The Upstaged Coroner

by Paul Austin Ardoin

  Fenway tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean when that man is in the middle of directing one of his precious plays, nothing gets in the way of his ‘singular vision,’ as he calls it. Why, last year he was able to convince a wildlife refuge to lend him a live rhesus monkey.”

  Capuchin monkey, Fenway silently corrected.

  “He eats, sleeps, lives, and breathes the play,” Judith said. “He sleeps in his office during the play. He showers in the Nidever locker rooms. He can’t be bothered coming home.” She grimaced. “Truth is, it’s like a six-week vacation for me. You can imagine the—let’s see, how can I put this?—intensity he has sometimes. Not that it’s always a bad thing, but sometimes I need a break, and when he’s in the final month before the play opens, it’s just the break I need.”

  “Even now?” The words were out of Fenway’s mouth before she could stop them.

  “You mean, because of the cancer treatments?” Judith crossed her arms. “Truth be told, he’s the only one who treats me like I’m normal. Sure, for the first few weeks he was railing about how unfair it all was, but he got it out of his system. He doesn’t keep harping on the cancer. He doesn’t tiptoe around me like I’m fragile. Sometimes I hate him for not dropping everything and taking care of me, and sometimes I’m grateful.”

  “But as things progress—”

  “Well, they haven’t progressed enough for me to ask him to sacrifice his life’s passion,” Judith said. She stared hard at Fenway, daring her to judge the choices a devoted wife had made. Fenway looked down at the carpet.

  “So,” Fenway said, “you didn’t expect him home. Not Tuesday night, and not for another two or three weeks.”

  “That’s correct.”

  McVie said, “But he did come home Tuesday night?”

  Judith turned to look at McVie and shook her head. “No, of course he didn’t. He had rehearsal late, and he always wants to make some tweaks and changes, right up until the very last show on the very last day.”

  Fenway frowned. She thought she had remembered Cygnus saying he had gone home. She closed her eyes and tried to recall the conversation.

  But she knew she wasn’t remembering it correctly; she had thought Cygnus used his wife as an alibi, and McVie had been clear that he hadn’t. “Maybe you were asleep when he came in, and maybe he left before you woke up.”

  Judith adamantly shook her head. “No. That night, as soon as I went to bed, I had a lot of trouble staying asleep. I dozed again, and when I woke up it was one in the morning. I was alone in bed. I got up to go to the bathroom—I thought I might have to vomit, but I didn’t—and then I came back to bed and lay awake until about two thirty. I finally got up and went out to the living room here to keep watching that hospital show. And, of course, I had to find the place in the show where I’d fallen asleep, and then, after watching another, I don’t know, ten or fifteen minutes, I fell asleep in the recliner again. When I woke up this time, it was four in the morning, and I went to the bathroom again before I went to bed. No sign of Virg.” She took a breath with effort. “And yes, I suppose it’s technically possible that he could have come in and gone out again, but that man is like a hurricane. He has no concept of picking up after himself. If he’d been here, I’d be able to trace his steps by the piles of crap all over the house.”

  Fenway smiled. “Okay. So he might not have come home.”

  “No,” Judith said, “he most definitely did not come home that night.”

  Fenway glanced at McVie. He started to speak, then hesitated.

  “What is it?” Judith said.

  McVie leaned forward. “Do you have any idea why the professor would tell us that he went home that night?”

  Judith’s brow furrowed. “He said that?”

  “He said he got home quietly and that you didn’t wake up.”

  A look of confusion came over Judith’s face. “I can’t—no, I have no idea why he’d say that.” She shook her head. “Listen, I know the medication, the chemo, all that messes with me. My attention span, my sleep cycles. I’m not always all there. But Tuesday night, I know Virg didn’t come home.”

  “Okay,” McVie said.

  Fenway thought for a minute. Why would Professor Cygnus lie about such an easily disproved story, especially one that didn’t help him out? “Do you know if there’s a university rule against sleeping on campus?”

  “If there is, I’m sure they’ve made an exception for Virg,” Judith said. “Virg put Nidever on the map, in the eighties when they were a piddly little school known for not giving real grades and being too expensive.” She sniffed. “It used to be a college where rich parents sent their underachieving children when they couldn’t bribe their way into an Ivy.”

  “There are quite a few famous, successful people who are Nidever alumni,” McVie said.

  “Just because they didn’t get into Yale doesn’t mean their parents weren’t still well-connected,” Judith said. “I remember one little obnoxious student of Virg’s. This would have been in the early eighties, just when he was getting started with The Guild.”

  “The Guild goes back that far?” asked Fenway.

  “It does. Anyway, this cute blond girl with Farrah Fawcett hair and perfect skin does her whole thing, batting her eyes, wearing low-cut tops, looking like a model in a music video. Virg was sure that it was just her modus operandi. Don’t do any work in class, flirt with the teacher, skate by with a c. Maybe higher, depending on how far she was willing to go.” She coughed, once, then twice, then a rolling series of coughs that petered out after ten seconds or so. “Anyway, Virg saw something in her. He broke that girl down. She thought she’d get to play a beautiful lady-in-waiting, recite a few lines, look glamorous onstage, and get eight easy units.”

  “I take it your husband didn’t make it so easy on her.”

  “No, he didn’t. And that girl fought him tooth and nail.”

  “What happened?”

  Judith cackled. “You’ve met my husband. What do you think happened?”

  I think he might have slept with the student. Fenway bit her tongue.

  “He tamed her,” Judith said.

  “Sorry?

  “Oh, come on.” Judith rolled her eyes. “Tamed her like the shrew. He showed her the ridiculousness of her behavior. Showed her, ultimately, that she was better than what she was showing the world of herself. Taught her that she could get what she wanted without hurting others, or hurting herself.”

  “So she... changed her ways?” Fenway hated using the cliché, but it seemed exactly where this story was going.

  “She did. She got her master’s degree from Stanford, I believe it was, and she started working at oil companies. She rose up in the ranks, and now she’s one of the most respected people in the industry.”

  “Wait—are we talking about Cynthia Schimmelhorn?” Fenway said.

  “Well, back then, she was Cynthia DiFazio,” Judith said. “But yes. The ironic thing is that she didn’t even major in performance or English. After taking Virg’s class, she switched to something like biomedical engineering.”

  “Petroleum engineering,” Fenway said automatically.

  “That’s right. She’s a big oil executive. That makes sense. But I have no doubt that Virg’s class changed her whole life—her outlook on everything. She went from an entitled little rich girl whoring herself out on her looks to one of the most powerful businesswomen in the nation.”

  “Do they still keep in touch?” Fenway asked.

  “They did for a little while. When Cynthia moved back after the South American job she had, they met once or twice for dinner or coffee. But I don’t think they’ve seen each other much lately.”

  “Did you know Cynthia’s daughter?”

  Judith rolled her eyes. “How do you think I know what a big influence Virg was on her? You know what her daughter’s name is, don’t you?”

  “Nerissa.”

  “That’s right. Almost as weird as F
enway.” Judith chuckled. “Do you know who Nerissa is?”

  “Sure. Portia’s lady-in-waiting in The Merchant of Venice.”

  “That’s the part Cynthia played.”

  Fenway tried not to let the surprise show on her face. “I thought he did Merchant of Venice last year.”

  “He’s done Merchant five times now. At least Cynthia didn’t have to perform it with a monkey.”

  “I thought it would have been a big, juicy part like Gertrude, or Ophelia in Hamlet, or Cordelia in King Lear. Not a bit part with twenty lines.”

  Judith shrugged. “That’s Virg. That’s why he was so brilliant. That’s how he transformed students.”

  Fenway thought of Denise and of the professor pitching a fit during dress rehearsal. Didn’t seem that transformative to me.

  Fenway’s phone rang in her purse. She cursed under her breath for not putting it on silent. She fumbled with it as she pulled it out. It was Charlotte.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I have to take this.”

  She heaved herself out of the sofa’s quicksand and went into the entryway, where she clicked answer and began to pace back and forth along the tile floor.

  “Hi, Charlotte,” she said. “Listen, I’m with—”

  “I don’t care who you’re with,” Charlotte snapped. “Your dad got out of jail yesterday, and when he gets arraigned on Tuesday, I don’t know if he’ll be coming home. So while dinner last night was fine, I think you’d better plan to spend time with us this weekend.”

  “I’m right in the middle of a—”

  “Did you know that apparently someone is willing to say that your dad hired him to kill that professor? That’s why he might not be coming home Tuesday.”

  “Someone actually confessed to the murder and said my father hired him?” Fenway’s eyes went wide—and her mind immediately went to Peter Grayheath. But maybe it was someone else. Surely Grayheath couldn’t be free if he confessed to the murder of Professor Delacroix. “Who said that?” Fenway took a step back and bumped a table in the entryway, knocking a stack of opened mail onto the floor. She knelt down to pick up all the papers.

  “No one is telling me anything,” Charlotte said, and her voice wavered. “If I don’t get answers by tomorrow, I’ll get one of your dad’s private investigators.”

  “To be clear, Charlotte, is my father repeating what I told him in jail, or did someone actually come forward?” Fenway remembered how angry her father had been two days before, ranting about wanting to kill Delacroix himself, how he would never leave it up to someone else. Fenway hadn’t believed him at the time, but now she wasn’t so sure.

  “He said someone confessed. He took a call earlier today from his lawyers.” Charlotte’s voice was noncommittal, but Fenway nonetheless heard the echoes of disappointment and judgment. “Fortunately, Imani Ingram thinks it’s just a bump in the road.”

  “Do you like the lawyer?”

  “I don’t know. What do I know about what makes a good lawyer? Your dad likes her.”

  Fenway put all the papers in a single stack. “Does he seem okay?”

  “Your dad?”

  “Yes. Did the news get him down at all?”

  “A little agitated, maybe, but okay.”

  “Good.”

  Charlotte clicked her tongue. “So are you coming for dinner tonight?”

  Fenway, papers in hand, stood up as she tried not to let her annoyance show in her voice. “I can’t. I’m in the middle of a murder investigation.”

  “You’re always in the middle of a murder investigation, Fenway.”

  “I’ll do what I can, Charlotte. I can’t promise anything.”

  Charlotte sniffed. “I suppose that’s better than nothing.”

  Fenway hung up and immediately called Dez.

  Dez picked up. “Hey, Fenway. I don’t have an update yet. They won’t let me in to see Peter Grayheath.”

  “I just heard from Charlotte that someone accused my father of hiring him to kill my professor at Western Washington. It wasn’t Grayheath? It wasn’t from your interview?”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “Okay. Let me know if you can get in to see him. Don’t wait around all day, though—if he’s going into surgery, it’ll be hours before he’s ready to make a statement.”

  “You got it, boss. I’m about to ask the staff again. Hey, here’s the doctor now. Talk to you later.”

  Dez clicked off, and Fenway looked at the table next to her and the stack of mail and papers she’d put back. The top paper caught her eye.

  thank you for your payment in blue printing, from the oncology center at Querido Canyon Medical Center, and a payment in full of the former outstanding balance of $473,256.00.

  That’s some expensive cancer treatment. Fenway’s mother had gone so fast, she hadn’t even been able to take advantage of a ridiculously expensive treatment program.

  But still—how did Professor Cygnus pay for this?

  The total was awfully close to the difference on Jessica’s note. It couldn’t be a coincidence.

  Fenway stopped and thought. Of all the people who had access to that scholarship fund—maybe it was Cygnus, not Dr. Pruitt, who had embezzled the funds—and now, neither man had an alibi.

  She needed to find who had transferred half a million dollars out of the account.

  Piper still had another hour before she had to clear out her desk. Maybe she could pull out a miracle.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  In the office a few minutes later, Fenway stared over Piper’s shoulder at the computer screen. “Okay,” Fenway said. “What else have you come up with?”

  Piper, looking wired, but with deep black circles under her eyes, smirked. “How much do you want to know?”

  Fenway looked at Piper’s face. “Everything that won’t land you in jail.”

  Piper smiled. “No worries. The warrant came through.”

  “I thought Dr. Pruitt was fighting it.”

  “Not that one—the new one McVie called in on The Guild’s finances.”

  “Wow, that was quick.”

  Piper nodded. “And a good thing, too. I’ve been digging through these files for half an hour.”

  “What did you find?”

  “I found out The Guild doesn’t tell the public exactly accurate information.”

  “What does that mean, ‘exactly accurate’?”

  “It means,” Piper said, “that The Guild has a public scholarship fund that supposedly provides money to about ten students a year. Full cost of tuition, room and board, and job placement as well.”

  “That’s a public fund?”

  “Yes. And for those ten students, everything seems pretty legitimate. Xavier Gonsalves and Amanda Kohl are recipients, for example. That’s the guy who was sleeping with the victim and his girlfriend, right?”

  “Right, but you said it’s all legitimate?”

  “I said some of it was legit. I dug into the bank server’s files and records for the scholarship fund—and tens of millions of dollars are going in and out of that fund every week. Payouts to dozens of students who don’t exist, but who have bank accounts in the Cayman Islands. Millions of dollars paid to consultants, actor groups, theater companies—they’re all just fronts with offshore accounts. The public reports only report the legitimate transactions—they leave out everything else.”

  Fenway paused for a moment. “So where does the money go?” she asked. “It doesn’t surprise me if Dr. Pruitt’s been cooking the books. We think he’s embezzling money from the scholarship fund. Are Amanda and Xavier involved?”

  “It’s complicated. Let me show you what I’m looking at.” Piper pointed to several lines on the screen. “Okay. This screen shows the financial statements from the scholarship fund.”

  “All right.”

  “And this window”—Piper clicked and a different set of numbers appeared—“shows the spreadsheet data that gets fed into the public reports. The ones that Nidever gets t
o brag about during university tours.”

  “So that’s the spreadsheet that Pruitt might have altered?”

  Piper shook her head. “I don’t think so. The spreadsheets got uploaded—I can see the original files—and I can see the revision history. About four hundred changes, entered by students, Jessica Marquez, and a couple of the finance admins at Nidever. The spreadsheets have had errors in them, but mostly for transposed numbers on checks or a missing number here or there.”

  “So you don’t have anything.”

  “Seriously, Fenway, are you always this impatient?”

  “Impatient? You have less than an hour left here.”

  “Thanks for reminding me, sunshine,” Piper said. “Now, different spreadsheet files are associated with the master scholarship fund statement—the real one, with the millions going in and out all the time.” She clicked on a column header and a row of numbers appeared, all in the millions. “You can see a bunch of large cash deposits are entered as anonymous donations to the scholarship fund.” She clicked again and the rows and numbers changed. “These are the payments going to student accounts in the Cayman Islands.”

  “What about accounts owned by Global Advantage?” Fenway asked.

  “I’ve got to cross-reference some things, but yes, I think money is going there, too.”

  “Okay, so this is all interesting. The scholarship fund looks like a major cog in the money laundering scheme.”

  “Yes. If my calculations are correct, it’s how they’re laundering more than half their money.”

  “And it ties into Jessica’s murder?”

  Piper nodded. “I think so. Every month, The Guild receives a statement about this.” Piper pointed to the screen. “These codes mean that a statement was mailed.”

  Fenway squinted. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  “And look—here, on October sixth, at the close of business, there’s an anonymous donation of over two million dollars.”

  “Right. Two million, seven hundred and seventy-seven thousand.”

  “Okay. Now—and this is where the magic happens—I query the database for the snapshot taken at noon.” She clicked and typed in a command, and another window popped up.