Shadow Tag

by Marjorie Swift Doering

  “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?”

  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 caus
ed 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 for
ce.”

  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.