After asking Deputy Brian Callahan to take Mathis back to the storage facility, Fenway called Dez to take her to get her car. A few minutes later, they met at the Impala and got in.
Fenway relaxed in the pleasant warmth of the car, the fog having burned off during the Mathis Jericho interview. The sun shone brightly, though the ocean breeze still had a hint of chill in it.
Dez started the engine, rolling down the windows, then switched the car off. “Mathis give you anything?”
“Too much.” Fenway ran a hand through her hair. “I’m swimming in potential suspects and motives and illegal activities.”
“Let’s hear it before we get on the road.”
“Seth and Mathis were taking kilos of morpheranyl from the Ariel and storing it at Cahill Warehouse Storage. Then someone from the Venn organization would pick it up—”
“Wait—Anton Venn?”
“I assume. Mathis got a little freaked out when he realized he’d said the name Venn, so I didn’t get confirmation he meant Anton Venn. But who else? He wasn’t talking about Venn diagrams.” She leaned back in the seat. “Someone from Venn’s organization picks up the drugs when everything is ready for packaging.”
“Think that’s what the ledger tracks?”
“A safe assumption. I don’t think Mathis had any idea about the ledger. But if we can determine what he got paid, we could cross-reference those payments with stuff in the ledger.”
Dez stared out the windshield across the parking lot.
“What is it?”
“I don’t like the idea of asking the A.D.A. to give Mathis immunity. Last year we had fifty-two morpheranyl deaths in Dominguez County. If we can tie these shipments of morpheranyl to any of these deaths, we can charge Mathis with manslaughter. That’ll give us leverage.”
“Leverage to use against whom? Anton Venn? We wouldn’t know he’s involved with this if Mathis Jericho hadn’t said something. Mathis wouldn’t have talked otherwise.”
Dez looked at Fenway sideways. “Oh—you haven’t okayed immunity with the D.A.”
“I didn’t promise him anything.”
“You left the testing kit in the car. You didn’t even take—”
“We both know the warrant was signed without a supporting affidavit—and I don’t want to gamble on whether it’ll get thrown out if we find the killer, and this goes to trial. Mathis gave us a ton of information, and as far as the courts should be concerned, the warrant had nothing to do with it. I don’t want some defense lawyer making a ‘fruit of the poisonous tree’ argument. Right now, there’s a warrant hanging over Mathis’s head that we simply didn’t execute.”
“But if—”
Fenway held up her hand. “If vice wants to use the warrant, they can. If the DEA wants to get involved, they can. My job is to find who killed Seth Cahill, not arrest a kid who drove a trunkload of drugs twenty miles a couple times a month.”
Dez shook her head. “Did you at least read him his rights?”
Fenway scoffed. “Are you kidding? And scare him off? I got information.”
“What if he’d confessed to killing Seth Cahill?”
Fenway paused. “Then I would have reassessed the situation. But I didn’t expect him to confess.”
Dez shook her head. “Yeah, yeah, all right. Maybe I would have done the same thing. But it’s a gray area.”
“Duly noted.” Fenway cleared her throat. “Okay, lots of suspects. Seth hid facts from everyone. From what Mathis said, I don’t think Tyra knew about Seth’s illegal activities until recently. Maybe after she took control of the business. The Nyllie dealers and transporters may not know Cahill Warehouse won’t be available for storage in the very near future—and if Seth told them, he only told them a week or two ago.”
“Or maybe even the night he was killed.” Dez knitted her brow. “So everyone he lied to is a suspect.”
“Right.” Fenway held up an index finger. “Okay, so Cal—that’s Calvin Banning—isn’t the trusting type. He might have gotten mad at Seth for screwing up his business processes.”
“Makes sense.”
“Mathis did most of the work, though.” Fenway held up a second finger. “He got in freezing water late at night, pulled the kilos of morpheranyl from the storage containers on the bottom of the hulls, and schlepped them into his car. He might have thought he deserved a bigger cut of the storage fees.”
“Is that borne out by the evidence?”
“Not yet. But maybe there’s something in the ledger. Easy enough to check.” Fenway pressed her lips together. “Calvin and Stephan did business with Seth and Mathis. Mathis told me they wouldn’t do business without Seth. Calvin trusted Seth, not Mathis.”
“According to Mathis,” Dez pointed out.
“Right, so let’s take that with a grain of salt. We still have the problem that Seth lost access to the storage business because of the divorce settlement.”
“So that eliminates Mathis as a suspect?”
“Not necessarily.” Fenway’s ring finger joined the other two fingers. “A couple of possibilities. Either Tyra is pissed off when she finds out about Seth’s dealings with the morpheranyl dealers, or she decides to replace him. She still has Mathis—maybe she offers a bigger cut to him—”
“In exchange for killing him?”
“No, he’s not the one who brought down the hammer. Once the drug dealers realize Seth is a liability, they kill him. Tyra and Mathis don’t have to touch him.”
Dez crossed her arms in the driver’s seat. “Theories without evidence?”
“We have to start somewhere.”
Fenway’s phone buzzed. She took it out of her purse. McVie.
Oh—definitely not. Already ten-thirty. She texted back.
Fenway
McVie
Fenway
Dez glanced over at Fenway. “Is that Craig?”
“Yeah.” Fenway blinked. She’d meant her last text to be playful, but did it come across as snide? She sent a smiley-face emoji to take the edge off it.
Dez harrumphed, starting the car again. “Not that it matters, but I told him he’s an idiot.”
“For leaving? You wouldn’t do the same if Megan was your daughter?”
“She’s seventeen. Megan’s already decided she’s moving a thousand miles away. Craig being five miles down the road won’t change anything. In fact, it might drive a wedge between them.” Dez checked the rear-view mirror, took off the emergency brake, and put the car into reverse. “Put your seatbelt on.”
“Right, my Accord is still in the Puerto Avila parking lot.”
“Later. Right now, we’re heading to San Miguelito. Autopsy on Seth Cahill. Michi texted me right after you called.”
“Oh. Yeah, that’s more important.”
“Plus,” Dez said, texting from her seat, “Michi knows the captain who runs vice in San Miguelito. If anyone knows about the ins and outs of Anton Venn’s morpheranyl trade, it’s him.”
Forty minutes later, they pulled up to the county offices in San Miguelito. Dr. Michi Yasuda met them in the lobby, and she kissed Dez’s cheek, then blushed.
“Coroner Stevenson, excellent to see you again,” Dr. Yasuda said, the color fading from her cheeks. “I’ve got Mr. Cahill on the table if you want to take a look.” She glanced at Dez. “Captain Alvidrez is already here.”
Dr. Yasuda turned and rushed through the door on their left, and Fenway ran to keep up. Dez fell a step behind as they turned the corner and went down the stairs, Yasuda arriving at the bottom half a flight before Fenway.
A moment later, they were in the morgue, a steel table with a body covered by a sheet. A Latino man, about six feet tall, wiry and dressed in the black San Miguelito officers’ uniform, sat on a high stool about five feet from the steel table.
“Have you met?” Dr. Yasuda said, snapping on a fresh set of latex gloves and putting on a surgical mask.
Fenway turned toward the man. “Coroner Fenway Stevenson from Dominguez County.”
“Of course. Steve Alvidrez.” He raised his gloved hand. “I’d shake your hand, but I’m already gloved up. I’ve been running a task force with Sheriff Donnelly for almost a year. Nice to meet another member of the team.”
Fenway nodded, pulling a medical mask over her nose and mouth. “Good to meet you, too.”
“Just wanted to show you the wound,” Yasuda said, grasping the top of the sheet and pulling it down. The body of Seth Cahill lay under the sheet, on its stomach. Michi took a bullet probe, long and straight, and pointed to the wound on the back of Cahill’s skull. “I believe Dez—Sergeant Roubideaux—mentioned this wound could have been made with the claw end of a hammer.” Michi took the probe away and put it back on the tool tray next to the steel table. “I believe the weapon is, specifically, a framing hammer.”
“What’s the difference between a framing hammer and a regular hammer?” Alvidrez asked.
“Commonly twenty-eight or thirty-two ounces, whereas a generic household hammer is less than half that. More importantly, however, is that the claw side of a framing hammer is flat, not curved, and a flat claw definitely created this wound.”
“Can you narrow down the weapon any more?” asked Fenway.
“Given the raw edges of the wound, I can’t say how heavy the hammer was, or who the manufacturer might be. McCrate Industries, Brosius, and Lemoine Steel all make multiple framing hammers that would potentially match this wound. As such, it’s also hard to determine the height of the assailant. I’d say between five foot six and six feet tall, but without knowing the position of Seth Cahill’s body during the assault, I wouldn’t put much stock into that estimate.”
“You can buy these hammers at most hardware stores?”
“That’s correct,” said Dr. Yasuda.
Fenway grunted. Tyra Cahill, Mathis Jericho, Hope Dunkelman, George Pope, Calvin Banning, and Stephan Butler were all in that height range. Maybe even Miranda Duchy. The only person who didn’t fit the height profile was Isabella Chan.
“We believe Seth Cahill did business with Anton Venn’s cartel,” Dez said.
Alvidrez shook his head. “Not to say that this death is entirely unrelated, but it wasn’t a message or a business disagreement. Not from Venn, at least.” He stood and stepped closer to the corpse. “Venn’s cartel likes Glock 19s. You’d see a nine-millimeter in the heart and another between the eyes.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’d love this to be a Venn hit. We thought we were close to nabbing one of their lieutenants back in January. Set up the deal with one of our guys, but when we showed up, no evidence. I think someone tipped them off.”
“My theory is that a confidential informant didn’t stay confidential,” Dr. Yasuda said.
The lines around Alvidrez’s eyes crinkled. “However we got burned back then, this isn’t a Venn hit. If Mr. Cahill had attacked one of Venn’s lieutenants or employees unexpectedly, perhaps you’d see this as a result of self-defense or a counterattack in the heat of the moment. But if you’re thinking Venn planned to take Mr. Cahill out, this isn’t how they’d do it.”
Dr. Yasuda nodded. “Sorry to waste your time, Captain.”
He shook his head. “Not at all. It’s helpful to know that Anton Venn’s influence now extends all the way to the coast. It’s not good news for us, but I’m glad we’re aware. Makes the task force with Sheriff Donnelly that much more important.”
Dr. Yasuda turned to Fenway. “The killer is right-handed, although that describes eighty-five percent of the population.”
“Anything else? DNA? Under his nails? Clothing transfer?”
“Nothing like that, unless you count the scuff marks on the backs of his shoes.” Yasuda pulled the sheet away from Cahill’s left arm. “I saw that his pinkie and ring fingers were at a slightly odd angle. A scan showed healed fractures of the pinkie and ring finger on his left hand. If I had to guess, it might have been three to four months ago. From the looks of his hand, a professional surgeon set the broken fingers.”
“What kind of break?” Fenway asked.
Yasuda’s eyes danced. “Exactly the right question. A rotational injury. As if someone twisted the fingers on purpose.”
Fenway glanced at Alvidrez. “Would that be the type of injury caused by someone in the Venn cartel?”
Alvidrez’s brows knotted above his mask. “Yes, I’ve seen it before.”
“But the injury occurred so long ago, we can’t conclude it had anything to do with Mr. Cahill’s murder.”
Fenway nodded. She wondered if the morpheranyl that Seth Cahill had stored in his facility had been the same morpheranyl that killed Scott Behrens and the other people who had died of the overdose.
Dr. Yasuda frowned. “Cahill… Cahill.”
“What is it?”
Dr. Yasuda stepped to the counter, took a glove off, and flipped through the paperwork on her clipboard. “Ah, yes, here. Tyra Cahill, spouse.”
“Ex-wife,” Fenway said. “The divorce was finalized a week or two ago.” She stared at the back of Yasuda’s head. “What about Tyra Cahill?”
“I recognize the name.”
“We know her corpse didn’t show up on your table, though, right?”
“Oh, of course not. The name rings a bell, that’s all. Maybe I ran into her at a social event.”
Dez guffawed.
Dr. Yasuda looked up at her, wide-eyed.
“Oh, come on,” Dez said. “You haven’t been to a social event this millennium.”
“Are you suggesting I ran into her in the morgue?”
“If you remember where,” Fenway interrupted, steering the conversation back on track, “let me know.”
“Certainly.” Dr. Yasuda cleared her throat. “Would you like to go over the body with me?” Her eyes sparkled. “Make sure I didn’t miss anything?”
“Need me for anything else, Michi?” Alvidrez asked.
“No.”
“Thank you for your time, Captain,” Fenway said.
“I’ll walk you out.” Dez stood from her stool and hurried to the door.
When they had left, Dr. Yasuda grinned. “You have now witnessed the real reason Dez didn’t run for coroner,” she said. “My wife acts tough, but she doesn’t have the stomach for autopsies.”
The two of them closely examined the body but found nothing of note. No bruising, no recent injuries, no tattoos or, besides the Y-incision that Dr. Yasuda had made on the chest and sewn up the day before, any notable scars.
“I was hoping to find something that would push me in a more specific direction,” Fenway said. “Did your team get anything from the rug?”
Dr. Yasuda pulled the sheet all the way up again. “The lab results will be back in the next week or so. Are you expecting anything out of the ordinary?”
Fenway shrugged. “The rug from Cahill’s office is missing, and I’m pretty sure it’s the one used to wrap up the body.”
Dr. Yasuda paused. “Wouldn’t that suggest the murder occurred in the office?”
Fenway pulled off her gloves and considered this for a moment. “I suppose it’s possible,” she said, “but I saw no signs of a struggle in the office. No blood spatters, either.”
Dr. Yasuda moved the tools off the tray into a shallow tub. “Murder with the claw end of a framing hammer suggests no premeditation,” Dr. Yasuda said.
“Sure.”
“Therefore, if the murder did not occur in Mr. Cahill’s office, where the rug lay, someone knew enough about the office layout to retrieve the rug and use it to wrap the body.”
Fenway nodded slowly. “An excellent point.” She paused. “Someone who knew the facility well—that would be Mathis Jericho or Isabella Chan, and of course Tyra Cahill.”
Yasuda’s forehead wrinkled.
“Still can’t think of where you recognize Tyra Cahill?”
“No. It feels like the answer is right on the tip of my tongue.” Dr. Yasuda gave Fenway a pained smile. “I’m sure I’ll think of it at three in the morning.”
“The people involved in the drug deals might know about the rug in Seth’s office, too,” Fenway mused. “I imagine they’ve been to the facility to drop off and pick up the morpheranyl. And I bet Seth took them into his office to pay him or to discuss negotiation terms.”
“It’s possible.” Dr. Yasuda walked to the hazardous waste bin and disposed of her gloves. “Although Mr. Cahill’s corpse isn’t providing a wealth of clues, it appears you have no shortage of murder suspects.”
Fenway puttered around the work area, helping Dr. Yasuda clean up. A few moments later, the door to the morgue opened and Dez popped her head in.
“Fenway? You all finished up?”
“Yes.”
“Body’s about to go back in the drawer,” Dr. Yasuda said. “Sure you don’t want to take a look?”
“I’m good.” Dez walked into the room and turned to Fenway. “That was Deputy Salvador. Let’s head back.”
“Why?”
“Miranda Duchy wants to file a restraining order against Tyra Cahill.”