The Incumbent Coroner Page 7

  She knew she didn’t have a lot to eat at her apartment, and thought she might get a decent breakfast before her trip. She might have to endure the over-engineered brunch concoctions at Mimosa’s instead of the blue-collar bacon and eggs she preferred. But the mayor’s death and Rachel’s poisoning had rattled her. Some family time—even with her father—might settle her down.

  Can you do it early? she texted back. I have to leave for San Miguelito at 8:15. She got the affirmative response before she even got into McVie’s cruiser.

  As McVie waited at the stoplight to get them on the highway back to Estancia, Fenway thought about her Accord. And Akeel.

  She looked over at McVie.

  “I like working with you, Craig,” she said simply.

  He looked her in the eyes. “I like working with you too, Fenway. I wish it didn’t have to be in such a shitty situation.”

  She gave him a sad smile before he turned back to the road.

  Fenway looked out the window. The palpable darkness outside cloaked the canyon, with its fast-moving creek below. Past the next curve, she saw the lights of San Miguelito’s hotel district, the famous Spanish architecture, the railroad yards, then finally the slow climb up to Cuesta Pass.

  She wished she were still in Seattle. She wished that she and Akeel were wrapped up together, intertwining their fingers as they kissed, their legs entangled. She wished her mother’s painting was safely boxed up in her trunk, waiting for a trip back to its spiritual home, waiting to again hang on a wall. waiting to be appreciated.

  PART III

  SunDAY

  Chapter Six

  When her doorbell rang at seven, Fenway expected her father. She pulled the door open and Nathaniel Ferris stood there, but so did a tall man in a light gray chambray suit and a crisp white shirt. His tanned skin, square jaw, and bright blue eyes made Fenway think her father had brought along a movie star who had one of the beachfront mansions in Estancia Estates.

  “Hi, Dad,” Fenway said, a little unsure of herself. “I didn’t expect a guest.”

  Nathaniel Ferris looked disapprovingly at his daughter’s blue jeans and simple cream blouse, with navy blue flats.

  “Good morning, Fenway,” he said, a bit formally. “I guess I should have mentioned that Everett Michaels would be joining us for breakfast this morning.”

  Fenway nodded. She was not going to apologize for dressing somewhat casually.

  “Nice to meet you,” Fenway said.

  “The pleasure is all mine,” Everett Michaels said. He reached out and shook her hand and flashed a crooked smile with beautiful, straight, white teeth. “You’ve certainly done a fantastic job as coroner, and in such a difficult situation, if I may say.”

  Fenway nodded, a little off guard. “Thank you. That’s always nice to hear.” She turned to her father. “I think I mentioned that I had to head out for the medical examiner’s office after breakfast,” she said. “It won’t be a problem to drop me at the airport car rental, will it? I had to leave my car in Seattle.”

  “Oh,” Nathaniel Ferris said. “You’re still on the mayor’s case?”

  “It just happened yesterday,” Fenway said. “I’ll be working on it for a while.”

  “Right,” her father said. “Of course we can drop you off there. I guess we better get going—we don’t have a lot of time.”

  Everett Michaels insisted on taking the back seat of the Mercedes. True to Fenway’s expectations, her father took them to Mimosa’s. His driver having Sundays off, Ferris drove, and opened up the S500 on the freeway, despite the short distance.

  Fenway knew that Mimosa’s positioned itself for the weekend brunch crowd: post-church socialites in their Sunday best, or post-hike outdoors types laughing too loudly over Bloody Marys. At 7:15, the three of them walked into a mostly empty restaurant. The hostess greeted them sleepily and sat them unnecessarily far away from the kitchen, at a booth in a corner window.

  Fenway sat next to Everett Michaels and caught a whiff of his cologne for the first time. It didn’t smell overpowering, but the spice and sweetness intermingled wonderfully. She looked at him, and he gave her a smile suggesting he knew how good he looked.

  Her father looked happy and effervescent. After they gave their coffee order to the server, he clapped his hands together.

  “Fenway, I’m really glad you agreed to come to brunch with Everett and me.”

  Fenway held her tongue, as she had agreed to a meal with her father, not a stranger. Also, she thought, isn’t 7:15 too early to call it brunch?

  “As you know, Everett’s the vice president of innovation at Carpetti Pharmaceuticals, and the candidate I’m backing for coroner.”

  Of course, Fenway thought. Eggs with a side of ambush.

  “I know,” Ferris continued, “that you’re not comfortable introducing Everett at his campaign announcement event on Monday without knowing the man.” He clapped Michaels on the shoulder. “And I shouldn’t have assumed that you would. I’ve known Everett for almost twenty years. He served as a groomsman when I married Charlotte.”

  Fenway gritted her teeth. She hadn’t been invited to the wedding. He hadn’t shown up for her high school graduation; three weeks later, he married a twenty-five-year-old and jetted off to his honeymoon in Rome.

  “But I thought if the two of you were able to chat for a bit, get to know each other, well, Fenway, you might reconsider. If you read some of Everett’s articles, maybe some of the reports he’s submitted, you’d see what a great scientific mind he has.”

  Everett Michaels broke in. “And Carpetti’s obtained FDA approval for the first pain reliever with the effectiveness of oxycontin without the addictive side effects.” Michaels leaned forward, eyes bright. “Not only is it non-opioidal, it also causes significantly less stress to the renal system than acetaminophen, or even ibuprofen.”

  “I’m going to pretend I understood that,” laughed Ferris, then his face grew serious. “Don’t you want a coroner who actually cares about medicine?” He looked directly at Fenway. “I know you’re no fan of Dr. Klein. You don’t want to see Klein in position to tear down everything you’ve built here.”

  Fenway, nonplussed, wondered what exactly she had built. The team hadn’t changed since she started, except for Rachel’s promotion to public information officer. Unlike her predecessor, she never second-guessed the staff or overstepped boundaries, but Fenway didn’t think that counted toward building anything.

  But she didn’t want to argue, and she really wanted to be in San Miguelito in time for the autopsy to start. She took a deep breath and girded herself.

  She reached out across the table and took her father’s hand, and felt her voice pitch up slightly. “Dad,” she said, shaking her head, “I’m so glad that you know me well enough to know why I don’t feel comfortable with this.” She turned her head toward Michaels and again breathed in his scent. “Nothing against you, Mr. Michaels. If you’ve done half the things my dad says you have, and if your new medicine works like you say it does, you obviously have a wonderful scientific mind.” Or at least employ some top-notch scientists and take the credit, she thought, pulling her hand back from her father’s. “But I’m afraid I’m going to be far too busy with the investigation into Mayor Jenkins’ murder to commit to anything else.”

  The server brought their coffees, handing the latte to Fenway. She took a sip and set the large cup back in its saucer. “And frankly, Dad, I think Monday would be far too soon to announce. It will look disrespectful to the memory of Mayor Jenkins. If you’re worried about Dr. Klein getting a jump on you, let him announce on Monday. That way, he’s the one who looks bad in front of the press.”

  Michaels smiled and leaned back. “Your daughter has a point, Nate,” he said. Fenway didn’t think she had heard her father called Nate since her parents were still together. “We’ve been focused so much on the boxing match with Klein that we’ve forgotten the optics.”

  “Tha
t’s my girl,” Ferris said, smiling, but his lips were tight. “Doing what’s best even when it isn’t what I want.”

  Fenway bristled, but kept the smile on her face. “Well, then, you’ll love this, Dad.” She turned to Michaels. “If you want to have any chance at the election, Mr. Michaels, you’re going to have to actually grieve for the mayor.”

  Michaels looked confused. “But I didn’t even know her. We met no more than two or three times. Likely at some committee meetings.”

  “Sure,” Fenway said, “but you’ve got to understand, everyone loved Alice Jenkins. The most stoic, hard-assed, emotionless people I’ve met in town are crying over her death. This is not going to be an easy thing for Estancia. For the county. And if you, Mr. Michaels, come out and look like you just want to sweep her memory under the rug, you’re going to lose in a landslide.”

  Michaels rubbed his square jaw thoughtfully. Fenway thought Michaels hadn’t heard pushback like that before; his good looks and powerful position usually discouraged people from disagreeing with him so directly. But she had to get to the autopsy, and she hoped getting to the point would move the conversation along. It’s not like she needed Michaels on her side—in fact, he wanted her on his.

  “You’re very straightforward, aren’t you, Miss Stevenson?” he asked, although it sounded like more of a statement. Fenway noticed that he didn’t call her Miss Ferris, an error that almost all of her father’s friends and business colleagues made. Michaels must need her on his side more than she thought.

  “Our time is valuable, Mr. Michaels,” she said. “I don’t think you want me blowing sunshine up your dress.”

  Her father visibly winced, but Michaels smiled widely. “I certainly don’t,” he said. “Enough business talk. Let’s get some breakfast.”

  After the server took their order—Ferris and Michaels ordering omelettes with French sheep’s-milk cheese and herbs that Fenway couldn’t pronounce, and Fenway keeping to a simple egg breakfast that she had to order a la carte—Michaels started to probe Fenway about her master’s program in forensics. He seemed especially interested in trace evidence. Unless Fenway imagined it, Everett subtly flirted with her; just enough for her to notice, but not enough for her father to pick up on it. A brief touch of the hand, a look that lingered a little longer than it might have ordinarily.

  After the food came, Fenway talked about the new acid treatment they had in San Miguelito that could raise filed-off identification numbers from guns, car parts, and other metal objects.

  Michaels talked about the new pain reliever at length: the drug interactions that almost derailed FDA approval, and about the rigors of drug testing and clinical trials.

  “We were fortunate that the process for Nozithrapham went as quickly as it did,” he said. He smiled at Fenway and she felt her heart flutter. “Sometimes drugs like this take years to go through approvals. But we have the best clinical trial manager in the business.” He laughed. “I hired him away from one of the big European companies. Moved him here from Austria. That’s how seriously we take it.”

  “That’s why Everett couldn’t take the coroner position in May,” Ferris interjected. “They were still testing, and without Everett’s guiding hand to navigate the bureaucracy, it might have been delayed for months.”

  “Years,” Michaels corrected, touching Fenway’s forearm lightly. “And I can’t take all the credit—I couldn’t have done it without Gottfried.”

  “It takes a village,” Ferris said. Fenway stopped herself from rolling her eyes.

  “And I’m sure you’ve heard all the concern over opiate addiction and pill-popping,” Michaels continued. “It’s all over the news, and the regulators are getting more and more involved. It’s bad for our reputation, and frankly it’s bad for business.”

  “But then you have this miracle drug,” Fenway prodded.

  Michaels shook his head. “I don’t like that term,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not bullish on the prospects of what this can do.”

  “It’s not often you get to do something good for society and make a lot of money from it,” observed Fenway.

  “That’s exactly what I told the board of directors,” Michaels said, slapping the table for emphasis. “This is why I got involved in the development of medicine to begin with. Sometimes, with the investors screaming about quarterly earnings and expecting double-digit growth every year, I feel like I’m up against the ropes.”

  She could feel her pulse quicken with this conversation, and, even knowing that he was trying to play her to get within her good graces, she couldn’t help but be intrigued.

  “One thing that I don’t get,” Fenway said. “You’re in a great position at Carpetti. You must be making a lot of money. You’re helping people. Why give it all up to run for coroner?”

  Everett leaned on the table and looked down. “My mother taught me that serving your community is one of the most important things you can do,” he said softly. “Estancia has been very good to me. I haven’t found the right woman.” He paused and looked up into Fenway’s eyes. “I don’t have children. My legacy is going to be how I helped our patients and customers, and how I helped the community.” He sat up straight. “And, truth be told, I’ve had critics who say I’m a selfish bastard, that I only think about myself, and that I only care about money.” A smug smile came over his face. “I can’t wait to prove them wrong.”

  Fenway leaned back. “I guess there’s some nobility in that,” she said.

  As they continued to talk about medicine, Fenway found herself engaged and interested in spite of herself, and the man certainly was easy on the eyes—and the nose. Her father looked both lost and bored by the conversation, which Fenway relished, though she tried not to show it.

  “All right, gentlemen,” she finally said, “I need to get to San Miguelito. I’ve got the most important autopsy of my career starting in an hour, and I’ve got to rent a car.”

  Ferris held his hand up. “Hold on, Fenway. Everett, you didn’t leave anything in the Mercedes, did you?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “In that case, I’ll let Fenway borrow the Merc. We’re enjoying our breakfast and our tee time isn’t until ten. I can have Charlotte come out in the Range Rover and meet us here when we’re done.”

  “You’d let me drive your Mercedes?” Fenway said.

  “Don’t get a ticket,” Ferris said, holding the keys out for her. “You think you’re doing 65, then you look down and you’re going 90. That car craves the autobahn.”

  Fenway again tried very hard not to roll her eyes, and mostly succeeded.

  • • •

  Fenway got into the Mercedes, prepared to be unimpressed by the S500’s pomp and circumstance. She had forgotten about the buttery-soft leather, and, turning the car on, she felt everything in easy reach, like the car had been created just to cater to her whims.

  “Ah,” she breathed. “This is why my father can’t understand why I’m okay with a Honda.”

  The car, though large, handled crisply, and she opened it up on the highway to San Miguelito. The low, throaty growl of the engine as she downshifted and sped past an RV on the Cuesta grade pleased her on a visceral level.

  But the strangeness of Mayor Jenkins’ death and Rachel’s attempted murder weighed down her thoughts. She turned over much of the interview with Fletcher Jenkins in her head. She couldn’t imagine that the two crimes wouldn’t be related somehow—especially with Fletcher’s relationship with the mayor and the pill bottle, possibly his, found next to Rachel. It might not be his, of course—she hoped the report on the fingerprints would be available by the time the autopsy finished—but it just seemed too coincidental. And she knew enough from her two months on the job not to like coincidence when it came to dead bodies.

  She turned off the highway and drove through the streets of San Miguelito until she turned into the parking lot of the M.E.’s office, a few minutes early. Kav a
nd Melissa greeted her in the waiting room.

  “The advance crew is here, I see,” she said wryly, but their faces were sullen.

  “Dr. Yasuda isn’t doing well,” Kav said. “She’s normally so calm and reserved around cadavers. But she’s having a problem with this one.”

  “She really liked Mayor Jenkins,” Fenway said, nodding. “And I get the feeling she doesn’t really like a whole lot of people.”

  “You may have to perform more of the autopsy than you might have thought,” Melissa said, as they exited the waiting room and walked down to the morgue. “Dr. Yasuda waited till you got here to start, but I get the feeling that she doesn’t really want to start at all. I’ll go pull the mayor out of the fridge and get her prepped.” She hesitated. “I hope you don’t mind, but, uh, I’m not going to sit in on this one.”

  Fenway turned into the lab room and grabbed a set of scrubs. She put them on, tucked her black curls into a medical cap, and pulled on gloves. Then she took a deep breath and walked out into the examination room.

  The supine body of Alice Jenkins lay on a table in the middle of the room, with the sheet turned down to reveal her face. Dr. Yasuda’s laptop rested on a counter slightly above where she sat on a stool, facing slightly away from the body, shoulders slumped. Fenway had never seen her like that before. Dr. Yasuda looked up, her face creased with pain.

  “I’m really sorry,” Fenway said. “I know a lot of people are having trouble with the mayor’s death. I didn’t know her very well, but I know that she touched a lot of people’s lives.”

  Dr. Yasuda nodded, lips a thin line. She started to speak, then stopped, then took a deep breath.

  “I may ask you to make the Y incision,” she said. “I’m not sure I can do it.”

  Fenway nodded.

  “I did the CT scans last night before I left,” she said. “Melissa helped. They’re on the computer.”