The Clandestine Coroner, page 1
The Clandestine Coroner
A Fenway Stevenson Novella
Paul Austin Ardoin
Praise for The Clandestine Coroner
Curl up in your favorite chair with a cup of joe, because you won’t be able to stop reading this fast-paced, clever murder mystery.
C.B. Samet, bestselling author of The Dr. Lillian Whyte Adventures
A brilliant whodunit with plenty of twists—and a great cast of characters that made me want to read the whole series!
Angela C. Nurse, author of The Rowan MacFarlane Mysteries
Praise for Paul Austin Ardoin
Be warned: to read one Fenway mystery is to want to read them all. If you love page-turning, unputdownable mysteries, then Ardoin is the real deal.
Mark Stay, host of The Bestseller Experiment podcast
Think Sue Grafton and Janet Evanovich, but with darker twists and more biting social commentary.
John Ling, USA TODAY Bestselling Author
This is as good a mystery series as you will find in print. You do not want to miss a single one of these books.
David Marvin, Scintilla Book Reviews
Contents
Author’s Note
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Cast of Characters
More by Paul Austin Ardoin
Acknowledgments
THE CLANDESTINE CORONER
Copyright © 2022 by Paul Austin Ardoin
Published by Pax Ardsen Books
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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ISBN 978-1-949082-40-1
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For information please visit:
www.paulaustinardoin.com
Cover design by Ziad Ezzat of Feral Creative Colony
feralcreativecolony.com
Created with Vellum
Author’s Note
This story takes place between the events of The Accused Coroner (Book Seven of The Fenway Stevenson Mysteries) and The Offside Coroner (Book Eight).
Chapter One
Fenway Stevenson knelt as she snapped on her blue nitrile gloves. The warm light from the crystal chandeliers gleamed off the oiled parquet floor. Behind the man’s bald head, the congealing pool of blood shimmered, crimson against the wood.
The dead man, lying on his back in the middle of the ballroom, was perhaps in his late fifties. Clean-shaven, with a thin face and pointed features; pale, almost pinkish skin; small brown eyes set far apart, mouth slightly open, thin lips and small teeth. Perhaps—Fenway glanced over his thin frame—five foot seven. The man wore gray trousers, a crisp white dress shirt, and a tie in a light purple, almost lavender, with the letters “MB” embroidered near the bottom of the tie, right in the center.
Behind Fenway, Sergeant Dez Roubideaux paced back and forth, the lights above combining with the early evening sun through the windows, a cacophony of her shadows scattering across the floor.
“You okay?”
“I’ve never been in this building.” Dez bent down to grab the roll of crime scene tape. “I’ll cordon the room off?”
“In a minute.” Fenway squinted at the shiny pool of blood. “Any witnesses?”
“No one’s talking so far,” Dez answered, folding her arms, the roll of tape still in her hand. “I’ve cornered all three of the members who are still here, but they’re giving me nothing.”
“They refuse to answer your questions?”
“That’s right. All three of them gave me the same quote.” Dez set the roll of yellow tape back on the floor and opened her notebook. “‘Debate shall be among those ye trust, and let no man outside these walls discover secrets between the brethren.’ Sort of sounds like the King James Version, but it’s no verse I know.”
“Or maybe their employee handbook was written by someone who liked Elizabethan English.” Fenway gingerly lifted the victim’s head off the floor, the blood sticky. “If they’re quoting arcane texts when you ask them simple questions, it’s useless to try to get them to talk.”
“Maybe they didn’t think we’d show up so fast.”
“What do they expect? The coroner’s office is only a few blocks away.” She turned the dead man’s head, then craned her neck down to look at the wound.
Dez crouched about five feet behind the pool of blood. “No ID?”
“No wallet, anyway. Hasn’t been dead long—he’s still warm. Keys were in his right pants pocket. One is for a BMW.”
“There’s a BMW ragtop parked out on the street. Maybe that’s his.”
“Maybe.” Fenway turned the man’s head slightly to the left. “Are we getting backup any time soon? We need to get this building secured.”
“I just spoke to Sheriff Donnelly—twelve-car pile-up just outside of P.Q. Most of the units are on-scene.”
Fenway looked up. “And we haven’t been called out to that?”
“No fatalities. Not yet, anyway.” Dez gestured to the body. “What do you think?”
“Blunt force trauma,” Fenway said. “About an inch deep. Looks like a weapon with an unusual shape.”
“What kind of unusual shape?”
Fenway pulled out a small flashlight and shined it over the wound. “Well-defined edges. Maybe a cut gemstone—like if the world’s biggest engagement ring struck him on the back of the head.”
Dez grunted and stood up.
Fenway laid the man’s head back on the floor. “What’s wrong, Dez?”
Dez crinkled her nose. “I don’t mind telling you, this place gives me the creeps.”
“More than using an ancient-sounding text so they can justify obstructing an investigation?”
“That’s part of it,” Dez said, then lowered her voice. “You know the Monument Brotherhood didn’t officially let in their first Black member until five years ago.”
Fenway blinked. “Only five years ago?”
“And the Central Coast chapter has yet to break the color barrier. Secret societies have their secrets.” Dez glanced over at the doorway again. “You should have seen the blond guy who answered the door. He actually called the Sheriff’s Office to verify my badge before he’d let me in.”
“I guess you warmed him up to me, then.”
“It won’t surprise you to learn that he voted for Dr. Ivanovich. He volunteered that information when I told him the coroner was on her way.”
Fenway nodded, then murmured, “Do you think we should get Mark down here?”
Dez considered, then shook her head. “The Monument Brotherhood is never helpful. I don’t think they’ll talk to a white sergeant any more than they’ll talk to us.”
“I don’t know a lot about the Monument Brotherhood.” Fenway glanced at Dez. “Do you?”
“I’ve heard stories.” Dez stepped closer and lowered her voice. “For years and years, if anyone wanted anything done in Dominguez County, they had to be a member of the Monument Brotherhood. They owned the Sheriff’s Office, they owned the banks—if they didn’t like you, you couldn’t get anywhere.”
“So what changed?”
“Nathaniel Ferris,” Dez replied. “Your daddy came in and set up his oil company thirty-five years ago, and suddenly the balance of power shifted.”
Fenway raised her eyebrows. “How come they didn’t recruit him, then?” But as soon as the words were out of her mouth, Fenway knew: it was because he’d married a Black woman. “Okay—but if they didn’t want us down here, why did they call the police? Wouldn’t it have been easier to move the body, or—I don’t know—hide it in the secret catacombs under the building?”
“I can tell you’re joking about the catacombs, but I wouldn’t put it past them,” Dez said thoughtfully. “This is the oldest stone building in Dominguez County—I think it was built in the 1870s. There might be secret passageways below this floor. Hell, for all we know, this could be a trapdoor, and we might fall into a snake pit.”
“Just because they’re mysterious doesn’t make them spy villains from a nineties action movie.” Fenway picked the head back up. “Dez, take some pictures of this head wound, would you?”
Dez nodded and pulled out her phone, tapped on the keys, and took a few photos.
“Email them to me?”
Dez tapped again, then swore softly. “No signal.”
“Hah. Pretty stereotypical for the headquarters of a secret society.”
“Not the headquarters,” a deep voice behind them said.
Fenway, startled, flinched—and almost dropped the man’s head onto the parquet floor.
“Excuse me,” Dez said, “this room is a crime scene.”
“I am honored to be the High Worshipful Master of the Monument Brotherhood,” the man said. “Redmond Northwall.” He had entered the ballroom, but stood twenty feet away from Fenw
Fenway appraised Northwall. She’d seen him before: a narrow face with a sharp nose, a full, brown beard and curly hair, with small, piercing gray eyes. He appeared to be in his late forties or early fifties, and, like the dead man on the parquet floor, was dressed in gray trousers, a white dress shirt, and a light purple tie with the initials “MB” embroidered near the bottom.
“You own Radical Familiar Software,” Fenway said.
Northwall nodded. “I’ve been told there’s been a—a body found.”
“That’s correct,” Fenway replied. “And I’m the county coroner.”
“Yes, Miss Stevenson, I know who you are.” He said it with a slight edge to his voice; perhaps all the members of the Monument Brotherhood had voted for Dr. Richard Ivanovich for County Coroner.
“Do you know who he is?”
“I’d have to come closer.”
Fenway nodded, and Northwall strode to the body in the middle of the floor, glanced down, and frowned.
“Yes,” he said, “I know who it is.”
Fenway waited a moment, then prodded. “Can you tell us?”
“Frank Mortimer.”
“From the way he’s dressed,” Fenway said, “he’d have been a member of the Monument Brotherhood as well. Is that correct?”
“Yes.”
Fenway waited a moment.
Northwall stood, arms at his side, shoulders loose. His face was a blank slate.
“How long has he been a member of the Monument Brotherhood?”
“I don’t know.” His answer was immediate and curt.
Fenway shifted her weight onto her right knee. “Surely it’s in your records.”
Northwall was silent.
Fenway sighed. “Mr. Northwall—”
“You didn’t ask a question,” Northwall said.
Fenway gritted her teeth—was he being purposely unhelpful? “Would you be able to look in your records and give me information about Frank Mortimer?”
“We don’t keep records.”
No question about it now—he was doing everything he could to block her questions. “If that’s how you’d like to play this, Mr. Northwall, I can assure you I can get a subpoena.”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t show you the records. I said we don’t keep records. You can get a subpoena all you like, but we can’t produce something we don’t have.”
“If you’ve destroyed—”
“I take it you are unfamiliar with the workings of the Monument Brotherhood.”
“I know people in this town say you’re a secret society.”
Northwall said nothing and stared straight ahead, his eyes unfocused.
Fenway realized she hadn’t asked a question. “Did you know Frank Mortimer?”
“Yes.”
“What was he doing here in the ballroom this afternoon?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does he have any enemies? Anyone who would wish him ill?”
Northwall blinked, then took out a business card from his shirt pocket. “The Monument Brotherhood requires an oath pledging allegiance and secrecy.”
Fenway stood and took the card from Northwall’s hand. “Lynn Hayes, Esquire,” she read. “This your lawyer?”
“The attorney for the Central Coast chapter of the Monument Brotherhood,” Northwall said. “If you have any other questions, direct them to Ms. Hayes.”
Fenway stood, pointing her finger at Northwall. “If you won’t help the investigation, then I suggest you leave the murder scene.”
“This is my place of business. I won’t—”
“Dez, get him out of here or charge him with interfering with an officer.”
Northwall held up his hands. “I’m not here to argue with you, Coroner. I’m simply stating my rights to the property for which I am legally responsible.”
Dez moved between Northwall and Fenway. “You heard the coroner. Time to leave the room.”
Northwall took a few steps backward, Dez boxing him out of the room like a collie herding sheep into a pen. Northwall gave Fenway a serene smile over Dez’s shoulder. “Good luck with your investigation.” He turned and began to walk out of the room.
“We’re looking for an object with a head shaped like a cut gemstone,” Fenway called after him. “Do you have anything like that at this location?”
Northwall slowed his walk for a moment, but he didn’t respond as he walked through the doorway and down the hall.
Dez folded her arms as she stared at the empty hallway, then turned back to Fenway. “He spoke at the Nidever University commencement last year. He usually comes off as much more personable.”
Fenway walked toward the hallway and peered down the empty corridor. “If he’s CEO, that can’t be how he addresses his board of directors.”
“Then I’ll attribute his open hostility to having us sullying the temple with our presence.” Dez scratched her nose. “You know, Harrison Walker—your predecessor—was a member here.”
Fenway walked back to the body. “From everything I heard about the man, that’s no surprise.”
“He used to have long lunches with some pretty powerful men in the county,” Dez said.
“Like Nathaniel Ferris, I bet.”
“Yes—but your daddy wasn’t at these lunches. No, the men I’m talking about were from the Monument Brotherhood. I was having lunch at Roxanne’s downtown when a few of the members came in. They had a couple of cocktails, and one of them mentioned something called the Bloodstone Scepter. My ears perked up at the term ‘blood’—we had a couple of open cases at the time—but then the others shushed him.”
“The Bloodstone Scepter?” Fenway rolled her eyes. “Do these secret societies know how stupid this stuff sounds?”
Dez shrugged. “Considering we know nothing about what goes on in this building—and considering that if Mr. Northwall is correct and that they never keep records—this might be all we have to go on. You’re looking for a stick or a club with a head that’s shaped like a gemstone. Maybe that’s the Bloodstone Scepter. I certainly can’t think of anything else that would fit the bill.”
Fenway nodded. “So, how do we do this?”
“We may have gotten through the front door and into the ballroom,” Dez said, “but there are rooms off the hallway that were closed—not to mention another section of the temple.”
“We need to get this building searched. If there is such a thing as the Bloodstone Scepter, chances are pretty good that it’s here, right?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. But if they use it in ceremonies and important chapter functions, yes, it’s probably here.” She paused. “Unless…”
“Unless what?”
“If it’s the murder weapon, even if it is a sacred most worshipful object or whatever, the killer likely took it and disposed of it. Or at least hid it.”
“I’ll call Melissa and get the CSI team over here right away.”
“Do you think he was killed in the ballroom?”
Fenway stared at the floor. “Highly polished wood floor—I’d see drag marks if the body had been moved.”
“Unless there were multiple people who carried him.”
“Perhaps. But the amount of blood under his head suggests he was killed here.” Fenway pointed to a few drops of red about three feet away from his feet. “I think he was standing when he was struck in the head, then fell.” She took out her phone and took pictures of the droplets.
“Onto his back, not his stomach? With that hard of a hit?”
“It’s not unheard of,” Fenway said, but as soon as the words were out of her mouth, she took a breath. “Wait a sec…”
“What?”
“No wallet,” Fenway mused. “If he kept his wallet in his front pocket, maybe the killer rolled him onto his back to take his cash and cards.”
