

  “Look,” the man said, “I don’t want any trouble. This place already has a bad reputation. We took your advice a couple of months ago and we’re trying to keep the junkies away.”

  “We’re not gonna worry about that just now,” Dez said. “Rome wasn’t built in a day, am I right?”

  The man squinted. “What?”

  “I mean, I don’t think the junkies will all just leave overnight. It’s a process.”

  He shrugged. “I guess so.”

  “All right,” Dez said. She turned to McVie. “I understand our people are already in the room?”

  He nodded. “Celeste secured the scene as soon as she arrived. CSI got here about an hour ago. I was just finishing up with Mr. Colburn here.”

  “Cliburn,” the man said.

  “I’m sorry. Cliburn.”

  The man grabbed a key off the set of hooks behind him and handed it to the sheriff. “It’s room 26. Up that first flight of stairs to your right.”

  Fenway stepped aside and let the sheriff take the lead. Grim-faced, McVie strode to the stairs and started to climb, Fenway and Dez following close behind.

  “What’s the story on this?” she said to McVie as they stepped out of the office and started up the stairs.

  “The 911 call came in at just after three. He said the housekeeping staff found her on the bed when they went in to get the room ready for the next guest.”

  “Can we talk to the housekeeping staff?”

  “They didn’t stick around,” McVie said. “Afraid of the cops.”

  Fenway nodded.

  She looked down the outdoor hall. Officer Celeste Salvador stood guard about halfway down between the staircase and the room.

  The sheriff stopped in front of Officer Salvador, next to a tan door with brass numbers reading 26, yellow police tape across the door frame. “Thanks, Celeste,” he said to her.

  Celeste cleared her throat. “Not a problem, sheriff. Hi, Dez. Hi, Fenway.”

  “Who caught CSI on this one?” asked Fenway. “Did Dr. Yasuda come down herself?”

  “No. The new guy caught it.”

  “Kav?”

  “Right. He’s still in there.”

  Too bad Dr. Yasuda hadn’t made the trip, Fenway thought to herself. But Kavish Jayakody, although the newest crime scene tech, had gained Fenway’s trust by pointing out evidence in a couple of cases they had worked together.

  McVie unlocked the door and pushed it slowly. It creaked as it swung. “This is kind of hard to see. You might want to prepare yourself.” He stepped backward and nodded to Dez.

  “Okay,” Dez said as she lifted the tape and stepped inside, followed by Fenway, then the sheriff. McVie closed the door behind him.

  On the bed lay an African-American woman of about seventy-five, dressed in a light blue business suit. She wore matching flats, but no jewelry. Her silver hair, though disheveled, looked like it had been recently done and styled. Her right arm rested at a right angle next to her body. Her left arm dangled partway off the bed, and her legs hung off, as though she had been standing, tried to sit on the bed, and collapsed. A large, wet-looking bloodstain had soaked the comforter, and several large splatters stained the carpet in the three feet or so between the front door and the bed. Fenway took a few soft steps toward the body and leaned over the bed. The woman was definitely Alice Jenkins, with the same kind brown eyes Fenway remembered from the board of supervisors’ meeting, when they discussed Fenway’s appointment as County Coroner. Alice had been an ally—or at least someone who treated her like her own person, and not as the daughter of the most powerful man in the county. Now those kind brown eyes stared, unseeing, at the ceiling.

  She tore her gaze away from Mayor Jenkins’ face and down to her torso. The white blouse under her suit jacket was completely blood-soaked from just below her collar down to her waist.

  An Indian man came out of the bathroom, about five-eight, with large, dark eyes, a square jaw, and slightly graying temples. He wore a black San Miguelito Medical Examiner jacket and blue nitrile gloves.

  “You made it,” he said.

  “Hi, Kav,” McVie said. “Thanks for staying.”

  Kav nodded. “Certainly, Sheriff.” He exhaled. “As you can see, those are stab wounds on the body. I’ve identified four distinct wounds, two in her abdomen and two in her chest. She would have bled out quickly.”

  Fenway continued to look at Mayor Jenkins. “Liver temp?” Fenway asked mechanically.

  “Already ambient when I got here. Rigor puts time of death around one o’clock this morning, give or take an hour or two. Salvador arrived first on the scene this afternoon.”

  Dez wrote quickly in her notebook. “You say you got a good look at the wounds?”

  Kav nodded. “Yes. I took pictures already. Do you want to look for yourself?”

  “Hang on for a second, Kav,” Dez said, averting her eyes and putting her hand over her mouth. Kav waited several seconds before McVie broke the silence.

  “What else did you find?”

  “Not much in here,” Kav said. “About three hundred fingerprints. A ton of DNA—hair, skin cells everywhere. Guests didn’t choose this motel for room cleanliness. I haven’t moved the body, as
you can see.”

  “What the hell was she doing here?” Dez murmured. She shook her head, as if trying to clear her mind from a bad dream.

  “I’ve been over this room thoroughly,” Kav said. “I haven’t uncovered a reason why Mayor Jenkins came here.”

  Fenway thought for a moment. “Is the room in her name?”

  “No,” McVie answered. “This room should have been vacant last night. The housekeeping staff did a sweep of the room this afternoon, since it had been rented for this evening.”

  “Who reserved it for tonight?”

  “Someone named William Matisse. There’s a note in the motel files that he prepaid for the room in cash, but doesn’t say when, or who at the motel made the transaction.”

  “Well, that’s not suspicious at all,” said Dez wryly.

  “Will Matisse,” McVie mused. “I know that name.” He put his hand up to his chin thoughtfully.

  Dez kept writing. “It sure rings a bell,” she said. “But I can’t place it.”

  “Called Yasuda yet?” Fenway asked Kav.

  “I let her know,” he said. “I thought I’d wait till you got here to schedule the autopsy. I figured you’d want to attend it with the M.E.”

  Fenway nodded. “Thanks, Kav.”

  Dez pointed her pen at McVie. “Sheriff, we should talk to Celeste if you haven’t yet.”

  McVie pressed his lips together and stepped over to the door and pulled it open.

  “Officer Salvador?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Can you come in here a moment?”

  “Yes, sir.” She stepped in through the police tape and closed the door solidly behind her. She nodded to Dez and Fenway. Kav gave her a half-smile and went back in the bathroom.

  “You were the first officer at the crime scene?” asked McVie.

  “Yes, sir. I received the call from dispatch at 3:23 p.m. I arrived at the motel at 3:40.”

  “We didn’t have a closer patrol car to the motel?”

  “Not in the afternoon, Sheriff. Things don’t usually start heating up here until the sun goes down.”