Officer Young looked sideways at Fenway through his last bite of taco but didn’t say anything.
“I’m sure you understand I’m not permitted to comment on an ongoing investigation,” said Ridley.
“Ah,” Fenway said. “And I’m sure I can imagine several scenarios where I’m not the only one of the professor’s victims to move to California. And since I’m sure the Bellingham Police Department has limited resources, they probably wouldn’t send you on a trip unless it was justified by multiple interviews.”
Detective Ridley tapped his temple and finished his Coke. He pulled a business card out of his jacket pocket and put it in front of Fenway. “If you think of anything else, please give me a call,” he said. He got up from the table and gave Fenway a genuine-looking smile. “I’ll deny it in front of anyone from Bellingham, of course, but these tacos are a lot better than Rio Bravo. Have a good evening.”
Fenway watched Detective Ridley leave the restaurant, pause briefly outside the taquería, then walk to his left. A moment later, he walked back in front of the storefront and off to the right.
“He forget where he parked?”
“I guess,” Fenway said. She took another bite of taco.
“What did he want?”
Fenway swallowed. “I had a professor at Western Washington. He was found dead a few months ago. When I read the article, the police were calling it an accident. Now I guess they think he was murdered.”
“Why are they asking you about him? You said you were a victim?”
Fenway shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about it, Officer. Very few people in the department know the details, and I’d prefer it stay that way.”
“Sorry.”
Fenway shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. Suffice to say I’m a person of interest. And I was in Seattle three months ago, just before the professor’s body was found.”
Officer Young narrowed his eyes.
“I didn’t do it,” Fenway said. She took another bite and chewed thoughtfully. “Although I must say I’m relieved someone did.”
They finished up their meal and walked back to the sheriff’s office, walking through the corridors and emerging in back where the cruisers were parked. Officer Young got on the radio and another cruiser appeared on the street, waiting for them to go. Fenway got her phone out to text Rachel that she was coming back to the apartment and saw she had missed a text from Millicent Tate.
Be at studio at 10
I brought clothes 4 u
“Oh, crap,” Fenway said. “I forgot. I’ve got to be on camera tonight.”
“Not to the apartment?”
“Not yet, I guess. You know where the Channel 12 studio is?”
Officer Young furrowed his brow.
“It’s near the warehouse district, on the other side of the train tracks. Twentieth and Moreno.”
“Oh. Yeah, I know the area. I guess I never noticed the studio there before.”
“They don’t have a lot of signage up. I guess they don’t want to announce they’ve got thousands of dollars in equipment there.” She was glad Millicent had taken care of the clothes; she didn’t feel like picking out another outfit.
“You’ve got to be on camera tonight?”
“Shooting a campaign ad. Ivanovich ran one of his own today and we’ve got to respond.”
They arrived at the studio at two minutes after ten o’clock, but it took another three minutes for the other officers to check the parking lot and the surrounding areas before giving Officer Young the all clear. Fenway got out of the car and wondered how tired she looked. She hoped the hair and makeup people on staff could do a decent job. Millicent had seen her at the dinner, though, and she had seen Imelda Ivanovich spit on her, so she hoped everything would be ready for Millicent to turn her face into something camera-ready.
Millicent was waiting outside for her with an angry look on her face. “For God’s sake, Fenway,” she said, “the election is in three days. Three days! You have got to get your head on right and figure out how to get places on time.”
“I’m five minutes late, and I was being interviewed by a detective,” Fenway said.
Millicent opened the door and Fenway went inside. “Don’t give me that. I can smell the salsa on your breath.” Officer Young followed both of them in.
“It was kind of an informal interview.”
“Okay, never mind,” Millicent said. “We’ve got hair and makeup and wardrobe to do.” She looked at Fenway. “You don’t look too bad for someone who got spit on.”
“Thanks, you look radiant tonight too.”
“Okay, follow me.” Millicent began walking quickly through the corridors of the studio, and Fenway, in her formal dress and heels, had a little trouble keeping up. “I had someone go over to your apartment and get a few blouses and blazers.”
“Fine by me.”
They arrived at a door and Millicent opened it. The artificial lights around three sets of mirrors illuminated the room in an otherworldly brightness, casting strange shadows on the walls.
“Okay,” Millicent said. “In that chair, there.” She pointed in front of one of the mirrors. “I’m going to tell Bethany you’re here.” Millicent left, leaving Fenway alone with Officer Young, who had an uncomfortable look on his face.
“You okay?” Fenway asked him.
“I guess,” he said. “This feels like a creepy clown room in a haunted house.”
Fenway laughed. “Halloween was last week.”
Fenway’s phone rang in her purse. She dug it out. “I’m going to have to turn the ringer off or Millicent’s going to kill me,” she muttered. She looked at the screen and didn’t recognize the number.
“Fenway Stevenson here,” she answered.
“Oh—Miss Stevenson,” a woman’s voice on the other end said.
“Yes, hi, who’s this?”
“I’m sorry—it’s Lydia Hernandez.”
“Lydia...” Fenway had a questioning tone in her voice; she couldn’t place the name.
“From the Belvedere Terrace Resort.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “I hope we didn’t inconvenience you too much.”
“Well,” she said, “you did, but that’s not why I’m calling. You gave me your card when you were here and asked me a lot about the woman who checked into the villa.”
“Yes,” Fenway said. “You have more information about her?”
“I do. I was watching the ten o’clock news, and I saw you get spit on tonight.”
“Ah. Well. Politics does crazy things to people.”
“I have to tell you, after you and the sheriff asked so many questions yesterday, I was about ready to spit on you myself.” She laughed, but perhaps there was a note of apology in it.
“Did you say you had information about the woman who checked in?”
“Oh, right. Yes, yes, I do. I saw the lady on the television when they were showing what happened tonight.”
“The woman who checked into the hotel with Jeremy Kapp was at the dinner tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Was it the woman who spit on me?”
Lydia Hernandez laughed. “That would have been good, huh? No, it wasn’t. It was the lady sitting next to the sheriff.”
“Next to the sheriff?”
“White lady. Real pretty. Dark hair. She had on a bright red dress.”
Fenway gasped. And then wondered why she hadn’t put two and two together before.
Catherine Klein.
Part V
Monday
Chapter Twenty-Two
FENWAY HAD TO HOLD up the wardrobe and makeup people as she left a message with Dez and texted McVie that Catherine Klein was Mrs. Potemkin. She hoped it was enough to get the first domino tipped to get Charlotte out of jail.
It took nearly two hours, but they finally got Fenway’s wardrobe, makeup, and hair finished at midnight, and they all walked into the studio, where a tired-looking cameraman was waiting, the green plastic cur
tain and the lights in place. Officer Young was looking bright-eyed still, as he sat in on the session, stoically, not speaking or making any noise. Fenway sat, getting the lighting adjusted on her face, while Millicent discussed the different intonations Fenway should make, the different words she should emphasize.
They started the session. At first, Fenway was having trouble concentrating; she thought more about Catherine Klein and wondered if Dez and McVie had gotten the messages. After Millicent clapped at her to wake up so they could finish and go home, Fenway snapped to the present and read the script through in a few takes. Millicent had a couple of corrections.
At one point, right around twelve-thirty, one of the other people on the campaign had come into the room and handed her another sheet. Millicent broke into a wide smile. “Here,” she said, “read this instead.”
It was a different script altogether, with a reference to the spitting incident.
“Throughout this election cycle, I’ve done my job, I’ve faced down some tough opponents, and I’ve done it in the face of adversity,” Fenway read.
“And that,” Millicent said, “is when we’ll superimpose the image of you being spit on by Imelda Ivanovich.”
Fenway shook her head. “Listen, Millicent, I trust you on a lot of things, but believe me when I tell you for as much outrage as you think the community’s going to feel, there’s going to be a growing group of people who see that and think it’s about time somebody put the ‘uppity black bitch’ in her place.”
Millicent winced. So did all of the white people in the room. The black woman who was holding the overhead boom mic remained stoic, although Fenway thought there was a trace of her rolling her eyes.
“Do you have to—” Millicent began.
“I’m not going to sugar-coat this for you,” Fenway interrupted. “Your original message was great. It elicited outrage. I don’t think it undermined anything. But the voters in this county are more white than black or Latino or Asian, they’re a lot more rural than city slickers, and it’s a midterm year—you’re not going to get young people to the polls nearly as much as you’d like.”
Millicent looked sideways at Fenway. “You don’t think I know all that?”
“Good, I’m glad you do. So you understand I’m not going to say the words in this script. I don’t want the spitting video used. It’s a dog whistle, and not one in my favor.”
Millicent pressed her lips together. “We can talk about it later.”
By the time they had finished with the session, it was one-thirty in the morning. The crew started turning off the lights and Fenway pulled Millicent to the side. “Millicent, listen, I found out that Jeremy Kapp, the murder victim Charlotte’s in jail on suspicion of killing, wasn’t having an affair with Charlotte. He was having an affair with Barry Klein’s wife. She was the one with him at the Belvedere Terrace Resort the night he was killed.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because,” Fenway said, “I think it will help McVie win his race, and I thought you could coordinate the release of that information with Gene Dennett.”
“Fenway,” Millicent Tate said, her tone admonishing, “I wish you would concentrate on your own race. The polls we did last week don’t mean anything now, and we don’t have time to gear up for anything meaningful before Tuesday. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a toss-up between you and Dr. Ivanovich. I don’t get paid for mishandling these things, and the only times I ever lose is when the candidate doesn’t take the campaign seriously enough.” She held out a finger, pointing at Fenway’s chest. “And you, my dear, aren’t taking your campaign seriously enough.”
“I also thought if it came out that Catherine Klein was the one having the affair with Jeremy Kapp, Charlotte would be let go. I’ve already told Sergeant Roubideaux and McVie.”
Millicent bobbed her head from side to side in thought. “I don’t know. The media’s been pretty loud about Charlotte’s arrest. I doubt they’ll be nearly as loud if she’s let go.”
“Better than her still being in jail on Election Day, though, right?”
Millicent thought for a moment, then nodded. “Yes. Absolutely. All right, I’ll get on it.”
Officer Young drove Fenway back to Rachel’s, followed by the second cruiser. It was late, and when they walked into Rachel’s townhouse, an exhausted Rachel was still on the couch, watching a movie.
“Rachel, what are you still doing up?” Fenway said. “It’s almost two in the morning.”
“I’m worried about you,” Rachel said simply. “I’m glad you’re back safe.”
Fenway clicked her tongue. “You don’t need to do that. You know the police are starting to think I wasn’t the target of the car bomb.”
Rachel nodded. “Yeah. I heard from Dez. But I don’t want to take any chances.”
Fenway and Rachel left Officer Young in the living room and Fenway got ready for bed. The exhaustion hit her like a truck as she was brushing her teeth, and she stumbled out of the bathroom.
Rachel was standing in the hallway outside her bedroom. “I think you should sleep in my room again,” she said simply.
“What?”
Rachel lowered her voice. “I don’t trust Officer Young. I got a weird feeling yesterday when he was here, and then when you woke up screaming—I don’t know. It was strange when I came out of my room and he was already in front of your bed.”
“He was awake downstairs. You were asleep. It probably took you a lot more time to wake up and get out of bed than it did for him to run upstairs.”
Rachel looked through a suspicious gaze at Fenway. “Yeah, I know,” she said, “but I’m telling you, something’s not right.”
“You going to put a chair up against the door like you did last night?”
“Are you making fun of me?”
Fenway stared at her.
“Come in here,” Rachel hissed, and Fenway followed her into her bedroom and Rachel closed the door behind her.
“Listen,” Rachel said, solemnly, “I know McVie thinks there’s a mole in the department. A mole who let my father into Dylan’s cell to kill him. I know they haven’t found that mole yet. I know the mole, whoever he might be, is tied to your dad’s company. I don’t think he’s tied to your dad himself, but someone at Ferris Energy has someone at the sheriff’s office who is giving him access.”
Fenway nodded. “Yeah. McVie thinks so too.”
“So—Officer Young might be handsome and intelligent and might be giving you all those good vibes, but I don’t trust him,” Rachel said. “And honestly, I don’t care if I sound paranoid. I don’t care if he starts suspecting I’m onto him, or if he thinks we’re lesbians, or what. I care about keeping you safe, and if he’s after you, I’m not safe either.” She set her jaw. “You’ll be a lot safer in this room with me, when he has to take on two people, not just one, especially if one of us has a gun.”
Fenway paused, thinking, then she nodded.
“Good,” Rachel said. “I’m exhausted. And I hope you don’t snore like you did last night.”
FENWAY WOKE UP TO THE smell of coffee. She turned over; Rachel was already out of bed.
Fenway sat up and stretched. The clock on Rachel’s bedside table said 7:17—she felt fairly rested for only five hours of sleep, and knew she’d have a full day, between the investigation and all the campaign events Millicent Tate had scheduled for her. She reached for her phone; Dez had texted her. Let’s talk about the Kapp case. Call me after 8.
She stretched her arms above her head, went to the bathroom, and, not quite awake, started to go downstairs to get some coffee. Then she heard Callahan’s voice, Rachel laughing along with him, and went into the bedroom to dig a bra out of her suitcase and put it on before going down.
Rachel and Callahan were seated at the kitchen table. After everything Callahan had said yesterday about Fenway not being in danger, she was surprised the sheriff’s department was still placing a resource to protect her. She remembered the loo
k of concern on McVie’s face, first after the car bomb, then after the therapist’s killing. Maybe McVie was being overprotective.
Rachel and Callahan didn’t look up from their conversation; Rachel had her back to Fenway, but Callahan paid a lot of attention to what Rachel was saying. She was talking with her hands, something about a concert she had attended, and Callahan’s face looked—well, smitten. Perhaps Rachel was the reason he had chosen, or maybe volunteered for, this particular duty.
Fenway was walking by the front door when Callahan’s radio crackled to life.
“Callahan, there’s a visitor approaching the door. We frisked him. No weapons. Wants to talk to Eagle.”
“Roger that,” said Callahan.
“Eagle?” Fenway said.
Callahan looked up suddenly. “Oh—Fenway, you’re up. Good.”
Fenway looked down at her flannel pajamas. “Not sure I’m in any state to receive company.”
Callahan’s radio crackled again. “Male, early to mid-twenties. Said his name was Zoso.”
“Zoso?”
“Oh,” Fenway said, “I know him.”
Callahan narrowed his eyes. “I know him too. He’s a dealer.”
Fenway shrugged. “He broke the mayor’s murder case wide open a couple of months ago. I’ll see him.”
Fenway turned to open the front door, but Callahan yelled to stop her, and rushed over to open the door himself.
Zoso had a five-day growth of beard. His eyes were heavily lidded, but darted from Callahan to Fenway.
“Nice jammies,” he said.
“Hi, Zoso,” Fenway said.
“What is this?” he said. “How come I’m getting the third degree?”
“It’s possible someone’s trying to kill me,” Fenway said. “Police protection.”
“Thought it was ’cause you were running for office. Some sort of Secret Service detail or something.”
Fenway shrugged. “You want to come in?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” Zoso stepped inside, saw Rachel at the kitchen table. “Hey, Rach.”
“Hey, Zoso. You doing okay?”
The Candidate Coroner Page 26