“We wouldn’t be looking in the right place anyway, would we?” said Fenway. “Fighting that subpoena is just a ruse to make us think you have something to hide in there, but that’s not where the financial anomalies are at all, are they?”
Dr. Pruitt swallowed.
“But what I don’t get is why they’re bugging your office,” said Fenway. “You’re not in charge of those payments. Those payments are for The Guild.”
“Unless there is a line of oversight,” said McVie.
Fenway nodded. “Maybe the university has put you in charge of making sure everything with The Guild’s financials is on the up-and-up.” She crossed her arms. “But that didn’t sit well with whoever’s in charge, did it? You must have gotten a communication. A phone call. A letter. Something.”
“You know, Dr. Pruitt,” McVie said, “if you’ve said anything in your office in the last couple of days that you wouldn’t want certain people to hear, we might be the only people who can protect you.”
Dr. Pruitt was quiet.
McVie, standing next to him, stroked his chin absently. “Am I getting warm? Did they bribe you? Did you think it was something you could get out of after a month or two?” He looked into Pruitt’s face. “Or maybe you’re embezzling from the scholarship fund.” McVie said, his voice so soft next to Dr. Pruitt that Fenway could barely hear him. “They’d be angry with you if you did that, wouldn’t they?”
Dr. Pruitt looked down.
“Ah. Maybe that’s it. What happened, Dr. Pruitt? Credit card debt? Gambling problem?”
Dr. Pruitt shook his head quickly from side to side, as if readying himself before a race.
“And Jessica Marquez found out about it, didn’t she?”
Pruitt looked up defiantly at McVie.
“I refuse to answer on the grounds that I may incriminate myself,” he said.
Chapter Twenty-Two
McVie and Fenway prodded Dr. Pruitt for answers for over fifteen minutes, but by three o’clock, they knew they weren’t getting anywhere. They also had nothing to arrest Dr. Pruitt for—as much as they thought he had embezzled the scholarship funds, they had innuendo, but no proof. Fenway and McVie continued to throw out hypotheticals, but each theory seemed to be further away from the truth, and Dr. Pruitt was becoming less and less responsive. Finally, they let him return to his office, a few minutes late for his appointment.
“Well, that was frustrating,” Fenway said.
“I can feel them circling the wagons,” McVie said. “There’s nothing we can do with Dr. Pruitt right now, though, and he’ll make our lives more difficult until we figure out why he won’t answer our questions.”
“I think you were spot on with your embezzlement theory,” Fenway said. “His body language, just about everything—he physically reacted when you said embezzlement.” She thought for a moment. “Where do you think the money could have gone?”
“I don’t know, but we’ll have to look at The Guild’s financial records, especially if there’s a scholarship fund. I’ll get a warrant written up just for that—keeping the Nidever’s main records out of it.”
“With Jessica Marquez and Rose Morgan sniffing around both Central Auto Body and The Guild, it certainly would seem like that’s the right thing to do.”
“Let’s talk to Professor Cygnus before they start getting ready for opening night,” he said. “Maybe he can tell us if there’s a scholarship fund. If not, maybe we can talk to other students who worked in the office.”
“After the third degree we gave Amanda and Xavier, I’m not sure how helpful the other students will be.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” said McVie.
They rushed over to the DiFazio Theater. Fenway sensed the frenetic energy of opening night, even in front of the building. The box office windows were lit and two student-age young women in black milled around behind the glass.
“What time do the students start prep for the play?” asked McVie.
“No idea,” said Fenway. “You’re the one with the schedule.”
“I think it’s four thirty,” McVie said. “We’ve got plenty of time.”
Fenway pulled on the theater door.
“Locked,” she said.
“Let’s see if we can go in the back way.”
The side door that led into the stairwell also led to the side lobby of the theater. McVie went in first, and he turned left down the hallway into the greenroom. Students walked quickly through, some in a period shirt or blouse but still in athletic shoes, some in t-shirts.
“I didn’t think students would already be here,” Fenway muttered.
“Anyone seen Professor Cygnus?” McVie’s voice carried down the hallway.
One of the students pointed, and Fenway and McVie found themselves in another hallway, where they passed the prop table and a rack full of costumes.
Fenway passed McVie in the hall and turned right toward the stage—and ran right into Virgil Cygnus. She heard herself squeak.
“Sorry,” she said. “But we wanted—”
“You can’t be in here.” Cygnus’s voice boomed down the hallway. “We’re preparing for opening night.” Cygnus, clearly irritated, straightened up as McVie came around the corner. “Ah, Sheriff. Listen, as I’ve told both you and your officer here—”
“Coroner,” McVie corrected.
Cygnus smiled, a tired, patronizing smile. “She got her ten minutes with me. And now we’re done.” He folded his arms. “Let me be clear. I don’t want you making excuses to talk to me. I don’t want you bringing up my parking tickets from twenty years ago, or my daughter stealing office supplies from her job, or poor Jessica’s senior prom escapades because you’re trying to cover all the bases.”
Fenway looked at McVie, whose gaze was hardening.
“I don’t share your priorities, Professor,” McVie said. “If the people of this county allowed me to place your precious play above solving a murder, I’d be hearing about it for months.”
“Listen, you fool, I see right through your little gambit. You mean to catch me off-guard, to have me so worried about getting back to my play that I’ll say I’ve done something I haven’t, or that I know something I don’t. I’ve told you I wasn’t around that evening. I told you I know nothing of The Guild’s finances. And I’ve told you, now, in so many words, to get out of my sight.”
“I can get a material witness warrant and bring you in,” McVie said, “and it might even be in the middle of tonight’s play.”
“The hell you will,” Cygnus said. “My lawyer will be so far up your ass he’ll serve a cease-and-desist to your esophagus.”
“I thought Shakespeare wanted to kill all the lawyers,” Fenway said.
Cygnus turned and bore his gaze into her. His jaw opened and closed, as though he knew he shouldn’t respond but desperately wanted to. Finally he raised his voice. “Had you done any serious studying of the master, you’d know that he gave that line to a tyrant. Lawyers protect people like me from tyrants. Tyrants, I might add, are those in positions of power who threaten to disrupt people’s livelihoods when they don’t like the way things are going.” He glared at McVie.
McVie exhaled. “Listen, professor, we got off on the wrong foot. Now that we know where you were on Tuesday night, we have four, maybe five follow-up questions for you at most. It will take all of fifteen minutes. Surely you can spare—”
“Nothing but Othello for the next two weeks,” Cygnus said, pushing past Fenway and McVie and rushing down the hall among the half-costumed students. “Talk to me after our closing show.”
Fenway watched him disappear down the hallway. “The professor is hiding something. I bet he has information about that scholarship fund. We asked him about the murder and he said he didn’t know anything about The Guild’s finances. I never asked him about their finances. Did you?”
McVie nodded. “No. Good catch.”
“Maybe he even knows why Pruitt isn’t answering our questions.”
McVie looked thoughtful. “But you think he knows a lot more than he’s letting on? What’s that saying? Methinks he doth protest too much? That’s Shakespeare too, right?”
“Yep. The Scottish Play.”
“The what?”
“The Scottish Play. We’re inside a theater. We’re not supposed to say the actual name of that play inside a theater. Old superstition. You call it ‘The Scottish Play.’”
McVie rolled his eyes and grinned. “Your knowledge of Shakespeare is dangerously close to nerd territory, Stevenson.”
“Yeah, well, when we started college, some of us didn’t know what we wanted to be when we grew up.” Fenway thought for a moment. “Didn’t Professor Cygnus say his wife was his alibi?”
“Uh… you know, I don’t think he did,” McVie said. “If I remember right, he said he went home and tried not to wake his wife up.”
Fenway paused. “But his wife has cancer, right?”
“Yeah, leukemia—at least, that’s what Denise told us.”
“Right, and a lot of times, cancer patients have messed-up sleep patterns.”
“I’ve heard that.”
I’ve lived it, Fenway thought. “So—if what Cygnus says is true, that he was home by eleven, and if he truly doesn’t do anything but eat, sleep, and breathe Othello right now, maybe his wife woke up when he came home but she didn’t say anything.”
“Oh—yes, I see. Well, let’s go confirm it.”
“You’re suggesting that we go talk to her?”
“I am.”
“I don’t know, Craig.”
“What don’t you know? A potential suspect gave us a statement. We’re trying to confirm the timeline.”
“But with his wife so sick? It feels a little like we’re crossing a line, invading privacy.”
“No way,” McVie said. “This is a murder investigation.”
Fenway nodded. She’d had little time with her mother between diagnosis and death. Professor Cygnus had been given a year—maybe even longer—yet was wrapped up in his work, not in spending time with his wife. “We won’t compromise the investigation, will we? Cygnus already doesn’t want to talk with us. You think he’ll be any better if we interview his dying wife before contacting him?”
“Hey,” McVie said, “we gave him a chance to talk without bothering her. As far as I’m concerned, this is his own fault.” He clapped his hands together. “All right, let’s get his address and get over there. Maybe his wife can shed some light on this case.”
On the way to the car, McVie called the station to get the warrant application started for The Guild’s finances, and then asked for the Cygnuses’ home address from the professor’s dmv records.
“That’s crazy,” McVie said after ending the call. “They live in your neighborhood. Just up Chumash Falls Way.” His phone dinged. “That’s the address—let’s go.” McVie started the engine and backed out of the parking space.
It didn’t take long for them to get off the freeway onto Broadway, McVie’s phone announcing the upcoming turns. In the gray light of the late afternoon, they passed the turn for Fenway’s apartment and The Coffee Bean, and turned right two streets later, into a cozy neighborhood of single-family homes with two-car garages jutting at the front of the houses. McVie made two more turns and the phone dinged as its disembodied robot voice said, “You have arrived.”
McVie parked on the street, and they walked up to the door. The porch light was on although the sun hadn’t quite set.
Fenway reached out and rang the bell.
The door opened slowly to reveal a short white woman, a kerchief of lime green, aquamarine, and cerulean blue paisley wrapped around her head, her thin body swimming in a blue linen blouse and navy blue athletic pants.
“Can I help you, officer?” she said, looking at McVie in his uniform. Her cheeks were sallow, but her eyes were bright.
“Yes, ma’am,” McVie said. “You’re Judith Cygnus, Professor Virgil Cygnus’s wife, correct?”
“Guilty as charged,” said Judith.
“I’m Sheriff Craig McVie, and this is the county coroner, Fenway Stevenson.”
“Fenway? Like the ballpark?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Fenway said.
“We’re just trying to piece together a timeline for Tuesday night,” McVie continued. “Were you home then?”
“Is this about the woman who works with Virg? That’s the night she was killed, wasn’t it?”
McVie shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Yes, it is, ma’am.”
“Virg isn’t giving me as his alibi, is he?”
“We’d just like to know what your recollection of that night is.”
“All right.” She shivered. “Goodness, it’s getting cold. It wasn’t too bad today, especially when the sun was out for a bit. Oh, well. You might as well come in.” She held the door wide.
“I don’t want to disturb your dinner or anything, ma’am. I don’t think this will take more than a couple of minutes.”
Fenway suspected the woman might be starved for company, especially at this time of the year, with her moderately famous husband all but living at the theater.
“I’m not standing out here a minute longer than I have to,” Judith said. “This rag on my head looks like a chimpanzee threw paint at a canvas, I know, I know. But it’s warm, and I’m a lot more sensitive to the cold than I used to be.”
McVie motioned for Fenway to enter first, and she was hit by a blast of hot air as soon as she stepped into the small entryway.
“Can I get you anything? Our daughter gave me one of those single-cup coffee pod dispensers for my birthday. I can get both of you a cup of coffee, if you like.”
“No, thanks,” Fenway said, “I’m fine.”
“Good. It tastes like shit anyway.” She sighed and walked into the living room, with a beige sofa and a royal blue recliner facing a small flat-screen television. She eased herself down on the recliner, then motioned them over to the sofa. Fenway sat on the sofa and immediately sank distressingly deep into the soft cushion.
“So,” she said, as Fenway leaned back, trying in vain to get comfortable, “what is it you want to know? Where I was that night?”
Fenway glanced at McVie, perched on the edge of the sofa. He shrugged slightly.
“That’s a good place to start,” Fenway said.
Judith struggled a bit with the chair, but on the third try, she managed to push hard enough to get the back to recline and the footrest to spring forward. She took a long breath and exhaled loudly. “Don’t ever get cancer,” she said. “The bullshit you have to go through is obnoxious.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Fenway leaned forward and gave Judith a weak smile.
“Okay,” Judith said. “Tuesday night. I came home from the treatment center at about five-thirty.”
“Did you drive yourself?”
“Oh no, after the treatments, I’m too tired to drive. Sadie drove me.”
“Sadie?”
“My daughter. She lives over in San Miguelito, but she drives me to my appointments.”
“Professor Cygnus doesn’t?”
Judith smiled, though her eyes were sad. “I knew when I married Virg that he was in a tangled mess of a relationship with Billy the Bard. It’s like being married to a superfan of a sports team.” She raised her eyebrows at Fenway. “I suspect much like being married to your father. At least Virg didn’t insist on naming our daughter Hermia, or Lady Macbeth, or something ridiculous.”
Judith was ridiculing her, but Fenway laughed—a big, hearty laugh, which Fenway saw earned her a disbelieving stare from the older woman. “I like you,” Fenway said. “You cut right through all the bullshit, don’t you?”
Judith sniffed, a twinkle in her eye. “I suppose I do.”
“I bet that is both incredibly infuriating and incredibly attractive to your husband.”
Judith barked a laugh and then coughed. “It sounds like you do your fair share of cutting
through the bullshit, too, Coroner.”
“Anyway.” Fenway smiled and tilted her head. “What time did Sadie leave?”
“She left right away. She wanted to get home to her kids.”
Fenway nodded. “And what did you do?”
“Me? I made myself some vegetable soup for dinner. Wait... made, who am I kidding. I opened a can. If I’m eating by myself, I can’t be bothered to expend effort on anything decent.” She coughed lightly, but something caught and she gave several long, loud hacks before she stopped. “Sorry about that,” she rasped. “Anyway, I put on the television when I was eating. I’m binge-watching one of those hospital dramas where everyone is sleeping with everyone else.”
“And then what happened?”
“I went to bed. I think I dozed off in my chair, here, about when the head of surgery was being wooed by the hotshot med student.” A mischievous smile flitted across her face. “That actor who plays the med student is sure easy on the eyes. If only I were four decades younger. And didn’t have cancer.”
“What time did you go to bed?”
“I know I put the hospital show on about six fifteen, maybe six thirty, and I got through about an episode and a half before I fell asleep. So that’s what? Seven thirty, eight?”
Fenway nodded, although she was calculating a little earlier.
“But I don’t know what time I woke up. The tv had a little marker that said, ‘Are you still watching?’ My first thought was, ‘Screw you, Netflix,’ but then, of course, I was happy it hadn’t gone through the entire second season.”
“Then you went to bed?”
“Yes.”
“You weren’t curious what time it was?”
“Honestly, I didn’t think about it.”
“You didn’t think it was strange that Professor Cygnus wasn’t home yet?”
Judith cocked her head. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, if it had been midnight and he hadn’t come home, wouldn’t that worry you?”
Judith scoffed. “You haven’t been around the professor long, have you?”
The Upstaged Coroner Page 25