The Reluctant Coroner by Paul Austin Ardoin (distant reading txt) 📖

the whole thing. You can’t see me when I’m on the floor, but you can hear me yelling ‘no.’ And you can’t see me when I went around the other side of the desk, but you can hear him loud and clear telling me off. It’s as airtight a sexual harassment case as you can get.”

“Sexual assault.”

Rachel’s head tilted. “What?”

“Sexual assault. He tried to rape you. This isn’t him telling a dirty joke in the office. This is a full-on sexual assault case, not sexual harassment. He would have gone to jail.”

“I don’t think he would have gone anywhere. He’s too powerful.”

Fenway curled her lip slightly and nodded.

“Anyway, I started thinking of all these different scenarios. Like in movies. If Lana had said, ‘Is this the only copy?’ and if I said ‘yes,’ maybe she would have smashed the drive up because she wouldn’t want the county to get sued. So, I went back to Wal-Mart, and I got two more USB drives. I took them home, copied the video onto them. I kept one of them here, in the junk drawer in the kitchen.”

“In the kitchen?”

“I wanted to have access to that recording. I wanted to keep it close.”

“You didn’t think Dylan would find it in the kitchen?”

“So what if he had? It’s a USB drive in a junk drawer. No way would he ever think to see what’s on there.”

“You don’t have a safe or anything?”

“Yeah, we have a fire safe where we keep our birth certificates and passports, but if I had put the USB drive in there, Dylan would have been like, ‘What’s a USB drive doing in the safe?’ Then he would have been curious enough to see what was on there.”

Fenway nodded.

“I kept the second one in my purse, and the third one is in my glove compartment. I want to be able to get to them wherever I am.” Rachel sighed. “I was a mess all day Saturday. I canceled plans to go out with Kelly and Jordan, and I watched TV like a zombie. Dylan was kind of mad at me because I wouldn’t really talk. I wound up taking a sleeping pill around 2 a.m. I woke up a little past noon on Sunday, and I decided I’d go into Lana’s office first thing Monday morning. I thought about what I’d say, how I’d insist she take action, or I’d sue. I even thought of telling her it was the only copy just to see how she’d react. I know it sounds crazy.”

Fenway shook her head. “It doesn’t sound crazy.” She was remembering her sleepless nights after her professor raped her. Wondering if she was going to get attacked again. Wondering how she’d ever make it through the rest of the semester in his class, as it was after the drop date; how could she be so stupid? Wondering if she could afford to take an F—or maybe she could just show up for the final and try to salvage a C. Wondering what she did to make him do that. “It doesn’t sound crazy at all.”

“You’re sweet,” Rachel said, “but it totally sounds crazy.” She took a deep breath. “I forced myself to go out on Sunday night, just to be with people, not alone with my thoughts. But I couldn’t go to sleep again. I couldn’t keep my mind focused, not on a book, not on TV. Then Dez called me about midnight and told me Mr. Walker had been found dead, and could I come into the office by six to help her out. So I did.”

“What did Lana say about the USB drive?”

Rachel shook her head. “I didn’t talk to Lana. I didn’t give anyone the USB drive. So I haven’t told anyone about what Mr. Walker did to me on Friday night.”

“Until now?”

“Yes, until now.”

Fenway took a deep breath. This was a lot to tell a stranger. A lot to tell your new boss. “Rachel—”

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out. “I don’t know why I told you.”

“Because you needed to tell someone, and I’m a good person to tell.”

And then Rachel’s eyes went wide. “Oh, God. I’m a suspect.”

Fenway paused. “Probably. And you might have to tell that story again. Exactly the way you told me.”

Rachel was fighting back tears again. “I don’t know if I can do it.”

“You’ve already shown me how strong you are. You can do it.”

Rachel nodded, a tear running down her cheek. She swallowed hard to regain her composure.

“Whoever investigates this is going to ask you if you own a gun. Do you own a gun?”

“Yes. My dad gave me his Smith & Wesson Model 41 when I moved out on my own,” she answered. “I don’t usually carry it with me, though. It’s on the top shelf of my closet.”

“Okay. I don’t know what kind of gun was used to kill the coroner, but I got the impression it was a larger caliber weapon.”

Rachel paused, chewing her lip. “You know guns?”

“Probably not enough yet.”

Rachel swallowed hard.

Fenway stood up. “Listen—do you need anything? I mean, it’s only been a couple of days since it happened, and—I don’t know. He did a horrible thing.”

Rachel was silent.

“The county has a good health plan, right? You can see someone. Like a therapist. I bet it would help to talk to someone about this.”

“Maybe.”

Fenway shook her head. “No, not maybe. You need to talk to someone about this. A professional someone.”

“Maybe,” she repeated.

They had come to the end of the conversation, but Fenway wasn’t sure she should leave.

“Do—do you want me to stay until Dylan gets home?”

“Oh, God, no,” Rachel said. “That would just invite more questions. That’s the last thing I need.”

“Okay, I’ll get going then.”

“I’m sorry, Fenway,” Rachel repeated. “I don’t know why I told you all that.”

“No, no. Look, if you need to talk to anyone about it some more, you can talk to me.” She grabbed a pen and a notepad off the coffee table. “Here,” she said, scrawling her cell phone number on the notepad. “Any time.” She handed it to Rachel, who took it gingerly.

Fenway walked to the door. “I mean it. Any time.”

Rachel walked her out onto the front step. “Okay.”

Rachel went back inside and closed the door. She opened it again. “Wait, did you call your Uber?”

“It’s not far. I like walking.”

Fenway started for home, wishing with each footfall that her Russian Lit professor’s face were underneath, wishing that her heel were denting, grinding, smashing it.

She remembered leaving his office when it was over, determined not to cry in front of him, not even registering the saccharine compliments he was giving her except as fresh stab wounds. She ran out into the plaza between the English department offices and the library. Her phone had buzzed in her purse—at least she remembered to pick that up—and she saw Mom on the screen. Her mother was the exact person she needed to talk to, but she froze. It went to voicemail.

She threw everything on her bed when she reached her dorm room, grabbed a towel and her toiletries, a pair of sweats and a t-shirt, and, even though it was five thirty in the afternoon, walked quickly down the hall into the showers. She turned on the water as hot as she could and pulled the curtain around the stall and used the rest of the bar of soap scrubbing herself. She stood under the showerhead, and she only vaguely realized the hot water wasn’t good for her hair; she’d have to use her avocado oil and shea butter and maybe a wrap that night. She thought of how no one would ever believe her, and how her friends would wonder why she wasn’t at dinner, and her mother would worry why she didn’t return the call. She leaned her back against the cool tile and slid down until she was sitting on the floor, and she sobbed, trying to be quiet so no one would hear her.

She wondered what would have happened if she had owned a Smith & Wesson Model 41 back then. The weight of the gun in her hand, the adrenaline rush as she shot him in the back on a deserted country road, the satisfaction of seeing him dead at her feet.

Fenway shook her head and kept walking.

She arrived home as the sun dipped behind the horizon.

There were boxes to unpack, but Fenway paced around the apartment, unable to stop walking. If she’d had access to a Smith & Wesson back then, there would have been a job vacancy in Russian Lit the next day. She wouldn’t have even been sorry. And had Rachel, perhaps, done what Fenway had only dreamed of doing? And if so, what would Fenway, as the investigator—

But no. She didn’t even have the job yet. It wasn’t up to her to investigate anything.

Officially.

In the middle of the living room, Fenway stopped pacing and sighed. She eyed all the boxes, some with clothes, one with books, one with linens, and started unpacking.

Fenway kept working until every box was empty, breaking only to grab an unsatisfying microwave burrito and a six-pack of microbrew at the convenience store. Three of her mother’s paintings were hanging on the walls. Her toiletries and cosmetics sat in organizers under the sink in the bathroom, and her clothes hung in the closet.

She was breaking down the last moving box just past ten