Sarah looked up from her computer as Fenway walked in. “Anything?”
“Nothing,” Fenway said, shaking her head. “Came up empty on the doorbell camera footage. We got one of the drug guys on the boat in custody on a drunk and disorderly. He turned on a hit man who works for the Venn cartel.”
Sarah’s eyes went wide. “Does he have a death wish?”
“He thought Mathis Jericho had been killed by—oh, look, it doesn’t matter. I mean, it does matter. Alvidrez is salivating over it. But Banning had nothing to do with our murders. And I don’t think he has any information on who did.”
Sarah nodded. “Miranda Duchy is getting arraigned right after lunch. Two o’clock.”
“Let me guess—Judge Azurra?”
“Good guess.”
“I’ll need to get more warrants drawn up for the doorbell cameras from the two or three houses behind Duchy’s home. Patrick suggested getting Azurra to sign off.”
“Assuming they have doorbell cameras.”
“It’s a well-off neighborhood. Whoever doesn’t have doorbell cameras usually has more elaborate security systems in place.”
Sarah tilted her head. “Why would Patrick suggest Judge Azurra? The phone records? Yeah, Azurra signed off on those, but doorbell cameras are a different set of privacy concerns. I don’t think you have a prayer of getting him to sign those.”
Fenway cocked her head. “I thought Patrick was trying to help—” She stopped, then tapped her fingers on the counter in front of Sarah, her mind spinning.
“He’s more detail-oriented than that,” Sarah said. “Why—”
“I think Patrick doesn’t believe that Miranda Duchy is guilty,” Fenway said in a soft voice. “And he thought if Azurra sees that I’m still investigating other possibilities, then the judge would be more inclined to be lenient during the arraignment.”
“Does he know you got Azurra to sign off on the phone records?”
“No.”
“Why wouldn’t Patrick say anything to you?” Sarah mused.
“Maybe because he doesn’t have proof that Miranda didn’t do it.”
Sarah motioned with her head toward the door of the coroner’s suite. “Go back and ask him.”
Fenway paused.
“He won’t bite you, Fenway.”
“Yeah, okay.” Fenway pushed away from the counter as if it were the wall of a pool, then went out the door, back to IT. She opened the door, nodded to Jordan, then stood in Patrick’s line of sight until he removed his headphones again.
“Is there something wrong?” he asked.
“You don’t believe that Miranda Duchy killed Seth Cahill.”
Patrick frowned, placing his headphones delicately on a headphone stand next to his monitor. “It does not matter what I believe. Only what can be proven in a court of law.”
“Sure,” Fenway said, “but you could help me get to the truth.”
Patrick folded his arms. “There is nothing in that footage that will prove Miranda Duchy’s innocence.”
“Yet you sent me to the judge who’s arraigning her this afternoon.”
Patrick shrugged. “He’s available to sign your warrant.”
“Maybe you missed something on the recording.”
Patrick shook his head. “I missed nothing. I studied the background thoroughly. Nothing would suggest anyone hid the hammer in her shed.”
Fenway tapped her foot and thought for a moment. “All the evidence points to Miranda Duchy. Is there anything you can do to help me out?”
Patrick sighed. “I have been thinking about this all morning. The only thing I could think of was getting the judge to realize that you are not convinced of Ms. Duchy’s guilt.”
Fenway nodded. “Already done, by the way. I asked him to sign off on warrants for another suspect’s phone records.” She tapped her fingers on the corner of Patrick’s cubicle. “But thanks. And please tell me if you do think of anything.”
Fenway walked back to the coroner’s suite. In the hallway, she could hear the wind pick up outside, and the first taps of rain against the front windows. This would be a great day to snuggle up on the couch with McVie with a cup of hot chocolate—
No, wait, the air was hot—too hot for coziness and cocoa. No good being outside. And the weather would get worse.
Her phone rang in her purse: McVie.
“Hey, stranger.”
“This moving stuff is a pain in the ass,” McVie said. “Literally. I ran my shin into the corner of my end table while I was stacking boxes. I’ll have a big bruise.”
“Pain in the leg, you mean.”
“You’re not taking my injury seriously.” McVie chuckled.
Fenway grinned. “Poor baby. Is that client finally leaving you alone today?”
“Fortunately, with this storm coming, his wife is staying home. But I still had to promise I’d get Piper to dig into his wife’s financials. See if she’s got any secret bank accounts or credit cards that are going to a P.O. box, anything like that.”
“I don’t know how you stand all the excitement of private eye work after the boring murders we had to solve.”
“What can I say? I’m an adrenaline junkie.” The sound of a door closing. “Want to grab some lunch?”
“Lunch? Like, go out for lunch? Have you seen the weather?”
“They’re downgrading it to a tropical depression.”
“What does that mean?”
“Winds lower than thirty-three knots.”
Fenway blinked. “Thirty-three knots?”
“A little under forty miles per hour.”
“How do you know this?”
“Because when I was sheriff, I worked with the Coast Guard on a couple of cases. Forty miles an hour—yeah, not great, but at least the wind won’t destroy any houses.”
Fenway interrupted. “Isn’t there a flood warning?”
“For South County, and that’s only in effect until midnight.”
Fenway paused. “I don’t think I’ll go out to lunch. I want to finish this case and go home before Estancia Canyon Road turns into a river.”
“Want me to bring something to the office?”
“Oh—yeah, maybe.”
“What do you want?”
“Two tacos—”
“Right, right, Dos Milagros, lengua, extra cilantro, large horchata.”
“Get something different for yourself this time. No carnitas burritos.”
“Okay, maybe. I’ll be there in an hour.”
She sat in her desk chair, the email from Patrick on her screen. Yes, Patrick was very observant. So, no, he probably hadn’t missed anything.
Still, Fenway couldn’t quiet the itch in her brain that she needed to see it for herself. She clicked on the link in the email, logged in with the authorization in the email, and steeled herself to watch seven hours of video—at twice the normal speed.
After watching twelve cars drive past, three joggers, two dogwalkers, and a man with a stroller, she yawned widely. Patrick was a good man for fighting through the complete boredom of this.
A knock on the door. Fenway raised her head—it was McVie. She paused the video.
He walked in, placed a white paper bag on her desk—smelling of spices and cilantro—and set down a large Styrofoam cup. “Your meal awaits,” he said. He opened the bag and took out two wrapped tacos, placing them on a paper napkin on Fenway’s desk.
“Thanks.” Fenway grabbed the cup and taking a drink of the horchata. “Where’s yours?”
“Ate it on the way. Sorry, I got hungry.”
“That means you got a carnitas burrito and didn’t want my snarky comments.”
“Hey, would I do that?”
Fenway grinned. “Everything okay out there?”
“For now. The rain is picking up, though. I guess you were right—Dos Milagros is closing early. They chased me out of there and flipped their sign to ‘closed.’ I guess I should send Piper home.”
“And maybe don’t take anything else over to storage today.” Fenway took a bite of her taco.
“Any closer to finding the killer? I heard on the radio that you’d made an arrest.”
“I didn’t make the arrest. Gretchen did.” Fenway swallowed, then lowered her voice. “Hey, close the door, would you?”
“Oh—I didn’t realize you wanted to have that kind of afternoon. But I’m game. Even with your onion-and-cilantro breath—”
“Not today, cowboy,” Fenway said, but grinned.
McVie’s face turned serious, and he shut the door. “What’s up?”
“I went to HR to ask what the holdup was to hire Celeste as Mark’s replacement.”
McVie nodded. “It’s about time.”
“And I found out that Sheriff Donnelly had Celeste written up for unapproved overtime because she took me to Hutash Bridge.”
“Where you found another murder victim?”
“Right. And now, because this open disciplinary action is on Celeste’s record, I might not be able to hire her.” Fenway leaned forward, elbows on the desk. “But then, get this—when I went to talk with Gretchen about it, I think she tried to bribe me.”
“What?” McVie’s brow furrowed. “That doesn’t sound like Gretchen.”
Fenway related the conversation between the two of them, from the comment about the board of supervisors’ budget concerns to the cryptic comments Sheriff Donnelly had made.
When Fenway was done with her story, the corners of McVie’s mouth turned down. “What does that mean, I need something more than that?”
“I was kind of hoping you could tell me.”
“I’ve got no idea.”
“The only thing I can think of is that she wanted my father to give her some money. I’m not the rich one.” She was doing better, of course, now that her father had paid off her student loans. But she wasn’t rich.
“And you wouldn’t bribe her anyway.”
“But Gretchen doesn’t know that.”
McVie crossed his arms. “If only you knew a private investigator who could get to the bottom of this.”
“If only that private investigator weren’t leaving the state tomorrow.”
“Maybe I can swing by the office and do a little digging.”
“You could take the laptop and work from my apartment.”
“It’s better in the office.”
“Not with a flood warning and forty-mile-an-hour winds. I’d rather you stay in my apartment. Wi-Fi and cold beer in the fridge.”
McVie crossed behind the desk and kissed Fenway’s forehead. “Deal. I’ll see you at your apartment. Did you at least get fresh batteries for your flashlights?”
Fenway was quiet.
“Okay. I’ve got some extras. How much more work do you have here?”
“Maybe not much more. I’ll talk to HR, see if I can send the team home in this weather. I haven’t been able to find any solid evidence pointing to anyone besides Miranda Duchy.”
“Maybe your gut is finally wrong.”
“It’s been wrong plenty.” Fenway shook her head. “But I don’t think she’s guilty.”
“Good luck,” McVie said, then stopped. “Never mind. If you have good luck with your case, you won’t be getting home early.”
Fenway smiled as McVie left her office. As the door closed behind him, her face fell. What would she do when he left town? Would seeing him once a month—if she was lucky—be enough? She liked being with him almost every day. She hadn’t ever dated someone this long without the other person getting on Fenway’s nerves constantly.
Maybe McVie was a great guy.
Or maybe Fenway was finally learning how to be in a relationship.
She turned her attention back to the monitor and hit Play. So much easier to focus on a single recording than having to watch all six camera feeds from the storage unit footage.
Ah, the package delivery. The driver pulled up in the telltale brown truck, brought a box to the door—maybe the size of a hardback novel—and rang the doorbell.
The sound of the door opening, then Miranda Duchy stepped out onto the porch wearing an elegant beige top and form-fitting dark blue jeans. The driver handed her an electronic tablet and a stylus. Duchy switched the stylus to her other hand, signed it, took the package, and went back inside.
Fenway tapped her chin. Was the package something important? Maybe she should subpoena the shipping company to see where it came from. Still, something bothered Fenway. She paused and rewound the footage, looking at the transaction in real time.
Patrick had missed something. He had to have missed something.
What was it?
Did someone run from behind the truck? She carefully looked at the scene. Duchy was blocking the left side of the camera, but the edge of the truck was still in view. Fenway squinted, but still saw nothing: nobody sprinting from the rear of the truck to the side of the house.
She went back another two minutes and stared at the footage again. Nothing there. Nothing big, no one sneaking to the side.
Miranda switched the stylus to her other hand and—
Fenway smacked herself in the forehead.
Dr. Yasuda’s voice in her head: The killer is right-handed, although that describes eighty-five percent of the population.
Fenway hit the pause button onscreen.
Right-handedness might have described eighty-five percent of the population, but it didn’t describe Miranda Duchy. The driver had offered the stylus in front of Miranda’s right hand. She’d taken it—and switched it to her left hand before she signed it.
Miranda Duchy was left-handed.