Web of Silence: A Ray Schiller Novel (The Ray Schiller Series Book 4)

by Marjorie Doering

  “Good,” Ray said. “So, your ex-wife and son are missing. What makes you think it’s a case of parental abduction?”

  “I arranged to pick my son up at my ex-wife’s house at nine yesterday morning,” Dunn told him. “When I got there, they were both gone. No one I’ve spoken to has seen or heard from Ellie since Friday night. We’ve got a custody hearing coming up soon, and I think she may have panicked and taken Nathan.”

  Nathan. Ray sighed. The urge to jump to an obvious conclusion was strong, but the boy at the theater could be someone else’s Nathan. “Do you have a picture of your son and ex-wife with you?”

  “I left them with the other—” Dunn stopped. “Oh, hang on. I’ve got more in my wallet.” Dunn whipped the billfold out of his suit jacket, flipped it open and held the photo insert in front of Ray. “This is Nathan on his last birthday.” He flipped to another picture. “Here’s a studio shot of him with Ellie.”

  The photos confirmed Ray’s suspicions. Dunn’s son was the boy in the theater, and the woman in a coma at HCMC was Nathan’s mother. The second photograph showed her cheek resting against their son’s right temple. Her smile was dazzling, her eyes bright. The pose, with her chin tipped slightly downward, effectively hid the scar Ray had seen on her throat at the hospital the night before.

  Dunn started to move on to the next picture. “And this one is—”

  “I’ve seen enough,” Ray told him. “Your son’s a good-looking boy.”

  “Thanks. He looks like his mother,” Dunn said.

  “He’s got your eyes.”

  “So,” Dunn said, “what can I tell you that I didn’t already tell the other officer?”

  “A lot. But I’m looking for a different kind of information.” Ray paused, deciding how to approach the subject. “I know where your son and ex-wife are, Mr. Dunn.”

  “You’ve found them? Thank God. Where are they? Are they all right?”

  Ray couldn’t decide if Dunn’s emotional response was the real thing or nothing more than a convincing act.

  “Let’s take this one step at a time. Your ex-wife is in stable condition at the Hennepin County Medical Center.”

  “Stable condition?” He leapt to his feet. “What happened to her? Is Nathan hurt?”

  “Your son is fine. He’s been placed in the care of Child Welfare for now.”

  “Child Welfare? I’m his father. What’s the matter with you people? If he’s all right, why wasn’t he turned over to me?”

  “If you want the details, take a seat and calm down,” Ray told him.

  Dunn lowered himself onto the chair again. “Okay, now tell me what happened.”

  “The details aren’t clear at this point,” Ray admitted. “Late Friday night or early Saturday morning, there was a shooting a couple of blocks from here—a man and a woman. The man was killed. The woman was your ex-wife. She must’ve been left for dead.”

  “A shooting? Why didn’t anyone contact me?”

  “I’m getting to that,” Ray said. “All of their personal belongings were missing: purse, wallet, cell phones, anything that might’ve helped determine who they were. We couldn’t identify either of them.”

  Dunn’s chest deflated like a defective balloon. “Then it was a mugging.”

  “Possibly.”

  “What else could it be?” Dunn’s nostrils flared. “If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck—”

  “Then, yeah, it could be a duck,” Ray said, “or it could just be a convincing decoy.” The focus of the interview shifted with his next remark. “For the record, I’d like to know where you were late Friday night and early Saturday morning.”

  Dunn looked at the running tape recorder. A vein began throbbing in his temple. “I must be really dense or something. You think I had something to do with what happened to her and that man.”

  “It’s too soon for me to reach that conclusion.” Ray leaned back in his chair, his fingers interlocked across his lean stomach. “Under the circumstances, that’s something I have to consider. You’re divorced, contesting your custody arrangements, and that’s just for starters.”

  “That doesn’t mean I shot anyone.”

  “You pay child support?” Ray asked.

  “Like clockwork. Every month. On time.”

  “And alimony, Mr. Dunn?”

  “I pay spousal support, yes, and with the same consistency.”

  “I’ve seen your TV ads,” Ray told him. “You’re a successful business owner so I imagine those figures are pretty steep.”

  “The money’s not an issue.”

  It’s always an issue.

  “Look, my business is doing great and it’s only getting better. Ellie is welcome to the damned money.”

  Dunn’s comment had Ray wondering if he had read his mind. “Was it a contentious divorce?”

  “Compared to the last two years of our marriage, it was a breeze.” Dunn edged up to the front of his seat. “Detective, I have no reason to want Ellie hurt or dead. I still love my ex-wife. If I could get her back and start over again, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

  “After a divorce, feelings don’t go away just like that. Hate, jealousy, love… Sometimes those emotions create serious problems.”

  Dunn sank against the back of his chair. “You’ve got me between a rock and a hard place. No matter what I say, you’re going to try to pin this on me by swapping out motives. Do I need a lawyer?”

  “You’re not under arrest, but if you feel the need to resort to legal representation—”

  “Look, Detective, I’ve never blamed Ellie for calling it quits. I’m the one who messed up and had an affair. What I need for you to understand is that I love her—enough to want her back, but enough to let her go, if that’s what she wants. She deserves to be happy. I’d prefer that it be with me, but if she fell in love with someone else, I could handle it—as long as the man was someone who would be good for my son, too.”

  Ray heard all the right things coming from Dunn, but the man was a salesman. Charming. Intelligent. Convincing. He moved on. “What has your relationship been like since the divorce?”

  “It’s been… cordial.”

  “No restraining orders or anything along those lines?”

  “No. No, nothing like that,” Dunn said, scowling. “Like I told you, I’m not out to get Ellie.”

  “Then again,” Ray pointed out, “in a court hearing, a report of parental abduction filed against her could work in your favor.”

  “I had no an ulterior motive for filing the report. With Ellie and Nathan both disappearing together like that, naturally my concern was that she’d taken him and run.”

  Ray leaned forward with his forearms on the table. “Tell me about this past weekend.”

  “Fine,” Dunn said. “I ran into a problem on Friday so I asked Ellie to keep Nathan for the night. It’s only the second time I’ve done that in two years. I told her I’d pick him up at nine Saturday morning, but when I got there they were gone. I waited in my car for nearly an hour and texted her a dozen times, but she never got back to me. By afternoon, I started calling around, hoping someone would know where she’d gone. No one could tell me.”

  “Had she ever done that before?”

  Dunn cleared his throat. “Well, she’s shown up late a couple of times when we’ve made the exchange, but she never totally vanished before. I was ready to file a report last night, but her friend Rachel talked me into waiting.”

  “Didn’t it occur to you that something else could’ve happened—that there might’ve been an accident, or even a kidnapping? Considering you’re a local celebrity of sorts, someone might’ve seen your family as a means to making a small fortune.”

  “Neither of those things even occurred to me.” His eyes darted left and right. “If someone had kidnapped them, I’d have received a ransom demand.”

  “That doesn’t always happen immediately.” Ray gauged Dunn’s reaction.

  “Okay, but if they’d been in an accide
nt, I’d have been notified. Ellie always carries emergency information in her purse.” His shoulders slumped. “I suppose she might’ve taken me off her list of contacts, but someone would’ve contacted her mother and I’m sure she would’ve called me.”

  “So you didn’t check the hospitals.”

  “No. It just never dawned on me that…” He swallowed hard.

  “When you turn your son over to one another, are the exchanges antagonistic?”

  “Not at all.” He seemed to reconsider. “Okay, we’ve had our share of squabbles, but nothing serious. Ellie and I agree that Nathan needs both of us in his life… as parents, not adversaries. We disagree on how we share his time, that’s all.”

  Ray gave that some thought. “Then why would you assume she’d abducted him?”

  “I think Ellie realizes there’s a good chance of the hearing going my way, and she’d have a very hard time dealing with that.”

  “Why? Is there some reason for her to be concerned about the time you spend with your son? Do you gamble, drink, do drugs, womanize?”

  Dunn’s expression soured. “No. I don’t gamble and I only drink socially. Drugs? Never.”

  “That leaves womanizing.”

  “Look, I told you I had an affair. One. That doesn’t make me a womanizer. I love my son, Detective, and I’m a very good father. Even Ellie would tell you that.”

  “No concern about any sort of sexual impropriety when it comes to—”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Ray’s brow furrowed. “Assuming all that’s true, maybe she’s afraid you plan to go for sole custody eventually.”

  “I’d love to have my son with me all the time, but even if I thought I stood a chance of making that happen, I wouldn’t try. Nathan might be better off with me, but losing him would just about kill Ellie. I would never put her through that.”

  Better off? The image of the frightened, pajama-clad four year old flashed through Ray’s mind again. “Mr. Dunn, your ex-wife… What kind of mother is she?”

  Dunn fidgeted in his seat. “She’s the best.”

  A silence stretched between them.

  “Then why do you say your son might be better off with you?”

  Dunn’s demeanor shifted from accommodating to uncomfortable. “There’s something you don’t understand, Detective. Ellie can’t speak—hasn’t been able to for nearly four years now. Since our divorce two years ago, by and large, Nathan has been growing up unexposed to normal daily verbal communication, and it’s having a negative effect. He chooses not to talk.”

  “But your son can talk. I’ve heard him.”

  “It’s not that he can’t, but he chooses not to, especially around strangers.”

  “So even under normal circumstances, he might not have spoken to us,” Ray said.

  “Right. Ellie does what she can to get him to speak, but it’s like pulling teeth.” A barely audible moan came from Dunn. “I can’t imagine how seeing his mother shot is going to affect him.”

  “Mr. Dunn, your son wasn’t with her when it happened.”

  “Wasn’t with her?” Dunn’s alternating relief, confusion and worry registered in a fluid shift of his features. “Thank God. But… if Nathan wasn’t with Ellie, where was he?”

  “Your son was found alone in a movie theater late Saturday morning. He was wearing pajamas, nothing else.”

  The color drained out of Dave Dunn’s face. He shook his head. “That can’t be.”

  “Mr. Dunn, I have no reason to lie about it. All we could get out of him was his first name and that his mother told him to stay there. We had no idea who he was, so we had no choice but to turn him over to Child Protective Services.”

  Dunn’s head was bowed, his eyes pointlessly scanning the tabletop in front of him.

  “Mr. Dunn,” Ray said, “you say your wife is a good mother—”

  “Not a good mother, an excellent mother.”

  “Okay, but I’m having a hard time equating that with leaving a four-year-old child on his own in a theater.”

  Dunn sprang forward. “Ellie would never do that.”

  “But she did,” Ray said. “The cleaning crew came in the next day and found him. He was hungry, tired, and definitely alone. She left him in that theater on his own.”

  “That’s crazy,” he insisted.

  “I understand it may be hard for you to accept, but I know of cases where children were left alone for hours while their mothers supposedly went to buy a pack of cigarettes or whatever. Others get left in locked cars so the mother can go barhopping all night with a boyfriend. The list goes on and on. It happens every day. You may not want to believe it, but it’s true.”

  “Not when it comes to Ellie. That would never even cross her mind. Nathan means the world to her.”

  “The fact is, on Friday night your wife… ex-wife… was seen bringing Nathan into that theater. She left without him.”

  Dunn’s body seemed to sag in on itself. “Pajamas…” He shook his head. “Even that doesn’t make sense. Ellie always dresses him meticulously.”

  “You can’t be sure what goes on when you’re not around.”

  “I suppose that’s true, but I can’t believe she did what you’re saying. Except for Nathan’s reluctance to speak, I’ve never had any concerns about leaving him in Ellie’s care.”

  “Things may have changed since the divorce. She wouldn’t be the first woman to turn to alcohol or drugs to help her cope with stress.”

  “Bull. I don’t believe that—not for a minute—not of Ellie. You don’t know her.”

  Ray stood and planted his palms on the table. “If she’s such a great mother, and you’re such a wonderful father, why would she refuse to give you equal time with your son if it would be in the boy’s best interest?”

  “With Nathan starting preschool, she’s convinced he’ll come out of his shell. She even signed him up on a full-time basis rather than part-time to increase his exposure to other kids.”

  “But why deny you equal time with him?”

  Dunn heaved a heavy sigh. “Ellie still resents me.”

  “For your affair, you mean?”

  “I think that’s secondary at this point. Ellie still blames me for her losing her voice.”

  The issue had come full circle, albeit by the back door.

  “About four years ago, everything changed between us. Thirty lousy seconds virtually destroyed our marriage.” Dunn held his head in his hands. “When Nathan was six months old, we took him on a trip out of state. Just shy of our destination, I stopped for gas. When I went inside to pay, that’s when everything began to fall apart. A carjacker came out of nowhere. When Ellie struggled with him, he pulled out a switchblade and slashed her throat. I tried, but I couldn’t get there in time to prevent it.”

  “And she blames you for that?”

  “Not on a conscious level maybe, but, yes, I think she does.” He looked Ray in the eye. “The attack itself was bad enough. She was plagued by nightmares afterward—developed trust issues. That was hard enough, but losing her voice… That devastated her. Our relationship slid downhill pretty fast. Lack of communication, you know? No pun intended.”

  He chuckled without a hint of humor. “We’d never had trouble communicating before. There’d always been an easy sort of give-and-take between us. After the attack there were times

  I’d rattle on and on about one thing or another like I’d always done before, and I’d get a ten-word text message in reply. That’s not the kind of communication either of us was used to. None of that was her fault, but between her resentment, my sense of guilt, and not being able to connect with each other the way we used to…”

  “So you found someone else,” Ray said.

  Dunn’s eyes narrowed. If looks could kill, Ray could have arrested him then and there for attempted murder.

  “Look, Detective, I didn’t go looking for someone else. I wasn’t trying to find a replacement for Ellie. Didn’t want one. Things just happened a
nd eventually…” Dunn took a deep breath. “At first I thought sign language could bridge the gap. I figured Ellie could learn how to use it, and I could learn to understand it, but that doesn’t happen overnight. We got sucked into a ‘black hole’ so fast, our marriage wound up in the ditch before we knew what hit us.” Dunn closed his eyes. “Neither of us wanted Nathan getting caught up in our issues, so we parted ways. Now this happens.”

  From experience Ray had learned well-meant advice had little place in an interrogation room. The best he could offer was a bit of reassurance. “Kids tend to bounce back pretty fast. He may handle it better than you think.”

  “Look, Detective, if we’re done here—”

  “Not quite. I need contact information for Ellen’s friends and relatives.”

  “It’s Elena actually,” Dunn said, correcting him. “I don’t see what good it will do for you to talk to them. What could they possibly tell you about the mugging?”

  Ray said, “Unless or until we’re ready to make mugging our official call, we’re looking at other possibilities.” He handed a paper and pen to Dunn. “You can put the numbers and addresses on here.” He watched him scrawl down the information and said, “You still haven’t told me where you were late Friday night and early Saturday morning.”

  Dunn bristled. “Look,” he said, “on Friday the bookkeeper at my dealership in St. Paul found a couple of glitches. We stayed at the office and went over everything item by item together. We kept at it until about ten after eleven.”

  “To get from there to the crime scene, it’s maybe thirty minutes,” Ray said. “Without traffic at that time of night, only fifteen. That doesn’t help you out much.”

  Dunn shook his head. “I don’t know what more I can tell you. I had nothing to do with what happened. I can give you my bookkeeper’s name and number, if you like. Check with him.”

  “I plan to. After you finished crunching numbers, what did you do?”

  “I went straight home to bed.”

  “I can’t take your word for that. You understand that, right? Was anyone at your place with you—your girlfriend, someone else maybe?”

  Dunn ran a hand over his dark hair. “No one. And there is no girlfriend.”