The Upstaged Coroner

by Paul Austin Ardoin

“Not really,” he said. “I saw you speak at one of your campaign events. Congratulations on your win.”

  “Thanks,” Fenway said. “Truth be told, I haven’t had much time to think about it. Right into another investigation.”

  “Is that why DiFazio Hall has all the police tape on the second floor?”

  Fenway looked at McVie, and he nodded.

  “You have a class there?”

  “Oh, no. I’m in a Shakespeare play. Opening night’s on Friday.”

  “Othello,” Fenway said. “What part are you playing?”

  The cashier smiled at Fenway. “Take a look around, Coroner. How many other black guys do you see on campus?”

  “So you’re in the title role, huh?”

  “Yep.”

  McVie nodded. “So that must make you Xavier Gonsalves.”

  Xavier smiled. “Yes. Although my stage name is Xavier Go.”

  “Go?”

  “Yep. My agent’s idea.” He straightened up, flashed a huge smile, and with both hands, pointed at Fenway. “It’s Go time!” Xavier’s face immediately went to its former serious state. “That was my agent’s idea, too. I think he’s getting a little ahead of himself, giving me a catchphrase before I’ve landed a serious acting role. He wanted me to shorten my first name to x, too, but fortunately, I got talked out of that.”

  “Not before they made your nametag, though, right?”

  “Right.” He paused. “Is, uh, everything all right with Amanda?”

  “Your wife?”

  The cashier jumped slightly. “My what?”

  “Your stage wife. She’s Desdemona, right?”

  “Oh.” Xavier looked relieved. “Yeah. She got the call that the police wanted to talk with her. I wanted to know if everything was all right.”

  Fenway nodded. “She’s fine. Hey, do you have a few minutes to talk with us?”

  “I’ve gotta get to rehearsal right after work.”

  “After rehearsal, then.”

  “Sure. Was that it, or did you want food?”

  They ordered their food and paid, Xavier gave them a number, and they chose a hard plastic booth within sight of the counter.

  “How do you suppose our Othello knew that Desdemona got called in?” McVie asked Fenway.

  Fenway felt the curve of a smile at the corner of her mouth. “I can think of a reason. Happens in a lot of productions. You notice he looked like he might jump out of his skin when I called Amanda his wife.”

  “I did notice that. So you think they’re an item? That they were together this morning when Amanda got the call?”

  “I do.” Fenway grinned. “And I bet they don’t want anyone else to know.”

  Chapter Five

  After lunch—and the taco wasn’t nearly as good as at the Ernesto’s downtown—McVie and Fenway went to the administration building to look at Jessica Marquez’s files. The human resources department referred them to it, who referred them back to human resources, who finally passed the buck to Dr. Pruitt, who spent twenty minutes behind his closed office door before his secretary let them in.

  Fenway went in first. The room was huge, but by no means modern; too many walls and not enough glass. It radiated stateliness. Dark wood cabinets and end tables complemented reddish-brown leather upholstery on the chairs and sofas. Dr. Pruitt sat behind the large mahogany desk with gold inlays and carved wooden legs, thoughtfully resting his chin in his hand. Behind him, two large bookcases towered on either side of a window with dark plantation-style shutters, which were open to let in the afternoon light that weakly filtered through the clouds.

  Dr. Pruitt, behind his desk, indicated two chairs. Fenway settled herself into the one farthest from the door. McVie began discussing access to the personnel files with Pruitt. The two of them pushed back and forth, and Fenway sat quietly, out of the conversation, and she studied Pruitt for a moment.

  He only had his wife to confirm his weak alibi, so Fenway thought about the interviewing techniques from her forensics program. Nothing in Pruitt’s demeanor suggested deception. He was looking straight into McVie’s eyes, and after McVie’s questions, didn’t suddenly look away. He wasn’t sitting in a defensive posture. His movements weren’t fidgety or overly mannered, and his high, reedy voice stayed relatively even, although he was arguing over the access McVie asked for. Either he was a good liar, or he was telling the truth. Of course, it was about personnel files, not about the murder.

  Fenway’s eyes grew heavy and she lost focus for a moment.

  When she caught herself tilting her chair back, trying to slouch, she pulled herself to attention. She looked at the bookshelves behind Dr. Pruitt. Academic texts were scattered among the knickknacks of both bookcases. The books were so pristine, Pruitt likely chose them for their impressive titles rather than their usefulness. The bookshelf on the right held an interesting wire sculpture of a man on an 1890s-style bicycle with a huge front wheel, and on the shelf above, a silver picture frame sat with what looked like a photo of Dr. Pruitt and his wife.

  McVie abruptly stood up, holding his hand out. Dr. Pruitt remained sitting as he shook the sheriff’s hand. McVie, a determined and grim look on his face, was already out the door as Fenway fumbled for her purse and found the strap was caught around the leg of the chair.

  Pruitt cleared his throat.

  “Sorry,” Fenway said, lifting the chair and freeing the strap. She smiled weakly at him and walked out the door—

  Right smack into a young, square-jawed white man with a deep tan, wearing a dark suit and a light blue dress shirt, carrying a black leather briefcase.

  “Sorry,” Fenway said.

  The man snarled at her. “Watch where you’re going!” He pushed past her into the university president’s office, slamming the door behind him.

  Fenway turned to the secretary. “Who the hell was that?”

  The secretary shook her head. “I don’t know. He didn’t have an appointment. Just barged in.” She turned to her left and hit the intercom button. “Dr. Pruitt, I’m calling security.”

  “No, no, Belinda,” Pruitt said through the crackling speaker. “That won’t be necessary. Mr. Grayheath needed to speak with me urgently.”

  Fenway looked up, but McVie was already halfway down the hall. She ran to catch up with him.

  “This is like pulling teeth,” McVie said. “I wonder if he’s hiding something.”

  “If he is, it’s not in the personnel files,” Fenway said. “Who do you think that man was who went in to talk with him?”

  “Uh—I don’t know. I didn’t see him.”

  “Young guy—white, but tan, which is weird for November. Wore a suit. Also, super-rude.”

  McVie scratched his neck in thought. “Sorry. I guess I wasn’t paying attention.”

  They made their way to the human resources department, where an administrator, her mouth turned down at the corners, silently led them into a small office. She shut the door behind them.

  “This looks so normal,” Fenway whispered to McVie, “but when you start pulling the layers away, this university is rotting from the inside.”

  “Why are you whispering?”

  “I don’t know—I guess because it feels like we were sent to the principal’s office.”

  The two of them sat, and the minutes ticked by.

  “You think maybe we’re on some game show and we’re getting punked?” Fenway asked, pulling her phone out of her purse.

  “This isn’t my definition of cooperation,” McVie grumbled.

  He sat in his chair, staring straight ahead, while Fenway found the North American Shakespeare Guild online. She read interviews with several of the stage actors and directors who came to speak at Nidever. An article in The Blue Dolphin Online, the Nidever alumni magazine, focused on The Guild at the Globe trip, though it was little more than a sales pitch disguised as a fluff piece.

  After nearly thirty minutes, the administrator popped her head in with two folders, handing them to McVie. “He
re you go. Let me know when you’re finished with this and I’ll get you the next ones.”

  “I spoke to Dr. Pruitt about this,” McVie said, exasperated. “He told me—”

  “We have policies here in hr, Sheriff,” the administrator said curtly. “One file at a time for each of you. I don’t care if you agreed to something different with Dr. Pruitt, or Brad Pitt, or the pope. We don’t make exceptions. You have an issue with that, I can take these files away completely and we can schedule a court date in a couple of months.”

  “This is fine,” Fenway said. “Thank you for your help, Miss….”

  The administrator stared daggers at Fenway before she slammed the door shut.

  The two folders were labeled Marquez, Jessica and Cygnus, Virgil. The sheriff handed Fenway the Jessica Marquez folder, considerably slimmer than the one on Cygnus.

  Fenway chuckled. “You afraid I can’t handle the big, bad folder, Craig?”

  “You haven’t been in town long, Fenway. I’ve at least heard of—” He glanced up at Fenway’s face. “Oh, you’re kidding. Sorry.”

  “You lose your sense of humor?”

  “Guess so. Pruitt sent us on a wild-goose chase, and it pisses me off.”

  Fenway opened the folder. The top page was a photocopied itinerary for next year’s England trip. The next forty or fifty pages were older itineraries. She leafed through half of the papers and then came upon profit-and-loss statements for The Guild. She lifted the whole stack, but there was nothing else. No work reviews, no salary information, not even a résumé or background document. She lifted her head. “You have a résumé for Professor Cygnus, Craig?”

  “Yep. Came here from the east coast thirty-two years ago.”

  “I don’t have anything. Just travel plans for her interview and customer communications.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” Fenway put down the folder. “That’s odd, right?”

  “Maybe we should ask.”

  “Right, because that administrator seems so very helpful.”

  Fenway stood up, stretched, and then grabbed the folder and walked out the door to the administrator’s desk. The administrator was typing, looking down at a page of handwritten notes.

  “Hey, I’m sorry to bother you, but the folder didn’t have Jessica Marquez’s résumé or any notes about her job perf—”

  “Everything we have is in the folder,” the administrator interrupted, not looking up.

  “Well, I thought I’d be reviewing her personnel file. It’s nothing but business papers.”

  “Everything we have is in the folder.” Same even, flat tone.

  Fenway felt her mouth twitch involuntarily. “That simply isn’t possible. You can’t have a personnel file without a résumé or a job application.”

  “I can take that folder for you if you don’t want it.”

  “You’re not concerned that there’s a personnel file with missing information?”

  “You’ll have to take that up with Dr. Pruitt.”

  Fenway stopped. Dr. Pruitt. He had spent an awfully long time on the phone with human resources earlier. She’d thought it was because he was on their side, but now, it seemed he might have been circling the wagons and hiding information. “Did someone tell you to remove parts of the files you gave us?”

  The administrator looked up, narrowed her eyes, and snatched the folder out of Fenway’s hand. “Okay, that’s quite enough. I’m rescinding your privileges.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. You can go out the way you came in.”

  “My purse is in the room!”

  “I’ll be happy to get it for you.”

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “Again, you can always schedule a court date if you disagree with how we run things here. Now, you’ll need to watch that uppity mouth of yours if you don’t want me to kick out your friend, too.”

  He’s the sheriff of this county—not some random friend of mine! Fenway opened her mouth, then snapped it shut. It was pointless to argue.

  The woman glared at Fenway, walked down the hallway, and entered the room where the sheriff sat, closing the door behind her. Muffled voices came from behind the door, each voice growing more agitated. The door opened and McVie came out, holding Fenway’s purse.

  He stepped to Fenway and handed over the purse. “I don’t know what her problem is, but I need a few more minutes with the file.”

  “Did you find something interesting?”

  “A recent leave of absence. It might be nothing, but I at least want to get notes down of where he’s taught before, and cross-reference anything we find from Jessica’s past. Assuming we find anything.”

  “I don’t think we will. I think somebody messed with the files.”

  “You what?”

  “There was nothing in the Jessica Marquez file. I think someone removed all the personal info—the job application, the résumé, all of it.”

  “Who would do that?”

  “Dr. Pruitt had the means, and his alibi is weak.”

  McVie exhaled. “Maybe I’ll ask for Dr. Pruitt’s records, too.”

  “Okay. I won’t keep fighting about the file here.”

  “We can always get a warrant.”

  “Shouldn’t that be a last resort?”

  McVie was quiet, then shrugged.

  “Well,” said Fenway, “let’s see how many flies you can catch with honey instead of vinegar. The more background you can get through those files, the better, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So don’t piss off that admin like I did. I’ll take an Uber to the office and meet up with you later.” Fenway’s phone rang in her purse. “See? I’ve already got something to keep me busy.” She turned and walked out of the administration building, looking at her phone.

  Charlotte.

  Ah well, the lesser of two evils. She answered.

  “Hi, Charlotte.”

  “Fenway?” Charlotte said. Her voice had none of the ice-queen calmness that Fenway was used to; instead, a hint of keening desperation lay beneath the surface. “Where are you? I haven’t heard from you all day. I called you last night to tell you your father was in jail, and I expected you to do something about it, not leave me hanging here.”

  Fenway pinched her eyes shut. “I have been trying to solve a murder since four this morning, Charlotte.”

  “You’re trying to solve a different murder?” Charlotte’s tone turned harsh, but still had the underlying desperation. “You’re in charge, aren’t you? Don’t you have deputies, or sergeants who can handle that? We’re talking about your father! This isn’t some regular low-life that you have to deal with.”

  “I know, I know,” Fenway said, leaving the building. The gray daylight outside was again thick with mist. She took the phone away from her face and looked at the time: two thirty. “What did my father’s lawyers say?”

  “They’re all getting the runaround. The sheriff’s department says they’re not holding him. None of the local police say they’re holding him. A deputy I talked to said there was a jurisdictional issue. I don’t know why they can’t tell me anything. I’ve got one lawyer on the phone with the d.a. and another on the phone with the u.s. Attorney. This is crazy!”

  “I’m sorry, Charlotte. So you don’t know where they’re holding him?”

  Fenway heard Charlotte’s voice start to break. “I bet those bastards are holding him at the jail in Estancia, but no one can tell me if he’s there or not.”

  Fenway turned left, beginning to pace around the administration building. “I’ve heard of this before—losing paperwork, that kind of thing. They might be trying to buy themselves more time before the arraignment. If he doesn’t get entered into the system until tomorrow morning, they won’t have to arraign him until Monday—oh, wait, no, Monday’s a holiday.”

  “A holiday?”

  “Veterans Day. So Tuesday. That’ll give them an extra three calendar days to build their case.” />
  “Can they do that?”

  “They usually don’t try it with someone as powerful as my father is. And it looks like they’re doing it on purpose, but intent is tough to prove. They’re probably laying a paper trail, trying to figure out where they’ll arraign him. If they’re talking a jurisdictional issue, it’s probably because the death occurred in Washington state, but they’ll say that he hired somebody in California to kill Professor Delacroix. Hell, he might be on a bus, driving up and down the 101, to give them time before entering him into the system.”

  “Our lawyers will have a field day with that,” Charlotte growled.

  “They might. It’s a pretty bold thing to do.” Fenway wiped the mist off her forehead; her hair was starting to frizz. “Of course, they might truly be fighting over the jurisdiction, or they might be completely incompetent.”

  “You work for the sheriff’s department and you’re calling them incompetent?”

  “Doesn’t have to be the sheriff’s department. Lots of blame to go around.” Another possibility popped into Fenway’s head. “Or—maybe they’re assuming it’s a single crime and it happened over state lines. They might bring in the u.s. attorney. Do you know who arrested him? Was it the fbi?”

  “The fbi? I don’t know. Why would the fbi be involved?” A note of panic crept into Charlotte’s voice.

  Oh. Charlotte didn’t need to hear this right now. In fact, why wasn’t Fenway more upset by the news of her father’s arrest? Granted, their relationship was strained, especially in the last couple of months. Even so, Fenway was being overly clinical—the word heartless popped into her head—about his arrest. She shook her head to clear her thoughts. “I’m sorry, Charlotte. I shouldn’t be speculating like this. I’ll talk to some people and maybe I can figure out what’s going on.”

  “Thank you,” Charlotte said. “I know this would mean a lot to your dad.”

  Chapter Six

  Fenway’s Uber took forever to show up. The first driver didn’t know his way around campus, and after fifteen minutes of the driver reporting as either two minutes or three minutes away, Fenway cancelled the ride and requested another one—and no drivers were within a ten-minute drive. She texted Dez while she waited. Delegating. Managing her team. Fenway felt a surge of pride… or something. A little more like an adult, maybe.