The Reluctant Coroner by Paul Austin Ardoin (best ebook reader ubuntu txt) đź“•
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“Oh, come on, Dad, you’d be able to get out of that. You must have good lawyers,” she said.
“Not good enough for the court of public opinion. Listen, there are lines I’ve crossed, I’m sure. I’m a ruthless negotiator. I definitely don’t want Carl Cassidy in the news, and I’m willing to pay his family a lot of money to keep it out of the media. Do I feel bad about what happened to Cassidy and Fairweather? Absolutely. Do I think I deserve to be out of business because of it? I do not.” He slammed his hand down on the desk. “So, am I going to help you locate Stotsky? I don’t think so. In fact, I hope he makes it out of the country before you catch him.”
Nathaniel Ferris straightened his suit jacket. “Now, it’s getting late. I’m getting hungry. And I think I have more important things to do than give my statement on a grieving brother who got a little too emotional at a funeral. I’m heading home.”
He stomped out of the interview room. Fenway started to follow him, but he slammed the door after he walked out.
Fenway took a deep breath and opened the door. Her father’s figure was disappearing down the hallway and out the front door. She stood there and watched him walk away angrily.
“Is he gone?”
She jumped. Dez had poked her head out of the observation room door.
“Sorry. We heard everything.”
“We?” Fenway asked.
“Mark’s in there, too. He was observing Bradley during the binder review.”
“Where’s Rachel?”
“We sent her home,” Dez answered. “On top of everything she’s been through this week, she just found out her dad is a murderer.”
“We’ve got to get someone to stay with her. I’d be a complete mess if I were her.”
“Her sister is still staying with her.”
“She didn’t do a good job keeping her out of trouble last time.”
Dez shrugged.
The door to the observation room opened wider and Mark stepped out.
“Did Rachel give her statement before you guys sent her home?” Fenway asked.
“No,” Mark replied. “She was pretty distraught about everything.”
“Then I guess today is Doug Walker’s lucky day. No one gave a witness statement, and the peace officer in question is too busy with a murder investigation to hold him.”
Dez crossed her arms. “We could probably hold him for twenty-four hours. Bet he’s never been in jail overnight before.”
“The guy’s just lost his brother, and now everyone knows his brother’s a rapist.” Fenway put her hands on her hips. “Maybe he’s been through enough.”
“Good thing you’re not running in November, or you’d get pegged as soft on crime,” Mark smirked.
“Ha ha. All right—so where are we on catching Stotsky? Was that officer able to catch him?”
Dez shook her head. “The officer didn’t see him. He got away.”
Fenway shook her head. “Maybe put an APB on his car? Airports, train stations, get someone at his house?”
“Already done.” Mark nodded. “I’ll go see if they’ve made any progress.” Mark took off toward dispatch.
Dez pulled Fenway aside. “Maybe you should call McVie. Tell him he’s off the hook. He’s good at coordinating this kind of stuff. He’s been involved in manhunts before.”
Fenway nodded. Dez went out the front doors back toward the coroner’s building.
Fenway took her purse off the chair and took her cell phone out. She went through Recent Calls until she found McVie’s number.
It rang once, twice, three times, four times. The voicemail came on. She hung up.
Fenway texted him.
Stotsky killed Walker and Dylan
He’s on the run
Need u to help find him
She saw the three dots flashing for a second, indicating he was writing a response. And then they disappeared.
Fenway thought about some of the things she had told the sheriff earlier. In hindsight, she didn’t think she liked some of the things she had said. In fact, she wasn’t proud of the way she had acted, either.
But Fenway realized some of those things—asking McVie to step down from the investigation—was simply the best thing for the county. It was a hard thing to do, and it certainly didn’t help her relationship with the sheriff, professionally or romantically, but the situation could have been handled with a little more empathy on her side. She looked back at how she had jumped down McVie’s throat when he mentioned anything she felt even a little threatened by. But did that mean she deserved the cold shoulder from McVie? No.
Well, maybe.
She sent another text.
Please
It took a minute, but the three little dots appeared again. Then:
Station in 30 minutes
Fenway had been holding her breath, and she let out a huge exhale. The sheriff would be back in half an hour and would be coordinating the manhunt for Rob Stotsky.
She went into the dispatch room. Mark was still there.
“Hi, Sergeant. Did a uniform take Rachel home?”
He blinked at her. “Yes, I think so.”
“Did the uniform stay with her? Stotsky was asking her several times to talk and she refused. If he thinks this is his last chance to talk with her, he may try to contact her.”
One of the dispatchers raised her hand. “On it.”
“And we’ve already notified the local airports.” Mark put his hands on his hips. “But Stotsky has resources, right? He has access to a couple of private planes.”
“Ferris Energy planes?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, where are those planes? Local airstrip?”
“They’ve got a Challenger 350 housed at the Estancia Airport,” another dispatcher said. “I think they have a turboprop, too.”
Fenway shook her head. “I remember when Dad bought that stupid jet,” she said. “Can you check and see if they’ve filed a flight plan?”
“Sure. I can check the computer.”
Fenway paused. “If they were trying to get Stotsky across the Mexican border, they wouldn’t file a flight plan, would they?”
The dispatcher hesitated. “If they were crossing an international border, technically, they’d have to.”
“They’d have to? What if they didn’t?”
He paused. “Um, it’s a fine of about a thousand dollars.”
Mark laughed. “That will sure put the fear of God into them.”
Fenway nodded. “We need people at the airports, bus stations, train stations.”
“The rideshare apps, too,” said Mark. “I think we’re setting up a watch on his credit card transactions and ATM withdrawals.”
“There’s always the taxis,” Fenway suggested. “He could give a cab driver a thousand bucks to go to Tijuana. Or even a regular person with a regular car who needs the cash.”
“Let’s at least not make it easy for him,” Mark said. “If he gets by us, let’s make sure he doesn’t do it by boarding a Greyhound bus, or a United flight. If he’s in the wind, so be it, but let’s make sure it’s not because we overlooked anything.”
The dispatchers got on their phones and computers. Soon, they were giving his information to all the local airports, including the small airfields. His information—and he had a lot of it—was readily available in his old CHP file.
“There were a couple of partials in Walker’s car,” Mark said. “We would have found him out eventually. Maybe not today, but eventually.”
Fenway nodded. “Okay. Have we posted someone at Stotsky’s house?”
“On their way. He lives up in the hills above Camino Pablo. It’ll take our officer another ten minutes to get there, at least. But even if Stotsky got in a car as soon as he left the station, I think the officer would still beat him there.”
“You think he’d be prepared enough for this to have a go bag? Money, fake passport, all the stuff you see in CIA movies?”
Mark
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