The Upstaged Coroner Read online

  “You’re not one of those loose ends, don’t worry. I want to make sure we have all our ducks in a row, that’s all.”

  Fenway leaned back in her chair. “You must be a tenacious son-of-a-bitch. No one’s ever gotten anything to stick on my father before.”

  Ridley looked into Fenway’s face, then dropped his eyes and took another bite of croissant. He chewed carefully and swallowed. “I take it there’s no love lost between you two.”

  Fenway shrugged. “It’s a complicated relationship. I didn’t see him a lot when I was growing up.”

  “I hear he put you in the position you’re in now.”

  “It wasn’t my idea.” Fenway looked at her pain au chocolat but had lost her appetite. She took another drink of her latte.

  “You’re telling me it was his idea?”

  “Don’t get me wrong—it helped me out. I needed to take the California nursing exam before I could get a job in the state. They needed a coroner, and I needed a paycheck. It was supposed to be temporary.”

  “I heard that, too. Your dad picked a pharmaceutical executive to be coroner, right?”

  “I see you’ve done your research.”

  Ridley glanced up at Fenway briefly before staring into his cappuccino cup. “I heard you showed your dad up. That must have pissed him off.”

  “‘The dear father would with his daughter speak, commands her service.’”

  “What?”

  “It’s from King Lear. Lear expects his daughter to obey him without question.”

  Ridley laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Yeah, I heard you’re on the murder of the manager of some local Shakespeare group. You sure internalize this stuff, don’t you?”

  Fenway stiffened. “How did you find that out? The body’s not even cold yet. Do you have a connection in our department, Detective?”

  “A gentleman never reveals his secrets.”

  Fenway stared out the window; the squall had turned into a drizzle. “What can you reveal? Maybe where they’re holding my father?”

  Ridley shook his head. “I hear they’ll arm wrestle over that for the next couple of days.”

  Fenway nodded. That must be a loose end—Ridley must want him extradited to Washington state.

  Her phone dinged, and Fenway dug it out of her purse. It was McVie.

  We’re all done here I’m coming to get my car

  “I’ve got to go,” she said, standing. “Have a safe trip back to Bellingham.”

  Fenway was halfway out the door when her stomach rumbled—she had left the pain au chocolat on the table. “Settle down,” she told her stomach, as she texted McVie to tell him to meet her in the office.

  With one eye on her phone, she walked into the building. It was a few minutes before ten o’clock. The latte staved off Fenway’s exhaustion, at least for now. Walking down the hall, she opened the door to Suite 150.

  Migs sat at the front desk and looked up from his legal paperwork. “Fenway!” he said, and he began clapping. Applause burst from every corner of the room: Migs, Sergeant Mark Trevino at the back desk, Rachel in the far corner, Piper Patten from it sitting next to Migs, and five officers from the sheriff’s department. It was only a handful of people, but their applause was loud enough to catch Fenway by surprise.

  “Congratulations on the win,” Migs said, standing up with a broad smile on his face.

  Mark stepped in front of Fenway and held out his hand. She took it, and he pulled her into a hug. “Congratulations, Fenway,” he said. “Couldn’t have happened to a better coroner.”

  “Aw, thanks, guys,” Fenway said, a little dumbstruck.

  “Mark brought in donuts,” said Piper, “but you were two hours late. We only have the ones with the nasty pink sprinkles left.”

  “You party a little too hard last night?” Mark grinned at Fenway.

  “The murder case at the university,” Fenway said. “I—uh, I went over there before I called Dez.”

  Mark nodded, and Fenway read his look. Not only had Dez and McVie started telling her to manage her team instead of doing everything herself, but they seemed to have told everybody else.

  “I couldn’t sleep anyway,” Fenway said. “At any rate, I’m here now, and thank you for everything. Even the donuts with the gross pink sprinkles.”

  She felt a tap on her shoulder and turned.

  Rachel stood smiling, a pink-sprinkled donut in her hand. “I’ve got to get back and finish a press release,” she said, “but I just wanted to tell you how happy I am you won.” She pulled Fenway into an embrace.

  “I miss you not working in this department,” Fenway said.

  “Yeah, me too. But I like the pay raise, and my own office.” She pulled away first. “Maybe we can get drinks this weekend? Happy hour or something?”

  “We’ll see. We just got another murder.” Fenway caught Mark looking skeptically at her. “But I’ll manage my time better. So yeah, let’s plan on it.”

  Rachel opened the door to leave, and Dez walked in. “Oh, man! Just like me to miss my own surprise party.” She guffawed and chucked Fenway lightly on the shoulder. “Great job, rookie,” she said. “Quite the landslide.”

  “Thanks, Dez.”

  “Four more years of you being the boss here,” said Dez. “Sheesh, what was I thinking, encouraging you?”

  “Okay,” said Piper, “I guess everyone’s fine making you think there are just disgusting donuts left, and I guess I’m the only one nice enough to tell you there’s cake.”

  Fenway perked up. “Cake?”

  “Dammit, Piper.” Dez folded her arms in mock annoyance. “We wanted that cake all to ourselves.”

  “It’s got Nutella filling,” Piper said.

  Fenway smiled. “Oh, hell yes. I’ll have a piece.”

  Piper hopped off Migs’s desk, her green dress clinging to her willowy form. Migs watched her walk all the way to the door of the office suite.

  They must have made up, thought Fenway, a pang of longing for the sheriff in her stomach. Although he had stayed over the night before last—putting the end to months of simmering emotion between them—she was nervous. Was it because the specter of officially dating was looming over them? He and Amy had been separated for three months now, she’d served him the final divorce papers, and even after waiting for weeks through the election season, he still wanted to date her. And she wanted to date him.

  Piper opened the door into the main foyer and almost ran into a short Latina woman, about forty years old, hair pulled back into a bun, in blue jeans and a puffy aqua jacket. She had an angry look on her face.

  “Is this the coroner’s office?” she demanded of Piper in a heavy accent.

  “Uh—yes,” Piper stammered.

  “I need to talk to Fenway Stevenson now,” she said. “You know where she is?”

  “I’m Fenway Stevenson,” Fenway said, letting Piper scoot around the angry woman and into the foyer, presumably to get the cake from the refrigerator in the it office’s break room. The woman looked familiar, although Fenway couldn’t place her.

  “You!” The woman stomped into the outer office, her large beige purse smacking against her hip. “You are supposed to work on suspicious deaths. But nothing! You’ve done nothing about my boy?”

  “About your—” Then the answer clicked in Fenway’s mind, almost audibly. “Oh—you’re Rory’s mother.” She had seen her from a distance, and had seen photos, but she hadn’t spoken to her face-to-face before. It took Fenway a couple of seconds before the name came to her—Marisol Velásquez.

  “I say I have heard nothing!” the woman said, raising her voice. “You make me think you care about people and justice. But no. Just like all the others. You care only about popularity and your election.” She stepped right up to Fenway and looked up into her face, her eyes flashing with anger.

  “I don’t—” Fenway began.

  “Hey, hey,” Dez said, stepping around her desk and holding her ha
nds out, palms up. “I think there’s been a misunder—”

  “Oh, somebody doesn’t understand,” Rory’s mother seethed. “My boy is dead for five days, and I hear nothing. No calls. Nobody coming by the house. Nothing!”

  “That’s because Coroner Stevenson isn’t in charge of this investigation,” Dez said, trying to position her body between Mrs. Velásquez and Fenway. “The sheriff is leading it.”

  “No, no. It is the coroner who—”

  “The coroner was injured in the explosion,” Dez said. “She was in the hospital for the first twenty-four hours. The sheriff took over the investigation.”

  Rory’s mother shook her head. “Rory was a good boy. He worked for you. For your—how do you say—your campaign. He died because he helped you. Because he did something nice for you.”

  The rock of guilt in Fenway’s stomach dropped. “I know,” Fenway said, “and I’m—”

  “You and I? We will talk now,” Rory’s mother said.

  Fenway stole a glance at Dez. “It’s okay,” Fenway said. “I’ll take care of this.”

  Dez looked sideways at Fenway. “Okay, rookie,” she murmured. “It’s your funeral.”

  “Why don’t we go into my office?” Fenway suggested, though it was more like a statement. “You can tell me everything you want to know about your son’s investigation. Even though I’m not leading it, I can find out where we stand, and I’ll be sure that someone gets back to you by the end of the day.”

  “You think I have anywhere to be?” Mrs. Velásquez said. “My son is murdered. My husband is gone, left town. No. I stay right here until I get answers.”

  “I understand,” Fenway said. “Come on in. Take a seat.”

  “Don’t think you can sit me down in your office and tell me nice stories. It’s been five days. Five days, Coroner. No patting me on the head and telling me to go away.”

  “No,” Fenway said, “I won’t do that.”

  Fenway led the way into her office. She barely knew the place because for two months she’d always been out in the field, or at a campaign event. The room had an almost ethereal quality to it. It wasn’t too different from when she had first walked in after her predecessor was murdered. The window to the outside was closed, but it was colder here than in the main office space, and the leafless trees and the high gray clouds contributed to the gloom.

  Rory’s mother closed the door and turned toward Fenway, a different look on her face. “Okay,” she said, quietly but quickly. “I don’t think I have much time. My husband is in a lot of trouble, I think.”

  “What?” Fenway creased her brow in confusion.

  “Out there—I am not mad. Estoy fingiendo. It is all fake.”

  “Fake? You’re not angry?”

  “I don’t know who to trust. But, I make a bet I can trust you, Coroner.” She pulled a file folder out of her large purse and put it on her desk. “I find these in a locked file cabinet in the backroom of the shop. I can’t figure it out. I think I see a lot of money going around, going to other accounts. Money from I don’t know where.”

  Fenway opened the file folder with the Central Auto Body name and logo at the top. It was a spreadsheet and it looked generic. No company name, and no context for what the spreadsheet could be for, but she recognized the unique look of a payment ledger and balance sheet. The name on the first line was Global Advantage Executive Consulting.

  “I’ll be damned,” Fenway said under her breath.

  “¿Qué es?”

  “I recognize the name of this consulting company,” Fenway said. “We’ve seen payments to this organization from quite a few of the businesses here in the area.”

  “Are they all hidden like this one?”

  “They—” Fenway started to say, and then stopped herself. “I don’t think I can comment on an ongoing investigation, Mrs. Velásquez.”

  Rory’s mother gave a pained smile. “Call me Marisol. But not out there. You say there were payments from this consulting company to the two other dead men who were killed last week? Then, I think, maybe they’re the ones who killed my son, too.”

  Fenway nodded. “We’re getting warrants on as many financial records as we can.”

  Marisol Velásquez looked Fenway in the face. “What do you think it is?”

  “It may all be interconnected illegal activity.” Fenway shook her head. “But I’ve told you as much as I can right now.”

  “Take these files. You see many, many payments in there. Payments with information. Use it to find out who killed my son.”

  “Information like what?”

  “Names! Names on the checking accounts, names on receipts, names on forms. Sometimes there is only an account number, maybe a fake company.”

  “Like what we found out so far.”

  “Es verdad,” Marisol said, “but look for the names of people. People you can connect with fake company names, yes?”

  Fenway paused. “Is my father’s name in here?”

  “I don’t look,” she said. “The more I know, the more they can get to me.”

  Fenway glanced through the file. There were over seventy pages of not just spreadsheets, but email printouts and text message logs, too.

  “Your husband liked to keep records of these activities.”

  “Domingo, he doesn’t trust anyone. He always says he can only trust himself. I think he doesn’t even trust me to know.”

  Fenway flipped through the last few pages. “This might be helpful, Mrs. Velásquez. Marisol.”

  “I want to help. I found this, and I think it can help. Yes?”

  Fenway nodded, flipping through the pages. “So,” Fenway said slowly, “that was all an act?”

  “Lo siento. I had no choice. Some names in the files are powerful people. Like I said, I don’t know who I can trust.”

  The woman was right to be wary, especially since McVie still hadn’t figured out who the mole was in the sheriff’s office.

  “If somebody sees me, are they going to think, ‘okay, she found the files’? Not if I come in here and start yelling.” She tapped her forehead. “Okay, Coroner, put them somewhere safe.” She turned to go. “And find out who killed my boy.”

  Fenway nodded.

  She opened the door and raised her voice. “Maybe if you weren’t so worried about winning the election you’d know something.”

  Dez appeared behind her. “All right, Ms. Velásquez, that’s enough. You want to yell at someone, the sheriff has an office right across the street. I’ll even escort you over there if you like.”

  “I’m going,” Mrs. Velásquez snapped. “It’s nice to see my tax dollars going to people who only care about getting re-elected.”

  “We’ll be in touch,” Fenway said.

  “I hope so.” Mrs. Velásquez sniffed, then turned on her heel and left.

  “What was that about?” asked Dez. “She was upset.”

  “Her son is dead,” Fenway said.

  “Think she’ll come back with a shotgun?”

  Fenway shook her head. “No. I calmed her down. She just wants answers.”

  “Man, I can’t believe Sheriff McVie would blow her off,” Dez said. “Normally he’s so good about doing stuff like that.”

  Fenway stopped for a moment, considering.

  “Come into my office for a minute, Dez,” she said.

  Chapter Three

  Dez rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to miss out on cake for this.” She zipped to the center table where a few pieces of the Congratulations Fenway cake were on small paper plates. Dez took two pieces of cake and two forks and followed Fenway into her office.

  Dez closed the door behind her with her foot. “Let me guess,” she said. “You want to be brought up to speed on the Jessica Marquez murder.”

  “Yes.” Fenway sat down in her chair behind the desk. “But first, I want to talk about payments from the global consulting firm.”

  “Wait.” Dez placed the two plates on the desk but remained standing. “
I’m on a new murder, and you want to discuss the consulting payments from the last murder case?”

  “I do,” said Fenway. “Jeremy Kapp, Domingo Velásquez, Dr. Tassajera—they all got payments from Global Advantage. We don’t have much else to go on for Dr. Tassajera’s murder.”

  “And why Domingo Velásquez disappeared after his minivan blew up with his son behind the wheel.”

  “Exactly.”

  Dez tapped her foot. “Don’t tell me you think Jessica Marquez is part of it too?”

  Fenway shook her head. “No, no, there’s nothing to suggest that,” she said. “Not yet, anyway, but I haven’t seen any evidence from this morning.”

  Dez nodded. “I’ll bring you up to speed.”

  “And because Jessica Marquez’s death happened so soon after the others, I think we better at least look into her accounts and see if there’s anything from Global Advantage. Even if there isn’t, you might find a motive.”

  “Even if we find evidence of Jessica Marquez being paid by Global Advantage, keep in mind those payments had nothing to do with Jeremy Kapp’s murder.”

  “I know,” Fenway said. “But when we were talking about the murders all being related, we thought Jeremy Kapp’s murder was the first domino, remember?”

  Dez nodded.

  “What if it was still the first domino? What if whoever is behind the payments and the money laundering and everything—what if they thought Kapp’s death meant something?”

  “Like what?”

  “Maybe that Domingo Velásquez and Dr. Jacob Tassajera were, I don’t know, skimming off the top, or had somehow betrayed someone.”

  “You’ll see if there are any payments that involved Jessica Marquez, too?”

  Fenway shrugged. “I’ll at least look into it. A Shakespeare troupe manager involved in a money laundering ring is crazy.”

  “True,” Dez said, “but it’s crazy to think your shrink would be caught up in it, too. And now Mark is investigating his murder.” She motioned her head at the door. “What information did Rory’s mom have about the killings?”

  Fenway stared at her. “How did you know?”