“We’re going to get to the bottom of it.” Ray’s words conveyed more certainty than he felt.
Waverly stood. “We appreciate your help, Ms. Beatty. We’re very sorry about your friend.”
As Ray rose, she did, too. “I need to apologize to you.”
“For what?” Ray asked.
“I know you’re only doing your job and I’m sorry if I’ve been making it harder. I’m angry and confused about what’s happened to my friends, but I shouldn’t be taking it out on you.”
“You wouldn’t be the first,” Waverly told her. “Forget it.” He turned toward the door and then back again. “Say, how’d those glamour shots turn out?”
“Of Mrs. Buckley? They turned exceptionally well,” she said. “They’re some of my best work.”
“Glad to hear it.” He tended to buttoning his jacket. “I shouldn’t have made that crack about her looks the other day. I’m sure she’s a very nice lady.”
“She is. She’s so nice that, if she’d overheard what you said, I doubt she’d have held it against you.”
“That just makes me feel worse.” Waverly stood there for a two-count, then asked, “By the way, Ms. Beatty, what’s up with your receptionist? Is she a mass murderer or something? Why is she so damned nervous around us?”
She laughed. “It doesn’t take much to set Lorraine off. I love her, but she’s like a Jack Russell terrier on amphetamines.”
He laughed. “All right. Thanks again.”
They stepped out of Beatty’s office and Ray nodded a goodbye in the direction of the wide-eyed receptionist.
“Let’s go, Dick. Time to see if Dunn’s dealership is missing a car.”
30
As they left Rachel Beatty’s photography studio, Ray checked his watch for a third time. “If we hadn’t left your car in Dunn’s parking lot this morning, I’d have waited until tomorrow to go back there.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah. Tonight of all nights, I can’t afford to get home late.”
“What’s tonight?” Waverly asked.
“It’s Gail’s and my seventeenth anniversary.”
“I forgot about that. Congrats.”
“Thanks, but if I’m late getting home today, reaching our eighteenth anniversary could be nothing but a pipe dream.”
“You in hot water, buddy?”
“Practically parboiled.” Ray pressed the accelerator closer to the floorboard. “I arranged to have flowers delivered to Gail today and wrote a card telling her be dressed and ready for a night out. I’d better not keep her waiting.”
“Where are you taking her?”
“112 Eatery. It’s her favorite.”
“Intimate. Upscale. Great choice, but to me, the name makes it sound like a diner. They oughta change it. What did you get her?”
“A ring.” Ray looked over his shoulder and switched lanes. “It has five or six intertwined bands—some lined with stones. I think she’ll like it.”
“Diamonds?”
“Cubic zirconium. She deserves the real thing, and she’ll get it the minute they make me Commissioner.”
They shared a laugh and the conversation reverted to the case as it always inevitably did.
At Dunn Motors, Ray parked alongside Waverly’s vehicle and they went to the customer service desk.
“Dunn in?” Waverly reached for his I.D.
From behind the counter, Rhonda Stark looked up at the two of them, eyelashes fluttering. “No need to show me that,” she told him. “I remember you.” Without a pause she added, “Dave’s in his office. You can go straight back.”
They rapped on his opened door and Dunn looked up in surprise. “Detectives Schiller and Waverly… What are you—”
“Question,” Ray said, cutting to the chase. “Is a car missing from your lot?”
“What?”
“Your inventory,” Waverly said. “Are all your cars accounted for?”
“I assume they are. I haven’t heard any different. Why?”
Waverly kept it simple. “This morning Georgia Schwartz was found dead in your ex-wife’s house. Been dead awhile.”
“What?” Dunn seemed to levitate out of his seat. “Georgia Schwartz?”
“Yes. She’d been watching your son while your ex-wife went out Friday night,” Ray told him. “You didn’t know that?”
“Why would I?”
Ray mulled over an answer, but said nothing.
A blood vessel on Dunn’s right temple started visibly throbbing. “What does what happened to Georgia have to do with my cars?”
“On Friday night, a navy blue, four-door Buick was seen making a hasty exit from the vicinity of your ex’s house. It still had the sales information taped in a back window. That’s the only description we have of the vehicle. Is it one of yours, Mr. Dunn?”
“Wait. What?” A blank stare followed.
“Information overload?” Waverly asked.
“What?” Dunn repeated.
Waverly sighed. “We’re gonna need you to expand on that.”
Dunn shook off his daze. “I can check our recent sales.”
“That would probably be a waste of time,” Ray said. “We doubt it was purchased. It’s more likely to have been ‘borrowed’ or stolen.”
“But why would... ” Dunn abandoned his unfinished thought. “Borrowed would suggest it’s back on the lot.”
“That might’ve been the perp’s original plan,” Ray said, “but that would’ve changed. It sustained a lot of damage to the front and back. You’d have noticed. The driver didn’t exactly treat it like his own.”
“More like it was entered in a demolition derby,” Waverly said. “If the car came from one of your lots, chances are it’s either been abandoned or it’s in a chop shop somewhere.”
“The hell with the car,” Dunn shouted. “Elena was shot, and now you tell me Georgia Schwartz is dead. What the hell’s going on?”
“Finding out where the car came from may help us figure that out,” Ray said.
Dunn looked past them at someone walking past his office. “Lee!”
As the man stepped into the office, it looked like Waverly’s missing mustache had found a new home on a different face. “You need something, Mr. Dunn?”
“A navy-blue Buick sedan…” The words snapped out of Dunn’s mouth with precision. “Is one missing from the lot?”
“Missing?” The salesman’s head cocked to the side. “Make? Model? Are we talking new or used?”
“What the hell difference does it matter? Are we missing a car?”
“How about it?” Ray asked, trying to speed him along. “Did a car like that go missing from this lot on Friday?”
“Come to think of it, we had a nice little 2014 Buick Regal like that out there. I thought I had a buyer for it, but when the customer came back Saturday to take another look at it, it was gone. Mint condition. Low mileage. I figured Art or one of the other guys sold it out from under me.”
“Go check,” Dunn told him. “Let me know what you find out.”
Ray saw Waverly watch the salesman as he walked away and couldn’t help himself. “Mustache envy?”
“Focus, Ray,” Waverly told him. He turned to Dunn. “Did you know Georgia Schwartz well?”
“Here we go again. Look,” he said, “I can understand why you’d question me about what happened to Ellie, but Georgia? Aside from her being one of Ellie’s friends, I barely knew her. I liked her, though. She seemed like a very nice woman. That’s it.”
“Well,” Waverly said, “it’s beginning to look like what happened to her happened right in front of your former wife and your son. Luckily, they were able to get away. We’re still not sure whether the intended victim was the Schwartz woman or your ex.”
A short balding man stood in the doorway in front of the salesman sporting the clone of Waverly’s missing mustache. “Excuse me, Dave, about that car…”
Dunn waved them in. “Detectives Schiller and Waverly
, this is my sales manager, Michael Ford. Mike… Detectives Schiller and Waverly.”
“Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac,” Waverly said as they shook hands. “I wasn’t expecting to see a Ford here, too.”
The sales manager forced an indulgent smile, then turned to Dunn. “About that car…”
“Is it on the lot?”
“Uh… the Regal hasn’t been sold.”
“That’s not what I asked, Mike. Is it out in the lot?”
“We’re checking. I’ve got Bob, Art and Enzo looking for it out there, but…” Ford ran the palm of his hand over his high forehead. “Well, chances are it’s gone. I checked the cabinet, and the key to the Regal is gone.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know,” Ford said. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
Dunn’s face flushed with anger. “Find out what happened to it. That cabinet is supposed to be kept locked.”
“It was.”
As the exchange became more heated, Lee, the salesman, backed up toward the door. “I’ll go help the others look around the lot for the car.” He wasted no time rushing for higher ground.
Ray asked, “How many people have access to the key cabinet?”
“Only Mr. Dunn and myself,” Ford said.
“Any chance the cabinet was left open inadvertently?” Ray asked.
The answer came instantly. “No. I’m very careful about that,” Ford said. “And I keep the key to the cabinet on the keychain in my pocket.”
“Where’s your key to the cabinet?” Waverly asked Dunn.
“Right here.” Dunn pulled out his top desk drawer. For a moment, panic registered on his face as he fished under piles of business forms. “Here,” he said at last. “It’s here. It just got shoved under some papers.”
Ray said, “Who knows you keep it there?”
Dunn thought about it and shrugged. “Everyone’s probably seen me take it from there at one time or another.”
“Did you notice any damage to the cabinet, Mr. Ford?” Waverly asked.
“Do you think the lock could’ve been picked?”
“Maybe,” Waverly said. “Where is this cabinet?”
“In my office. Do you want to take a look?”
Ray caught Waverly’s eye and tapped the face of his watch. “We’ll come back tomorrow to do that. In the meantime, if you can give us the car’s VIN number and so forth, Mr. Ford, we’ll issue an alert for the vehicle.”
“I’ve got it right here,” he said, handing the information to Ray.
“This has to be pure coincidence,” Dunn said.
“Not likely,” Waverly told him. “We’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” Dunn said.
Ford said nothing, but stayed behind as Ray and Waverly left.
“A background check on Ford might not hurt,” Waverly said to Ray as they approached the front door. “If Dunn enlisted help, Ford could be…” As they neared the service counter, he stopped talking to keep Rhonda Stark from hearing their conversation.
Rhonda Stark gave them a parting smile as they walked past.
Ray elbowed Waverly a second after they stepped outside. “Look.” He motioned toward a man hurrying to his car parked in the lot. “Is that who I think it is?”
Waverly did a stutter step as the man got into his car and started the engine. “It sure is. What’s he doing here?”
“Beats me, but apparently he’s come out of his state of shock since we talked to him this morning.”
From seventy yards away, they heard the peel of tires as Frank Schwartz raced out of the driveway of Dunn Motors.
31
Ray hurried through his front door in Eden Prairie and heard, “You made it!”
Gail’s voice intoned equal parts of surprise and pleasure.
“Naturally,” Ray said. “There’s no way I was going to start out our eighteenth year on the wrong foot.”
“It wouldn’t be the first you—”
Ray put a finger to her lips. “Shhh.” He removed the finger and replaced it with his lips. “Happy anniversary, babe.”
“Happy anniversary, honey.” She smiled up at him. “And thank you. The roses you sent are absolutely gorgeous.”
“So are you,” he said. “And you’re wearing my favorite dress.”
Gail twirled to give him a better look. The fitted silhouette of the sleeveless, royal blue dress enhanced every curve. A beaded neckline drew attention to her long neck while the cutouts at the chest and back exposed areas of her soft, supple skin.
“You look fantastic,” he told her. “Let me grab a quick shower and I’ll be right down.” He started up the stairs and stopped. “Hey, where are the kids?”
Julie took them for the night—her gift to us for the evening.”
“Way to go, Julie.” Ray wrapped Gail in a hug. “We may have to put her in our will.”
Gail walked into their bedroom as he was tying his tie. “You’re very handsome and you smell wonderful.” She inhaled his scent as she walked up to him. “I thought I’d give you your gift now.”
“Now?” he teased. “I just got dressed.”
She gave him a playful swat. “Not that. Later, Ray.”
Gail kissed him and stepped away. “Let me get your present. It’s in the closet.”
He prepared to look surprised. When Gail returned, he was. She held a brightly wrapped twelve inch by twelve-inch package. She kissed Ray again and handed it to him. “I hope you like it, Ray.”
“Thanks, honey. I can’t wait to see what it is.” He meant that.
“Be careful, hon,” she warned. “It’s sort of fragile.”
He tore the wrapping from the box and read the packaging: Deep Sea Sand Art. Ray looked at the picture on the package for a moment.
“You know what it is, right?” Gail asked.
He nodded. “Yes. Thanks, hon, it’s very nice.”
“Each year it gets harder to think of something you don’t already have, and as stressful as your job is, I thought you might really enjoy this. Watching the sand drift through the liquid and settling in different formations each time is supposed to be very soothing. I hope you like it.”
“I do.” Ray took it out of the box and turned the circular casing over. The sand trickled gracefully toward the bottom. “Yeah, look at that. That’s great.”
Crestfallen, Gail picked up speed as she spoke. “Honey, if you don’t like it—”
“No, it’s really nice. Really. I’ll keep it on my desk at work. It’ll be terrific.”
“This isn’t one of the cheap ones I’ve seen in stores here, Ray. It’s handmade in Austria—created by Klaus Bosch.”
He chuckled. “Someone we know?”
“Oh, you hate it.”
“I don’t,” Ray insisted. “It’s great, babe. Honest.”
“All right, then. I hope you find it as soothing as it’s supposed to be, Ray.” Gail turned away and grabbed her coat off the back of a chair. “If we’re going to make it in time for our reservation, we’d better get going.” She slipped her arms into the sleeves as he held her coat for her. “Your note said to dress up, Ray, but you still haven’t said where we’re going.”
“112 Eatery… where else?”
“Outstanding.” Her smile faded. “In view of what I gave you, are you sure you don’t want to just take me through a McDonald’s drive-thru?”
“Stop that. Now let’s go.”
Ray and Gail sat at their first-floor table, enjoying the restaurant’s dark wood and soft lighting, a cozy, intimate ambiance. Over their entrees of nori encrusted sirloin and Tagliatelle with foie gras meatballs, they enjoyed each other’s company, away from the kids and job stress.
As they waited for dessert, Ray set his wine glass down, grinning. “I saved my most interesting conversational topic for last,” he said. “You’re not going to believe this. I almost didn’t.”
“Why? What?”
“Dick shaved off his mustache.”
Somehow Gail didn’t seem as surprised as he’d expected. “How does he look?” she asked.
“Odd. I’ve never seen Dick without that bushy growth on his upper lip before. It’s going to take a while to get used to it. He took a real beating over it at the station. The guys were in rare form.”
“Did you join in the fun?”
“I behaved myself,” he said, grinning. “Mostly anyhow. Giving each other a hard time once in a while is just a guy thing.”
“I’ve noticed.”
As the waitress brought their dessert, Ray raised his wineglass and proposed a toast. “To the first seventeen years with the love of my life and to dozens more.” He saw the smile warming her eyes and pulled the ring box out of his pocket as she set her glass down. “Happy anniversary, Gail.”
She saw the box and said, “Honey, the roses, this dinner… That was more than enough. You didn’t have to—“
Ray smiled. “Just open the damn box.”
Gail opened the case and gasped. “Honey, it’s gorgeous. Thank you.”
“Try it on.”
She slipped it onto the third finger of her right hand. “It fits perfectly. Lucky guess?”
“No. I swiped the garnet ring out of your jewelry box to get it sized right.”
“So I’m married to a detective and a jewel thief.”
“Are you complaining?” Ray asked.
“Not on your life.”
Their waitress set their tres leches cake and butterscotch budino down in front of them. She leaned down, looking at the ring. “That’s absolutely beautiful. Congratulations on your anniversary.”
Ray thanked her as she left, then fell silent again as he had several times over the course of the evening.
Not for the first time, Gail studied his expression. Over a forkful of cake, she asked, “What’s wrong, Ray?”
“Nothing. How’s your cake?”
“Out of this world… so are you. What are you thinking about?”
Web of Silence: A Ray Schiller Novel (The Ray Schiller Series Book 4) Page 20
