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

the office so I can get some work done?”

“Yeah, but let’s wait till the dust clears from the CSI unit.” She knelt down and looked at the tire tracks in the lawn. “So, I heard it was Rachel’s husband that made this hole.”

“His truck, anyway,” Fenway said, noncommittally. “He says it was stolen.”

“You question him yet?”

“McVie did. I was keeping Rachel occupied, mostly. McVie arrested him for Walker’s murder about ten minutes ago.”

Dez exhaled loudly. “Ugh. Rachel must be beside herself. Probably won’t be seeing her today.”

“Probably not. She ran out.”

“What did they have on him?”

Fenway looked down at Dez. “We have enough for suspicion. Motive. An alibi that didn’t match up. A gun that’s probably the same caliber as the murder weapon.”

“Hmm.” Dez stood back up. “We haven’t seen the ballistics report yet. I’ll call the M.E. in San Miguelito first thing this morning.”

“You have a good relationship with the M.E.?”

Dez looked at Fenway sideways. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Fenway was a little taken aback. “I just meant I have some new territory to cover here, and if you’re on decent terms with the M.E., I might like you to introduce him to me.”

Dez relaxed. “Yeah, we’re not on the best of terms, but I’ll see what I can do.” Dez put her arms above her head and stretched. “And it’s a her, by the way.”

“What?”

“The M.E. It’s a her, not a him.”

Fenway nodded. “Oh, that’s right. You said she was a bitch.”

Dez chuckled. “Yep. I gotta tell you something else, Fenway. That drawer they stole was the F through G drawer in active files.”

Fenway closed her eyes. “Let me guess. Ferris Energy had some active files in there.”

“Yep. But F through G covers a lot of ground. Dylan’s last name is Richards, like Rachel’s, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, that ain’t it,” Dez said.

“Maybe his mom’s maiden name is Ferguson or Gatsby or something.”

“Maybe, but these are active cases.”

“Yeah.”

“But I know for a fact there was an active file in there on Ferris Energy. There were a couple of deaths there about six months ago, and Walker still hadn’t determined a cause of death.”

“It wouldn’t have been under the last name of the deceased?”

“Not in Walker’s filing system.” Dez shook her head. “When multiple deaths are related, Walker filed it under a group name. Two John Does found in Querido Park last year were filed under Q.”

They both fell silent, watching the CSI team carry out the last few pieces of furniture.

“I’m not going to sweep anything my father did under the rug,” Fenway said. “I don’t know if that’s why he suggested my name to McVie, but I’m not hiding anything. My mom and I left my father twenty years ago, and I’ve barely talked to him. If I have to arrest him for murder, and I get run out of town, so be it. It’s not like I have any ties here.”

Dez kept watching the CSI team, but she nodded slowly. “I like hearing you’re not going to give your father special treatment. But don’t be putting him in maximum security yet. There’s nothing we’ve found to tie him to anything.”

Fenway looked down at her feet. “Yet.”

“All right, I think we can go in now. We’ll figure out where they put everything, and you can go through it later.”

“Later?” Fenway stifled a yawn. “I already feel like I’ve been on the job for a full day.”

“And it’s not even eight a.m.”

They walked around to the front of the building, where Dez let them in with her keycard.

“I need to clue you in on something, Dez,” Fenway said, “and I know I’ve only known you a couple of days, but I have to trust somebody, and I think if you weren’t trustworthy, you’d act differently around me.”

“What do you mean?”

Fenway raised her eyebrow. “You’d be a lot nicer to me, for one thing.”

Dez laughed. “Honey, this is me being nice. Just ask the M.E. what my not-nice looks like.” She opened the door to the office suite and they went inside.

“Okay. So, this is delicate, and given what I’m about to tell you, this whole thing is probably going to blow back on the county.”

“What are you talking about?”

“First, Dez, this is between you and me.” Fenway sat down at Rachel’s desk, Dez perched beside her. “No Mark, no Migs. Don’t even tell family members. Just you and me.”

“All right.”

“It’s about Walker. Two nights before he was killed, he sexually assaulted Rachel in the office.”

“What?” Dez asked, incredulous. “What do you mean, ‘sexually assaulted’?”

“He ripped her clothes. Tried to rape her. When she fought to get away from him, he told her she was fired.”

“Did Rachel tell you that?”

Fenway nodded. “And it’s on video.”

Dez shook her head. “That piece of shit. I knew he was a letch, but I didn’t think he’d do that.”

“But listen,” Fenway continued, “there’s more. Walker had been harassing Rachel for weeks, and she went to Lana Cassidy, and Lana blew her off. Told her she needed proof, and she couldn’t file a report based only on Rachel’s testimony.”

“Then he escalated from harassment to rape,” Dez spat. “And since Lana said she needed proof, Rachel recorded it?”

“Yep.”

“And she told her husband, who went ballistic.”

“Well, maybe. I mean, Rachel says she didn’t tell him, but she left a backup copy of the video on a USB stick in their junk drawer.”

“That’s crazy. Why would she leave it there if she didn’t want him to look at it?”

“She says he wouldn’t pay any attention to a random USB stick in a junk drawer. But you never know; Dylan might have found the drive and watched the video on it anyway. That’s certainly McVie’s working theory—Dylan watched the video, then lost his mind with rage, and lured Walker out to the woods to kill him.”

“You don’t think so, though.” Dez looked thoughtful.

Fenway hesitated. “It would fit really well. Except, why take the files? And you can clearly see his license plate in the cameras—it’s almost like the driver of the truck wanted us to see the plate. The driver was wearing a ski mask, and knew enough to avoid the security cameras once he was out of the truck, but didn’t think to remove the license plate?”

“So, you think someone is framing Dylan.”

“I guess that’s what I think. That sounds so crazy, like a conspiracy theory. Who would frame Dylan?”

“Maybe someone at his work? Maybe a family member?”

“I actually think McVie is looking to see if Rachel’s involved,” Fenway said. “But if Dylan did it, maybe he could say it was the only way to prevent Walker from attacking her in the future. Rachel had already reported it to HR, but it didn’t stop. If that were the case, I think it’s possible the county could be legally liable for Walker’s murder.”

“Wait.” Dez put up her hand to stop her. “I totally get the county is liable if Rachel wants to sue us for a zillion dollars. But Walker sexually assaults a girl at work, and his family can sue because the county let him get away with it?”

“Yeah. I’ve seen this kind of thing happen in Seattle. A doctor in the ER messed up during an operation and he sued the hospital and won. Anything can happen once lawyers get involved, but even if the Walker family doesn’t sue, you’re right, Rachel sure could. She tells her story to any lawyer in the country and they’ll have a lawsuit on the mayor’s desk by the next morning. But my point isn’t that Rachel could sue. My point isn’t even that Walker’s family could sue. My point is, Dylan could be found innocent, or, you know, it could be ruled a justifiable homicide, because there was no reasonable legal recourse to the sexual assault.”

“You watch too many lawyer shows,” Dez said.

“Maybe I do, but Lana Cassidy put us in an awkward position. I don’t know why she wouldn’t take Rachel’s statement.”

“It’s all CYA, Fenway. Human Resources isn’t there to protect employees; it’s there to reduce the employer’s liability. She didn’t want to open the county up for harassment claims. If she lets Rachel file, this is a government office—that shit goes public. It makes it hard to recruit new employees. Plus, it’s not like Walker could get fired. It’s an elected position. Getting him out of there would’ve meant convincing him to resign, or to, I don’t even know, impeach him.”

“Lana Cassidy covering her own ass resulted in Rachel getting sexually assaulted in the office. If I were Rachel, I’d be calling Gloria Allred and negotiating book rights.”

“Nice to know our new coroner is bitter and jaded like the rest of us.” Dez put a hand on Fenway’s shoulder and smiled.

“All right, enough jaded employee talk. I’ve got to figure out if Rachel sent the video file to anyone through email.”

“She recorded it from her work computer?”

“Yeah. All kinds of liability issues, right?”

“Well, yeah,” Dez shrugged. “But you don’t