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

Fenway Stevenson sat on the couch in her apartment. She didn’t know what she was going to do for dinner, but she didn’t care. The morning had been spent on an overdose victim in the foothills, the afternoon on the mountain of paperwork that threatened to take over her desk, and she was tired. This was the first night in a week she had left the office by eight o’clock. She picked up the remote and plopped her feet on the coffee table.

The doorbell rang.

Fenway blinked a couple of times before getting up. She opened the door.

Dez stood there, still in her black Dominguez County Sheriff’s Department uniform, holding a six-pack of beer.

“Hey,” Dez said. “I know I didn’t call first, but I was in the neighborhood.”

“We just saw each other at work an hour ago, Dez. This can’t wait till tomorrow?”

“I guess it could have,” Dez said, stepping inside. “But I wanted to let you know in person. The paperwork came back in right after you left. hr approved your vacation for next week.”

“Oh.” Fenway hadn’t counted on that—she had requested the time off at the last minute, and she hadn’t yet been coroner for the requisite ninety days to be guaranteed vacation time.

“I know,” Dez said, reading her face. “You must live right. It’s like you’ve got a rich daddy or something.” She chuckled as Fenway shut the door behind her. “I’m going to put these in your fridge. You want one?”

“What is that? Querido Falls Brewing?”

“Yep. Their Hefeweizen. Hope that’s okay.”

Fenway nodded. She hadn’t had their Hefeweizen, but she liked their pale ale. “But I thought you were all meeting at Winfrey’s for happy hour.”

Dez shrugged as she disappeared into the kitchen. “Bunch of sticks in the mud. After you said you weren’t coming, Mark cancelled because Randy needed help running lines for his audition. Migs and Piper got tickets to some concert down in Santa Barbara.”

“I’m glad they’re finally together.”

“Hah. Sure. If you don’t mind disgusting public displays of affection.”

Fenway heard the sound of two beers being opened and the caps swirling to a stop on the counter.

“And Rachel said she had too much work to do.”

“pr work seems to agree with her.”

Dez came back into the living room holding two of the beers. “You know she’s just keeping busy to keep her mind off her father’s trial.” She handed a beer to Fenway.

Fenway wanted to pour it in one of her nice beer mugs back in the kitchen—but her exhaustion won out and she stayed put. “Plus, it’s hard being a widow at twenty-four.”

“Can you name a better age?”

“Ninety-five.”

Dez tilted her head, nodded, and raised her bottle. “Cheers.”

Fenway and Dez both had a swig of their beers.

“Thanks for the beer, Dez.”

“Don’t mention it. I didn’t feel like going home and this six-pack cost about as much as a decent vodka tonic at Winfrey’s.” She had a second swig and set the beer on the coffee table. “You mind hanging out with an old lady like me on a Tuesday night?”

“Oh, please, Dez. Don’t be giving me that ‘old lady’ crap. I think I have more gray hair than you do.” It was true; Dez’s short black curls didn’t have a trace of gray. “And I’m exhausted. This week already feels like I’ve worked a hundred hours.”

“Oh, it’s so nice for you young’uns to make me feel spry.” Dez shook her head. “Fifty’s right around the corner.”

Fenway waved her hand. “Stop whining, Dez. You’ve got a few more years. And besides, fifty is the new thirty.”

“Spoken like someone who hasn’t seen the wrong side of thirty yet.” Dez smiled. “Okay, speaking of old ladies, my bladder seems to shrink with each passing year. Be right back. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” She went into the bathroom off the hallway, closed the door, and turned on the modesty fan.

Fenway shook her head and put a coaster under Dez’s beer. Her phone rang in her purse on the kitchen table. She walked in and dug it out; the incoming caller read Nathaniel Ferris. She sighed and answered it.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Fenway! Glad I caught you.”

“This isn’t a great time.” She walked back into the living room and took another drink of her beer.

“It’ll just take a minute. Listen—you haven’t changed your mind about running for coroner in November, have you? You know you’re doing a hell of a job since you’ve taken over.”

“No, Dad. I’m a nurse, not a politician, and you know my boards are next month.”

Ferris sighed. “Dr. Klein is going to run.”

“I figured. He’s announcing on Monday, right?”

“That’s what I hear. News travels fast.”

“And I also heard you have some pharmaceutical executive you’re going to support.”

Dez came back into the living room, sat on the sofa, and picked up her beer.

“That’s right,” Ferris said. “Everett Michaels. But only if you’re not running, Fenway. You’re my daughter. I’m not going to promote another candidate over you.”

Fenway hit mute. “Sorry,” she whispered to Dez.

Dez nodded.

Fenway unmuted. “When I accepted the appointment,” she reminded Ferris, “it was strictly babysitting the position until November. You promised me that.”

“Okay,” he said, “I just wanted to make sure before I ask you to introduce him when he announces his candidacy.”

“Introduce Everett Michaels?”

“Right. I’d like you to introduce him—and give him your endorsement.”

“But I don’t know anything about him.”

He chuckled. “You know enough, Fenway. You know he’s the vp of development at Carpetti Pharma, you know he’s got a great medical research background, and you know he’s a lot better for the county than Barry Klein. What else do you need to know?”

“For one thing, I’ve never even met the guy.”

“We can fix that. It would really help Everett’s campaign if you would endorse him,” her father said. “Or, if you don’t want to go that far yet, you don’t have to be partisan for this—just say it’s your pleasure to introduce him.”

Fenway’s mind raced to figure out how to decline politely. “That puts me in an awkward position, Dad. I’ve still got to work with the whole board of supervisors until I’m replaced—and that includes Klein. And besides, won’t it look better for the press coming from Nathaniel Ferris? You know how much half this town loves you.” The half you own, she thought.

“And you know better than anyone how the other half of this town hates me.” She thought she detected a note of pleading in his voice. “But many, many people like you, Fenway. The people who like me like you because you’re my daughter. And the people who don’t like me like you because you arrested my right-hand man for murder.”

“I think you’ve got that backwards,” Fenway said, fighting to keep the anger out of her voice. “The half that don’t like you don’t like me either. And the half that do like you think I’m some sort of traitor for catching Stotsky.”

“Look, if there’s one thing I know, it’s how to read a crowd. Your endorsement would be a huge boost.”

“I think my endorsement would probably hurt more than it would help.”

“Not according to our latest poll.”

“Poll?” The idea that her father already spent his own money to conduct polling on this, she realized, shouldn’t have been a surprise to her. And yet it never ceased to amaze her how Nathaniel Ferris had no clue how to behave like a normal father.

“You’ve got an eighty-one percent positive rating,” he said.

“You ran a poll? You do realize this isn’t a national election, right?”

“There are dozens of companies who do this for smaller campaigns, Fenway. It’s not a big deal. And if you introduced Everett on Monday, we’d have a sure thing in November.”

“Oh, Monday’s no good,” she said, trying to sound as disappointed as she could. “I have to drive up to Seattle this weekend, and I won’t be back.”

“Drive to Seattle? Why in the world would you do