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

of notes was dated about a week later. Those notes summarized the findings into Fairweather, covering his personal life, credit card and student loan debt, and family background.

The last set of notes was dated about a week later, detailing Cassidy’s life. But the topics weren’t the same: notes on Cassidy’s EAP participation; detailed reports of an affair between Dylan Richards and Lana Cassidy; a statement from a private investigator; photos of a hotel out near Paso Querido; and photos of Dylan’s truck parked outside a home identified as the Cassidy residence.

“If I’m reading this right,” Fenway mused, “I’m supposed to conclude the person who was having an affair with Lana Cassidy somehow altered the ventilation system to kill Carl Cassidy? And Fairweather was collateral damage?”

“And Dylan Richards was that person.”

“Right.”

Dez had a confused look on her face. “This doesn’t make any sense. There would have to be a trail of phone calls if that affair actually happened, right?”

“I don’t know. But this file has been out of our hands for a few days now. The thief could have tampered with it.”

Dez examined the handwritten notes closely. “I can’t tell. You see how these two sets of notes”—she indicated the Fairweather and Cassidy files—“are on different paper stock, with different color pens. Now, it looks like the handwriting is the same, but I can’t be sure.” The handwriting was printed, and not neatly. Some of the printed letters were connected to the next letter, in sort of a half-cursive, but there were no traditionally cursive shapes in the b, s, or f letters that would be expected in traditional cursive writing. The lowercase g letters were almost always connected to the next letter, an r, a, or e.

Fenway looked at the notes also. “Look here, Dez.” She pointed to the page. “The loop of the g on this page and the loop of the g on this other page are of different sizes, but it does kind of look like they were written by the same person. Look, same shape of the uppercase Ds here. And the crossbar on the ts and the uppercase As are the same.”

“Do we have any written notes from Walker to compare this to?”

Fenway selected a file from the front. Ellsworth, James M. “Let’s look at this one.”

“I remember this one,” Dez said. “Drug overdose. Mother found his body in his apartment. It wasn’t pretty.”

Fenway thought the handwriting on this one looked less neat, although overall looked similar. But some of the quickly printed letters didn’t connect the way they did in the Ferris Energy file. “Look at this.” She pointed at the word gastrointestinal. “This g-a combination isn’t connected. But the g-a combinations in the Cassidy notes are.”

“It looks like Walker was in a hurry on this one. Not so much here.”

“Yeah, but if you’re in a hurry, aren’t you more likely to connect letters, not less?”

Dez gave her a look. “You’re asking me like I’m a handwriting expert. You need to get someone on Yasuda’s team to look at this.”

“I took a class a few months ago,” Fenway said, “and I don’t think these were written by the same person.”

“Make sure you tell that to Yasuda. I’m sure she’ll appreciate your educated opinion.”

“All right, Dez, jeez. I’ll let their handwriting expert deal with it.”

Dez stuck her head out of the truck. “Did you guys find any fingerprints on the drawer?” she called.

“Wiped clean,” the first tech called back. “Keep your gloves on for those files, though. We’ve got to take them back to the lab.”

“Tag this Ferris Energy file for handwriting analysis, too. Prom Queen thinks it might be forged.”

“Will do.”

Dez and Fenway finished up with the truck. They looked between the seats, under the seats, and in the glove box. Dez did a lap around the truck, looking for any signs of additional damage. The crime scene techs were still scouring the surrounding brush for telltale signs of anything useful. Dez told the techs they were all finished up as Fenway wobbled back to the squad car.

“That was interesting.” Fenway looked out the window as they started driving back down the fire road toward the highway. “What do you think?”

“As much crap as I gave you back there, Fenway, I think we have to consider the likelihood that those notes weren’t written by Walker.”

“Right. Are we thinking McVie?”

“I don’t know. If it were McVie, wouldn’t he know we’d catch on to the fake handwriting?”

“Maybe.” Fenway said. “I was thinking more that the fake information doesn’t really help McVie out.”

“It does give Dylan the motive for crashing through the wall and stealing the files.”

“Yeah, but it points people right in the direction of Dylan having an affair with a married woman.” Fenway drummed her fingers on the door handle. “Wouldn’t McVie have realized a good investigator would start digging? Wouldn’t he have realized that would probably open a line of inquiry into Dylan’s phone records, and then his affair with Amy would have come out? Wouldn’t it make more sense if the files were missing altogether, as if Dylan had destroyed them?”

“I don’t know.” Dez shook her head. “Maybe it was an emotional decision for Craig. Maybe he wanted to show Amy she wasn’t special to Dylan, and he wanted her to think Dylan did this with lots of other married women too. Maybe he thought getting rid of Dylan—and having Amy think he wasn’t really in love with her—would somehow save his marriage.” They arrived at the end of the fire road, and Dez turned back onto 326, heading back to the office. “Sometimes the emotional decision can outweigh logic.”

Fenway nodded.

They traveled in silence for a while.

“Almost time for the memorial service, right?” Fenway said.

“Yeah. You’ll finally be someplace today where those shoes aren’t going to be a liability.”

“You’re going to it, right? I’m not sure where it’s being held.”

“The United Methodist on Santa Clarita Street.”