“I don’t believe it,” Piper said, staring at the two prints with the exact same tented arch pattern. “I just—I don’t believe it. I always knew she had it in for me—but I didn’t think she was capable of murder.”
“Who?”
“Jennifer Kim. Who else?”
Fenway bowed her head and put her hand on her forehead. “That—that might be the conclusion the killer wants us to come to.”
Piper’s face was awash in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“I mean,” Fenway said, “that if the killer wanted us to think it was ada Kim, they might swap more than two bottles.”
Piper frowned.
“Look—if Rose is the killer—”
“—which she’s not—”
“If Rose were the killer, though,” Fenway continued, “and she realized we were doing the old ‘get-the-fingerprints-off-a-bottle’ trick that I’ve seen dozens of times in cop shows, she might not just switch her bottle with Kim’s.”
“No? But I’m sure she’s seen how much animosity there is between you and her. It wouldn’t take much to push you over the edge to think that she’s the murderer.”
“That’s true, but I’d be even more suspicious if it looked like ada Kim were trying to trick us, right?”
Piper tilted her head up. “Uh… I suppose it might.”
“So instead of just switching her bottle with Jennifer Kim’s bottle, Rose switches her bottle with Cynthia Schimmelhorn’s, and then switches Cynthia’s bottle with Jennifer’s, knowing that we’ve already got definitive proof that Cynthia’s fingerprints are real. Now we suspect Kim more than anyone else.”
“That—that seems really complicated.”
“But it might be what happened. It’s actually a lot simpler than it sounds.”
Piper scrunched up her nose. “How are we supposed to explain that Jennifer Kim was actually standing next to Professor Cygnus when he was killed? How do you explain that?”
“Rose doesn’t need to be proved innocent, Piper. She just has to get away from the courthouse. Then she’ll hightail it as fast as she can to go meet the love of her life down in Mexico.”
Piper furrowed her brow.
“You don’t think so?” asked Fenway.
“Uh… well, you’ve investigated more murders than I have, but that still seems a little overly complicated. A lot of things would have to align just right for that plan to go smoothly.”
Fenway sat down in her chair. “I don’t know. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been accused of overthinking.”
Piper nodded. “You know the old saying—when you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras.”
“Unless you’re in Africa,” Fenway said.
Piper leaned forward. Her laptop dinged and a text message popped onto the screen.
“What is it?” Fenway asked.
Piper groaned. “There’s good news and there’s bad news. The good news is, the internet’s back up. The back news is, McVie just sent a message that the locking mechanism on the courtroom doors have failed.”
“Failed? So the doors won’t unlock?”
“That’s correct.”
“Well—can’t he just break the doors down?”
“I don’t know, Fenway, I just saw the message. Hold on.”
Piper read the text and Fenway leaned to her right so she could read it over Piper’s shoulder.
Mechanism in doors failed – mechanic working on it
Fenway folded her arms and sat up straight again. “Isn’t there some emergency exit out of here? Aren’t public offices legally required to have them?”
Piper typed and pressed Enter. The laptop dinged again. Piper read. “Uh… yes on the legal requirement, but the side doors had the same locking mechanism fail.”
“He knows we can get sued, right?”
Piper squinted at the screen. “He knows. And he asks us not to say anything.”
“What the hell? We’re locked in here?”
“No. He says he’ll break the door down.”
Fenway blinked. “Break the door down?”
“They need to get a special piece of a equipment here. Half an hour, he says.”
“We were supposed to get out of here an hour ago.”
Piper scooted the laptop in front of Fenway. “You wanted to text him. Here you go.”
Fenway nodded.
patten: Hey Craig it’s Fenway
mcvie: hi Fenway how you holding up
patten: Wish I’d never gotten out of bed this morning
mcvie: me too last night was fun ;)
patten: Hey careful this is Piper’s machine
mcvie: sorry – we’re tryin to get u out as fast as we can
patten: Everyone else out of the courthouse?
mcvie: yes
patten: How much do u know about the situation in here
mcvie: i know u found the gun with a print on it
mcvie: and a few of the people aren’t doing well medically
patten: Judith Cygnus is the worst, she needs her medication
patten: I’m afraid she won’t make it if she doesn’t get it soon
mcvie: we’re doing everything we can
mcvie: i have an electrician trying to override the locking mechanism
patten: Were u the one who turned off the internet
mcvie: it was an accident sorry
Fenway’s fingers hovered over the keyboard for a moment. Should she open up that Pandora’s Box and discuss his confession of love?
She didn’t know how she felt. And she didn’t want to mislead McVie. She liked him—a lot, even—but she didn’t know if she loved him. She didn’t know if she could love anyone. But she didn’t want McVie to wonder whether Fenway had gotten the message.
And the killer was in the room with them. Fenway had neglected to mention that.
patten: So you should know that the fingerprint on the gun matched someone in this room but we don’t know who
There was silence. Then three dots, then they disappeared. Then reappeared and disappeared again.
mcvie: prof Cygnus killer is in there but u dont know who?
patten: It’s a long story, too long for texting
patten: But yes
patten: Maybe Rose Morgan
patten: Maybe Evans Dahl
patten: Maybe Jennifer Kim
mcvie: u sayin the ada killed Cygnus?
patten: I’m saying that the fingerprint on the gun belongs to one of the people in here, and we have everyone else’s fingerprints but theirs
mcvie: so the killer might not be in there at all
patten: No a fingerprint we lifted from a water bottle matched
patten: I DID tell u the story was too long to text
patten: Just trust me the killer’s in here
mcvie: i do trust you
Fenway groaned. This was it. This was McVie’s way of giving Fenway an opening. He might as well have asked her outright if she’d heard his declaration of love.
Well, no sense in beating around the bush. If this is it, it’s been a fun, if painfully short, ride.
patten: I heard you tell me you love me
And… nothing. No return message, no three dots, no acknowledgment. She was holding her breath and she exhaled.
Maybe McVie was waiting for something else. She grimaced. Yeah—she hadn’t given him much to go on.
Of course, she didn’t have much to go on herself.
patten: I wish I knew how I felt
patten: We’re just getting started with the whole dating thing
patten: Things are going well so far
patten: And I like you
She took a deep breath and remembered to breathe out again. That first text was hard but now that she had started she wanted to explain herself. Or maybe she just wanted to talk with him.
patten: I’m glad you told me though
Finally, the telltale three dots appeared. It seemed like a month before the text finally came through.
mcvie: i know it’s way too early to tell you i love you
mcvie: but i’ve known how i felt for awhile now
mcvie: and when i heard those shots and i thought something might happen
mcvie: i wanted u to know u were loved
mcvie: you ARE loved
Fenway stared at the screen for a moment. Would Craig think it was okay that she didn’t feel the same way? She started typing a response.
patten: I might be in love with you too
Her finger hovered over the Enter key. She couldn’t think straight. She didn’t even know who the killer was. The people of the town had elected her not a week before to the County Coroner position. She wasn’t Acting Coroner anymore—she was the real thing. She didn’t have to feel the shame of having McVie appoint her, with everyone whispering that she only got it because of her father’s connections. She’d won the election, and won handily, and solved a murder during the election cycle as well. No, she was the real thing.
But she still didn’t feel like she was the real thing. Especially not when it came to relationships, and especially not when it came to Craig McVie. Her friends from high school were getting married and having kids. Almost all her friends who weren’t married were engaged.
The prospect of having her own family filled her with—she wasn’t sure what. The idea was far off in the future, as if the day she could down and start a family could be years away—decades even.
But she didn’t have decades. If she were lucky—if she were really lucky—she’d have a single decade from right now to decide if marriage and kids and settling down were what she wanted. In ten years, she’d be thirty-nine, and it’s possible that her biological clock would be ticking.
But Craig McVie was already in his early forties, and he had a daughter who was now a teenager—Megan was halfway through her junior year. Maybe she could have the marriage and settling down part with him—but could she have the kid with him? Did she even want to have kids?
She pinched her eyes shut. Yes, this is overthinking it. The question was pretty simple. Did she love him or not? And she didn’t have to be scared about him not returning her feelings, because he’d already laid it out on the table.
And the killer was in the room with them, of that she was positive. If something happened and she was killed, would Craig McVie always wonder if Fenway loved him back?
Maybe she should say it anyway. Just in case something happened. Even though she didn’t mean it—
Oh.
She didn’t mean it.
Maybe she could love him in the future. This might actually be a truly grown-up relationship for once in her life, rather than an interconnected series of one-night stands that just happened to be with the same person.
She wished she could talk to someone about it, but she didn’t have anyone. She wasn’t close with any of her friends from Seattle anymore—not where she could just call them up and dump on them for an hour. There was Rachel, but Rachel worked too closely with McVie. There were Dez and Piper and… well, that was it.
Fenway really wanted to talk to her mom.
And then the nauseating punch of betrayal hit Fenway in the gut.
Ten thousand a month. A hundred twenty thousand a year.
And all of it gone… and Fenway had no idea where.
Maybe she could talk to Charlotte about it. Charlotte might even like it—the two of them talking like real girlfriends to each other. They’d never had a stepmother/stepdaughter relationship—there was only six years between them, after all—but maybe they could have a friendship. That might even serve double-duty of pissing off her father.
Fenway looked back at the screen to delete what she’d written, but McVie had already written.
mcvie: ok gotta talk to the electrician see u soon
And that was it. Fenway didn’t have the chance to tell him she loved him. Whether it was the truth or not.
She unfocused her eyes and stared down at the table, trying to shape her thoughts around McVie, around what to do about the fingerprints and the bottles, about how to save her father, about how to solve the murder of Professor Cygnus.
She blinked and her eyes focused for a moment on Rose Morgan’s fingerprint work. She reached her hand out for it and picked it up.
This wasn’t an area covered by police procedure. Besides, Fenway told herself, the police lied to interviewees all the time. She wouldn’t be doing anyone any harm.
She picked up the fingerprint card and got up, walking around the side of the witness stand.
“Fenway?” Piper asked, but Fenway ignored her and kept walking.
Rose Morgan, sitting in the back row, looked up at Fenway as she stomped down the aisle. Rose slowly got to her feet and drew herself up to her full height—several inches shorter than Fenway, but still an imposing figure in the way she carried herself.
“So,” Fenway said as she strode in between the chairs to get to Rose, “do you want to tell me what you’re doing here?”
“What I’m doing here?” Rose said. “Um—did you not know that Jessica Marquez was not only my coworker but my friend? I came to see her murderer get arraigned.”
“But you knew I was looking for you. You knew all the sheriff’s deputies were looking for you. You’re not getting out of here without getting questioned—about everything. About Domingo Velásquez, about your plans to go to Mexico, about where you have the usb stick—and we’ve got enough compelling charges that your lawyer won’t be able to get you out on your own recognizance this time.”
“What can I say?” Rose said. “Some things are just so important that you take that risk.” She laughed. “I do have to say I thought I’d get in and out without anyone recognizing me. Then when the shooting started—well, it’s not often I’m caught off guard, but I sure as hell was caught off guard.”
“You didn’t come here to meet with your employer?’
“My employer? Central Auto Body? Mi hija, they don’t employ me anymore. Marisol Velásquez made it clear I’m not welcome there again. She gave me my last paycheck too, so I know she’s done her homework on how to get rid of me.” Rose examined her nails. “Personally, if I found out that my husband had planned to run off with woman half his age, I might be making her a cyanide cocktail instead of breaking out the final paycheck. But, hey, I guess that’s why I don’t get the big bucks.”
“What would you say, Rose, if I told you I found your fingerprint on the gun that killed Professor Cygnus?”
Rose Morgan guffawed. “That’s a good one. Usually I’m the one lying to the cops.”
“So you’d say it was a lie?”
“It’s definitely a lie. I’ve never seen that gun, I’ve never seen that air conditioning vent thing—”
“It’s a speaker enclosure.”
“Whatever. I’ve never seen anything like it, is my point. No—if you found my prints on that gun, I’d say you were high.” She folded her arms. “How’d you get my prints, anyway?” She slapped her forehead. “Of course. The internet must be back up. You found my prints in the police database.”
“It doesn’t matter how we got them,” Fenway said. “It matters that you’re—” And suddenly the folly of what she was doing hit her. She’d wanted to find a way to get McVie out of her head, and going whole-hog into solving the case seemed like the way to do it. But it had been thoughtless, and she’d overplayed her hand. Dammit, Fenway, you’re better than this. She shook her head side to side to clear the cobwebs, and staggered to sit in a chair that was several seats from Rose.
“Hey,” Rose said, genuine concern on her face, “are you okay?”
“I know someone in this room killed him,” Fenway said, softly, “and you fit the profile. You work for the money launderers.”
“I don’t—”
Fenway held her hand up. “You absolutely do. This isn’t on the record, and I may not be able to prove it, but don’t try to deny it.”
Rose sat down one seat away from Fenway. “Hypothetically speaking, let’s say I don’t try to deny it.”
“Well, if we’re on the subject of hypotheticals, Rose, let’s say you were to hypothetically figure out a way to skim a quarter million dollars from the scheme without your bosses being any the wiser.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s say you were to make a large donation to a nonprofit organization from one of the accounts you oversaw, and you were able to fake tax payment paperwork.”
“Well, first, I’d have to be an excellent forger, or a really good hacker. That computer and scanner they have in The Guild office probably wouldn’t cut it.”
Fenway smiled, even though she was emotionally and physically drained. The exhaustion hit her like a freight train. “Somehow I don’t think either of those things are a problem for you.”
“Maybe not, but I’m interested in this hypothetical scenario anyway.” Rose crossed her arms. “I’m interested to see how this plays out.”
“There are four scholarship students—they’re fake students, just like most of the ones that Jessica used to give to your bosses—but these student names don’t show up in either the real student list or the list of fake students that your bosses are using to launder money. These four students have real bank accounts set up… but you and Domingo Velásquez are co-signers on their accounts. So the year of tuition, room and board, books, whatever—that gets cleared into those accounts, and no one is the wiser.” Fenway tapped her temple. “And the payment for spring semester just went in, didn’t it? On Friday?” Fenway paused. “Was this the first year? Or had it been going on since the beginning of the money laundering scheme? Two whole years? Half a million dollars? Or was one year and a quarter million enough for you?”
Rose tapped her chin with her index finger. “Don’t you think it would be much easier to get away with skimming money if everything was in place from the moment it started?”
Fenway nodded. “Yes, I do. But they found out, didn’t they?”
Rose shrugged. “It wasn’t just Domingo and me. There were a few others, too.”
“Who were they?”
Rose smiled. “You’re the cops. You haven’t found any other suspicious withdrawals?”
“We might if you told us who to look for.”
Rose shook her head. “All communications were anonymous. That way, if they caught one of us, that person couldn’t rat us out to the cops.”
“And do you know who found out?”
Rose nodded. “Yes. It was Jeremy Kapp. He had this meticulous bookkeeper overseeing his account and a lot of the smaller accounts too. Officially he was on Kapp’s payroll. This bookkeeper knew irs rules like the back of his hand, and knew exactly what we could do to stay out of trouble.” Rose chuckled and lowered her voice. “Well, one day, the bookkeeper comes in and finds all these discrepancies. With some of the smaller businesses we used, you kind of expect petty cash to be taken from the till—I think drug dealers use the team ‘breakage.’”
Fenway nodded.
“Anyway, this exceeded the breakage they were willing to accept, and it happened both with Dr. Jacob Tassajera, and with Central Auto Body.”
“This magic bookkeeper didn’t find anything in The Guild’s scholarship fund? Like the half-million that Cygnus stole?”
Rose shook her head. “He wasn’t looking there—Kapp wasn’t coordinating that account. That one was too big. Jessica Marquez was running lead on that one.”
“But Kapp was coordinating yours?”
“I was supposed to be the one overseeing Central Auto Body. Kapp’s guy had all the little businesses. Central Auto Body was one of Kapp’s fake landscaping clients. I don’t know how the bookkeeper found the issues with our books too, but he did.”
Fenway exhaled. “So everything started hitting the fan.”
“Right. First, Jeremy Kapp gets killed.” Rose leaned forward, her palms on her knees. “Look, the whole group was up in arms about it. Everyone said that one of the people who was skimming money was responsible for killing him.” She sighed. The order comes down—it’s pretty harsh. The two people who couldn’t establish their whereabouts the night Kapp was killed—”
“You ran your own investigation?”
“We had to. We had to keep it within ranks. And so the order came down—kill Dr. Tassajera and Domingo.” Rose shook her head. “I couldn’t let that happen. I was planning to hide Domingo in the hopes that we could lay low until the Friday after Election Day—then we’d have all the money in the account.” She set her jaw. “But then Peter Grayheath—that asshole—can’t make things look like an accident. He wants to send a message.”
“So Dr. Tassajera gets his brains bashed in with a golf club, and Domingo Velásquez’s kid gets blown up in Domingo’s minivan.” Fenway leaned forward. “And now, the million dollar question, Rose. Who are they? Who are your bosses?”
Rose smiled. “Why, Miss Stevenson, I told you this was all hypothetical. There’d be all kinds of problems if I named names.” She leaned back in her chair. “I thought we were pretty much home free after you captured Kapp’s killer. There was no need to search for anyone else. Of course, they’d tighten the ranks.” A dark cloud passed over her face. “But then Jessica was killed.”
“And you had to do something.”
“Things were going so well for two whole years, Miss Stevenson. We were all making money hand over fist. Yes, Domingo and I got a little greedy, and unfortunately we took the wrong people into our confidences—and in another stroke of bad luck, we weren’t the only ones stealing from the organization.” She looked at Fenway; Rose’s eyes were both stubborn and pleading. “We had to get out, Miss Stevenson. Yeah, we’d made some bad decisions, but after it came out that Professor Cygnus had stolen half a million, we had to get out of there.” Rose narrowed her eyes. “And then you had to screw everything up.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you. You had to cart me off for questioning at the sheriff’s office.”
“And Domingo Velásquez was still at your house.”
“Not for long, of course. He took my car and took off to Mexico by himself.”
Fenway cocked her head. “You’re not planning on joining him when this is over?”
Rose squinted. “Is that a joke?”
“Should it be?”
“You tracked his movements and his bank withdrawals, right?”
“Sure. Yuma, Arizona. Like I said, I assume he’s going to his sister’s in Hermosillo.”
“Didn’t you see that he withdrew all the money? And don’t you think it odd that he left without me?”
“You don’t plan to meet him later?”
“Ha. If I could figure out how to get away with his murder, maybe. But I know I’d be the number one suspect. Well—maybe his wife. Hell, maybe I should call her up so we can plan offing him together.” Rose smiled. “Hypothetically, of course.”
Fenway looked at the ground. “So you’re saying he took all the money that the two of you stole from the money launderers. Why are you back here? Surely the people who run the laundering business are looking for you too. Aren’t you worried you’ll be killed just like Dr. Tassajera?”
Rose nodded. “Yes, I sure am. But I don’t have a lot of choices.” She put her arm over the back of the chair next to her. “People do some funny things when they’re backed into a corner, Miss Stevenson.” She looked up at the ceiling. “I didn’t think they’d do anything in a public place like the courthouse. I see now I was wrong—and I’m probably lucky that it was Professor Cygnus on the business end of that bullet and not me.”
“He was about to name names.”
Rose giggled. “Well, I’m not that stupid. All the names I’m giving you are ones you already know.”
“You’re helping me piece some things together. That’s helpful. I can’t imagine your bosses are very cool with that.”
“What have I done? I’ve given you some information about a guy you already have in custody about a murder he committed.”
“You and I already know that you won’t testify, and unless you have some hard evidence you can give me, it doesn’t really help.”
“It tells you where to focus your efforts.” Rose looked down her nose at Fenway. “And if I’m perfectly honest, it’ll keep you from looking at my bosses.”
“Someone hired Grayheath to kill Dr. Tassajera.”
Rose smiled. “Yes, but that same person hired him to kill your professor up at Western Washington, too, and Grayheath hasn’t talked yet.” She leaned forward again. “His sister’s got ms, and I think you’ll find that her medical bills were just anonymously paid. If Grayheath doesn’t want her or her three kids out on the street, he’ll keep his mouth shut. And he’s a pretty good enforcer on the inside, too.”
Fenway nodded. “That makes sense.”
Rose cocked her head. “Did you hear what I said, Fenway? I said I knew your dad was set up to take the fall for the murder of your professor.”
Fenway kept nodding. “I heard you, Rose. We’ve already found enough evidence to free my father, though. We can prove that bank account was opened by someone else, and that’s pretty much the thread that connects everything else together for the prosecution. Without that bank account, they don’t have a case. We’ll probably even get it dismissed with prejudice.”
Rose chuckled. “Wow—I knew I was keeping a few steps ahead of you, Coroner, but I obviously have to watch my back. You’re catching up.”
“So,” Fenway said, tapping her fingers on the seats of the chair next to her, “I take it Cygnus didn’t come to you when he wanted to take some extra money for himself.”
“It wouldn’t have been a hard thing to do,” said Rose. “Dr. Pruitt wasn’t a monster.”
“Dr. Pruitt? He’s the one behind everything?”
“No! Of course not! You searched Dr. Pruitt’s computer—surely you knew he was one of the intermediaries.”
“Right.” Fenway searched the file drawers in her brain for the codenames that Piper had told her. Carpe diem—that wasn’t right, but it was Carpe with a four-digit number. And then it came to her: Effect3175.
“So are you Effect3175, or is that your boyfriend?”
Rose jumped in her seat. “You know about the codenames?”
“Of course we do. We’ve been trying to figure out who the codenames belong to for a couple of days now.” Fenway pointed lazily at Rose. “We narrowed Effect3175 down to either you or Domingo Velásquez. Domingo he accessed an account that we connected to Effect3175 yesterday. But now that I know that he stole all your money, I’m now betting that you’re Effect3175. Plus, lots of payments were made and received by that name—and the big bosses, whoever they are, obviously trusted that person. Until a few days ago.” Fenway slouched back in the chair and put her feet up on the row in front of her. “That sounds a lot like you.”
A sly smile crept across Rose’s face. “You know,” she said, “hypothetically speaking, of course, if we’d let you in on this, and if you weren’t so damn honest, you’d have been a great resource. It’s a shame you’re working against us instead.”
“It’s a shame Jeremy Kapp couldn’t keep it in his pants,” Fenway said. “If he hadn’t gotten himself killed, I’d never have uncovered all of this.”
“Oh, we probably would have imploded eventually,” Rose said. “Human nature, greed, all that. If I’d gotten away with half a million, someone else would have tried to get away with ten times that.”
“So, tell me,” Fenway said, remembering the codename for the mole, “is cuckoo37 crazy, or do they have a thing for clocks?”
Rose grinned. “Well, first of all, it’s 37cuckoo37, and, well, aren’t we all just a little bit crazy?”
“Just a hint. Another clue.”
Rose shook her head. “I’ve said too much already. I like riddles way more than I should.”
Oh—that codename actually means something.
“What about l.i.w.?”
Rose raised her eyebrows. “You’re definitely not getting anything from me there.”
“Just give me a third of it. Does the l stand for Leda?”
Rose snorted. “Yeah. The whole criminal scheme is masterminded by a woman who’s high half the time, and so thirsty for Professor Cygnus she can’t think straight.”
“Lincoln? Lawrence?”
Rose looked around the room, then lowered her head and beckoned Fenway closer. “Okay, okay, I’ll give you the l.”
Fenway leaned forward. “Really.”
“It stands for lickety-split. Like, you better get us out of this courtroom lickety-split before we start behaving as if we don’t like each other.”
Fenway leaned back. “Great. So helpful.”
“Licking Infected Walruses,” Rose said. “Low Incandescent Wattage. There’s an actual sentient soft-white bulb that set up this whole thing.”
“Okay,” Fenway said, getting up.
“It may not have seemed like a bright idea at first—”
“Gotcha, Rose, thanks.”
“No problem. If you ever need me to shed light on anything else, just let me know.”
Fenway made the march back through the gallery gate and up to the judge’s dais again.
“That didn’t sound fruitful,” said Piper.
“On the contrary,” Fenway said. “It was very helpful. Get your spelunking hat on—we’re going to catch a mole.”