Shadow Tag

by Marjorie Swift Doering

  “Thank you. That’s very kind.” He lowered his head. “I’m going to miss Mitch terribly.”

  “Losing a friend is rough,” Waverly said.

  “It certainly is. Mitch and I go back a long way—one of those instantaneous friendships you hear about but seldom have the good fortune to experience.” Felton looked from one of them to the other, his dark eyes alert. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but your time must be as limited as my own. I assume something more brings you out this way.”

  Ray cast a sidelong glance at Waverly and proceeded. “There is something else. Considering you and Paul Davis were friends, too, we thought you’d like to know we’ve made an arrest for his murder.”

  “An arrest?” Felton seemed to need a moment to process the information. “Who?”

  “Jillian Wirth.”

  The news audibly sucked the air from his lungs. “Paul’s administrative assistant?”

  “Secretary. Assistant. Whatever they’re called these days,” Waverly said. “Do you know her?”

  “Yes. No. I mean...I know who she is, of course; I’ve spoken with her briefly a time or two. I know her only to that extent, but... That beautiful young woman? You’re not serious.”

  Waverly crossed his arms. “Very serious.”

  “But that makes no sense. Paul took his own life; everyone knows that.”

  “No, sir,” Ray said. “That’s what everyone wants to believe. Unfortunately, the evidence says different.”

  “Even if that were true… Jillian Wirth? I find that impossible to believe.” The knuckles of his clasped hands turned white. “What possible reason could she have to kill Paul?”

  “Unrequited love from the looks of it,” Waverly said. “The woman scorned thing. It happens more often than you prob’ly think.”

  Felton took a pen from his desktop and began tapping it against his palm. “Regardless, I can’t imagine she’d be capable of doing such a thing.”

  “Her prints were on the murder weapon.” Ray told him.

  Felton’s aristocratic face transformed, every shifting line, every contour reflecting his mounting anxiety. “Her fingerprints were on that pearl-handled revolver?”

  “No, I said we found them on the murder weapon.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I suppose you don’t,” Ray said, supposing nothing of the kind. “The bullet that killed Davis didn’t come from the weapon found in his hand. The revolver was substituted for the actual murder weapon—the one with her prints on it.”

  “I…I’m dumbfounded. Are you certain it was Jillian? Has she confessed?”

  “She’s denied it. No surprise there, of course.” Ray assumed a casual air, trying to give Felton enough rope to hang himself. “We found her signature in the company’s logbook. It places her at ACC at the approximate time of Paul Davis’s death.”

  Felton’s face went pale.

  His reaction wasn’t lost on Ray. “Is something wrong?”

  “No. No, I’m…” Felton stammered. “I’m just surprised.”

  “Frankly, I don’t think you’re surprised at all,” Ray said, “because if we found Wirth’s signature, you have to know we found yours, too—right below hers. You were there that night.”

  Felton paused. He set the pen aside and folded his hands on top of his desk. “I never said I wasn’t.”

  A quiet grunt of disgust came from Waverly. “But you never said you were.”

  “I didn’t volunteer the information; I assumed you knew. After all, as you just pointed out, my name is in the logbook.”

  “No, it’s not—not since the night of the murder,” Ray said. “Someone removed that page.”

  “I wasn’t aware of that.” Felton offered a patronizing smile. “In that case, you only had to ask me.”

  Blindsided by his easy admission, Ray pressed on, trying to keep his momentum going. “Only two signatures were on that missing sheet: yours and Jillian Wirth’s. Considering your signature followed hers, she’d already come and gone by the time you arrived.”

  “If, as you say, the page is missing,” Felton said, “how did you come by that information?”

  Waverly crossed an ankle over his knee. “From handwriting impressions left on the underlying page.”

  “I see. Very resourceful.”

  “So, what were you doing there?” Ray asked.

  “Paul phoned me from ACC and asked me to meet with him.”

  “What for?”

  “He’d just been named Chet Stockton’s successor—no small responsibility. As the new president, Paul wanted to make the transition as smooth as possible. With Chet dead, he turned to me to help devise a strategy.”

  “At that time of night?”

  Felton shrugged. “Anyone who’s ever worked closely with Paul can tell you he was obsessed with his job. Whether that resulted in his insomnia, or it was the other way around, I can’t say. In any case, as director of the board, ACC’s welfare rests partially on my shoulders. Despite the hour, I couldn’t very well refuse.”

  “What happened after you arrived?”

  “Only what you’d expect, Detective Schiller. We discussed his concerns, some potential solutions, and afterward, I left.”

  “And he was alive,” Waverly said.

  “Of course.”

  Ray offered Felton a chance to amend his response. “And everything was all right when you left.”

  “Certainly.”

  “Then why did you sign in, but not out?” Ray asked. “Why did you rip that page out the logbook?”

  “Why did I…? Detective Schiller, you’re very much mistaken. I didn’t do anything of the kind.” He offered an indulgent smile. “I couldn’t sign out let alone remove that page, because the book was gone when I got back to the lobby.”

  “Gone?”

  “Yes. There was no sign of it.”

  His explanation threw Ray off balance. While feasible, the claim was disturbing. If it was true, Michael Johnson could be back in the thick of things. Still, while sacrificing himself with a false confession was no small penance for his past neglect, Johnson protecting his stepdaughter made sense, but what reason would he have to protect Stuart Felton? Why wouldn’t he have told them Felton had been there? A glance at Waverly told him Dick was dealing with the same issue.

  Struck by a sudden notion, Ray did a mental rundown of the timeline: Wirth leaving the building, bloody and in tears after the fiasco with Davis; Johnson abandoning his station to have a drink before going to confront Davis. The pieces of the puzzle lay scattered in front of him, waiting to be put together.

  “Mr. Felton,” Ray said, “how did you get into the building that night?”

  “Paul let me in.”

  “Paul Davis? Where was the security guard?”

  “That’s what Paul wanted to know. When I arrived, there was no one in the lobby. I had no choice but to call him on his cell phone to have him come unlock the door for me. When I explained why, he was furious. I gather he’d had some difficulty with that guard before.”

  Ray rubbed his brow, seeing the scene running through his head like a filmstrip. Wirth, Johnson and Felton had presented an accurate account of the events leading up to Davis’s murder. The lies apparently began sometime after that point. Determining where Paul Davis’s life ended and the lies began still lay ahead.

  “How long did you stay?” Ray asked.

  “A very short time—fifteen minutes at most. Paul’s worries were either unfounded or easily resolved.”

  “By the time you left, had the security guard returned?”

  “No.” It was the answer Ray half expected/half hoped to hear. “Neither the guard nor the logbook was there,” Felton said, “which is why I couldn’t sign out. I assumed he had taken it.”

  “Why would he have done that?”

  “I wouldn’t know. You and your partner are the investigators; I’m a simple businessman.”

  “Frankly, Mr. Felton, I think you’re anythin
g but simple.”

  He turned his head and looked at Ray from the corner of his eye. “By your tone, I take it that isn’t meant to be a compliment.”

  “You’ve got a good ear.”

  The earlier tension seeped back into Felton’s face. “I don’t understand what’s troubling you.”

  “Then I’ll explain it one step at a time,” Ray said. “You claim the logbook was missing from the front desk when you returned to the lobby after your meeting. I don’t think so. The way I see it, something happened between you and Davis that night that got him killed. I believe you when you say the guard was still away from his station at that point, but I believe the logbook was in plain sight. When you realized you hadn’t been seen either coming or going, you took the opportunity to remove the only evidence that proved you’d been there.”

  Felton’s smile evaporated. “You’re wrong. Paul was alive when I left, and if the logbook had been there, I’d have signed out as policy dictates,” he insisted. “It seems to me you’re overlooking something. I’ve already told you Paul was extremely upset with the guard—this Johnson fellow you keep talking about. There’s every likelihood they had words after I left. The situation must have spiraled out of control.”

  Waverly raised an eyebrow. “What reason would the guard have to mess around with the book before killing Davis?”

  Ray prepared to play his trump card. “My partner’s right. By the time you returned to the lobby after your meeting, Davis hadn’t even had a chance to confront the guard yet. Why would Johnson have wanted to kill Davis or tamper with the book before he even knew his job was in jeopardy?”

  “But he would have known,” Felton argued. “Once he saw my signature, he’d have been aware that someone—very likely Paul—had been forced to let me into the building in his absence. He’d have realized his negligence hadn’t gone unnoticed.” His breathing became shallow. “Maybe tearing the page out of the logbook was a matter of gallantry. He must have realized Ms. Wirth’s signature would put her under suspicion and decided to remove it. My signature simply happened to be on the same page.”

  “Nice try, but that didn’t happen.”

  “You sound very sure of yourself, Detective Schiller.”

  Waverly seemed to be waiting for Ray’s answer as intently as Stuart Felton.

  “I’m positive,” he said. “It all comes down to the timing. The person who ripped that page out killed Paul Davis. Obviously it wasn’t Jillian Wirth since you met with him after she’d gone.”

  “Yes,” Felton said, “but that still doesn’t rule out the guard.”

  “But it does. That evening you came and went like a shadow. Michael Johnson never saw you or your signature that night.”

  “That’s nothing but speculation.”

  “No, it’s simple logic. You got one thing right: Johnson did feel protective toward Jillian Wirth, but that’s what tells me he didn’t tear out that page.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re getting at, Detective Schiller.”

  “If Johnson had removed that page, he’d have seen both your names on it. Once he realized you’d been in the building after she left—”

  “Hell, yeah,” Waverly said, catching his drift. “If he’d seen that, he’d have coughed your name up to us like a fur ball.” A Cheshire cat grin spread across Waverly’s face. “And besides, why would he bother to haul the book away when he could rip that page out right there?”

  At Waverly’s simpler deduction, Ray turned toward him with a grudging smile and a thumbs up.

  “Just sayin’…” Waverly said.

  Felton stammered a reply. “I…but…there must be some other explanation.”

  Ray stood. “I think we’d better continue this discussion at the station.”

  Felton pulled the pocket square from his suit jacket and raised it to his forehead. Three pairs of eyes followed the progress of an object as it fell from the folds of the fabric.

  Tink, tink, tink.

  It bounced across Felton’s desk. The small, cylindrical piece of metal continued its journey over the edge and rolled under Waverly’s chair. Waverly started to get up, but Ray reached down and got to it first. He rose with a brass shell casing pinched between his thumb and index finger held up for Waverly to see.

  “Nine millimeter,” Ray said. He gave it a little toss and snatched it out of the air with the palm of his hand. “Any chance forensics will confirm this came from Ed Costales’s gun, Mr. Felton?”

  They turned toward the executive in time to see him level a gun at Ray’s chest.

  “Well,” Ray said, “I guess that says it all.”

  36

  “Gentlemen, may I trouble you for your weapons?” Felton tapped the top of his desktop.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Waverly said. “You don’t want to do this.”

  “Look,” Ray told him, “put the gun down. You’re only making things worse. Talk to us. Maybe we can help you.”

  “You must be joking.” Felton motioned for their guns. “Please, don’t make me ask again.”

  They relinquished their weapons and watched as he slipped them into the same drawer that had held his own. Waverly edged forward in his seat, but Felton waggled the gun in his direction, issuing a wordless warning.

  “I’m afraid I have to ask for your cell phones, too.”

  Ray tossed his down on Felton’s desk. “So what now?”

  After a moment’s thought, Felton said, “The three of us are going to leave the building together.” He motioned for Waverly’s phone.

  Waverly handed it over, asking, “What’ve you got in mind?”

  “Just do as I say.” He slid both cell phones into the drawer beside their weapons and motioned for Waverly to join Ray. “I suggest you cooperate; I don’t want to hurt either of you.” Stepping from behind his desk, he stood in front of them. “We’re going for a ride.”

  “Where to?”

  “You’ll see, Detective Waverly.” His back to the door, Felton issued instructions. “Once we’re in the hallway, we’re going to take the staircase to a side door exit.” He stepped aside, making a point of displaying the gun before tucking it and his hand inside his jacket pocket. Giving them a wide berth, he motioned them to the door. “Please…don’t test me. No tricks—no heroics.” The three of them stepped into the outer office as Ray opened the door.

  “Bernice,” Felton said, “cancel my appointments, will you? I’ll see you tomorrow. Have a nice day.”

  “Thank you, sir. You too.”

  “Gentlemen, shall we?”

  Ray and Waverly walked ahead of Felton and entered the stairwell.

  “It’s an awfully long way down,” Waverly said, looking over the railing.

  “Only eleven flights,” Felton said.

  “Better down than up, I suppose,” Waverly grumbled.

  They descended floor after floor as Felton followed ten steps behind—too far away to be taken by surprise, too close for them to dodge a bullet.

  At the third floor landing, Waverly panted to a stop and turned. “Hold it a second. Either we stop for a minute so I can catch my breath, or you’re gonna have to gun me down here and now.”

  “Keep moving, Detective.”

  Waverly sat down. “Sorry. Can’t. I’m not going anywhere unless you expect Ray to haul my ass piggyback the rest of the way.”

  “You’ve got ten seconds.”

  Ray climbed two steps, trying to close the gap between himself and Felton. “Let him catch his breath, damn it.”

  Backing up, Felton thrust the gun in Ray’s direction. “Step back. As for you, Detective Waverly, you’ll have time to recuperate once we’re in my car.”

  “I guess that would depend on how far you’re planning to take us.”

  “Far enough, Detective.”

  Giving Ray an ‘I tried’ shake of the head, Waverly grabbed the railing and hoisted himself to his feet. Three floors later, a wave of summer heat washed over them as they stepped outside.


  “Walk toward the front door,” Felton told them. “My car is the silver LaCrosse.” They walked to his reserved parking space, awaiting further instructions. He nodded at Ray. “You’ll drive, Detective Schiller. Your partner and I will ride in the back. I’ll give you directions as we go.”

  As they approached the car, Ray anticipated Felton’s next move. In one fluid motion, he unsnapped his handcuffs from their case and flung them across the lot. At the sound of metal clattering against asphalt, Felton looked up in time to see them slide under a blue SUV several rows away. “I’d have felt more comfortable with you cuffed to the steering wheel, but that won’t change anything. If you care about your partner’s well-being, I trust you won’t try anything else. Get behind the wheel, please.”

  With Ray in the driver’s seat, Felton accompanied Waverly to the other side of the car. “Slide in behind your partner, Detective Waverly.” As he complied, Felton supervised from outside the open door. With only a single set of handcuffs at his disposal, Felton directed Ray to turn around and cuff Waverly’s wrists behind his back. As Ray faced forward again, Felton got in to Waverly’s right and passed the ignition key forward.

  “Get us onto I-94 West.”

  “And then?”

  “That’s all you need to know for now.”

  Ray maneuvered through the Minneapolis traffic, glancing in the rearview mirror. “Why did you kill Paul Davis?”

  Sighing, Felton shook his head almost imperceptibly. “Obviously, denying it would be pointless. Nothing I did was planned. There was bound to be evidence left behind.” He waited for confirmation that didn’t come.

  “You didn’t answer the question,” Ray said, pushing for more. “I want to know why you killed him.”

  “It was self-defense.”

  “Gimme a break,” Waverly grumbled.

  “Maybe not self-defense in the customary sense, but I assure you it’s true in its own way.”

  “I’ve met my share of cold-blooded killers,” Waverly told him, “and I admit you don’t seem like the type.”

  “Thank you for that.”

  “Hey, what do I know? Maybe it was self-defense,” Waverly said. “Talk to us. We’ll listen. It’s not like we’ve got anything else going on right now.”