Shadow Tag (The Ray Schiller Series - Book 2) (4 page)

“I don’t remember. It was just something I overheard.”

Ray didn’t take his eyes off him. “Mr. Johnson, how well did you know Paul Davis?”

“Me?”

“Yes. How well?”

He licked his lips. “I didn’t.”

“And you’ve worked at ACC how long?”

“About five months. Hell, not even that.”

“Do you own a gun, Mr. Johnson?”

He pulled his lips back in a snarl. “What the hell are you trying to suggest? Like I said, I haven’t even been there five months yet—the graveyard shift at that. How am I supposed to have gotten to know Davis? Now you two come here askin’ me if I own a gun. You think I’m stupid? You think I can’t put two and two together? If you think I had anything to do with it, you can kiss my wet ass.” He stood abruptly, nearly losing his towel. “Now get the eff outta here.” Staggering subtly, he headed toward the door.

Ray stayed where he was, wondering how much of the half-emptied bottle Johnson had consumed before their arrival. “According to your statement, you claim you saw Paul Davis alive after Ed Costales left the building.”

“You want to know what I saw; I’ll tell you. Costales was signing out in the logbook in the lobby when he pointed Davis out on one of the surveillance monitors. Davis looked pretty damn lively to me at the time.”

“If Paul Davis was alive when Ed Costales left, that leaves you and two other security guards alone in the building with Davis when he was killed.”

“Killed, my ass. The man shot himself. If you’re claiming something else, then go point your finger at one of them other two—Gaines or Chalmers. You’re wasting your effin time here.”

“Do you know a
Franklin
Johnson?” Waverly asked him.

Johnson blinked—almost a flinch. “Who?”

“Franklin Johnson—Toledo, Ohio.”

He fiddled with the end of the towel tucked at his waist. “Franklin.” Sounding increasingly puzzled, he repeated the name again and scowled. “Why?”

“The gun found in Davis’s hand,” Ray said, “was registered to a Franklin T. Johnson.”

“Is that what this is all about?” He straightened his glasses, laughing. “Do you two know how many Johnsons there are? Do you?”

Waverly narrowed his eyes. “No, how many?”

“What? Well…I don’t know exactly, but there’s lots of ’em, though. Millions, I’ll bet.” He moved toward the door again with greater determination than before. “It’s time you two go chase your tails somewhere else.”

Ray rose, but made no move to leave. “Is it possible someone could have entered the building that night without you knowing about it?”

“Hell, no.”

“Maybe you stepped away from the front desk for a minute.”

“You suggestin’ I don’t do my job?”

“I’m asking if you might have stepped away...maybe gone to the men’s room or something, just long enough for someone to come into the building without you being aware of it.”

“Even if I did, me, Gaines, and Chalmers would all have known if somebody tried sneakin’ into the building. Once the door is locked, an alarm is set to go off unless it’s opened from the inside. I’m telling you no one else came into the building after hours that night. Now get out.” Johnson grabbed the doorknob.

“If no one entered,” Ray continued, “is it possible someone could have stayed behind in the building and left later without being seen?”

“After hours, everyone signs the logbook—doesn’t matter whether they’re comin’ or goin’. I was there the whole time and only the cleaning crew came or went that night. That’s been checked out already. Don’t anybody keep you two informed?”

“But couldn’t—”

Johnson yanked the door open. “Out.”

As he stepped over the threshold, Waverly slipped his hand around the door’s edge, holding it open. “We may want to talk with you again.”

The door slammed shut as he let go. In the hallway, they stood in silence for a moment, digesting the encounter.

Waverly grinned. “Well, that was effin’ fun, wasn’t it? We got to meet not just Johnson but Johnson Jr., too.” He yanked his suit jacket open at Ray “flasher” style, roaring with laughter.

“Yeah. Real funny. When you stop laughing, we need to figure out how much of the water dripping off Johnson was from his shower and how much was a cold sweat.”

4

Traffic was lighter than usual, and the trip to the home of the second security guard on their list proved shorter than expected. They found Gregory Chalmers’ unimpressive one-story house in an equally unimpressive neighborhood. Weeds poked through cracks in the sidewalk. The black, three-digit house number tacked up beside the front door was missing a numeral. A lawn mower sat beside a corner of the house, suggesting someone had good intentions, but at the moment, it might as well have been a lawn jockey or pink flamingo for all the good it was doing; the grass in the skimpy yard stood three inches too high.

Smelling of baby powder, Mrs. Chalmers greeted them at the door in a floral housecoat three times too big for her. The pleasant munchkin-sized woman welcomed them, smiling broadly. The unmistakable aroma of bacon wafted from inside. She let them in and shuffled off dutifully in blue, terry cloth scuffs to summon her husband.

“Greg. Greg.” Her voice became more insistent. “Gregory.”

From somewhere in the back of the house they heard a gravelly, male voice. “Whatever it is, Audrey—later.”

The couple’s voices became inaudible. Moments later, Gregory Chalmers lumbered down the hallway, tying the belt around his flannel robe. “Hiya fellas. You’ll have to excuse the attire. I was getting some shuteye.”

“Sorry to get you out of bed,” Ray said.

Chalmers waved a hand at him. “Forget it. I’m used to it. Working eleven to seven keeps me out of sync with the rest of the world.”

Waverly performed the perfunctory introductions as Chalmers yawned, showing a gap in his teeth left by missing bridgework in the upper left side of his mouth. At Chalmers’ invitation, they seated themselves on a couch draped with a colorful, granny square afghan.

Shoving a small decorator pillow aside, Waverly sank into a saggy couch cushion. “We’ll try not to keep you up long, Mr. Chalmers. I imagine you know why we’re here.”

“It’s the Davis thing again, right?”

“Right,” Waverly said. “We need to verify some details—ask a few more questions. According to our information, only you and two other security guards were in the building with Paul Davis at the time of his death.”

His reply came fast and easy. “Right. Me, Johnson and Gaines.”

Waverly studied the man’s stubbled face. “Did you know Paul Davis well, Mr. Chalmers?”

“Me?” He tugged the edges of his robe together where they parted over an undershirt stretched across his substantial belly. “I knew who Davis was and all, but that was about it.”

“You didn’t have any association with him?”

“Hell, no. I just work in the building. Sometimes I saw him in passing when he came in after hours. That’s all.”

“Was it unusual for Mr. Davis to do that?”

“Come in after hours you mean? Not really. Workaholic, I figured. That secretary of his, too.”

“His secretary?” Ray asked.

“Yeah. Jillian something. I signed her in a few times when I worked the front desk.” Chalmers looked over his shoulder for his wife, who was still occupied in the kitchen. He lowered his voice and winked. “A real looker that one.”

“This Jillian… She’d come in with him?”

“Yeah, sometimes. Not
that
night though.”

Ray gave him a long, hard look. “You’re sure about that?”

“I didn’t see her. But if I’m wrong, her name would be in the logbook.”

“The logbook,” Waverly said. “How accurate is that thing? I mean don’t employees or visitors ever slip through the cracks?”

“That’s part of what front desk duty is about—seeing to it that doesn’t happen. After hours everyone’s gotta sign in and out.”

“Even if it means signing their names in the book for them?” Ray asked.

“That’s not proper procedure. Policy says they have to sign in themselves.”

“Odd,” Ray said. “Michael Johnson just admitted doing it for Paul Davis that last night.”

Chalmers smiled indulgently like he’d been told a joke he’d already heard. “Well, that’s Johnson for you.”

“Meaning what?”

“Oh, you know,” he said, looking up at them from beneath unruly eyebrows. “That’s just Michael.”

“No, we
don’t
know,” Ray said. “Tell us about that.”

Audrey Chalmers shuffled back into the room with coffee for four. It smelled as good as the bacon. She performed her duties as impromptu hostess and sat beside her husband, sipping delicately from her Corelle cup.

Ray drank half of his coffee in a single gulp. “This sure beats the stuff at the station, Mrs. Chalmers. Thank you.” He turned his attention back to Greg. “So, what did you mean about Johnson?”

“Look, Michael’s an ornery sucker,” he said, “but I don’t want to get him in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Well, let’s just say he isn’t exactly employee of the month material.” The tilt of Waverly’s head earned a somewhat less ambiguous explanation. “He can be kind of slipshod sometimes.”

Audrey Chalmers dabbed a napkin against her wrinkled lips. “But then, he drinks so,” she volunteered.

Her husband’s back straightened. “Audrey, hush up.”

Waverly was on it in a flash. “No, we’d like to hear about that.”

Audrey’s eyes darted between her husband and Waverly. “Well, Greg’s told me that Michael has a—”

Her husband barked, “I’ll handle this, Audrey.”

She seemed to disappear into the folds of her housecoat.

Chalmers set his cup down. “Michael has a drinking problem. Sometimes it gets in his way.”

Ray wanted specifics. “In the way of doing his job?”

“Sometimes, yeah. Gaines and me, we kidded about it.”

“Gaines. The other security guard?”

“Yeah, him. See, Todd and me—we’ve been onto Michael’s tricks for a while. He stashes liquor around the building. He hides the bottles in places nobody’s likely to find them, like in a toilet tank or maybe behind boxes in office supplies. When the urge to drink gets too strong… Well, you know.”

“You’re saying he leaves the front desk to get a drink?”

Chalmers nodded. “Actually, we rotate stations every week. The front desk job is the easiest, but maybe the most important. Michael, though… When he’s in charge there, he leaves the lobby unattended sometimes. Todd and me both saw it happen. It finally ticked us off to the point that, during our rounds, we’d look for Michael’s stashes and empty whatever we found down the nearest drain. Must’ve made him mad as hell, but he’s in no position to say anything about it; he don’t dare admit the liquor’s his.”

Waverly stroked his mustache. “So, while Johnson goes off looking for a quick hit from his liquor supply, couldn’t someone slip into the building unnoticed?”

Chalmers shook his head. “Could, if it wasn’t for the alarm system,” he said, verifying what Johnson had already told them. “I’d of reported him for it, but his leaving the lobby once in a while hasn’t done no real harm with the alarm system backing him up. Anyway, Michael’s ass got in enough trouble over it already.”

“Trouble?” Waverly asked.

“Aw, crap.” Clearly annoyed with himself, Chalmers shrugged. “Mr. Davis came in late one night and got a whiff of liquor on him—told Michael he was through. Said he was finished at ACC, and that he’d see to it the Kingsley Security Agency dropped him, too. That’s the place we get farmed out of,” he explained. “Anyway, I overheard the whole thing. It was real ugly.”

“But he’s still working there,” Ray said.

“Yeah, that came as a shocker, but Mr. Davis must have had second thoughts or something. Could’ve, I suppose. The whole thing was pretty pathetic—Mr. Davis yelling and Michael begging for another chance.”

Waverly’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean that literally—he begged?

“Yeah. You gotta understand about Michael. The guy doesn’t have a lot going for him. No family, no friends I know of. Like I say, he’s an ornery cuss, and he’s up there in years like me. A little long in the tooth, ya know? The prospects of finding a new job at our age sucks, so losing the one you’ve got can be damn scary. Yeah, Michael begged.”

“Then Johnson must’ve been pretty desperate.”

“That’s a safe bet.”

“Since Johnson’s still working there,” Ray said, “apparently Davis did give him another chance. But suppose Davis caught him a second
time. Johnson would have to know there’d be no getting off the hook again. If that happened, do you think he might have—”

Chalmers tensed. “Hold on a minute. No way. Michael don’t win no prizes in the personality department, but he’s no goddamn murderer.” Ray’s eyes were locked on him. “No, sir,” the man repeated, tugging at his robe’s belt, “I’d swear to that. Anyway, what’s the big deal? Everybody knows Mr. Davis killed himself, and that sure as hell’s got nothing to do with Johnson.”