Shadow Tag (The Ray Schiller Series - Book 2) (3 page)

Apparently oblivious to Ray’s snide reply, the man turned the hand truck over to his frail partner. “Okay, Phil, you heard the man.”

Phil strained behind the weight on the dolly making it as far as the kitchen threshold where he came to an abrupt halt.

“Pull back then give ‘er some thrust, ya moron,” the other one said.

He tried again but couldn’t propel the dolly over the hump.

“Idiot.”

It wasn’t the huge, stinking, half-moon sweat stains under the oaf’s arms or the hairs sprouting from his nostrils that caused Ray to dislike him, or even being called Mac; the man was a bona fide bully.

“Don’t just stand there,” Ray said, “help him.”

“Leave this to me,” he told Ray. “Pull ’er back, then push and she’ll go over, ya dimwit,” the man ordered his partner.

The fly-weight gave it another shot, then another. The second attempt took a chunk out of the doorjamb.

“Hey,” Ray yelled. “I’ve got a security deposit on this place.”

“Look what you did, stupid,” the man growled at his partner.

Ray’s annoyance level red-lined. “Get out of my way.”

When the behemoth didn’t move, Ray edged his way between the refrigerator and the kitchen doorway. Squatting, he put his hands under the corners of the appliance. “Okay, pull back a foot or so,” Ray instructed, “then give it all you’ve got. I’ll lift and pull. Just watch the doorjambs. Ready?”

The smaller man nodded. “Ready.”

“All right. One, two, three. Now.” Ray lifted and pulled. The refrigerator lurched over the threshold and kept coming. Ray howled as he landed unceremoniously on his tailbone. It felt like someone had pushed a red-hot poker up his ass.

The loudmouth stood over him, a grin on his ugly face. “Shoulda’ let me do it my way, Mac.” In one smooth movement, he reached down and yanked Ray’s one hundred, seventy-two pounds upright.

Ray cried out involuntarily and inched his way toward the couch, back bent, his face a ridiculous forty inches from the floor. “Shit.”

“Next time, leave it to the professionals.” The man turned his attention to his partner. “Come on, Phil. Let’s get this thing hooked up. I got me a hot one tonight.”

Ray could only imagine he was referring to some inanimate object. Surely, this guy would send a female—
any
female—screaming into the night. He had only managed to shuffle as far as the couch when the pair rushed by him and out the door. Ray lowered himself onto a cushion as the door slammed shut. No matter which way he moved, he was in serious pain. “Oh, crap.”

He eased his way back onto his feet and hobbled to the bathroom in search of hot water, soothing heat. Ray preferred the speed and efficiency of a shower, but this called for a long soak. Hunched over, he removed his clothes and lowered himself into the filling tub. Tendrils of steam rose around him. He felt like a missionary in a cannibal’s stewpot.

Adding to his discomfort, he felt a sandy grit beneath him as he lowered himself onto the floor of the tub. Scouring powder, he realized. Like his brain had been pre-programmed, the scratchy sensation switched channels in his mind.

Sand
…
near Davis’s feet. Where the hell did that come from? What does it mean?
Ray considered that it might have been left behind by the “buffalo brigade”, the term he had irreverently begun using for ACC’s Board of Directors. They’d waited twenty minutes between discovering the body and notifying authorities.
Twenty goddamn minutes.
All that time inside the boardroom, walking around touching God knows what, contaminating potential evidence. Twelve intelligent, educated men. What were they thinking?”

Perplexed and still in pain, Ray fell asleep, the water a cocoon like the warmth and safety of a mother’s womb.

3

Dick Waverly arrived at the precinct station earlier than usual and found Ray already at his desk. “You’re at it bright and early.”

“Couldn’t sleep.” He tried to work a new kink out of his neck. “I figured I might as well be here as at my apartment.”

Waverly grabbed a bear claw from a grease-stained bakery box. He bit off a third of it with one chomp. Crumbs tumbled across his shirt and tie. Unconcerned, he brushed them to the floor. “Want one?”

“No, thanks.”

“Suit yourself.” Waverly swallowed and poured a cup of coffee for himself.

“You might want to doctor that up with some cream or something,” Ray said, “it’s strong as hell.”

“Nah, no cream.” He patted his oversized stomach. “I’m trying to cut back.” Waverly gave him a good-natured wink and stuffed the last of the pastry into his mouth.

Ray rose and moved in a half-crouch toward the coffee maker.

“Holy…” Waverly watched, dumbfounded. “What the hell happened to you? You’re walking like Groucho Marx for godssake.”

“I was attacked by a major appliance. Let’s just let it go at that, all right?”

Waverly chuckled. “If you say so, but it sure looks weird, buddy.”

“Bruised my tailbone.” He poured himself another cup of coffee. “By tomorrow or the day after, I’ll be moving like Fred Astaire.”

“Never did, never will. John Wayne maybe.”

“You’re a real knee slapper this morning, aren’t you?”

“Just keeping you grounded in reality.”

“Thanks loads.” Grimacing, Ray hobbled back to his desk and carefully lowered himself into his seat. “What do you say we go look up this Michael Johnson guy? I’m anxious to talk to him.”

“Relax. We’re not officially on the clock yet. Besides, I’ve gotta take a leak before we leave.” Stopping on his way to the restroom, Waverly added, “Oh, just a suggestion, Ray. If you’re going to finish that coffee, you might want to head for the men’s room now. You know, get a head start. Either that or you could take a whiz in your wastebasket.”

There were quiet snickers from nearby detectives.

“Let’s just get moving, okay?” Ray said.

“I’m not the one with the problem in that area.”

Ray rose in obvious pain. “I’ll wait for you in the car.” Dignity shattered, he made it through the door where two incoming detectives observed his hunched-over gait.

“Hey, Schiller,” one of them asked, “someone kick you in the balls?”

Ignoring their laughter, he kept moving.

Driving side saddle to the station that morning had been a literal pain in the ass. As Waverly strolled out of the building, Ray had barely finished maneuvering himself into the passenger’s seat where he’d be better able to shift positions as needed.

Mercifully, Waverly canned the wisecracks. “You sure you’re up to this? Seriously. Maybe you should forget it today and go home; soak in a hot tub; see a doctor.”

“Did the tub thing last night. I fell asleep and woke up an hour later freezing my ass off. I looked like a California raisin. Don’t worry, I’ll manage.”

“I could ask around and get you the name of a chiropractor.”

“Hey, do
you
want to tell Ejo I’ve taken off on my second day of work?”

Waverly started the engine. “Like you said, let’s get moving.”

It was an old building. The first story had been a five-and-dime years back. You could still read the chipped, painted “Woolworth’s” on the brick wall. Some enterprising hopeful had taken over the building with a cash register, a truckload of miscellaneous products and set the place up as a liquidation store. Name brand shampoo, a buck fifty. Milk-Bone dog biscuits, a buck twenty-nine. The signs still hanging in the window said so.

The second floor of the building had been the original owners’ living quarters. When they split, so did the accommodations. The second story was partitioned off into three small apartment units. According to Ray and Dick’s information, security guard Michael Johnson occupied one of them.

Waverly knocked on Johnson’s door harder and longer following each six-second interval. The door opened a scant inch after his fourth try. The blue eye peering at them from the narrow space between door and jamb was bloodshot.

“What do you want?”

Waverly showed his badge. “Mr. Johnson, I’m Detective Waverly and—”

“I remember you. Not
him
, though,” he said, looking in Ray’s direction.

“This is Detective Schiller.”

The man opened the door wider. He stood before them dripping wet, a threadbare, puke-green towel wrapped around his waist. He sneered at Ray’s hunched figure. “So…another fine
upstanding
member of our police force.”

Jaws clenched, Ray tried to straighten his back and failed.

Johnson turned and motioned for them to follow. “More damned questions, I suppose.”

“A few,” Waverly said.

The cramped apartment was neat but as dilapidated as the rest of the building. The furnishings ranged from worn to worn-out. A sofa, an armchair and a recliner, which didn’t so much recline as lean, were arranged in a conversational grouping. Glass-topped end tables stood on either side of the sofa. A magazine rack beside the armchair held folded newspapers. Without regard to theme, pictures hung on the walls: a landscape here, a still-life there. Nearer the corner with its peeling, floral wallpaper, a schooner sailed the high seas.

Beneath the living room window, the sofa and end tables sat a good two feet off-center. Waverly chose to sit on the sofa rather than look at the asymmetry. As Ray lowered himself into the recliner, Johnson sat down opposite him in the armchair, a used glass and opened bottle of Jim Beam beside it.

The flesh on Michael Johnson’s lean body sagged. Loose rolls of skin gathered around his waist. His color was sallow, probably a result of his long-standing relationship with Jim Beam and Beam’s close “relatives”. Random bruises scattered over his body suggested the acquaintance had been long and intense. The tendons stood out in Johnson’s neck like ropes. Ray guessed his age at about sixty-two, give or take a couple years either way—long, hard years.

Clad only in his bath towel, Johnson leaned forward, elbows propped on his spread knees.

Ray turned his head. “Obviously we’ve come at a bad time. If you’d like to take a minute to get dressed—”

“No point,” Johnson said. “I haven’t rinsed off yet. Just get on with it.”

On the out-of-kilter couch, Waverly looked at Ray and snickered.

“Mr. Johnson,” Ray said, “you were on front desk duty the night Paul Davis died.”

Johnson nodded.

“You said you saw him that evening.”

He nodded again.

“According to your statement, you saw Ed Costales in the building as well.”

A third nod. Legs still indelicately parted, Johnson regarded Ray with apparent boredom. “When do we get to the question part?”

Taking a deep breath, Ray continued to focus on Johnson’s face. “According to your statement,” he said, gathering his thoughts, “Mr. Davis arrived first.”

Johnson sneered. “That’s not a question either.”

“You want questions, Mr. Johnson? All right. How did Mr. Davis seem to you that night?”

Johnson looked at him like he was a third-day leftover. “That was weeks ago. My memory’s not what it used to be. Besides, we didn’t exactly sit around shooting the breeze, ya know.”

“Just tell me what you remember. Did he seem agitated? Angry?”

“I’m a security guard not an effin’ psychologist.”

“You must’ve gotten an impression.”

“Maybe, but the one I’m gettin’ now says this is nothin’ but an effin’ waste of time.”

Ray leaned forward, his intense, ice-blue eyes turning colder. His wordless stare generated a more cooperative reply.

“All right. Davis was uptight,” Johnson said. “Didn’t even sign the logbook that night. I did it for him. From the looks of him, he woulda taken my head off if I’d asked him to do it. Wasn’t exactly kosher, but what the hell.”

“So, Davis seemed angry, not depressed.”

“Depressed. Angry. What difference does it make? He went up to the boardroom and blew his brains out.”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

Johnson removed his glasses and began cleaning them with a corner of the towel. “How do you figure?”

Ray glanced away. “It looks like someone may have done it for him.”

Johnson looked at the whiskey bottle with obvious longing, but left it where it sat. “The gun was in Davis’s hand—a note on the table. The man killed himself. Period.”

Ray and Waverly exchanged looks.

Waverly hitched himself forward to the edge of the couch. “A note, Mr. Johnson?”

“Yeah, right there on the table.”

“There was no note.”

“Sure was.”

“No,” Waverly assured him, “there wasn’t.”

Johnson seemed to have difficulty swallowing, like his throat was suddenly packed with cotton. “Well, I…I heard there was a note,” he stammered. “I mean, someone said he left one.”

“Who?” Waverly asked.