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

know her password. You’ll have to wait for Migs to come in at eight, or someone from IT.”

Fenway got her laptop out of her bag and put it on the desk. “There’s gotta be something I can do before the workday ‘officially’ starts,” she mumbled.

Dez was quiet for a minute. “Is Rachel all right?”

“I don’t know. I think she’s angry with me because she told me all of this, and I had to tell the sheriff, which let him know Dylan had a motive. So,” Fenway began to tick each point on her fingers, “she was sexually assaulted on Friday by her boss, her boss gets murdered on Sunday, she gets a new boss on Wednesday, and then Thursday morning her husband is arrested for murder because she told her new boss about her rape.” She looked down at the keyboard. “I wouldn’t be okay, if I were her.”

“Someone should check in on her.”

“Think you could? I’m probably not her favorite person right now.”

Dez nodded, got her cell phone out, went into the conference room and closed the door.

Fenway got her cell phone out, too, and thought for a moment. She needed to ask her father some uncomfortable questions, and wondered the most tactful way to go about it. She remembered when she was six or seven, and her mother had to tell her father some bad news. She remembered wondering what her mother was doing with her eyes closed, taking deep breaths. Now, Fenway realized her mother had been preparing herself to tell him the bad news, centering herself, before picking up the phone, calling him, and handling him masterfully.

She remembered her mother had made sure her father had thought the solution to whatever problem it had been was his idea, and she could turn him from angry to helpful with a few well-chosen words.

Drawing on her mother as inspiration, Fenway closed her eyes, took deep breaths, and called up her father.

It rang.

“Fenway!” he answered. “Good to hear from you. Everything OK? Are we still on for tonight?”

“Sure, Dad. Listen, I hate to do this, but I’ve got to talk with you about something.”

“Business or personal?”

“Unfortunately, Dad, it’s business.” She sighed. “It turns out there are some files missing from Walker’s office. And it looks like they’re files on Ferris Energy.”

“Ferris Energy? Why in the world would anyone take Walker’s files on Ferris Energy?”

Fenway paused. She had expected her father to be surprised to learn Walker had files on Ferris Energy. Instead, her father expressed surprise someone took the files. Was it common knowledge Walker had open files on Ferris Energy? Had he heard about the break-in already? Fenway hadn’t said someone took them—she said they were missing. She supposed it was reasonable to assume they were taken, but perhaps it was a strange slip-up from a man who Fenway thought was always in control.

“I don’t really know, Dad. I was kind of hoping you might be able to fill me in.”

There was silence on the other end of the line. Fenway wondered if her father had caught his slip.

She chose her words carefully before continuing. “It’s weird, because I don’t know if you’ve heard from the sheriff yet, but we arrested a suspect this morning in Walker’s murder.”

“What? That’s great!” Ferris exhaled. “No, I haven’t heard from the sheriff—wow, two days on the job and you’ve already caught the killer! I knew this was the right call. Congratulations!”

“Hang on, Dad, congratulations aren’t in order for me; Sheriff McVie was the one who made the arrest, and he’s the one who requested the search warrant.”

“You don’t need to be modest with me, Fenway. I bet you had a lot to do with it.”

“Here’s the thing.” She tried to get the conversation back on track. “The missing files are the one thing that doesn’t fit with the theory of the crime.”

“Oh, you are learning something in your forensics classes.” Fenway thought she heard in her father’s voice that he was trying to get her to change the subject. She had been easily distracted when she was eight; she didn’t think she was easily distracted now, twenty years later.

Her father was right, however. Fenway was learning a lot in her forensics classes. Her witness interviewing class had been difficult, and she had had to work her tail off for an A. In fact, she had used her mother as an interview subject for one of her projects. The lesson of the project was about unspoken assumptions. The exercise was this: the interviewer lays the groundwork for establishing if the subject has prior knowledge of a fact not yet presented. Fenway had this in her mind as she continued the conversation with her father.

“Yeah, Dad, I gotta tell you, it’s great to be able to use the stuff I’ve learned in class. One of the things they talked about in my advanced investigation class was loose ends, and only looking at theories through the lens of your own expectations. So, I’m using it now. This guy we arrested matched the motive we theorized, but we still have these missing Ferris Energy files, and I can’t figure out how they fit.”

“Your suspect doesn’t work for me, does he?” Ferris laughed a little uneasily.

“No. We haven’t found any connection to Ferris Energy at all.”

“Well,” he mused, “maybe there was a file in the missing drawer that the guy did have a connection to. Maybe it wasn’t anything to do with the company.”

And there it was.

Fenway hadn’t mentioned a missing drawer, or any other missing files. She tried to contain her reaction; her voice remained calm. “I suppose that could be the case. But the files didn’t turn up at his apartment when we executed the search warrant. Do you know what was in the Ferris Energy file?”

Nathaniel Ferris sighed. Fenway could hear him calculating in his head how to address the contents of the file—now that he realized he had slipped up by telling her he knew of their existence. “If it’s the one I’m aware of, it’s probably the file on our industrial accident about six months ago. We lost a couple of workers in the refinery. Our internal review concluded it was human error—specifically, errors made by the two men who were killed, who didn’t follow several safety procedures—but the county investigation was still open.”

“So, you asked why anyone would take those files—who stands to gain from those files going missing?”

“Honestly, Fenway, I have no idea. Ferris Energy certainly has nothing to gain from those files going missing. Our lawyers are about to get a letter from OSHA saying we were in compliance with everything, and not at fault. And, in most of these cases, OSHA reviews any relevant files—like the one Walker had—before sending any letters like that.”

“Okay.” Fenway thought for a moment before continuing. “So, you’re saying it wouldn’t make sense for anyone from your company to steal those files.”

“Right—in fact, I remember our lawyers saying those findings would make it a lot more difficult for the families to sue us. So, if anything, those files getting stolen last night hurts us a lot more than it helps us.”

“That’s good to know.” She exhaled audibly into the phone. “I’m kind of relieved, frankly. Your company files getting stolen really doesn’t look good for me. Especially after I told you I was going to go through the files today. I was afraid people were going to look at me sideways, as if I had something to do with them being stolen.” She paused for maximum effect. “I wish I could convince people I’m not in your pocket.”

“Fenway,” Nathaniel Ferris said, putting on his pontificating voice, “with me as your father, people are always going to think you’re in my pocket. Especially in this town. But I know you can do the job you need to do. And I know you can get your nursing certificate for California, and finish up your degree, and then you’ll have a lot more opportunities.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Can you maybe get whatever company files you have on the accident, on the families involved, and come down to the station—make an appearance—so it looks like I’m looking at you as hard as everyone else? You know, tying up the loose ends?”

He thought it was a fantastic idea. Then he gave Fenway a few more words of encouragement. She realized she had gotten more words of encouragement from Nathaniel Ferris in the last two days than she had in the last twenty-eight years.

He suggested he could come down to the station before lunch, around eleven thirty. They also confirmed their dinner plans before saying their goodbyes as Dez came out of the conference room.

“How’s Rachel holding up?”

“She’s not,” Dez shook her head. “Girl talked my ear off. She’s so quiet in the office I didn’t even know she could talk for that long. She’s sad, and confused, and mad as hell. I called her sister for her, and she’s going over there to be with her.”

“Good. I’m worried about her.”

“Who were you on the phone with? Daddy dearest?”

Fenway smiled. “Yes. And I’m not sure, but I think he’s involved in all this. I think he’s the one who stole the files.”

“He was the one in the truck?”

“No, he wouldn’t actually get his hands dirty. But you know what I mean.”

“Why do you think so?”

Fenway shrugged. “I was talking to him just now, and I mentioned there were missing Ferris Energy files, and he suggested maybe there was another ‘file in the drawer’ that didn’t have anything to do with Ferris Energy.”

“Mmm,” Dez mumbled. “But let me guess, Miss Marple, you never mentioned the missing file drawer. You never mentioned other missing files at all.”

“Bingo.”

“You just outfoxed the most powerful man in the county in