Shadow Tag (The Ray Schiller Series - Book 2) (2 page)

Ray let his aching head droop. “Okay. Give me those five minutes.”

“Atta boy, buddy.”

“Hey, what’s this shit about sand at Davis’s feet?” Ray asked.

“Now that’s the kind of thing I’m talking about,” Waverly said, grinning. “Good.”

“Well? What about the sand?”

“Beats the crap outta me.”

“Great.”

“But it is
something
, Ray.”

“So, we’ve got sand. Terrific.” He paused a few seconds. “There’s something else I need to ask you about.”

Waverly must have been anticipating it. “The second empty shell casing in the revolver’s cylinder?”

“Yeah. One bullet wound. Why two empty casings?”

A chuckle jiggled Waverly’s belly. “Maybe Davis missed the first time.”

It was an old joke, but Ray managed a tolerant grin. “But they only found one bullet.”

“Maybe he was playing Russian roulette the hard way.”

An even older joke. Ray winced and continued. “The gun wasn’t even his, and there were no prints on the bullets left in the cylinder. If that doesn’t send up some red flags, somebody’s sleeping on company time.”

“Now you’re talking. We’re going to make Ejo proud,” Waverly said. “The first thing we need to do is go over the background checks on the security guards again—the ones on duty that night at ACC.” Waverly must have read the look on Ray’s face. “Look, buddy, we’ve got to run
all
the bases before we can score a homerun.”

Ray shifted in his seat. He felt as though he’d carried everything he owned to Minneapolis on his back; it creaked.
Too young to be audibly disintegrating.
“Look, why not just cut to the chase and start with Ed Costales?”

“Damn. I knew that’s where you were headed.”

“Hey, isn’t this why you wanted me here? We’ve already got relevant, firsthand information involving this case. Let’s apply it. Who else had better reason to want Paul Davis dead?” Ray took a turn counting on his own fingers. “Who was sleeping with Valerie Davis?”

Waverly played along. “Ed Costales.”

“And who was going to get his walking papers when Davis found out?”

“Our boy, Costales.”

“Plus, who was the unexpected runner-up for the presidency of ACC?”

“Yeah, I know. Costales.”

“And was he or was he not in the building after hours with Paul Davis the night Davis died?”

The ball was back in Waverly’s court. “Yeah, he was. But, according to Johnson, the security guard on the front desk that night, Davis was still alive and kicking after Costales left. T.O.D. confirms it.”

“Time of death isn’t exact. It leaves some leeway.”

“Doesn’t matter. Johnson claims he
saw
Davis alive on one of the security monitors as Costales was leaving the building that night. He’s got an airtight alibi.”

“Maybe the guard’s wrong. Could be he was thinking of some other night.”

“Johnson claims not.”

“Shit.”

“Ditto. Anyway, that leaves us with only the three security guards and Davis in the building at the time he allegedly killed himself. Look, Ray, forget Costales. We’re going to have to dig deeper on this one.”

Ray shuffled through the papers littering his desk. “And the cleaning crew was gone?”

“Yup. They pulled out around midnight.”

“And the gunshot residue tests came back negative on everyone?”

“Everyone but Davis. Everybody else was clean—Costales included.”

Ray shot a curious glance at Waverly.

“Hey,” Waverly said, “I'm not an idiot. Costales had so many motives to want Davis dead he’d practically need a wheelbarrow to haul ’em around. Alibi or not, there’s no way I was going to exempt the guy from a residue test.”

“When you get right down to it,” Ray said, “it doesn’t really matter. Whoever the killer was, they had more than enough time to clean up and get rid of any GSR before Davis’s body was discovered the next morning.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s like I said: this case isn’t the slam dunk we expected at first. We’re gonna have to dig deep. Let’s hope we won’t need a backhoe.”

“Level with me, Dick. You aren’t even toying with the idea that Davis actually killed himself, are you?”

Waverly shrugged. “I think you know where I stand. The thing is, I want a fresh perspective—
your
opinions, not mine echoed back at me.”

“Hey, don’t flatter yourself,” Ray told him. “Any input you get from me will be strictly my own.”

“Good. I get dizzy when I’m put on a pedestal.”

Ray smiled. “Don’t worry about that; I avoid heavy lifting.”

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t be a wise ass.” Waverly grinned beneath his walrus-style mustache. “As far as Davis is concerned, no, I don’t buy it being a suicide. That’s just my gut instinct, and I’ve got a big gut, but it’s still not proof. Man, it’s hot.” He loosened his tie an inch and undid his collar button. “Anyway, if Paul Davis
did
kill himself, it sure wasn’t over money problems. Did you get a chance to look over his financial records?”

“Yeah. They’re almost obscene. His salary for serving on the board of Felton Plastics alone could pay my salary for a year. And judging by his portfolio, ACC salary and bonuses, I’d say the money from the board job wasn’t much more than pocket change.” Ray groaned as he stretched. “No, it’s not likely money was an issue.”

“So,” Waverly agreed, “there you have it, not for love
or
money. At least, not in
our
opinion.”

“Do you intend to keep your foot in that door?”

“Absolutely,” Waverly said. “In the end, it may be the only way out.”

Ray shook his head. “Okay, new issue. What about the mystery blood?”

“The three droplets just outside the boardroom door?”

“Yeah, those.”

“It wasn’t Davis’s—none of the security guards’ either.”

“How could it be? The reports say it came from a female.”

“Right,” Waverly said. “Based on that, chances are it may not be connected to the case at all. The blood was so close to the threshold, the cleaning crew may have gotten sloppy and missed it. It could’ve been there days before Davis was killed.” He checked his watch and hefted himself off the corner of Ray’s desk with a soft grunt. “Time to call it a day.”

“Hey, hold it a second,” Ray said. “Don’t bail out on me yet. The trajectory. What about that?”

Waverly waggled his hand, palm down. “Iffy. They checked it out. The angle of the shot was odd but not impossible.”

“Peculiar, but inconclusive,” Ray paraphrased. “Davis’s elbow would’ve had to be raised to nearly ear level to produce that kind of downward path. Why would he hold the gun like that?”

“Beats me, but then, neither of us thinks he did it at all, right?”

“Hell, no. But if someone else fired that shot, the trajectory could make perfect sense.”

“Damn straight. Now we only have to prove that’s what happened and figure out who pulled the trigger. No sweat, right?”

“Where do you want to start?”

Waverly slid the gun registration in front of Ray, jabbed a meaty finger at a specific line and walked away. “I’m packing it in. See you tomorrow, buddy.”

Ray already knew what it said, but he read the gun registration a third time. The revolver found in Paul Davis’s hand had been registered in 1958 to a Johnson, Franklin T., of 1217 Glynnis St., Toledo, Ohio. A flamboyant handwritten notation in one corner read “Deceased.”

It was clear where Waverly was going with that. A
Michael
Johnson was one of the three security guards on duty at ACC that night. Franklin Johnson—Michael Johnson. Ray considered the possible connections. Father and son? Brothers? Cousins? It was really a long shot. Had the name been Grimaldi, Whittenburger or Baumgartner maybe he could muster some enthusiasm over it. But Johnson... There were probably four or five Johnsons on ACC’s office directory alone.

In any case, he reasoned, if security guard Michael Johnson was the killer, Ed Costales would’ve made a handy scapegoat for him. Why would Johnson have provided Costales with an alibi? It didn’t figure.

Still, it was a starting point.

2

Ray returned to his apartment with a Hardee’s bag in his hand. It was empty except for a single French fry that had escaped his notice. A few slivers of ice sloshed in a cup of diluted Coke. He’d eaten as he drove while the throbbing in his head mercifully slowed to a calmer beat.

Familiarizing himself with the neighboring area, he’d taken an indirect route. Eventually, he’d have to be able to make his way around the city like a Minneapolis native. For now, though, he only wanted a cursory look around and a reasonable excuse not to go home.

Home. The new apartment wasn’t home any more than his apartment in Widmer had been. It was his residence, nothing more. It had been two months since his separation from Gail, and he was still waiting for the impact of her absence to lessen. The bickering between his daughters, Laurie and Krista, had grated on his nerves. Now he would have welcomed the sound of their squabbling.

As he went into the kitchen, the rustle of the Hardee’s bag alone broke the silence flooding his apartment. Ray dropped the bag and its single, deep-fried survivor into a makeshift wastebasket made up of an empty cardboard box lined with a black trash bag. Moving boxes still littered the kitchen table and the out-of-date, checkered linoleum floor. Going back through the living room, he shed clothes as he went. In the bedroom, he slipped into jeans and a blue T-shirt. With his headache fading away, the prospect of tackling the dreaded domestic chores didn’t seem as formidable.

The ceilings, walls, and carpeting made Ray feel as though he were packed inside a box himself. All brown—varying shades, but brown all the same. He didn’t have a clue how to fix it, or the inclination to try. At least he could organize the place. Searching out his lone plant, he parked it on an end table. Dry when he packed it away in Widmer, it was even drier now.

The ad in the paper had called the apartment cozy—an obvious euphemism for small, but he didn’t need much room. The appliances were furnished although the space belonging to the refrigerator stood vacant—a short-term inconvenience. According to the landlord, a replacement was on its way.
Yeah, right.
All too familiar with the downside of human nature, Ray made a mental note.
Maybe Taco Bell tomorrow.
Anyway, the place was affordable—just barely, but that made up for a lot.

Emptying one box, then another, he hummed to alleviate the stillness in the apartment. Where were noisy neighbors when you needed them? It finally registered on him that the tune he was absentmindedly humming was one of Gail’s favorites. The melody stopped as though his vocal cords had been slashed. He forced a window open, admitting a gush of hot air, traffic sounds and faint city odors. It brought memories of hometown Chicago closer. No good could come of that either, he realized.

He forced himself to think about something else—anything else. Widmer. What had he called it? Podunk, Minnesota? Ray remembered his drunken confrontation with young, by-the-book Chief Woody Newell. It was hard to admit he already missed the small town—even Woody, but it was true. Unlike most of their exchanges since Newell had taken over as Chief of Police following the senior Newell’s demise, their parting had been congenial. If that hadn’t been the case, leaving might have been easier.

Ray grabbed another box, untucked the flaps and found his family gazing up at him from the confines of a wooden, gilt-edged frame. Ten-year-old Laurie: big-eyed, bighearted; trying so hard to be grown up. Seven-year-old Krista: a typical tomboy.

And Gail.

Ray had loved her, God help him, since the day they’d met in college. How could things have gone so wrong? For weeks, he’d wavered between wanting to stroke her cheek or strike it, exacting pain for pain. He’d never been sicker in his life than the day he came home early with a raging fever—never sicker until an hour later when he saw Gail and Mark Haney parked in the driveway locked in a lovers’ kiss. She’d ended the brief affair the following day, but the damage had been done.

Suddenly tired to the bone, he left the boxes where they sat and stretched out on his favorite piece of furniture, a royal-blue, overstuffed couch he’d picked up at a secondhand shop in Widmer. Worn and slightly stained on one arm, it suited him just fine. He wouldn’t have cared if it had been orange with turquoise polka dots. To him, the blue couch was an oasis in a desert of ‘blah’.

Someone banged on the door. On the other side of the threshold, an old re-conditioned Kelvinator refrigerator and two delivery men stood waiting for him. The first man was as large as the appliance itself. The second would’ve fit in the freezer compartment, using some applied force.

“We’ve got your fridge,” the big one said. He rolled the hand truck bearing the Kelvinator into the living room. “Where do you want it, Mac?”

Something about the guy made the hairs on Ray’s neck bristle. “How about the kitchen?”