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

by Marjorie Doering

  He and Waverly parked in the lot at the sporting goods store under a huge overhead sign that read F.S. Sporting Goods.

  “F.S.,” Waverly mumbled as they walked to the entrance. “Frank Schwartz’s Sporting Goods. The man’s got the imagination of a kumquat.”

  Ray walked into the store’s immense interior and spotted an employee, easily identified by a blaze orange vest.

  As they approached him, Waverly snickered. “I’ll say one thing for Schwartz: he knows how to make his clerks easy to find.”

  “Can I help you?” The smile on the male’s twentyish face looked forced—motivated by policy not personal preference.

  “Where can we find Mr. Schwartz?” Ray asked.

  The smile disappeared entirely as he pointed to the back of the store. “He’s in his office.” Turn left inside the hallway. It’s the first door on the right.” He gave them a blatant once-over. “You’re cops, right?”

  Waverly’s eyebrows shot up. “Is it tattooed on our foreheads or something?”

  “No, but when two men in suits approach me and they’re not carrying religious pamphlets, odds are they’re cops. What did Schwartz do?”

  “Nothing that I know of,” Waverly said. “You have something against your boss?”

  The employee smirked. “Only that he’s a cheap jackass. We just got a pay raise, the first in more than two years. Ten cents. A lousy, stinking dime.” The clerk pointed at the embroidered ‘F.S.’ in the F.S. Sporting Goods’ emblem sewn on his vest. “Most of us would tell you the F.S. stands for… well, something else. You can figure it out.”

  “A skinflint, huh?” Waverly said.

  The clerk snorted. “Until his wife set him straight, he used to make us pay for the coffee in the breakroom. We haven’t seen her around for months, but she was pretty cool. She used to bring doughnuts in for us once in a while.”

  “They divorced.” Ray told him.

  The clerk sighed. “That’s no surprise. We guessed it was something like that.” He looked past them at a customer waving to get his attention. “Excuse me. I’ve gotta go.”

  “So Schwartz is a cheapskate,” Waverly said as they walked to the back of the store.

  “That pretty much confirms Rachel Beatty’s account of Frank Schwartz’s ‘What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine,’ approach to money handling. No wonder they divorced. The two of them had to be like oil and water.”

  As they reached the hallway at the back, Frank Schwartz almost walked into them as he came around the corner with his face buried in a sheaf of papers. “Oh,” he said, startled. “Detective… Skyler and… um…”

  “Schiller and Waverly,” Ray said. “Do you have a minute?”

  Schwartz’s face paled as he stepped back. “Certainly. Come into my office,” he said, leading the way.

  The room was small and plain—not a picture on the walls or a plant to create a warmer atmosphere, just a large mirror to create the illusion it was roomier.

  Schwartz walked behind his desk and motioned toward the chairs opposite him. “Have a seat.”

  “You seem upset,” Waverly said. “Problem?”

  “Just business affairs. You know how it goes.” He offered a wilted smile. “How is Elena Dunn doing? Better, I hope.”

  “She’s improving,” Waverly told him, “but she’s still in a coma.”

  “I see.”

  A silence stretched between them like a supple piece of taffy.

  Reluctantly, Ray got to the point. “Mr. Schwartz, your ex-wife—”

  “I’m afraid I haven’t seen or spoken with Georgia yet. I can’t imagine where she’s run off to this time.”

  “Mr. Schwartz,” Ray said. “I’m very sorry to tell you this, but your ex-wife is dead.”

  Schwartz sat back in his chair. “Dead?” His brown eyes made the short hop between them. “When? Where?”

  “Late Friday night.”

  “Friday night? All this time nobody knew?”

  “Her body was just discovered at Elena Dunn’s home today,” Ray said. “We’re very sorry for your loss.”

  “Elena Dunn’s house?” His jaw dropped, leaving his lips parted as he sucked in a deep breath. “Didn’t you tell me it was Friday Elena was shot in that mugging?”

  “Right,” Waverly said. “But it wasn’t a mugging, and there seems to be a definite connection between the two incidents.”

  Schwartz covered his face with a hand. “But… but who would shoot Georgia?”

  Ray’s eyes narrowed. “Did we say she was shot?”

  Schwartz let his hand drop. “No, but you… you said there was a connection between Elena’s shooting and Georgia’s death. I assumed that meant Georgia was shot, too. Am I wrong.”

  “No, you’re not wrong.” It was a reasonable assumption, Ray decided. He tried to keep his voice level. “Where were you on Friday night?”

  Schwartz ran a hand over his brow. “I was at my cabin at Pelican Lake all week. I told you that on Monday.”

  “Doing a little fishing?” Waverly asked.

  “That’s right.”

  “Catch anything?”

  Schwartz shook his head.

  “Is there anyone who can vouch for your whereabouts that night?”

  “I was there alone, Detective Waverly.” A moment later, he added, “Wait. Friday night… The Cormorant Pub… I had supper there. In fact, I ate there every night.”

  “The Cormorant Pub?” Waverly said. “Where’s that?”

  “In Pelican Rapids.”

  “All right,” Waverly said. “And where the heck is that?”

  “A few miles from Pelican Lake… four or five maybe. You can ask the staff. I was there.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll check it out,” Waverly told him.

  Schwartz braced his head in the palm of one hand and sighed. “Poor Georgia. For her to be killed by mistake like that…”

  Ray jumped on it. “What do you mean by mistake?”

  “It had to be a mistake, didn’t it?” Schwartz let go of his head and started drumming his fingers on the desktop. “If someone intended to kill Georgia, what sense would it make to go to Elena’s house do it?” When they didn’t reply, he added, “They looked alike, you know… Elena and Georgia. Blond. About the same age. Same build.” He started fumbling for his wallet. “I can show you a picture of her, if you want to see for yourselves.”

  “We found pictures of her in an album at Elena Dunn’s house,” Ray said. “We agree there’s a resemblance.”

  Schwartz abandoned the search for his wallet and pulled out a handkerchief. “I can’t believe this.” He bowed his head and brought the handkerchief to his eyes. “I thought Georgia was just out doing her thing. She was always so free-spirited.”

  “Mr. Schwartz,” Waverly began, “when was the last time you saw her?”

  “I can’t talk about this—not right now.”

  “Mr. Schwartz—”

  “No more. Not now.”

  “All right then,” Ray said, “but we’re going to need a formal statement from you. We’d like to get it as soon as possible. Tomorrow?”

  He kept his head down. “All right. In the meantime, why don’t you go harass someone else? In case you don’t already know this, I wasn’t Georgia’s only ex-husband.”

  “We’re aware of that,” Ray said.

  Ray and Waverly rose in unison.

  On the way to the door, Ray turned and said, “Again, you have our condolences.” He hoped to catch another look at Schwartz’s face, but he his head was still bowed, the handkerchief to his eyes.

  Ray wished he could grab it and do a dampness check.

  He and Waverly reentered the sales area crammed with aisle upon aisle of every imaginable sports and camping item and accessory. Ray stopped briefly and thumbed through a book that caught his eye.

  Waverly read the cover. “Pie Iron Recipes. Darren Kirby.” He tapped the cover. “Planning to do some campfire cooking?” he asked.

&nb
sp; “Yeah. Maybe next spring or summer with Gail and the kids.” Ray made a mental note of the title and author, then put the book back. “I’ll have to remember that one.”

  Waverly poked Ray with his elbow and jerked his head toward a spot near the front of the store where a group of blaze orange-vested employees stood in a huddle. “Word gets around fast, doesn’t it? Standing together like that, they look like a gigantic, fluorescent pumpkin. Maybe they hoped to have a ring-side seat in case we hauled their boss away in handcuffs for something. Wanna go have a word with them?”

  “If we need to, we can do that later,” Ray said, checking his watch. “We’d better get back. We’ve got Christine Dahl coming in, remember?”

  “Christine…”

  “Dahl,” Ray said. “Elena Dunn’s friend—the one who was out of town, remember? She returned the call I left on her answering machine the other day. I told you.”

  “No you didn’t.”

  He had, but it didn’t surprise Ray that he’d forgotten. Waverly obviously had a lot on his mind—a lot he was determined not to open up about. It was like a grain of sand in an oyster’s shell, only nothing good was likely to come out of it—no pearl, just a growing irritation.

  “Let’s get the interview with Dahl out of the way, then we can talk to Dunn again—find out if there’s a car missing from his lot.”

  “Okay,” Waverly said as they left the building, “let’s get back to the station.”

  Ray glanced at him. “Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Burke and the rest of the guys are going to have a field day over that naked lip of yours.”

  “Crap. I forgot about that.” He got into the car beside Ray and buckled up. “No point in putting it off, I guess. Let’s go.”

  28

  It took the better part of an hour before the wisecracks about Waverly’s missing mustache began to dry up; the “well” had been deep. By morning the other detectives would probably come up with new material, but Waverly would have time to add new and more creative ways to string epithets together.

  Christine Dahl was a no-show, or seriously late—a woman’s prerogative, Waverly had suggested. They spent the time whittling away at an increasing pile of paperwork.

  “Damn it.”

  “What’s wrong, buddy?”

  “The phone records… The texts from Georgia Schwartz and Elena Dunn’s cell phones…” Ray said. “Who stuck them under all this crap?”

  “Never mind about that,” Waverly said. “Let’s check them out and see what we’ve got.”

  After going through the phone records, Waverly braced himself for a round of ridicule from Captain Roth. As they entered his office, Roth looked at Waverly, dropped against the back of his chair, and exhaled loudly without comment.

  “So, to what do I owe this questionable pleasure?” Roth said.

  “We’ve got an update for you,” Waverly told him.

  Roth leaned forward. “The Dunn and Lundquist case?” They had his attention.

  “We’ve just gone over the phone and text records,” Ray said.

  “And?”

  “We got a big fat zero,” Waverly announced. “There’s no indication that Lundquist and

  Dunn ever called or texted one another. Not once.”

  Ray tossed the records on Roth’s desk. “Elena Dunn’s texts were limited mostly to friends, some to her mother, a few to Derek Printz, the guy we told you about, but he’s in the clear.”

  Roth snagged the papers up, casually flipping pages. “And Lundquist’s texts and calls?”

  “Mostly to family and some friends in Florida,” Ray told him. “There were a few miscellaneous calls to a clinic and his dentist—short calls, to make appointments most likely. There’s nothing that hints she and Lundquist even knew each other.”

  Roth’s eyes lifted off the page he’d been studying. “So where does that leave your case?”

  “Nowhere when it comes to Elena Dunn and Lundquist.” Ray sat on the edge of a chair, his forearms resting on his knees. “As far as Georgia Schwartz is concerned, it looks like she was shot when she answered the door at Elena Dunn’s house. We think the shooter may have mistaken her for Elena Dunn.”

  “And if it wasn’t a case of mistaken identity?” Roth asked.

  “The killer chased after the Dunn woman, either because she was the intended target to begin with or because she’d become a witness. In any case, she got herself and her son into her car and made it downtown before he caught up.”

  Waverly took over, explaining everything they’d learned.

  Ray finished up the narrative, saying, “When the engine seized up, she rushed her son into the theater, left him there and got as far as that alley on Sixth Street before getting shot. Our best guess, as of thirty minutes ago, is that she may have left the boy in order to draw the killer away for her son’s protection.”

  “You’re not getting paid to guess, Schiller.” Roth twisted a pen back and forth between his fingers. His eyes settled on Waverly. “And this is the woman you’ve been claiming was a drunk.”

  “Drunk, Captain, not a drunk… not necessarily, anyway.”

  “This is a long way from your original theory,” Roth said.

  “We know that,” Ray told him, “but it’s where the evidence is leading us. Since there’s no indication the Dunn woman and Lundquist even knew each other, it’s possible… maybe even probably that Lundquist was just walking down the street and got hit by a bullet meant for her.”

  “That’s just great, Schiller. You two have Lundquist’s widow thinking her husband was a lying, cheating scumbag, and made Elena Dunn out to be a drunken, child abuser.” He muttered something indecipherable under his breath. “This car… the one the perp was allegedly driving on Friday night… What’ve you two geniuses got on that?”

  “A sedan,” Waverly said. “A navy-blue Buick. It still had the sales info taped in a rear window, so it’s new or new-used, but it had to have come off a lot—maybe Dave Dunn’s.”

  Roth threw the pen he was holding on the desk. “One of your prime suspects owns two-car dealership where he sells Buicks among other things, and you’re sitting here? Why aren’t you over there checking it out?”

  “A friend of Elena Dunn’s is supposed to be coming in to be interviewed,” Waverly said. “She’s late. Once we’re done talking to her, Dave Dunn’s car dealership is next on our list.”

  “And after that?”

  “We’re playing it by ear,” Ray said. “They should be bringing Elena Dunn out of that coma anytime now. That could have a huge bearing on what comes next.”

  Roth leaned to one side to look past Waverly. “Any chance that’s the woman you’re waiting for?”

  Ray and Waverly turned in unison to look.

  “Burke’s pointing her in the direction of my desk,” Ray said. “That’s probably her.”

  “Then get out of here, both of you. Get busy.”

  They intercepted her on their way out of Roth’s office.

  “Ms. Dahl?” Ray said.

  “Yes. Are you Detective Schiller?”

  “I am, and this is Detective Waverly.”

  Waverly nodded an acknowledgment.

  Christine Dahl was pretty. Every strand of her chestnut-colored hair was in place, her makeup perfectly applied, still, her eyes hinted that she wasn’t well-rested. Dahl seemed rattled by the activity surrounding them.

  “What do you say we go talk where we can hear ourselves think?” Waverly said.

  “Yes, good. I’m a little on edge. I haven’t slept well since I heard about Elena.”

  Ray led the way, opened the door to the interview room and motioned her inside to a seat behind the small table.

  As she settled in her chair, she tucked the short skirt she was wearing under her shapely legs. “I’ll be glad to help you if I can, but I don’t really understand what it is you think I can tell you. I was in Milwaukee when Elena and th
at man were mugged. I was going to come back, but Rachel suggested I wait. She said there was no point in cutting my trip short with Elena in a coma and all. She is going to be okay, right? I mean, that hasn’t changed, has it?”

  “No,” Ray said. “It sounds like they’re planning to bring her out of it in the next day or two.”

  “Oh, thank God.”

  “Before we go any farther, I’m afraid we have other news.” With a subtle look, Ray pitched the ball into Waverly’s court. His turn.

  “Ms. Dahl,” he said, “I’m sorry to tell you this, but Georgia Schwartz was found dead in Elena Dunn’s house this morning.”

  “What?” Her eyes flooded before the next word found its way out of her mouth. “Georgia? How? I mean, what happened to her?” Tears spilled down her cheeks as she dug inside her purse for a tissue.”

  Waverly hooked his index finger over his upper lip, his thumb under his chin. “She and your friend Elena were both shot on Friday night. I’m very sorry.”

  “Oh, my God!” She dissolved in tears.

  “Would you like some water, Ms. Dahl?” Ray asked.

  She shook her head and began rocking herself. “Today is Wednesday.” A look of horror distorted her delicate features. “Oh, poor Georgia. She’d been dead all that time?”

  “Apparently,” Waverly said. “If it helps, I doubt she felt a thing. She must’ve died instantly.”

  Her shoulders heaved as she began sobbing.

  “Ms, Dahl,” Ray said, “I know this is very hard for you. Would you like a couple minutes to pull yourself together?”

  “Thank you, but if you don’t mind, I’d rather just get this over with.”

  She maintained her composure well into the interview before it began to erode again. “I don’t know what more I can tell you. Elena never mentioned that Lundquist man to me, and as far as Dave is concerned, I can’t see him going off the deep end like that. Maybe Elena was killed by a stalker or something.” She tossed the comment at them like a piece of candy lobbed from a Christmas parade float.

  “A stalker?” Waverly said. “Do you have something to base that on?”