“I’ve tried three different judges,” Sarah Summerhill said, “and none of them will touch it.”
“But it makes sense,” Fenway insisted. “The Corvette has to be there.”
“It doesn’t, actually,” Sarah said.
Fenway paused and took a step back from the counter. “But how else could the killer have hidden the Corvette? There are fourteen storage units at Cahill Storage big enough to fit a Corvette.”
“And at least thirteen of them have no reason for the Dominguez County Sheriff’s Department to enter. Which means, without a compelling—”
“Come on, Sarah, I expect that kind of argument out of Migs.”
“Migs is someone else you’ll need to replace. I imagine you’ll have a hard time getting a decent legal assistant in here, and Migs will have his pick of employers by the end of the summer. Maybe sooner.”
“Oh—right. I’ve gotta get over to HR and ask them what the next step is for backfilling Mark’s position.”
Sarah’s eyes widened. “You made your decision?”
“I was leaning toward Celeste, and after her insights today, I’d be foolish to choose anyone else.”
Sarah nodded. “I agree. What did she say about your idea to get a search warrant for fourteen storage units?”
“She didn’t think it would work.” Fenway folded her arms. “But I don’t think storage units should have an expectation of privacy. Don’t storage units fall under the same fourth amendment exception if there’s a murder?”
“Dunn vs. Commonwealth of Virginia,” Sarah said. “Just the opposite. No blanket search warrants for storage facilities. Law enforcement must treat each of the units as if it were an apartment or other domicile. Even though no one lives there. You’re right—if you knew which storage unit belonged to the deceased, you could search that specific storage unit. But not every storage unit in the facility.”
Fenway took a step back, thinking. “Yeah, you’re right. I didn’t think it through.”
“But maybe it doesn’t matter.” Sarah cleared her throat. “Put yourself in the shoes of the killer. Would you want the Corvette on the property? With the police sniffing around for days? I’d bet five bucks that the Corvette’s somewhere else.”
“I don’t know—if it were me, I’d leave the Corvette at the storage facility if I could. It’s the best way to buy a day or two of time. There’s the problem of the killer needing to get back to the facility. Taxi drivers might recognize your face. The FlashRide app would track your location.” Fenway shook her head. “No, it makes the most sense to leave the Corvette there. Whether it’s found in a day or a week or a year.”
Sarah put a hand up. “Wait—maybe the killer put the Corvette in an empty unit. If that’s the case, Tyra Cahill essentially is the owner. You could get a warrant to search those.”
Fenway shook her head. “They’re all rented. All the units big enough, anyway.”
“Are they really?” Sarah said. “Maybe something to ask Tyra about.”
Fenway nodded. “Unfortunately, she’s lawyered up. I can’t attempt communication with her.”
“Unless it’s through her attorney,” Sarah pressed.
“I can ask.” Fenway drummed her fingers on the counter. “Besides, she doesn’t look nearly as guilty as the woman set to receive two million dollars from the life insurance policy who had the murder weapon in her shed. Tyra Cahill isn’t worried about explaining why she told me I couldn’t take possession of Unit 176.”
“What if,” Sarah said, “it’s true that all the storage spaces big enough to hold a car were full? Or if the killer simply didn’t think of it? What if the killer drove the Corvette away?”
“They’d have to get back to the storage facility if they had their car there.”
“I requested info from the rideshare companies,” Sarah said. “Nothing near Cahill Warehouse Storage on Monday night.”
“So maybe we ping the taxi services. Or maybe they caught a ride with a friend.” A friend like Hope Dunkelman was to Tyra Cahill: besties for two decades.
“I’ll check with the taxis.”
Fenway screwed up her mouth. “But where would they take the Corvette? It’s a flashy car. Sure to get noticed.”
“We’ve found missing cars before abandoned at long-term airport parking. Callahan has checked some of the popular lots.”
“Any hits yet?”
Fenway shook her head.
“So what about private garages?”
“Like private parking garages?”
“I mean one-car or two-car garages at houses or apartment buildings.”
Fenway cocked her head. “Well, Mathis Jericho doesn’t have a garage space at his apartment complex. And I don’t think Calvin Banning or Stephan Butler have any in Estancia—well, maybe they do. Where would I even start?”
“What about Tyra Cahill?”
“She has a garage. I guess she could have put Seth’s Corvette in there.”
“And you checked Miranda Duchy’s garage?”
Fenway nodded. “Yes, when Mark served the search warrant. We found only the SUV in the garage.” Then Fenway blinked and stared down at the counter.
“What is it?”
“Hang on a sec.” Something in Fenway’s head rattled around. Miranda had been driving. She’d wanted to go to Vista del Rincón, but the sun had already set. She wanted a drink at the fancy hotel bar, but found it closed for a private event. Then she wanted to drive…
“Up to her cabin,” Fenway mumbled.
“What?”
“Miranda Duchy. She has a cabin. She said she wanted to go up there but didn’t want to drive in the dark on winding roads.”
Sarah nodded. “Let me search the land use records in the county.”
“San Miguelito County, too.”
Sarah adjusted her chair and turned to her screen, tapping on the keyboard in front of her.
“Can you tell me if you find something?”
“Of course.”
Fenway went into her office and woke her PC. She sat down heavily in her chair and let out a sigh. A glance at the clock in the corner of her monitor: still over an hour before Hope Dunkelman’s arrival.
A flash in the bottom corner of her screen. Weather alert. Tropical storm Alonso was a little weaker than before—the Pacific waters were cold, after all—but if the meteorologists were right, it would still be destructive.
She opened her email. A message from Melissa: the footage from the security company for Cahill Warehouse Storage. The company uploaded everything to the cloud, posting a dozen links, with three-hour increments of the footage from Monday and Tuesday. Fenway scanned the email again.
Hi Fenway,
My report with timestamps is attached. I couldn’t find anything suspicious on this footage. Maybe I missed something. Can you be my second set of eyes on this?
—M
Fenway opened Melissa’s report, moved it to the side of her monitor, then clicked on the 9 PM-Midnight link. Six screens, all going at the same time. She glanced at the front of the office and gritted her teeth: three of those stupid Tailwhip electric scooters were parked on the sidewalk. Even though the county ordinance prohibited people from riding scooters on sidewalks, many would still do it. She took out her notebook, opened to a new blank page, and uncapped a pen from her pen cup.
Fenway didn’t see anything that wasn’t in Melissa’s report.
She turned her attention to the other buildings, particularly Building A, which housed Unit 112—where the squatter had left the sleeping bag and other material. None of them had activity; only the blue-white bulbs in modern-style sconces on the buildings provided any light at all.
Two minutes. Nothing. Fenway fast-forwarded. Even with the sped-up video, no changes were visible on the screen.
And now, the Corvette. It pulled into the driveway with the timestamp of 22:15:21—10:15 PM nearly on the dot. Fenway glanced at Melissa’s report—there it was. Seth Cahill leaned out of the Corvette’s driver’s-side window and tapped a number on the keypad. The gate slid open, and Cahill impatiently drove in as soon as the gate allowed enough room, swung the car into a parking space, then hurried out of the Corvette before the gate opened all the way. At 22:18:33, the screens all went dark.
Fenway fast-forwarded the rest of the video: blank screens for the rest of the three-hour section. She closed the file.
Oh—she should have talked to HR today. She clicked over to her email; still nothing. The specialist was probably gone for the day, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. She picked up the phone and dialed Debbie Farzan’s desk. It went to voicemail.
“Hi, Debbie,” Fenway said after the beep. “This is Coroner Stevenson. Just wanted to make sure we’re moving forward on the backfill for Sergeant Trevino. I sent an email or two and haven’t heard back. Let me know next steps.” She paused for a moment. “An email update is fine, thanks.”
She hung up the phone, wiggled and stretched her fingers, then opened the Midnight-3 AM link. Blank screens for the full three hours. Same with the 3 AM-6 AM link. Finally, the 6 AM-9 AM link: the cameras came on at 07:47:11—almost eight o’clock the next morning. The cameras had been off for roughly nine-and-a-half hours.
Fenway double-checked the timestamps in Melissa’s report, then scanned the videos. No sign of the Corvette. Mathis Jericho’s compact sedan sat in the space next to the office entrance. A few minutes later, Jericho exited the office, ran his hand over his face, and walked to a maintenance shed in another screen, unlocking the shed and removing a few small gardening tools: a trowel, a small hand cultivator, and a mini-tiller. Melissa had noted this as well—Mathis Jericho retrieves tools from the work shed, along with the correct timestamp.
Hmm. The mini-tiller resembled a hammer, but with three narrow claws on one side and a thin, flat blade on the other. Could that have been the murder weapon instead of a framing hammer? Fenway squinted—no, not even close. Besides, Seth Cahill had already been killed.
Maybe the framing hammer had been taken from the shed a day or two before. She had neglected to ask Mathis Jericho—or Tyra Cahill, or anyone from the storage facility—if they’d been missing a framing hammer. Maybe Mark or Dez had been more pointed with their questions. Of course, Mathis and Tyra were two suspects, so expecting the truth was folly.
Sarah knocked on Fenway’s open office door.
“Come on in,” Fenway said, not taking her eyes off the screen.
“You have a guest,” Sarah said.
Fenway looked up. Piper Patten stuck her head into the room.
“Hi, Piper! What’s up?”
“I need to shuttle some office stuff to McVie’s storage unit, and I rode my bike in today. Can I borrow your car? Just for a couple of hours?”
Fenway nodded. “Sure, I’ll be here for a while.”
“Thanks.”
“McVie can’t take the office stuff himself?” asked Sarah.
“He’s still following his client’s wife. Didn’t get anything incriminating at Pilates, so the client’s paying him double to tail her a few extra hours.”
Fenway shook her head as she took her keyring from her purse and removed the Honda key. Some people really wanted to catch their spouses cheating. She tossed the key to Piper, who caught it with one hand.
“Thanks. It’ll be back in your spot by five.”
A thought occurred to Fenway. “Hey, Piper, hang on a sec.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m working on a case with a bunch of security camera footage,” Fenway said.
“You got the footage from the storage facility?” Sarah asked.
“Yep. Fascinating stuff.” Fenway turned back to Piper with a droll smile. “Piper, you still keep up with all the latest technology on machine-assisted identification?”
“Even more so now, since I work for McVie. What do you need?”
“Is there any technology that could help us find a framing hammer in these videos?”
Piper cocked her head. “A—a framing hammer? What do you mean?”
“There’s a tool shed onsite, and one of the cameras is focused on it.”
“And we think it’s—” Sarah began.
“—important to the crime,” Fenway finished. Of course, Piper could connect the dots. Maybe Fenway was getting too close to revealing details, but if anyone was familiar with this technology, it’d be Piper.
“I think I understand,” Piper said, turning her eyes to the ceiling, almost as if she were counting tiles. “If you can find the hammer in the video footage before the murder, but then the tool shed people can’t find it after the murder, then you can prove it’s the murder weapon?”
“Something like that.” Fenway scratched her head. “But did the hammer disappear two days ago or two months ago?”
“You could train one of the expensive software tools to do that.” Piper tilted her head. “But why not ask the employees if they’re missing a hammer?”
“Because all the employees are suspects.”
“But,” Sarah said, “they’re not all the killer. Unless you think the three of them are all in on a little conspiracy.”
Fenway paused. A conspiracy was possible. Tyra and Mathis might have intended to take the drug storage business away from Seth—and if the divorce and subsequent sale of the storage business to Tyra wouldn’t crowbar Seth away from it, maybe the hammer claw to the back of the head would.
Tyra had known about the drug storage, but not for very long. And Isabella Chan didn’t appear to be involved in the slightest. Fenway shook her head. “Not likely. Not with what we’ve found so far.”
“So one of them might lie about the hammer, but not all of them.”
Fenway nodded.
“There are a couple of forensic analysis tools that could help,” Piper said. “But they’re not cheap. And it might take a while to roll out and start using.”
“Never mind,” Fenway said. “Thanks anyway.”
Piper left the room, and a moment later, the sound of the suite door opening and closing.
“Even if you find the hammer on the video,” Sarah said, “it doesn’t prove that was the murder weapon. I’m not sure you could use it in court.”
“Is that why you want to ask the employees first?”
“Well, that and it would save us the trouble of finding and installing a new piece of software.”
“But it’s possible that the only person who ever saw or touched the hammer was Mathis Jericho.”
Sarah shrugged. “Ask all the employees first, before you analyze the weeks of footage.”
Fenway sighed. “And then dig through two months of footage until we find the hammer on video.”
“My friend Jax was so envious when I got this job,” Sarah said. “They thought it’d be so glamorous. Five hundred hours of video footage to sort through.” She batted her eyelashes. “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.”
On screen, a white Honda Civic pulled into the driveway of the storage facility, avoiding the two Tailwhip scooters on the sidewalk. Fenway noted the timestamp. Isabella Chan leaned out of her window and opened the gate. She parked next to Mathis and went into the office.
Fenway leaned back in her chair. “I might be looking at this footage for a while.”
Sarah nodded. “Door open or closed?”
“Closed, I guess. And I’m expecting Hope Dunkelman at four.” Fenway smiled. “If her husband doesn’t convince her not to come.”
Sarah furrowed her brow.
“I asked him too many pointed questions earlier,” Fenway said. “He knows I think Hope is giving Tyra a false alibi.”
“Ah. Hell hath no fury like a husband defending the honor of his wife.” Sarah’s tone had a sardonic note. “I’ll tell you when you’ve got ten minutes left.”
“Make it twenty,” Fenway said, stretching her arms above her head. “That’ll give me time to grab a latte at Java Jim’s before I head to the sheriff’s office.”
“Gotcha.” Sarah closed the door behind her, and Fenway turned back to her video feeds.
She stared at the front entrance and the driveway for a few seconds, then blinked. Something seemed off. What was it?
She stared harder, got nothing, and shifted in her chair.
Maybe the killer had hidden the Corvette in a storage unit and came back to drive it away. She turned the video on fast-forward—about 3x speed still allowed her to view the details of the footage. Mathis tended to a dead bush in a planter near the entrance. He went to the office, then brought out two fluorescent light tubes.
“Dispose of the dead light tubes properly, young man,” Fenway muttered. “Hazardous waste is everyone’s problem.”
Over the next three-plus hours of video—only about ninety minutes viewed on high speed—ten vehicles went in and out. About thirty minutes in, a U-Move-It van drove in, and its two occupants loaded the contents of a unit in Building E.
Then Mathis Jericho walked from the office to the storage shed, unlocked it, and pulled out a small toolbox, a drill, a tool with a wooden handle—Fenway squinted, but couldn’t tell if it was the framing hammer they’d found in Miranda Duchy’s shed—and several short pieces of wood. He turned and walked toward the walkway between two buildings—the same walkway that Isabella Chan had shown her the day before. The toolbox and wood looked identical to what Fenway and Deputy Salvador had discovered.
About five minutes later, Mathis left the walkway between the buildings, without any of the tools or wood, and hurried over to the office. He left the office a minute later, following a man who went inside another storage building across the parking lot. Maybe a customer in need of help. Mathis must have forgotten all about the wood and the toolbox.
Fenway and Deputy Salvador had found the toolbox underneath the junipers. But there had been no tool with a wooden handle, framing hammer or no.
But Seth Cahill had almost certainly been murdered next to the junipers at the concrete walkway between the buildings. And if Mathis had taken the framing hammer there, then the killer had probably picked it up and used it as the weapon.
A few SUVs and crossover wagons unloading boxes or furniture out of the backs of their vehicles.
Then Fenway saw herself onscreen drive McVie’s Highlander up to the front. She frowned. No Corvette. No one going into a unit that looked like it could hold a car.
Fenway yawned and looked at the clock on her screen. Three thirty. Close enough for her to finish out the video review. She looked at the timestamp—only about an hour left on the video, but the other law enforcement representatives would show up on the recording soon enough. She paused the video, saved her location, then exited the web browser.
She stood from her chair and reached her arms toward the ceiling, feeling a satisfying crack between her shoulder blades. Maybe she’d be surprised and Hope Dunkelman would show up for the interview. Then she’d listen to what Hope had to say about Tyra’s whereabouts—Fenway could ask some questions to catch Hope in a lie.
She opened her office door. Sarah glanced up. “It’s not quite time.”
“I’ll head over to Java Jim’s early. I reviewed most of the video.”
The door to the suite opened, and McVie walked in, holding a small brown paper bag. Dressed in board shorts and flip-flops, he smiled when he saw Fenway. The tips of his ears and his nose were pink from the sun. He walked into Fenway’s office, and she shut the door behind him.
“Rough day at work?” Fenway asked, giving him a hug in greeting.
“Nothing’s going on between the wife and her Pilates instructor,” McVie said. “Or the wife and her surf instructor, although he got handsy behind the beach shack with another woman.”
“Your client will be pleased,” Sarah said.
“We’ll see about that,” McVie said. “I got us in at Maxime’s at eight.”
Fenway grinned. “Did you read my mind?”
McVie shrugged. “Probably.”
“I can interview the waitstaff there. Two birds with one stone.”
McVie rolled his eyes. “Why is it that one of us is always on the clock?”
Fenway smiled. “Keeps us on our toes. It’s good timing too—we can go to Mark’s retirement party first.”
“Speaking of which—” McVie pulled out a small flat wrapped box from the paper bag and placed in on Fenway’s desk.
She narrowed her eyes. “What is that?”
“You haven’t had time to go get Mark’s gift, right? I drove by HomeCreate and figured I’d save you some time.”
“Gift card?” Fenway asked.
“A hundred bucks. Figured that’d look good coming from his boss.”
Fenway blinked. “Wow—thanks, Craig. Really—really thoughtful.”
“No trouble at all.”
With a dopey grin on her face, she reached out and took his hand. “Want to run over to Java Jim’s with me? I need an afternoon latte.”
“Sure. I could use some energy to pack some stuff up.” McVie drew a small circle on the carpet with his foot. “Don’t suppose you’d keep me company this afternoon.”
“And pack the boxes when you complain you can’t get everything to fit?” Fenway asked.
McVie blinked. “I—I don’t do that.”
“They call that weaponized incompetence, Craig,” Fenway said, a sweet smile on her face. “And if you weren’t leaving for a year, it’d bug me a lot more than it does. But no, I can’t pack for you—”
“Keep me company—”
“I can’t do it tonight, not with the interviews for my investigation and the retirement party. But I promise I’ll meet you at Winfrey’s for Mark’s party by six thirty, then we can go to dinner.” She stepped behind him and held the door open. “You didn’t already pack all your nice clothes, did you?”
“I have a button-down shirt, slacks, and a decent pair of shoes.” McVie walked through the doorway, Fenway letting the door close and following him. “Don’t worry, I’ll be presentable.”
The afternoon had grown warm, and Fenway had to remove her blazer as they took the concrete path to Java Jim’s. Fenway got her latte iced. McVie ordered an iced tea.
Fenway stepped back from the counter and took in McVie. She was still attracted to him, just like at the beginning. But more than that, she liked his company, too. Part of her wished she could watch him pack boxes as they riffed on their jobs and the latest dumb TV shows, rather than her going across the street to the sheriff’s office to wait for Hope Dunkelman to try to catch her in a lie about Tyra’s alibi.
McVie caught Fenway’s gaze out of the corner of his eye. “Oh, don’t give me that. I’m secure enough in my manhood to order a big pink drink if I want. I’ll ask them to stick an umbrella in it if—”
“No, no.” Fenway shook her head. “I don’t want to stay at work and do an interview. I wish we didn’t have to go to Mark’s retirement party, either. Not that I don’t want to say goodbye to Mark—”
McVie sighed. “I know.”
“We don’t have that much time left.”
“You make it sound like I’m crossing the River Styx.”
Fenway cast her eyes down. “It’s a long way.”
“It’s a two-hour flight.”
“It’s a different time zone.”
McVie nodded. “Yeah.”
The barista called Joanne and Fenway grabbed her iced drink from the counter. “Okay, I gotta head to the sheriff’s office. You can get another girly drink when I see you at Winfrey’s at six thirty.”
“It’s a deal.”
Fenway walked into the sheriff’s office building and almost ran into Sheriff Gretchen Donnelly in the empty lobby. With the storm coming, the deputies must be on patrol, not in the office.
“Ah, Coroner,” Sheriff Donnelly said.
“Sheriff.”
“I saw you booked the interview room.”
Fenway nodded. “Possible witness in the Seth Cahill case.”
Donnelly nodded, but didn’t meet Fenway’s eyes. “With the murder weapon found at the victim’s girlfriend’s house, are we sure that’s a good idea?”
“We haven’t matched the blood yet.”
“It’s type A-negative. Same blood type as the victim. Only six percent of the population.”
“It’s not enough to convict.” Fenway tried to catch the sheriff’s eye, but the other woman stared resolutely at the bottom of the door behind Fenway.
“Given Ms. Duchy’s financial status, we’re worried she’s a flight risk.”
“So bring her in for questioning. I know we can’t ignore the murder weapon found at her residence, but I’ve got several more leads to follow.”
“I’m worried Ms. Duchy has already disposed of evidence at her cabin,” Donnelly said.
Fenway rubbed her left shoulder with her right hand. She was too young to get aches and pains like this. “Miranda said she didn’t want to drive those roads in the dark.”
“But maybe she did.” Sheriff Donnelly paused. “Not that far of a drive. The cabin still technically sits within the Estancia city limits.”
“Yeah, well, so does the Cactus Lake Motel, but only the post office calls that Estancia.” Fenway paused. “Where is the cabin?”
“Just on this side of the Hutash Bridge. Off Cactus Lake Highway and the Windkettle cut-off.”
Fenway cocked her head. “Oh. That is closer than I thought. Only, what, ten or twelve miles?”
“From here? Yes.”
But taking the back roads would be a long, winding drive. Yes, Fenway could understand why Miranda wouldn’t want to make the drive in the dark.
But Donnelly had a point: Miranda Duchy had plenty of time to kill Seth Cahill, take the Corvette, and drive to the cabin.
“You need to specify what you’re looking for if you request a warrant,” Fenway said.
“And that’s just it—I’m not sure what sort of evidence she would have hidden.”
“Seth Cahill’s Corvette, for one.” Fenway pressed her lips together. “You’ve got a murder weapon. You didn’t see the blood spatter, but it would have gotten on the killer’s clothes. So search for bloody clothes, bloody shoes—any evidence that Miranda was there when Seth was killed.” She put her hands on her hips. “You’ve got a motive. And you’ve got no alibi. So why is Miranda Duchy still at home? Don’t you have enough to arrest her?”
“According to ADA Pondicherry,” Donnelly said, “we have enough to arrest her, but we don’t have enough to convict her. Not even if the blood is a match for our victim.”
“We could do a drive-by of the cabin.”
“I had Brian swing through there this afternoon. Nothing.”
“No Corvette?” Fenway asked.
“No.”
“What’d he look for?”
Donnelly folded her hands. “I told him to be on the watch for anything out of the ordinary.”
“What did he find?”
“Nothing. No signs of life.”
“Did he knock on the door?” Fenway asked.
“Yes.”
Fenway nodded. A good guy and a decent deputy, Brian Callahan nevertheless often skimmed over details. “Can you ask Deputy Callahan to send me his write-up of the visit?”
Donnelly furrowed her brow. “I’m not sure he should prioritize—”
“He’s got to write it up anyway, doesn’t he?”
“Of course.” Donnelly smiled. “I’ll tell him to get it to you as soon as possible.”
“If I get any other ideas, Sheriff, I’ll let you know.”
Fenway walked through the lobby as Sheriff Donnelly exited. She glanced up at the clock above the reception desk: already 4:06. No sign of Hope Dunkelman. She went to the door of the interview room and opened it. The table sat empty, the lights off in the room, the chairs on either side of the table pushed in all the way.
This wasn’t how she wanted to spend her Wednesday evening.
She waited another fifteen minutes for Hope Dunkelman to show up. She got some water from the cooler. Fenway debated getting a bag of chips from the vending machine—but no, she wanted to save her appetite for the Pheasant Normandy special at Maxime’s. She walked back out to the lobby. No sign of Hope.
She walked out the front door and crossed the street, back to her office. Sarah looked up as she entered.
“That was a short interview.”
“Hope never showed up. I’m sure her husband told her I was looking to undercut Tyra’s alibi.”
Behind Sarah, Dez stared at her screen.
“Afternoon, Dez.”
Dez raised a hand in greeting, not looking at Fenway.
“Phone records,” Sarah said.
“Whose?”
“Seth Cahill’s. We found a whole bunch of unregistered phone numbers.”
“To be expected when one does business with drug dealers.”
“True.”
Behind her, the door to the coroner’s suite opened, and Deputy Brian Callahan walked in.
“Coroner,” he said, nodding.
“Afternoon, Brian.”
He held a folder out. “Sheriff said to make sure you got my report on Miranda Duchy’s cabin.”
“Oh—thanks.” Fenway took the folder from him and opened it.
A printout of the form—something he could have easily sent in email, or a link to the form on the system. Fenway glanced up at him; Deputy Callahan stood there expectantly.
“Something else I can do for you?”
“Yes, if you have a moment.”
Fenway motioned to her open office door. “Let’s go in here.” She led the way, Callahan at her heels. Fenway closed the door softly behind him as he took a seat in front of her desk. She walked to her desk chair and sat, placing the folder on her keyboard.
“I haven’t heard anything about my application for detective since our interview.”
Fenway paused. “We’re in the middle of a murder investigation.”
“But Mark—”
“Sergeant Trevino,” Fenway said.
Callahan stopped, blinked twice, then continued. “But Sergeant Trevino will only be here until the end of the month. In fact, an active investigation provides a unique opportunity for a new hire to get on-the-job experience.”
Fenway leaned forward, her elbows on the table. Callahan made a good point. She opened the folder in front of her.
“You went by Miranda Duchy’s cabin?”
“I did.” Callahan indicated the paper. “Gret—uh, Sheriff Donnelly said you wanted this right away.”
Fenway read.
2:17 p.m. Drove to 13328 Hutash Road. Parked vehicle in driveway. No signs of residents. Rang doorbell and identified myself as sheriff’s deputy. No response. Rang twice more and identified myself twice more. Returned to vehicle and departed at 2:21 p.m.
Fenway frowned. Only four minutes? “Did you take any photos?”
Callahan sat back in his chair. “I did not. I saw nothing out of the ordinary.”
Sheriff Donnelly had used that phrase too—common enough, Fenway supposed. “No notes as to anything on the porch. Window coverings? Is there a garage?”
“I believe I saw a covered carport behind the house.”
“Was there a car there?”
“I didn’t have a warrant.”
Fenway frowned. “Was it behind a fence?”
“There’s no fence on the property.”
“But you could see the carport?”
Callahan looked up and to the left, focusing on nothing in particular. “The side of it, yes. I couldn’t see inside the carport from the angle I was at.”
Fenway blinked. “Walk me through this, Deputy. You couldn’t see inside the carport?”
“Not from where I parked my cruiser,” Callahan said. “And not when I walked up to the door.”
“But surely you walked as much of the perimeter of the house as you were comfortable with?”
“As I said, Coroner, I didn’t have a warrant.”
Fenway ran a hand over her face. “There’s no fence. The driveway is public access. Maybe the carport is visible from the road. You are aware that we’re looking for the victim’s Corvette?”
Callahan was quiet.
Why didn’t he think to walk along at least the front of the house to check everything?
“You spent all of four minutes at the cabin,” Fenway said.
“Obviously, no one was home.”
Fenway sighed. “Look, Brian, you did everything by the book, okay? But we’re looking for specific evidence.”
Callahan’s face fell and his eyes dropped to the desk. “But—but, look, Coroner, everyone is saying that you don’t think Duchy did it.”
Wow. Word traveled fast.
“That doesn’t mean I want our sheriff’s deputies to cut corners. I’ve been wrong plenty of times. I don’t need the evidence to fit my theories.”
Callahan was quiet, but his upper lip curled for a split second, then his face went impassive as he looked up. “You’re absolutely right, Coroner. Let me make it up to you. We’ll go back there first thing tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Well—” Callahan scrunched his nose. “Our department has to be careful about overtime. My shift ends in about ten minutes.”
“Alonso is supposed to make landfall tomorrow.”
“Yeah, but I have to follow my boss’s orders on overtime.”
Fenway closed the folder and stood. “Thanks for getting this report to me promptly. And you make an excellent point about needing someone in this role sooner rather than later. I’ll talk to HR to see what the holdup is.”
Callahan nodded stiffly. “I appreciate the time, Coroner.”
He closed her office door a little harder than he needed to.