Targeted: A Ray Schiller Novel (The Ray Schiller Series Book 3)

by Marjorie Doering

  As they headed upstairs again, Waverly added, “We had a female officer bag the robe and nightgown the Conley woman was wearing. We’ll see if the lab turns up any gunshot residue on the fabric.”

  “Yeah, good.”

  The attending officer stepped aside as they returned to the dining room. The suspect’s head was bowed, her dark hair obscuring her face.

  “Go ahead and take a break,” Ray told the cop. As the officer left, he turned to their suspect. “Mrs. Conley, I’m Detective Schiller.”

  A slow lift of her head exposed only a partial profile. She covered her mouth with both hands and turned toward him. Ray saw softly arched eyebrows and large, hazel eyes above her fingertips. As she rose from her chair, her hands dropped, her eyes wide with astonishment. “Ray… My God, it is you.”

  His jaw dropped. “Amy? Holy…” Caught midway between shock and disbelief, he reached out, hugged her, then, just as quickly, let go.

  Waverly cleared his throat. “I take it you two know each other.”

  Ray stepped back. “Amy, this is my partner, Dick Waverly. Dick, this is Amy Dexter.”

  “Amy Conley, Ray,” Waverly said. “We’ve already met, remember?”

  The heat of embarrassment crept up Ray’s neck. “Amy used to work at the Copper Kettle Café in Widmer. I was one of their steadiest customers.”

  “Uh-huh. Can I talk to you a minute?” Waverly turned and led the way into the living room. “Look, Ray, I know she’s a friend…or something, but—”

  “‘Friend’ covers it, so you can stop right there.”

  Waverly arched his eyebrows. “Okay, whatever you say, buddy.”

  “Knock it off, Dick.” Ray’s jaw muscles flexed. “Listen, I know this woman, and she’s not capable of killing anyone.”

  “Famous last words. And excuse me for pointing it out, but considering our line of work, it’s a stupid position for you to take. You damn well know better than to make that kind of assumption.” Waverly clamped a hand on Ray’s shoulder. “Hey, under normal circumstances you’ve got good instincts, but you’ve got some kind of history with this woman, and whatever it is, you’re letting it cloud your judgment.”

  “I told you, she’s a friend…that’s all.” He looked Waverly straight in the eye. “All I know is that this can’t be as cut and dried as it looks.”

  Waverly winced. “Buddy, you’re gonna have to step away from this one. There’s no way Captain Roth is gonna let you work this case; it has conflict of interest written all over it. You’re overlooking a ton of evidence based only on your…friendship. Roth’s gonna yank you.”

  Ray looked Waverly in the eye. “If he tries, I’ll fight him on it. I want in on this.”

  “I’m telling you, it’s not gonna happen.”

  “You’re probably right. Damn it,” Ray said. “Okay, look…if Roth’s going to pull me off the case, how about at least letting me have a chance to talk to Amy first? I want to know what she’s up against.”

  “And then what?”

  Ray headed back to the dining room. “I haven’t figured that out yet.”

  3

  Amy paced, tears welling in her eyes, as she waited for Ray to return. The stress added years to her twenty-eight-year-old face. “Ray,” she said the instant he and Waverly crossed the threshold, “I didn’t kill Hugh. I swear I had nothing to do with it. You believe me, don’t you?”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll get to the bottom of this.” He tapped the back of a chair. “Sit down and tell me exactly what happened.”

  Crime scene personnel drifted back and forth outside the room as she lowered herself onto the chair’s edge. “Right now, you probably know more than I do,” she said.

  “Just tell me whatever you can.”

  She stopped to gather her thoughts, then said, “I was in bed this morning and woke up to someone pounding on my front door.” She wrung her hands. “That’s…that’s when I found Hugh lying on the floor, bloody and…” He could see the horror behind her eyes. “For a second, I thought I was having a nightmare. I couldn’t breathe. When I heard more pounding on the door, I ran downstairs, hoping it was someone who could help him. When I opened the door, two officers pushed their way in. I don’t suppose I have to tell you what happened after that. That’s all I can remember, Ray.”

  “There’s got to be more.”

  She brushed a lock of dark hair behind an ear. The shoulder-length style was a drastic change from the pixie cut she’d had at the time he left Widmer for Minneapolis. Otherwise, she looked unchanged. Now forty-one, he doubted he’d fared as well.

  “Hugh wasn’t even here when I went to bed last night,” Amy said. “He and Larry Benedict were supposed to be on a plane to Florida to attend an insurance convention in Jacksonville today and tomorrow.”

  He jotted down notes as she talked. “Who’s Larry Benedict?”

  “Hugh’s business partner.” Amy clutched her elbows in the palms of both hands. “They made their partnership official yesterday. They booked a late flight because Larry hosted an after-hours office party to celebrate the occasion.”

  “So why did your husband come home?”

  “I don’t know. He wasn’t supposed to be back until late tomorrow.”

  Jingling the coins in his pocket, Waverly stepped closer. “A partnership. That’s a pretty big deal. Did you attend the party?” She shook her head. “Why not?”

  “We were getting a divorce. I told you that.”

  Waverly shrugged. “When it comes to stuff like that, I’ve seen couples who were at each other’s jugulars act like honeymooners just to keep up appearances.”

  “I doubted Hugh could keep up the pretense—not the way he felt about my filing for divorce. Once he’d had a few drinks, things were bound to turn ugly. By staying away I figured I’d be doing both of us a favor.”

  “Did your husband have a drinking problem?”

  “It’s more like I had a problem with his drinking, Detective. Hugh isn’t… wasn’t an alcoholic, but when he drank, he got mean.”

  “Was he abusive?” Ray asked.

  “Almost on a daily basis, but not physically. He always found things to pick at—ways to belittle me. Nothing I did pleased him. I wasn’t smart enough, or pretty enough. The way I cooked, cleaned, managed the household money—none of it met with his approval. After he’d had a few cocktails it always got worse.”

  “Was he drunk last night?”

  “Probably,” she said, “but I didn’t see him, so I can’t be sure, Ray.”

  He took her lack of hesitation as a good sign.

  On his walk-through, there hadn’t been any indications they had children: no toys, no child-sized beds, only a clean, tidy home, but he double-checked. “Any kids, Amy?”

  “No.”

  “From the size of this place I’d have thought—”

  “I know,” she said. “A house this size is meant for a mob of kids.”

  “I suppose you planned to have a family in the future.”

  She stared at her hands. “When Hugh made the offer on this house, I hoped he did it with that in mind. It was a short-lived hope,” Amy added. “When I brought it up, he said he had no intention of saddling himself with kids. To Hugh, this house was nothing but an investment property. Renovate, update, and sell for a nice profit—that’s all he had in mind for this place…my dream house.”

  Prompted by personal curiosity rather than an investigator’s need to know, a question leapt from Ray’s mouth. “Why’d you marry him?” Immediately he held his hands up, palms out. “Never mind, you don’t have to answer that.”

  “It’s okay.” She twisted her interlaced fingers as she said, “You know the saying ‘Marry in haste; repent in leisure?’” Pointing a finger at herself, Amy said, “Prime example right here. Hugh and I met and got married six weeks later. It seemed so right, but even before the wedding band felt at home on my finger, Hugh changed. I tried to make our marriage work, but a year and a half into our marri
age, I found out he was having an affair.”

  “Who was the woman?” Ray asked.

  “Hugh never told me.”

  “Must’ve made you madder than hell,” Waverly said.

  Amy narrowed her eyes. “I know what you’re getting at, Detective, but you’ve got it wrong. It made me angry enough to divorce Hugh, not angry enough to kill him.” She turned to Ray. “You don’t believe I did this, do you?”

  He started to reach out to give her shoulder a reassuring touch, but pulled his hand back. “No, I don’t, but the evidence isn’t looking good, Amy.” Waverly said her husband had been shot only feet from where she’d been sleeping, but Ray wanted to hear it from her. “Where were you when your husband was killed?”

  “In the master bedroom, asleep.”

  He gave her an A+ for honesty, but when it came to establishing a defense, she earned a failing grade.

  A man who could have been Ichabod Crane’s double came into the room. He spoke quietly to Waverly, who excused himself and followed the scarecrow of a man into the room Hugh Conley had used as a home office.

  Glad for the chance to speak to Amy alone, Ray leaned closer. “Don’t panic. We’ve still got a lot of ground to cover.”

  Waverly caught Ray’s eye from across the other room and signaled for him to join him.

  “Stay put,” Ray told her. “I’ll be right back.”

  He had trouble interpreting Waverly’s expression. “What’s going on, Dick?”

  “C’mere. There’s something you need to see.”

  ‘Ichabod’ stood at the desk where Conley’s laptop sat open alongside the office’s desktop computer monitor.

  “Ya wanna know why Conley came back last night?” Waverly moved aside to let Ray get a closer look. “Check this out for yourself.”

  Ray stepped around the desk and saw identical messages displayed on both screens: “Urgent you come home immediately. Please!”

  Using a gloved hand, the tech pointed out the matching dates and times. “The message sent to the victim’s laptop was sent from this computer, Detective Schiller. There’s no question about it.”

  Ray felt like he’d been sucker punched.

  “Sorry, buddy,” Waverly said. “It looks like you’ve put all your eggs in the wrong basket. Your friend out there sent her husband an S.O.S., waited for him to come home, then put three rounds in him.” Ray started away. “Hold it,” Waverly said. “There’s more. The techs just found a .38 caliber Beretta lying behind the dust ruffle under a corner of the bed. She must’ve dropped the gun once she was done with it.”

  Ray’s ice-blue eyes narrowed. “It’s too damn soon to be jumping to conclusions, don’t you think?”

  “Hey, I may be doing a little pole vaulting here, but I’m getting a better view from my perspective than you’re getting from yours.”

  “I know how bad things look, but there’s got to be something more…something we’re missing.”

  “Okay,” Waverly said, “when you figure out what the hell it is, you let me know, all right?” Waverly fingered his mustache. “By the way, Ray, one more thing. They checked out the cell phone lying next to the body. It’s Conley’s, and the call to Gary Bartlett last night definitely originated from that phone.” Waverly paused, letting the information sink in. “Conley must’ve dialed Bartlett’s number on his way up the stairs, then got blasted to kingdom come after Bartlett’s answering machine started recording. Poor bastard. Anyway, we couldn’t have asked for better timing. ”

  “Look, Amy’s not a killer.”

  “Hey, you’ve already made it clear where you stand. There’s no way you’re being objective about this. Captain Roth’s gonna see that; I already do and, damn it, like it or not, so do you. Roth’s gonna kick your ass so far off this case you’ll need binoculars to see it.”

  “You’ve already established that,” Ray told him. “Look, sometimes people get railroaded by so-called sound evidence. We both know it happens. I don’t intend to see Amy caught up in that kind of situation.”

  “Buddy, you oughta turn around and walk out of here right now. You’re wearing blinders. It looks like I’m gonna be working this case myself. If it makes you feel any better, I give you my word I’ll check every last detail under a microscope. Just let it go, will ya?”

  He looked Waverly dead in the eye. “Are you going to let me talk with her again before we go back to the station, or not?” When Waverly hesitated, he pressed for an answer. “Dick, I need to hear everything…straight from her lips.”

  “They’re nice lips.”

  “For the last time, there was nothing between us.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Damn it, Dick—”

  “All right, look. You go ahead and talk to her. Ask whatever you like. When you’re done, you walk out that door and leave the rest to me. Agreed?”

  “Do I have any other choice?”

  4

  Re-joining Amy, Ray sat down beside her, elbows on his knees. “Tell me everything about last night—every last thing you can remember.”

  “I already have.”

  He shook his head in frustration. “Then how about earlier in the day? What can you tell me about that?”

  Remembering seemed to take a lot of effort. “Well, after Hugh left, I spent most of the morning running errands. In the afternoon I started putting up new wall tiles in the half-bath on the second floor. After that—”

  “Hold it. Your husband was staying here? You said you were getting divorced.”

  “Until the divorce was final, I agreed to let him move to the third floor. It saved money, and with him staying up there, we barely saw each other.”

  More questions occurred to Ray, but he stayed on track. “So after the tiling job, then what?”

  “Around seven I cleaned up to go out with some friends.”

  “Good. Names?”

  “Jessica Hall and Nicole Wright. Nicki picked me up around eight, and the two of us met up with Jessie.”

  “I’ll need their addresses and phone numbers.”

  She rattled the numbers off from memory as Ray jotted them down in his notepad. Waverly did the same.

  “All right,” Ray said. “Where did you and your friends go?”

  “Gatsby’s. Do you know it?”

  “I know where it is.”

  “It’s pretty nice and only a couple of minutes away. Nicki and I and a bunch of other people met there to celebrate Jessie’s birthday.”

  “Can you give me their names and contact information?”

  “Sorry, I can’t. I hadn’t met most of them before last night.”

  “All right, we can get the information another way. What time did you get home?”

  “Sometime after ten, I think.”

  “Pinpoint it for me.”

  “About quarter after maybe. I’m not sure.”

  “Did you leave the house again after that, even for a few minutes?”

  “No, once I got home, I stayed put.”

  To Ray, that wasn’t good news. She’d just placed herself inside the house at the time the email message had been sent to her husband. “If you came home that early, it couldn’t have been much of a party.”

  “No, the party was great, but I started feeling sort of out of it and Nicki offered to drive me home.”

  “Were you drunk?” Ray hoped to hear she was blitzed out of her mind.

  She paused to think. “I’d barely started my second rum and coke, but maybe I was…just a little,” she said. “They were on the strong side, and I hadn’t eaten. I’m not much of a drinker in the first place, so it doesn’t take much to give me a buzz.”

  Ray backpedaled. “Are you sure about the time you got home? Think hard.”

  “Yes, I’m sure. When I got to my bedroom, I turned on the TV and the news was on.”

  “What station?”

  “WCCO I think. That’s the last thing I remember until I woke up this morning.”

  Ray turned to Waver
ly. “WCCO’s news is on from what…ten to ten thirty?”

  “That sounds right.”

  “And they repeat the news at what…midnight?”

  “Something like that,” Waverly said.

  Ray turned to Amy. “Maybe you saw the later broadcast.”

  She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Her friends oughta be able to tell us what time she left Gatsby’s,” Waverly said. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll check with them.”

  Ray turned to Amy again. “Did anyone come in with you?”

  “I was so groggy I don’t remember if Nicki came inside or not. I know she planned to go back to the party, though. The rest of the night, I was alone…at least until Hugh came home.”

  “If you didn’t shoot your husband,” Ray said, “at some point, someone else had to have been here. There’s no sign of forced entry. Do you keep a key outside under a door mat, or in a flower pot or something?”

  “No. Hugh wouldn’t allow that.”

  “Does anyone else have a key?”

  “No, no one.” Amy paused. “Well, two summers ago, I asked Jessie to check the house and water my plants while Hugh and I were away, so she had my key for a while, but like I said, that was nearly two years ago. No one else has ever had a key.”

  He started to put the information in his notepad.

  “Ray,” she said. ”Jessica Hall didn’t have anything to do with this. I know her. It’s a safe bet to say she probably stayed at Gatsby’s until it closed for the night.”

  “I’ll find out,” he said.

  Waverly cleared his throat, sending a clear message.

  Aware of his meaning, Ray said, “Actually, Detective Waverly will follow through on that. In fact, he’ll be handling this case.”

  For several seconds, Amy stopped breathing. “I thought you’d be in charge, Ray.”

  “Can’t. You’re a friend. My objectivity could be brought into question. Conflict of interest.” She bowed her head. “Believe me, my partner knows what he’s doing. Your case is in very good hands.”