The people who were neighbors and drinking buddies with Terrance Ivanovich. Would they realize their friend was way over the line? Or would they think Fenway was getting in the way of their friend, she was somehow to blame for the vandalism he caused?
Would it resonate with them that Ivanovich played the race card—while accusing Fenway of doing so? Would it give some of Fenway’s supporters a reason to change their minds and go with someone who looked like they were in the same tribe?
She couldn’t think like that.
But she could go back to a normal life. She could go back to nursing, and she and McVie could date, like a real couple, and he wouldn’t be leaving her bed at five in the morning.
She stretched her legs, then started to run back. The light was brighter now, and she could see where her feet landed. She didn’t need her headlamp, but it gave her comfort anyway.
She started to sprint as she saw the end of the trail in her sights.
Then she was on the ground, gasping for breath, her knee screaming in agony.
Fenway squeezed her eyes shut. The sharp, intense pain radiated from her kneecap outward, tingling and stinging. She’d been hurt before—her broken hand three months previously, for one—and the pain had been worse than this. This was still bad.
She opened her eyes. A tree stump stuck out of the ground next to her leg. She must have smacked her knee on it when she fell. As the pain dulled into a throb in her knee, she realized something was wrapped around her ankle. She rolled onto her side so she could see it.
A rope.
Someone had deliberately tripped her.
She pushed herself up into a sitting position. She looked back and to her left.
Holding the end of the rope was Donovan Kapp.
“Donovan,” Fenway gasped, trying to get her breath back. “What the hell?” But she knew. As soon as she saw his face, she knew.
And she realized what she had missed watching the video. Donovan’s shirt had been neatly tucked in when they arrived. Afterward, it had been untucked. Nothing in and of itself, but that’s where he had hidden Charlotte’s gun.
“I’m sorry, Miss Stevenson,” Donovan said. “I didn’t want that to be necessary, but I guess it was.” He unzipped his jacket and awkwardly pulled a revolver out. Fenway recognized the Colt Single Action .44 Special from the display case at the Kapp house.
“It’s not as new of a gun as Charlotte’s,” he said. “But it’ll do the job pretty well, if it has to.”
“What are you doing?” Fenway said.
“I knew you ran this trail in the mornings,” Donovan said. “That white power website has all kinds of information like that. Plus your address, the make, model, and license plate of your car, all kinds of stuff. It was only a matter of time before you had your car vandalized or your apartment broken into.”
“Seriously?”
“I think you of all people should have figured out you were on that site,” he said.
“So what’s this?” Fenway said. “Why did you trip me? Why the gun?”
“You knew, Miss Stevenson,” Donovan said quietly. “When you came by the house yesterday, you knew I was the one who sent you all those letters. You knew I was the one trying to point the finger at Charlotte.” He stared at the gun in his hand like he had never seen it before, but then his eyes glazed over and he set his mouth in a line again. “You said there was video footage. And I realized, of course, a rich guy like your dad is going to have video footage of everything. And I saw something light up in your eyes when you said ‘video footage,’ like you were going to find something. Like you knew where to go.”
“I didn’t have everything figured out.”
He sighed. “If you didn’t, you would before long.”
“You think getting rid of me is going to keep you out of jail?” Fenway said. “They’ll put other detectives on the case.”
Donovan chuckled derisively. “I wish I had known you were off the case. The other investigators wanted Charlotte to be guilty from the get-go. I screwed up with those emails and photos, sending them to you instead of them. I should have known I couldn’t fool you.”
“Why did you send those emails and photos?” Fenway said. “I was off the case—I wouldn’t have even tried to get Charlotte out of jail. But then I got those. And those were faked.”
Donovan looked stricken. “I thought I did a pretty good job of making those look real,” he said quietly.
“Okay,” Fenway said. “So what’s your plan here? You going to shoot me?”
Donovan shook his head. “You’re going to walk to the cliff. And then you’re going to jump off. Into the rocks.”
Fenway shook her head. “I don’t think I’m going to do that.”
Donovan nodded. “You are. If you don’t, I’m going to shoot your kneecap. Then I’ll push you off.”
“They’ll find the bullet in my knee. They’ll know it wasn’t an accident.”
Donovan shook his head. “Not after the waves and the rocks are done with your body. It’ll be so mangled, no one’ll know what happened.”
Fenway didn’t think Donovan was correct, but she saw no point in arguing. He thought he had found a way out for himself, and he wasn’t going to let it go.
“Up,” Donovan said, motioning with the .44.
Fenway thought of her phone on the counter in her apartment. She tested her knee out.
“What’s the problem?”
“I cracked my knee when I fell, is the problem,” Fenway said. She gingerly put weight on it and a bolt of pain shot down her leg. Fenway gritted her teeth. But the pain wasn’t too bad—she could walk and it was still bearable.
“Sorry,” Donovan said dismissively. “Now, hand me your phone. And don’t try anything stupid.”
“I don’t have my phone.”
“What?”
“I left it on the counter at home.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Well, it’s true.”
“Turn out your pockets.”
“I’m wearing running pants. They don’t have pockets.”
Donovan was quiet for a moment. “Fine,” he said.
Fenway thought about screaming, but it being so early in the morning, she didn’t know if her voice would carry through the butterfly waystation. And Donovan was already nervous. He could decide to shoot her. Or, more likely, he could shoot her if she started screaming and decide it was bad idea after she was already dead.
“You’re not keeping your phone somewhere else?”
“Where would I keep it?” Fenway asked, somewhat irritated.
Donovan narrowed his eyes.
“You want me to strip to prove it to you? I bet you’d like that. Just like watching Charlotte step out of the shower.”
Donovan flinched. “How did you—”
“Charlotte saw you. What happened, Donovan? Did you go in there to get the gun and couldn’t resist taking a little peek?”
“I don’t—”
“How did you know about the gun, anyway?” Fenway said. “Oh—of course. You ran into Charlotte at the gun range.”
“Me and my dad,” Donovan said absently. “He brought me to the range for some male bonding time.” He spat the last words out. “As if I want to shoot some Old West gun.”
“Your dad try to chat her up?”
“Did he try to what?”
“Hit on her. Flirt with her. Get in her pants.”
“Shut up.”
“Well, did he?”
Donovan shook his head—not a denial; it was as if he were trying to get the memory out of his head. “She was loving it. Laughing at all his jokes, touching his arm, batting her eyelashes. She was eating it up. She even invited us to dinner.”
“So you thought your dad was sleeping with her, too.”
Donovan shrugged. “They talked about getting together for coffee. Talking about target practice. As if I wasn’t even there. Just like...” He trailed off.
“Just lik
e all the other women he picked up?”
“Okay, enough,” Donovan said. “Start walking. Up toward the cliffs.”
“I can’t put weight on my leg,” Fenway fibbed. “I don’t think I can get there.”
“I’m sure you can,” Donovan said, cocking the revolver.
Fenway set her jaw. “Fine,” she said. She hobbled around.
She put her left foot forward and then made a show of dragging her right foot up to it, grimacing and wincing. On the fifth step she let out a little cry.
“You better hurry up,” Donovan said. “I want to get there by sunrise.”
“You should have thought of that before you broke my knee,” Fenway said.
“Listen,” Donovan said, “I’m the one with the gun. I get to make the rules.”
Fenway’s mind raced. The limp was buying her time, but for what? Finding another jogger on the trail? Putting an innocent bystander in jeopardy?
How serious was Donovan? Could he pull the trigger?
What a stupid question. Of course he could. From the physical evidence, he had held the gun inches from his own father’s forehead and pulled the trigger. Had he also led him outside? Maybe his father left the villa to get some ice and Donovan had marched him right to the pedestrian underpass, where he had put a bullet in his brain and then—what, changed him into the homeless clothes?
No, Fenway realized, Donovan wasn’t afraid to pull the trigger. Maybe he’d have more trouble doing it to someone he didn’t detest, someone who hadn’t cheated on his family or someone who wasn’t high on cocaine. But Fenway didn’t want to take the risk. Not before she had to, anyway.
“Okay,” Fenway said. “I’m going as fast as I can.”
The butterfly waystation looked different in the growing light of day. The sun hadn’t yet peeked above the mountains, but the light behind it was brightening the sky, gently filtering through the canopy of trees.
The morning was clear—not much fog or haze, which was fairly typical of early November. The low fog banks that bathed the coast every morning in the summer were rarely found in the autumn months, and when it wasn’t raining, the days were often clear and bright.
Fenway breathed in the fresh air. If she had to die, it might as well be in this beautiful place, in the place her mother had painted all those years ago. Spending the last six months in Estancia, Fenway ran this trail a few times a week. It might be Fenway’s favorite place in the world.
There were worse ways to go.
“The silence is killing me,” Fenway said.
“Too bad.”
They got to the fork in the trail where she had taken the path on the left down to the beach earlier, and looked at the path on the right that led up to the cliffs.
“You might as well tell me about how you murdered your father,” Fenway said, “since you’re going to kill me anyway.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. Keep going. Up toward the cliffs.”
Fenway dragged her foot but took the path on the right. “My last wish, then. You going to deny a dying woman her last wish?”
Donovan shrugged. “I broke into his email account the last time he took off for a week. I knew he did some stupid Russian sexual role-playing shit in that disgusting hotel. So this time, when he was gone for two days, then three, and my mom kept popping pills, I had enough. I took Charlotte’s gun and I went to the hotel, and I caught him right when he came out of the room with an ice bucket.” Donovan laughed, a sardonic, wry sound. “Honestly, I thought he had Charlotte in there with him. I kept telling him I was going to kill him with his girlfriend’s gun. He was totally confused.”
“Even when he saw the gun?”
“I guess. He didn’t put two and two together. Not real bright, my dad.”
“Good with the ladies, though.”
Donovan shrugged again. “Like that ever helped him out. Got my mom hooked on pills, drove my sister to get with guys just like him, drove me to—well, put a bullet in his forehead.”
“And then you threw one of Charlotte’s earrings into the planter in front of the villa where he was staying.” Fenway paused. “Then you dragged him a quarter of a mile to the pedestrian underpass. You covered him with blankets.”
“Old ones from the trunk of my car,” Donovan said. “He didn’t think I’d do it. He thought I was a coward. Of all the stuff he ever challenged me on, all of the times he embarrassed me in front of my friends, didn’t show up for my science fairs, yelled at my teachers, he honestly didn’t think I’d pull the trigger.”
“Did you give him a chance?”
“Sure, I gave him a chance. I told him to tell me he was sorry. Promise you’ll stop sleeping around with all these women. Either commit to Mom or tell her it’s over and divorce her so we can all get on with our lives.”
Fenway turned and looked at Donovan. His eyes were unfocused, staring vacantly at the side of the trail. Fenway slowed a bit to try to get closer to him, to try to maybe take him out when he wasn’t paying attention. But he raised his head to look at her, and she turned back around.
“And you know what? He laughed at me. He’s there in his ridiculous drug-binge clothes, where he looks like a homeless guy, he hasn’t showered in a couple of days—I don’t even know how any woman could stand being with him. His pupils are dilated, he’s talking to me about ‘finding my center’ and ‘knowing my true self,’ and then the next minute he’s telling me that I’ll never amount to anything.”
“He practically dared you to pull the trigger.” Fenway slowed her steps down, but kept walking.
Donovan sniffed. “Whatever.”
“Did you?”
“Did I what? Find my center? Know my true self?” He chuckled lightly. “Yeah, sure.”
“I mean did you pull the trigger?”
Donovan shrugged. “Like you said, he practically dared me.”
“You proud of yourself?”
Donovan’s voice went from dreamlike to serious. “Shut up.”
Fenway crested the hill and the grove of trees thinned out, leading to a plateau in front of the ocean. The trail narrowed into a path up a steep grade, where the cliff overlooked the rocks with the lone cypress tree. She had seen the cypress hundreds of times in her mother’s painting. She knew she didn’t have long.
Donovan had said he would push her off the cliff. But if she wasn’t on the edge—if he had to drag her body up that steep grade, maybe he wouldn’t do it. Even if he put a bullet into her knee, even if she could never walk again, surely that was better than jumping off.
“Go up to the cliff,” Donovan said.
“No.”
“What did you say?”
Fenway turned around. “You’re going to have to shoot me,” she said. “I’m not going up there, and I’m not jumping off. That’s a painful, horrible way to die. And I’m not making it any easier for you. You can shoot me and kill me, but then it will be bullets from an antique Colt .44 Special in my body, laying here, fifty yards from the cliff. You’re going to have a tough time dragging my body up that grade. And any detective—even the bad ones who you think can’t find their ass with two hands and a map—even they will be able to figure out who did it. And they’ll do it fast, too.”
Donovan raised the gun.
“And don’t think you’re going to have a head start,” Fenway said. “I’m already late to my first meeting. It’s Election Day. My campaign manager is probably leaving a panicked voice mail for me right now. The sheriff will know something’s wrong. You shoot me, and I guarantee someone will be looking for me before you get back down the trail and get to your car. Try getting three hundred miles to the Mexican border only five minutes ahead of the police.”
Fenway saw the barrel of the revolver shake almost imperceptibly.
Fenway took a shuffling step forward. Her heart pounded in her ears, overpowering the roar of the sea behind her.
“You tried to save your family, Donovan. And that’s heroic. Your mother, your sister�
��they might not like that you killed your dad, but I know they’ll admire that you tried to save the family.”
“Don’t come any closer,” Donovan said.
“But if you kill me? You kill the woman who was trying to find out who did this to you. They won’t admire you. They’ll hate you. They’ll hate that you took the coward’s way out.”
The barrel of the gun shook a little more. Fenway looked at Donovan’s face. A tear ran down his cheek.
“You may be a killer, Donovan, but you love your family. And you’re not a coward.”
Donovan blinked hard, and a tear ran down his other cheek.
“There’s a way out of this, Donovan,” Fenway said. “I can’t promise you it will be easy, but there’s a way out.”
“There’s no way out,” Donovan said, quietly, his teary eyes on Fenway’s.
“Yes, there is. You’re a minor. Your father pushed you too far. There are circumstances the D.A. will take into account. You won’t be in jail for the rest of your life. You might get out in just a few years. Maybe you won’t go at all. Your family has the money for a good lawyer.”
The barrel of the gun started to droop.
“No—a great lawyer. Someone who’ll argue like hell for you. Someone who’ll challenge everything I did. Everything the other detectives did. Maybe you won’t even go.”
“Maybe I won’t even go,” Donovan repeated, distantly, as if his voice were playing through a tape recorder.
“Right,” Fenway said, taking another step forward. Her mouth was dry. “So just hand me the gun, Donovan. This will all be over.”
“This will all be over,” Donovan repeated.
And Fenway knew, a split second before it happened.
And she was powerless to stop it.
Donovan put the gun to his temple and squeezed his eyes shut.
The sun broke over the mountains into Fenway’s eyes just as the Colt revolver fired, a deafening sound that rang in her ears, just like the car bomb’s explosion had. All Fenway could see was sunlight.
The Candidate Coroner Page 32