However, all readers - sooner or later - find for themselves a literary genre that is fundamentally different from all others. The Reluctant Coroner by Paul Austin Ardoin (distant reading txt) đź“–
- Author: Paul Austin Ardoin
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“Would these tracks be the Park Police?”
“No, their tracks are on the other side.”
“The theory is the killer took the car?”
“Yes. Could have been a car thief, but the killer is more likely.”
Fenway looked across the road, scanning the opposite shoulder, although she wasn’t sure what she was looking for. “How did the killer get here?”
McVie walked toward her. “Jeez, you were serious about coming out here. It’s your first day, Coroner.”
“He’s been dead for almost three, Sheriff. The trail’s already cold.” She looked up and down the road. “No bus stop for miles, right?”
McVie nodded.
“We’re pretty sure the killer left in Walker’s car. So how did they get here?”
McVie was silent.
“Did anyone check taxi records? Uber records? This is an unusual place to get dropped off. If you find someone who got dropped here late Sunday night, I bet you’d find your killer.”
“Maybe the killer drove with Walker.”
“Maybe.” Fenway stared at the tire tracks. “It looks like the car pulled off the road, parked, then drove off. Walker was killed behind the car.”
McVie looked from the tire indentations to the location of the body, then nodded.
“He got out to talk to someone,” said Fenway.
“You don’t know that.”
Fenway shook her head. “You’re right, I don’t. This is my first murder investigation.” Tingles cascaded down her spine when she said it. “So tell me why I’m wrong. Tell me what other scenarios I’m not taking into account.”
McVie was silent, staring intently at the tire tracks.
“He comes to a dark road in the middle of the night. Parks. Gets out. Stands twenty feet behind his car. Gets shot. I don’t know which way he’s facing, and I don’t know where the killer is standing. My brain is thinking botched drug deal or an information exchange of some kind. That means he’s meeting someone.”
McVie nodded. “That’s what it looks like.”
“Any tire tracks on that side of the road?”
“That’s where the Park Police and all the emergency vehicles parked on Monday.”
Fenway folded her arms and walked slowly up the shoulder, all the way to where it ended at a bridge over the ravine. She pointed down the steep hill. “Great place to destroy evidence,” she shouted.
McVie didn’t respond. Probably out of earshot.
She walked slowly back to the cruiser. McVie was leaning on the passenger-side door.
“See anything interesting?”
“Not that I recognized as important,” Fenway said. “There were a couple of interesting rocks, I guess.”
“Seen all you need to see?”
“I think so.” She clapped McVie on the shoulder. “Thanks for humoring me.”
“I called in.” McVie walked around the front of the car and opened the driver-side door. “Asked to run taxi and rideshare app records for Sunday night.”
Fenway shrugged and got in the cruiser. “The killer might be too smart for that, but you never know.”
McVie had a meeting to get to, so he dropped Fenway in front of the coroner’s building. It was just past ten thirty.
All the employees—Dez, Mark, Rachel, and Migs—looked up from their computers as the door opened.
“It’s official,” Fenway announced. “I was appointed coroner this morning.”
Dez stood up and smiled. “Congratulations. You’re still in one piece after meeting the supervisors, I see.”
Rachel couldn’t look Fenway in the eyes. “Lana Cassidy is waiting for you in the conference room.” Oh. The same woman who wouldn’t take Rachel’s complaint about Walker. That didn’t sound promising. What a way to start her new job.
Fenway walked around the counter and behind Dez’s desk. A raven-haired white woman in her mid-forties sat at the conference room table with her arms folded. Her eyes were hard, and her mouth was a straight line. She had cat-eye glasses with black frames, black slacks, and a long-sleeve floral-print shirt Fenway thought was too hot for a beautiful day like today.
“You’re late, Miss Ferris.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I’ve been here with the paperwork for your first day since ten o’clock. I’m not sure what job you worked at before where you could just—”
“I was at the murder scene with Sheriff McVie. And it’s Fenway Stevenson, not Fenway Ferris.”
Lana’s lips twitched. “Ah. You were the Miss Stevenson on the sheriff’s voicemail.”
“That’s correct. Didn’t he tell you we were out this morning?”
“I had no idea who this Miss Stevenson was,” Lana said. “At any rate, now that you’re finally here, we can get started.”
Fenway pulled out a chair and took a seat.
“I’m the director of Human Resources.” She produced a business card and handed it to her with a withering stare. “We have a lot of paperwork to sign, and I have to make sure you understand all the mandatory information.”
Fenway’s bad feeling about Lana Cassidy didn’t go away after they sat down at the conference room table. When Fenway was ten years old, she and her mom went back-to-school shopping in downtown Seattle. She was in the changing room with a pair of jeans she liked and heard muffled voices of her mother and one of the store employees. When she opened the door, Fenway saw her mother’s strange, thin-lipped smile. With a practiced hand on Fenway’s shoulder, her mother steered her out of the store, ignoring the glares from one of the employees and setting down the four outfits they had picked out. “I liked those outfits, Mom. Why can’t we get them?”
“Baby, they just insulted us. I’m not giving them our money.”
Lana Cassidy was glaring at Fenway the same way the store employee had. They had to review an enormous amount of paperwork, and Lana rushed through it all. The employee handbook, the travel policy, the signature rules.
“And you can sign expense reports up to twenty thousand dollars.” Lana turned the page quickly, but not before it registered in Fenway’s brain that the document said $10,000.
“Hang on,” Fenway interjected, putting her hand under the page and flipping it back. “It says right here I can only authorize payments for ten thousand dollars, not twenty thousand.”
Lana rolled her eyes. “I didn’t say twenty thousand.”
Fenway blinked.
“I didn’t say twenty thousand. Let’s move on.”
Halfway through the paperwork, Lana stopped and looked at her watch.
“I see it’s one o’clock. I suppose we’d better break for lunch.”
“Great. Are there lunch places around here?”
“I already have plans,” Lana said.
Fenway looked sideways at Lana. “I didn’t—I mean, I’m new in town, and I don’t know what’s around here.”
Lana gathered up her purse. “Please be back in an hour.” She was out of the conference room, slamming the door behind her.
Fenway sighed. She wasn’t sure what Lana had against her. The conference room door opened gently, and Rachel stuck her head in.
“You two breaking for lunch?”
Fenway nodded.
“Where is she taking you?”
“Oh, she made it pretty clear I was on my own.”
“Rude,” Rachel murmured. “Okay. Let’s go grab some tacos.”
“A better place than Tacos Amigos, I take it.”
“I swear, I will never take you to Tacos Amigos.”
As soon as Rachel and Fenway stepped out of the building into the bright sunlight, Rachel looked behind them and, seeing no one, spoke in a low voice. “I’m really sorry.”
“About Lana? Don’t worry about it. Not the first time that’s happened to me.”
“No. About last night. What a horrible burden I dumped on you.” She shook her head at herself. “And from someone who reports directly to you.”
“No, no, no,” Fenway said. “As your manager, I needed to know that. It happened in the office while you were working. It affects the workplace, and you were absolutely within your rights.”
Rachel was quiet for a moment. “But Mr. Walker is dead,” she whispered.
“Yes. That saves me the trouble of firing him.” Fenway frowned. “And you told Lana Cassidy, and she didn’t do anything about it?”
“Right.”
Fenway shook her head.
“I’m still sorry—”
“I don’t want to hear that, Rachel. This isn’t going to be a place where that kind of thing is tolerated. I’m only going to be here six months. Maybe I can shed some light on the problems.”
Rachel blanched. “I don’t—I don’t want to make this public.”
“I know.”
The two continued a couple of blocks east of the parking garage, where they stopped before a
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