Shadow Tag (The Ray Schiller Series - Book 2) (25 page)

They backtracked through the warehouse district to I-394. Twenty minutes later, the trip to Wayzata, a straight shot west of the Cities, brought them to Gaynor’s home on Lake Minnetonka. A red Lexus hardtop convertible sat in the driveway. A police car and ambulance were parked directly behind it.

“What the hell?” Waverly shifted into Park and yanked the key from the ignition.

Ray got out and flashed his shield at an EMT returning empty handed down the walkway.

“What’s going on?”

The man jerked his head toward the house. “A cop turned us away. Seems we’re too late. From the whiff we got at the door,
way
too late. The M.E.’s on the way.”

“The victim…” Waverly said, “a man or a woman?”

“A man from the sound of it. Look,” he said, “we’ve got to get back.”

Ray and Waverly went to the entrance. A “barely there” mustache adorned the pock-marked face of the cop who met them.

The rookie glanced at their shields. “Minneapolis. Damn. I was hoping you were part of the crime scene unit.”

Taking note of the comment, Ray winced as the stench of death reached him. “So, I take it the death wasn’t from accidental or natural causes.”

“Can’t say for sure yet, but my partner decided the BCA needs to make the call.” The young cop stepped into the doorway, effectively blocking their way. “Something else I can do for you?”

“Yeah.” Frustrated by being denied a firsthand look, Ray wanted details from a senior officer. “Would you get your partner out here for us?”

The rookie shouted down the deep-green foyer lined with pictures decked out in gold-accented frames. “Hey, Len. Got a couple Minneapolis detectives here. They want to talk to you.” While they waited, he tried to engage them in small talk. “The guy’s wife found him.” He pointed to a neighboring house. “She and the kid are across the way for now.” A smirk spread across his face like an oil slick. “She’s a real babe. Wait’ll you see her. I wonder how much money it took to bait
that
hook.”

Waverly’s lip curled. “Hey…you’re talking about the deceased’s widow. Show some respect or keep your mouth shut. Got it?”

“Okay, yeah. No need to go ‘Joe Friday’ on me.”

Waverly turned away, smiling. “
Dragnet
no less,” he muttered to Ray. “The kid must’ve gotten that one from his grandfather.”

The partner appeared, his heavily muscled body nearly filling the hallway as he approached and stepped outside. “So…Minneapolis. What brings you out here?"

“We’re working a case Mitchell Gaynor might be able to shed some light on,” Waverly told him. “If he’s the source of that smell, we’ve got really lousy timing.”

“He is, and you do. It looks like he’s been dead for a couple days already.”

The furrows in Waverly’s brow deepened. “We were told he’d be out of town with his wife and kid this weekend.”

“I wouldn’t know about that. The wife said she and the boy got home a while ago and found her husband dead. The kid looks to be about eight or so. Thank God she stopped him before he followed her inside.”

“What happened?” Ray asked.

“All I know is the body’s face up on the couch in pajamas and a robe. Eyes and mouth are open. Reticular hemorrhaging—possible asphyxia. I used my flashlight to get a look down the throat. There’s something there, but I can’t make out what it is.”

“So he choked,” Waverly said.

“Looks that way, but I’m getting bad vibes from this scene. Stuff seems ‘off’. There’s a tear in the pajama top where a button ought to be. I found it halfway across the room on the floor—fabric’s still attached. I can’t tell for sure, but I think there’s a bruise under one of the guy’s sleeves. Could be a shadow, though. Once the medical examiner takes a closer look, we’ll know for sure.”

“You did good,” Waverly said. They thanked him and started away.

“Oh, one other thing,” the cop said, stopping them. “The guy’s robe is twisted under his body, but it looks like at least one of the pockets is turned inside out.”

Increasingly curious, they walked past their car without discussion and crossed the street. At the house indicated by the cop, Waverly rang the bell at the double entryway and introduced himself and Ray to the woman who answered—a modern-day version of June Cleaver—every hair in place, makeup done to perfection, and dressed to receive company without notice.

“Angela is lying down in my guest room,” she said. “Must you really talk to her now?”

“I’m afraid so,” Waverly told her.

She excused herself to announce them. Returning, she said, “Down the hall, the last room on the left. If you want me for anything, I’ll be with her son in the other room.”

Finding the door ajar, Ray knocked lightly. “Mrs. Gaynor?” There was no reply. He knocked again, pushed the door open and walked inside. Lying on her back, the new widow held a damp cloth to her face, alternating between her forehead and nose. The brief glimpses of her face suggested she was shy of thirty.

“Oh, that putrid odor,” she said as they entered. “I can still smell that awful stench.”

“Mrs. Gaynor, my name is Detective Schiller. Detective Waverly and I need a word with you.”

Her long, blonde hair lay across a pillow. Her shapely, tanned legs were bent gracefully to the side below a white skirt of modest length, although there was nothing modest about the way it draped three quarters of the way up her fabulous thighs. She glared at them with startling blue eyes. “What do you want?”

“We want to offer our condolences,” Waverly said. “And we need to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind, Mrs. Gaynor.”

“And if I do?” She dropped the cloth over her eyes. “Never mind, get on with it. The sooner this is over, the better.”

“According to our information,” Waverly told her, “your husband planned to be out of town with you and your son this weekend. Why the change in plans?”

“Since when did Mitchell’s itinerary become a matter of police record?”

“It’s not,” Ray said. “One of his associates mentioned it to us last week. Why didn’t he go with you and your son?”

“Mitchell didn’t say. It made no difference to me; what difference does it make to you?” With all but her mouth and chin covered, Ray watched her full, sensuous lips form each syllable.

“Mrs. Gaynor,” Waverly said, “until we arrived a few minutes ago, Detective Schiller and I had no idea anything had happened to your husband.”

She exposed a single magnificent eye. “Then why did you come to Wayzata?”

“We hoped he could answer some questions about Paul Davis’s death.”

“Oh, God.” She dropped the cloth back in place. “With Mitchell gone I thought I’d heard the last about that.”

“He discussed it with you?” Ray asked.

She took a deep breath, releasing it in one exasperated puff. “It was like listening to a broken record. ‘It wasn’t suicide.’ If he said it once, he said it a dozen times.”

“He was certain?”

“He was positive.”

“Why?”

“Mitchell didn’t get into it with me, and, frankly, that was fine. I didn’t see any point in encouraging his paranoia.”

“Care to explain what you mean by that?”

She rolled onto her side, propping herself up on an elbow. “Mitchell was a born worrier, Detective Schiller. And, for the record, he said no one else on ACC’s board shared his opinion. With Mitchell it was always one thing or another; it drove me nuts.”

“Were you aware that it was your husband who discovered Davis’s body?” Waverly asked, straightening his tie.

“Yes. So?”

“A suicide note was allegedly left on the conference table next to Davis’s body,” Ray told her. “Outside of the person who claims to have left the note there, no one has reported seeing it.”

She sat up, tucking her calves beneath her. “Are you implying Mitchell may have taken it?”

“If it actually exists, it stands to reason it would’ve been him.”

“Wouldn’t that be considered tampering with evidence or something?”

Ray nodded.

Between her eyebrows, a faint crease appeared on her otherwise unlined face. “But why would he have done something as stupid as that?”

“We hoped he could tell us.”

“Well, well, well. Mitchell…a wanton criminal,” she said, laughing, “That would explain the state of his nerves lately, but you’re a little late if you were planning to clap him in irons.”

Angela Gaynor didn’t have the decency to even feign a sense of loss for her husband; it made the hairs on Ray’s neck bristle. “Our concern is how the note ties into our investigation. Have you seen it, Mrs. Gaynor? It would’ve contained a brief message and Paul Davis’s signature on a partial sheet of paper.”

She shook her head. “No. Sorry.”

“Did your husband ever mention a note…even in passing?” Waverly asked.

“If he did, I don’t remember.” She slid off the bed in one fluid, catlike motion and stepped to the bedroom door. “Mitchell spent more than the usual amount of time in his home office lately. Anything he considered important would probably be there.” She held the door open for them. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to get some sleep.”

They thanked the homeowner on the way out and crossed the street to the Gaynor residence just as other official vehicles began arriving. Waverly had the rookie get his partner for them again. As he came to the door, Ray stepped aside to make way for a crime scene tech. “Has anything new come up?”

“There’s nothing more I can tell you right now,” the cop told them. “The little stuff that’s out of order in the living room can be explained away, though. If the guy was choking, he probably panicked—thrashed around maybe. That’s all I’ve got at this point. Sorry.”

Leaving the scene didn’t sit well with Ray, but he and Waverly were nonessential personnel—in the way, out of place—period.

“Don’t worry, they’ll give us a call when they’re done,” Waverly said, driving off the property.

Ray buckled up. “Pockets turned out. Possible bruising. It sounds like someone wanted to find something awfully damn bad.”

“Whatever the something is, it’s safe to say it’s smaller than a breadbox,” Waverly said. “The note maybe?”

“Yeah, but what value would the note have to anyone but us?”

“Hell, I still don’t understand why Gaynor would’ve taken it…if it actually exists. That still hasn’t been proven, don’t forget.”

“I suppose Johnson could be lying through his teeth,” Ray said, “but I don’t think so.”

Waverly drove past the manicured yards and lush gardens bordering Lake Minnetonka and headed toward I-394 East. “You know,” he said after a lengthy silence, “there’s nothing to say Gaynor and Paul Davis’s deaths are even related.”

“You think it’s only a coincidence?” Ray asked.

Waverly gunned the car around a corner. “All I know for sure is that we’re in the deep end of the shit tank.”

“Agreed,” Ray said. “And it could get deeper.”

31

While waiting for news from Wayzata, Ray tried to focus on another case, but he couldn’t set thoughts of Mitchell Gaynor’s fate aside.

Near the end of the day, Waverly dropped his bulk into the chair opposite Ray. “Just got a phone call, buddy. No suicide note, bogus or otherwise, was found at Gaynor’s place.”

“Just great,” Ray muttered. “Did Wayzata give you anything else?”

“Not a lot. The medical examiner did a quick look before the body was taken away and agreed the blockage in Gaynor’s throat looked like some sort of food. That’s as much as he could tell on-site. After the autopsy we’ll get the specifics. That’s the good news, if you want to call it that.”

“So what’s the bad news?” Ray asked.

“The cop at Gaynor’s place was right; there was a bruise around one of Gaynor’s wrists—more on both arms. Fresh bruises.”

“Food lodged in the throat. Bruises on the body. What the hell is going on?”

“Damned if I know, but I’m calling it quits for today; I’ve had it.” Waverly stretched complete with noisy sound effects. “We can get a fresh start in the morning.”

Ray didn’t object; every hour seemed to have gone by in slow motion. Once back in his apartment, he dropped like a rock on his sofa. Fifteen minutes later his thoughts shifted from one detail of the case to another: the missing note; Jillian Wirth’s relationship with her stepfather; Gaynor’s suspicious death. Ridiculous things like Waverly’s Old Spice aftershave came to mind. Thoughts of Gail and their daughters created an ache so deep it was nearly physical. Like the ball in a roulette wheel, his attention bounced from place to place and stopped at random on Angela Gaynor.

What could Mitchell Gaynor have seen in her? Other than the obvious, of course. A trophy wife turned major nightmare. The poor sap. She’d said her husband had been convinced Paul Davis had been murdered. Why?

He turned the possibilities over in his mind. The fake suicide note—if it existed—was an inspired idea, but being Michael Johnson’s handiwork, Ray reasoned it might have been poorly executed. One look might have been enough to convince Gaynor Davis’s suicide was as phony as the note itself. But then why hadn’t he come forward? Angela Gaynor’s remarks suggested an answer:
born worrier
,
case of nerves
,
clap him in irons
. Well, yeah, not all that hard to figure out, he supposed, but why would he have taken the note in the first place? It made no more sense to him now than before.