The Clandestine Coroner : A Fenway Stevenson Novella, page 3
Chapter Three
Fenway parked her Accord next to the curb under a streetlight, its bright glow casting harsh shadows on the quiet residential street. She looked across the road to the large house, its tall arches framing the well-lit doorway. To the left and slightly behind the front of the main house, a four-car garage—with similar arches and other architectural details—stood behind a row of tall Italian cypresses.
A police cruiser pulled up behind Fenway and turned its engine and lights off. Fenway got out of the Honda to greet Deputy Celeste Salvador as she emerged from her vehicle.
Deputy Salvador was a few inches shorter than Fenway, in her early thirties. Her shoulder-length dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She looked at Fenway with wary dark brown eyes. “Do we think the suspect is here?”
“Redmond Northwall. I don’t know—I’m applying for a warrant for obstruction at the very least.”
“Think it’ll come through?”
“Sarah’s pulled off miracles before.” Fenway shuffled her feet on the asphalt. “If he’s the killer, I’m sure he would know that we’d look for him here. So my money is that he’s back at the temple or in the wind. If he’s here, either he’s supremely confident in his ability to trick us, or he’s innocent.”
“This guy is the CEO of a software company, right? A successful one?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you read that study that said CEOs are ten times more likely to be sociopaths than the overall population?”
“I did.”
“No offense to your dad.”
Fenway chuckled. “None taken.”
Celeste motioned toward the house. “Did you put out an APB on his car?”
“Not yet. I want to see if he’s here.”
Celeste motioned to the house with her chin. “It’s well lit. Looks like someone’s home, anyway.”
Fenway took a deep breath. “You ready?”
“Let’s do it.”
They crossed the road and walked up the stone footpath to the front door, a reddish-tinged mahogany with ornate glass windows. Fenway reached out and touched the bell; Westminster chimes rang from inside.
A moment later, a woman opened the door. Trim and athletic, she wore a black business suit with a brooch in the shape of a dolphin on the lapel. Her red hair cascaded down past her shoulders, and she had freckles across the pale skin of her cheeks and nose. She was likely in her early forties, without the treatments and plastic surgeries that Fenway halfway expected from a famous CEO’s wife. She smiled easily. “Yes?”
“County Coroner Fenway Stevenson.” Fenway held her identification out.
The woman peered at it, her smile faltering.
“This is my colleague, Deputy Celeste Salvador. Is this the residence of Redmond Northwall?”
“Yes.” The woman stepped out onto the front step, closing the door behind her and crossing her arms. “What can I help you with?”
“Do you live here as well?”
“Yes. I’m Emma Northwall, Red’s wife. What’s this about?”
“We need to speak with your husband. Is he home?”
“No. I believe he had a business dinner.” She paused. “Speaking of which, I’ve got a dinner to get to myself.”
“This will only take a moment, Mrs. Northwall. When was the last time you saw him?”
“About twenty minutes ago.”
“Twenty minutes ago?”
“Yes.” Emma pointed back at the house. “He came home from work, ran in the house, said hi to me, then said he had to go out again, and went to the garage.”
“The garage?”
“Of course. He drove his car home and took it back out.”
“He parked it in the garage, then drove it back out?”
“That’s what I just said.” Emma crinkled her nose.
“What kind of car?”
“A Tesla Model S—what did you say this was about?”
“He’s the leader of the local chapter of the Monument Brotherhood, is he not?”
“Uh—that’s correct. I’m pretty sure that’s a matter of public record.”
“How long did he spend in the garage?”
“Only about fifteen—” Emma paused, then looked from Fenway’s face to Celeste’s and back again. “California has a policy of spousal privilege,” she said carefully.
Fenway was silent. This wasn’t good.
“You can’t compel me to give information against my husband,” Emma continued.
“Testimony,” Celeste said.
“What?” Emma asked.
Fenway winced, then glanced at Celeste. “Testimony, not information. But we’re not accusing your husband of anything.”
Emma folded her arms. “What is this information regarding?”
“There was an incident at the temple this evening and we wanted to ask him if he could give us any details.”
“An incident?”
“That’s right,” Fenway said. When she started as coroner last year, she might have spilled the beans about the murder, but that would definitely shut Emma down. It might not make much difference in this case—Emma looked like she didn’t trust Fenway anyway. “I wonder,” she said as calmly as she could, “if he left the information we need in the garage. If we could just—”
“I think it’s time for you two to leave,” Emma Northwall said. “I’ll fully cooperate with warrants and subpoenas, but I have nothing else to say at this time, and I decline to allow you to search anything on my property.”
“Fair enough,” Fenway said. “Have a good night.”
Fenway turned and walked back down the stone pathway to the street, Celeste on her heels.
“Sorry,” Celeste mumbled.
“For what?”
“I said one word, and it’s the word that shut her down.”
Fenway shrugged. “She was getting suspicious of us anyway. I wouldn’t have been able to search the garage no matter what you’d said.”
They walked across the street to their cars.
“Not what I expected,” Fenway said.
“What?”
“Emma Northwall. She’s not that much younger than Redmond. I was expecting a trophy wife with plastic surgery.”
Celeste glanced back at the house. “The Courier did a piece on her charity a few weeks ago. Some save-the-ocean thing. She’s got a degree in marine biology—she’s no one’s trophy.” She frowned as she approached the police cruiser. “But I got the feeling she’s hiding something. She knows—or at least strongly suspects—what her husband might have hidden in the garage.”
“I agree,” Fenway said. “I’ve already got Sarah filling out a warrant application for this house.”
“Does that include the garage?”
“Sarah’s done this before,” Fenway said, evading the question, but made a mental note to check with her. “And Dez is signing the warrants. So I’m sure it’ll be okay.”
“And you caught what she said, right?” Celeste asked. “He was in the garage for ‘fifteen’—something. Probably minutes.”
Fenway nodded. “And he pulled all the way into the garage. If you know you’re just running in the house to get something, you don’t drive into the garage. You park in the driveway. In a neighborhood like this, you probably don’t even lock your car.”
“Unless you need to hide a murder weapon.” Celeste unlocked the cruiser. “You would pull in the garage all the way. You don’t want your neighbors seeing your bloody baseball bat.”
“Bloodstone scepter.”
“Bloodstone scepter,” Celeste muttered. “Seriously?”
“It’s cosplay for white men,” Fenway said.
“Yeah.” Celeste opened the door of the cruiser. “It’s all fun and games until one of them gets their brains bashed in.”
“And then it’s just fun.”
Celeste didn’t even chuckle, her brow creased in thought.
“You ever think about taking the detective exam?”
Celeste looked up. “Scheduled for April.”
As Celeste drove away in the cruiser, Fenway got back into her Accord. She pulled out her phone and sent a message to Sarah to include the garage in the warrant, then remembered that she hadn’t gotten a call back from McVie. Especially with Redmond Northwell going in and out of his garage—and with his scepter as a possible murder weapon—she needed someone who could get through to the Monument Brotherhood. She turned the engine on, waiting for the phone to connect to Bluetooth, and tapped the screen.
Two rings. “McVie Investigations,” a high-pitched woman’s voice said.
“Has Craig got you working late again, Piper?”
“Hello to you too.” Piper chuckled. “Don’t worry about me. I’m taking comp time—a long weekend with Migs since he passed the bar. Can you believe he’s never been to the Grand Canyon?”
“Yeah, well, I’ve never been either.”
Piper gasped. “Never?”
“Not all of us—” Fenway paused. Maybe she had gone to the Grand Canyon, back when her parents were still together, and she just didn’t remember. “Never mind. Can you put him on?”
“Sure.”
A moment later: “Hey, Fenway. I might have some client work tonight—I’m not sure when I can get away.”
“Oh, right.” Vaguely, Fenway remembered they’d made dinner plans—or plans to make plans, anyway. “I’m caught up in a case myself. And I thought you could help me.”
“Help you?”
“I heard that when you were sheriff, you used to run into the Monument Brotherhood.”
Silence on the other end.
“Craig?”
“I’m here. I—” McVie drew in his breath sharply. “They don’t have the power they used to, but they still have control of a lot of stuff in Estancia.”
“Like what?”
“Maybe control is the wrong word. Let’s try influence. Like the hiring practices at a lot of local places—the ones your dad didn’t own, anyway. A couple of the county agencies, too. They finally got voted out of the school board about a decade ago—anyway, that’s in the past. Do you need me to connect you with one of the members?”
“I need to figure out how to get our CSI team into the temple.”
McVie hesitated. “That’s a tall order. You better have an unimpeachable reason for wanting—”
“A dead body on the floor of their ballroom.”
Silence.
“You there, Craig?”
“This is tough. There are a few judges in the county who are still members of the Brotherhood. Benson, Haggarty, Pressway.”
“Then they should recuse themselves.”
“But you know they won’t.”
“I’m having Judge Harada sign the search warrant, but I hope it won’t come to that.”
“Are you asking me to contact them and—do what, exactly?”
“Sweet-talk them? Pal around with them, tell them we’re not so bad?”
“I don’t think I hold the sway over them you think I do.”
“Not me—Dez thought you’d be the right person to talk with them.”
“Oh. Well, I’m glad I made such a good impression on her, but I can’t…” His voice trailed off.
“What is it?”
“I, uh, I’ve swept some things under the rug for them. It’s not something I’m proud of.”
Fenway blinked. “Why—why would you do that?”
“Because they run a lot of this town. Like a restaurant suddenly gets its liquor license pulled because the owner fired the son of one of the Brotherhood members. Stuff like that.” He stumbled over his words. “So, so, uh—I pulled some strings, and they pulled some strings.”
“Ah.”
“I’ll call my contacts if you want, but now that I’m not sheriff, I can’t convince them to do much of anything.”
“I see.”
“I’ve—uh, I’ve also got a client who is involved with the Monument Brotherhood. It’s an ethical conflict of interest. Maybe. Was the dead person involved with the brotherhood?”
Fenway hesitated for a moment—it wasn’t public knowledge, but McVie was trustworthy. “Frank Mortimer.”
McVie sighed heavily. “You think it was foul play?”
“Absolutely.”
“Well, that’s not good. It’s not good at all. You better come down here. I’ve got a ton of information that’ll be pertinent to your investigation.”
Fenway’s stomach growled. She looked at the clock: it was past six-thirty. She put the Accord into Drive, turned the car around, and drove toward downtown.
Chapter Four
Fenway dropped a small, heavy paper bag on McVie’s desk.
“What’s this?”
“Figured the least I could do for you is buy you and Piper dinner.”
“This isn’t your way of tricking me into eating lengua, is it?”
“Carnitas burrito, extra tomatillo salsa.” Fenway set the drink carrier down and pulled a soda out and set it next to the bag.
“This wasn’t really what I had in mind when I asked you to dinner tonight.”
Fenway shrugged. “It’s the job. And it’s a Tuesday.”
McVie reached into the bag. “I can give you some details of my investigation—the parts that are relevant to Frank Mortimer. Beyond that, I can’t provide any identifying information.”
Fenway nodded. “Anything you have that’s considered attorney work product is off the table, right?”
McVie pulled the foil-wrapped burrito out and set it on his desk. “Fortunately for you, I haven’t gotten involved with the lawyers yet. ” He raised his head. “Piper, would you bring in the Emma Northwall file?”
“Emma Northwall?” Fenway asked. “I just talked to her. This must be one of your cheating-spouse cases.”
A willowy redhead appeared in the doorway to McVie’s office, a folder squeezed between her elbow and her side.
Fenway handed Piper another burrito from the bag.
Piper took it. “You’re not eating?”
Fenway felt the color rise to her cheeks. “I ate my tacos in the car on the way over.” And spilled some salsa on her trousers. She took the folder from Piper and set it on McVie’s desk. “So, what am I looking at, Craig?”
“Six weeks ago, Emma Northwall hired me to determine whether her husband was having an affair.”
Piper looked up at Fenway as she unwrapped the top of her burrito. “He’s the CEO of Radical Familiar.”
Fenway nodded. “Emma seemed like she was going to a business dinner tonight.”
“She’s on the board of a charity—Dominguez Ocean Rescue. They have a fundraising dinner tonight.” Piper took a big bite of her burrito.
“Nice to have a client who works for good.”
Piper swallowed, then pulled the foil farther down on her burrito. “She told us her husband—Redmond Northwall—was acting strangely. Staying at the office much later than usual, saying he’d gone on a business trip, and when she called the office, he’d taken a sick day instead.” She took another bite.
“Classic signs.” McVie wiped his hand on a paper napkin. “Emma had taken a couple of pictures on her phone of Redmond Northwall and a young woman that Emma didn’t recognize. Seemed to be in her early twenties.”
Piper pointed with her pinkie, her mouth full. “Open the folder.”
The folder contained a stack of pages and photos; on top, a photo of a young white woman with strawberry-blonde hair, high cheekbones, full lips, large hazel eyes.
“Haley Sinclair,” Piper said. “Grad student at Nidever University, getting her masters in computer science.”
The next page was an array of smaller photos, all of Haley Sinclair in various superhero outfits. Several taken at conventions with what looked like rabid fans, and a few of her in a revealing Jewels of Carthage costume at a tradeshow booth with the Radical Familiar Software logo above a computer station.
“Full-time student, part-time cosplayer,” Piper said. “I’m still doing research on her—she’s got a lot of tangled-up social media accounts.”
“Her costumes are good.”
“I hear she has a designer, but that might just be from other envious cosplayers.”
Fenway pointed to the tradeshow photo. “That’s the company that Redmond Northwall owns.”
“The CEO,” Piper corrected. “Sold controlling interest to a private equity firm a few years ago, but otherwise, yes.”
“So he’s sleeping with Haley Sinclair? She’s got to be less than half his age.”
“Not that simple,” McVie said through a bite of burrito. He used his free hand to turn to the next page. A hotel bill from the Phillips-Holsen.
Fenway squinted. “Frank Mortimer—this is his bill?”
“That’s right.” McVie turned the page again, this time to another array of photos.
The first photo showed a Tesla Model S in the parking structure of the Phillips-Holsen. The second photo was the same Tesla, but with the photo enhanced. Haley Sinclair’s face could clearly be seen through the passenger window.
“Does this Tesla belong to Redmond Northwall?”
“It does,” Piper said.
The second photo showed Haley Sinclair, in a short white dress and strappy sandals—a much different look than her superhero outfits. She was frozen in mid-stride, walking confidently through the lobby of the Phillips-Holsen. The third photo showed her embracing a man, an inch or two taller than Sinclair. The man was white, late fifties, bald and clean-shaven, with a thin face and pointed features, a black leather laptop bag over his shoulder.
“That’s Frank Mortimer,” Fenway said.
“Right.” Piper pinkie-pointed at the fourth photograph. “That’s the two of them getting into the elevator, and that is definitely his hand on her ass.”
“You’re getting good with the camera, Piper.”
McVie cleared his throat. “I took those pictures.”
