“I don’t know sign language,” Ray said, “and unless you do, we’re going to have to wait for someone to get there who can interpret for us. Chances are they won’t let us in to see her yet anyhow. Let Dunn get his visit out of the way first. We might as well get the mileage and insurance information from Rhonda Stark before we do anything else.”
“Good point,” Waverly said. “You go ahead and talk to Stark while I make a couple phone calls to get things rolling. I’ll join you in a minute.”
Ray went to the service desk and waited for Stark to get off the phone.
She hung up and gave him the kind of look usually reserved for the bedroom. “Is there something I can do for you?”
He plowed ahead, ignoring her sultry look and tone. “Your boss said you’d have the mileage records for the courtesy car Frank Schwartz returned yesterday. I’d like the name of Schwartz’s insurance company, too, while you’re at it.”
She turned away in search of the paperwork. “Dave seemed to be in an awfully big hurry when he left just now.”
Anxious to gauge her reaction, he said, “He got a call about his wife.”
“His ex-wife,” she pointed out quickly.”
“Right… ex-wife.”
She set the paperwork on the counter, pointing at the name of the insurance carrier. “Did she die or something?”
“Something,” he said, jotting down the name Liberty Mutual. “They’ve brought her out of her coma.”
“Oh.”
“Something wrong? You don’t sound pleased.”
“Well, she could be like a vegetable or something.”
“I haven’t heard anything to suggest that,” he told her. The news didn’t brighten her outlook. Ray scanned the paper. “The return mileage isn’t filled in.”
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot. I’d better do that right now.” She snatched the form from his hand and walked toward the garage. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll tag along.”
“Suit yourself.”
All signs of flirtation had vanished like a wisp of smoke, but her hips swayed left and right like a wide-arcing metronome as she stayed three paces ahead of him. She walked up behind Steve Winchell and stopped.
“Where’s that loaner that was brought back yesterday, Steve?”
Winchell turned as Ray obeyed an innate instinct to take another quick look at the mechanic’s favorite ‘chassis.’
“What do you want?” Winchell snarled.
Rhonda intervened. “He wants the mileage reading from that car.”
“So go get it. It’s out back, cleaned up and ready to go.”
“Is it unlocked now?” she asked him.
“Yeah. Here’s the key.” He tossed it to her. “And you…” he said, staring at Ray. “Why are you hassling my girlfriend?”
Ray ignored the muscles straining at the sleeves of the coveralls and asked, “Did you say hassling or hustling?”
Winchell took a step in his direction, but Rhonda put her hand on his chest. “Steve, chill out.”
“Yeah, that’s very good advice, Steve,” Ray told him. “Unless it’ll help me solve a couple of murders, I’m not here to hassle or hustle anybody.”
The mechanic turned back to Rhonda. “Get this guy the mileage figures so he can get outta here.”
She walked away saying, “If You’d had Mr. Schwartz turn the key over to me like he should have, I’d have had the mileage recorded already.”
“Don’t make a big stink about it. I just gave you the key. Go take care of it now.”
Ray could feel Winchell’s eyes on him as they left the garage and walked to the car. “Is your boyfriend always such a hothead?”
“No,” she said, oozing sarcasm. “He’s a real sweetheart… ten percent of the time.”
Ray opened the door for her as they got to the car. “Judging by that little exchange and one I overheard between him and your boss earlier, job security isn’t one of his top priorities.”
“Steve doesn’t have to worry about that.” Rhonda slipped into the driver’s seat, recorded the mileage and got back out. “The mileage is 28,313. When he got the car, it read 27,830.”
“Got it,” Ray said, jotting the number down in his notepad. “What did you mean—Steve doesn’t have to worry?”
“He’s a top mechanic.” She walked with Ray back toward the lobby, wisely going around the building rather than returning through the garage. “If he got fired—which isn’t going to happen—he could get another job in a heartbeat. He knows Dave’s not going to let him go.”
“So if he doesn’t get along with your boss and he knows he’s in demand, what’s keeping him here?”
“Me.” She said it without hesitation or any false modesty. “If he stays here, he gets to keep an eye on me—watch what I’m doing—see who I’m talking to.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
“I put up with it because, unlike Steve, if I left it could be a while before I land another job. Besides, I like working here.”
Because of the job or your boss? Ray was certain of the answer.
She stepped into the building as Ray held the door open for her.
In the middle of the lobby, Waverly stood there waiting for him.
“Are you set to go, Dick?”
“Anytime you are.”
“Thanks for your help, Ms. Stark,” Ray said. He and Waverly were at the door when Ray turned to Rhonda again. “Tell me something. Do customers usually return the keys to the courtesy cars to the mechanics?”
Rhonda shook her head. “Some people just leave the car in the lot with the keys inside. Mostly they stick their heads in the door just long enough to give them to me.”
“That’s what I thought. Thanks.”
As they pulled out of the lot, Waverly said, “We’re all set, Ray. It sounds like Elena Dunn is doing pretty well. They’re gonna let us talk to her this afternoon. I’ve arranged to have Teresa Santos meet us there at three o’clock to do the sign language thing.”
“Officer Santos?” Ray asked, pulling away.
“Yeah. She’s got a deaf brother, fourteen or fifteen years old.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Until a few minutes ago, I didn’t either,” Waverly said, “What’d you find out?”
“For one thing, Winchell has an even touchier hair trigger than I thought, especially when it comes to Stark. She isn’t as into him as he is to her. She gravitates toward anyone with a fly in the front of his slacks.”
“I noticed,” Waverly said.
“Maybe she’s got an overactive libido or it could be her way of letting Winchell know he can’t control her. She was pushing me for information about where Dunn went and about the condition of his ex-wife,” Ray told him. “I think she has more than a passing interest in him.”
“An office romance?” Waverly said.
Ray flicked on the turn signal. “It happens so often it’s a cliché, but Dunn laughed it off when I asked if there was something going on between them.”
“A lie to cover his ass, you think?”
“I wish I knew. But when it comes to Rhonda Stark, I get the impression she wouldn’t have minded hearing Elena Dunn flat lined. Like I said, I think she’s got her sights set on Dave Dunn. I just don’t know if it’s a two-way street.”
“If so, they could’ve been working together to get his ex out of the picture.”
“Yeah,” Ray said, “but the more I think about it, the less convinced I am that’s what happened. Using a car from his lot would be stupid for either of them.”
Ray looked over his shoulder and changed lanes. He caught Waverly looking at fast food restaurants as they drove by one after another. “Want to pick something up? We’ve got time.”
Waverly faced forward. “I’m good, but go ahead and stop if you’re hungry. Otherwise, there’s stuff we could get done before we head over to HCMC to see the Dunn woman.”
Ray could practically see
Waverly salivating, but knew he couldn’t coerce him into eating. “No, lunch can wait.” He stopped at a red light, tapping out a rhythm on the steering wheel with his thumbs. “I want to get a look at Frank Schwartz’s phone records and see who he was in contact with before his ex was murdered.”
“Me, too, buddy, but I think we might be chasing our tails when it comes to him. I’m having trouble with the location of the hit. I mean, c’mon. I can see an accomplice going to Dunn’s ex’s place and taking Georgia Schwartz out by mistake. The two women did look alike. But what sense does it make for him to go there specifically to kill Georgia Schwartz?”
Ray didn’t have an answer.
“What about the mileage record on the loaner Schwartz used?” Waverly said.
“The mileage backs up his story. Pelican Lake is roughly two hundred miles northwest of the Cities. I checked. Aside from driving there and back, he didn’t put on a lot of miles. He’s got an alibi.”
“Okay,” Waverly said. “How about that business with Rhonda Stark about the keys to the courtesy cars? What was that about?”
“I’m not exactly sure,” Ray said, shaking his head. “I get the feeling it could mean something, but I’m not sure what. It’s probably going to bug me all day.”
34
The smell of disinfectant was strong. Bodies dressed in sterile white and others in blue scrubs moved up and down the connecting halls while Ray and Waverly sat waiting for Officer Teresa Santos outside Elena Dunn’s room. The information they’d uncovered before their arrival made the wait more frustrating.
“I’m happy for Marguerite Lundquist,” Ray said, jumping from one topic to another. “Too bad we couldn’t get the phone records sooner.”
Waverly grinned at him. “Maybe next time you’ll believe me. I knew she didn’t kill her husband. I did tell you so, buddy.”
“Yeah, I vaguely recall you saying something along those lines.”
“And even if Lundquist was fooling around, it wasn’t with Elena Dunn—not one text message between the two of them—not one, buddy. His wife had no reason to be jealous.”
Ray got up and started pacing. “Too bad that doesn’t make him any less dead.”
“At least now we can put his wife’s mind at ease,” Waverly said. “I wish we hadn’t put the doubt in her mind in the first place.”
“And I wish Santos would get here,” Ray told him. “I want to know how Lundquist got mixed up in this thing.”
Waverly stared at the floor. “I really expected Elena Dunn’s texts to give us more to go on.”
“Originally, so did I,” Ray said. “But most of those were just her half of face-to-face conversations. You can’t get much from that. Nearly a total washout.” He came to a stop. “A couple of her texts with Dave Dunn over their son got fairly combative, though. And Dunn’s accountant may have backed up his story about working well into the night together, but Dunn could still have made it to his ex’s place within the timeline.”
“But then,” Waverly said, “we both agree it wouldn’t have made sense for him to drive there in the Regal from his lot.”
“Yeah.” The single word resonated with irritation. For the dozenth time, Ray looked up and down the hallway for Santos. For the dozenth time, he was disappointed “Where the heck is she?” he complained.
Waverly checked his watch. “It’s only eight minutes after three. She’s not all that late.”
From down the hall, they heard a voice. “I’m here. Sorry I kept you waiting.” Dressed in uniform, Santos, a petite, dark-haired young woman, hurried toward them, her right forearm covered by a large bandage.
Ray pointed at her arm. “What happened?”
“A traffic stop incident,” she explained as she panted to a stop beside them. “I got too close to an open rear window. The woman’s Maltese stuck its head out and latched onto me.”
“Are you all right?” Ray asked.
“It’s not a big deal, but I had to make a quick stop at the emergency room, and you know how slow those quick stops can be.”
“No problem,” Waverly said, jerking his thumb in the direction of Elena Dunn’s door. “Our victim isn’t going anywhere for a while yet.”
The officer assigned to stand guard outside the room held the door open for them as they entered. Elena, pale, eyes opened, lay propped up by several pillows.
Ray entered first. “Ms. Dunn, my name is Detective Schiller.”
As Santos began relaying his words to Elena by sign language, Ray stopped her. “Santos,
Ms. Dunn can hear, remember?”
The officer blushed. “Sorry. Force of habit.”
He introduced Waverly and Santos and continued. “Ma’am, we’re sorry for what you’ve gone through. I wish we didn’t have to put you through any more, but we need your help. We have a pretty good idea what happened the night you were shot, but we need to know if we’ve got it right.”
The whites of her eyes were red from tears already shed. Fresh tears pooled, preparing to spill down her face. The raw emotion jarred Ray as it dawned on him that she’d had no time to deal with the horror of what had happened to her and Georgia Schwartz. To Elena Dunn, the events of that evening were still as fresh and intense as if they had just happened.
He tread lightly. “I know your ex-husband came to see you earlier. Your mother, too. The officer at the door told us. I’m sure they’ve already told you your son is fine. I can vouch for that. Detective Waverly and I have met Nathan. He’s a terrific little boy.”
A faint smile trembled on her face. She made a hand gesture that closely resembled blowing a kiss.
“Thank you,” Santos said, interpreting the hand movement for them.
“Ma’am,” Ray said, “we aren’t going to be allowed to stay long, so let me try to speed this up. The night of the shooting we know you were out with a man named Derek Printz.”
Elena closed her eyes. A crease deepened above the bridge of her nose as she signed.
“A total jerk,” Santos said, interpreting Elena’s hand movements.
“Did he have anything to do with the shootings?”
Elena shook her head as she signed again.
Santos interpreted, “No. The man who came to my door wasn’t Printz.”
“Do you have any idea who it was?” Waverly asked.
Elena gave them a barely perceptible headshake, then began signing again.
“I only caught a glimpse of him,” Santos said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before.”
“Can you give us a description?” Ray asked.
Santos watched Elena’s hands moving gracefully. “He was big. He had short, dark hair.”
“White? Hispanic? Black?” Waverly asked. “Can you give us an approximate age?”
“White,” Santos interpreted. “Twenties… thirties, I’m not sure.”
“Height? Weight? Try visualizing how his body fit inside the framework of the door,” Ray suggested.
Elena buried her face in her hands and shook her head.
“Can you tell us anything else about him? Anything… like what he was wearing maybe?”
Her hands began moving again.
Santos said, “Jeans. A black sweatshirt, I think.”
“You’re doing fine,” Ray told Elena. “Was it a hoodie?” Elena shook her head. “All right,” he said. “Was there anything on the sweatshirt—a picture, writing, some kind of logo maybe?”
She closed her eyes for a moment, concentrating. When she opened them again, Elena nodded and used the palm of her hand to pat her chest above her left breast.
Ray pounced on it. “A logo?”
Elena nodded.
“Could you make out what it said, or what the image was?”
Elena shook her head.
“Don’t worry about it,” he told her. “Maybe it’ll come to you later. Let’s go back. Tell us what happened. Try to remember the details.”
Santos paid close attention to Elena’s hands and said, “I got
home from Minnetonka and came in through the kitchen door.”
“So you parked on the side street, not in front?” Waverly asked.
“That’s where I always park,” Santos interpreted.
“All right,” he said, “go ahead.”
“Georgia and I said hello, and I went to check on my son. Nathan had insisted on waiting up for me, so she let him fall asleep on the couch. She asked about my date, and I told her what a catastrophe it had been.”
“Right,” Waverly said. “We saw your replies in the texts you sent to her phone. What next… specifically?”
“I got out of my coat,” Santos interpreted, “set my things down and went into the kitchen. While I was in there, the doorbell rang so Georgia went to the door.”
Elena took a deep, shuddering breath and continued as did Teresa Santos.
“As I stepped into the kitchen doorway to see who it was, I heard a gunshot and saw Georgia fall. She just… fell. It happened so fast.” Her expression twisted in agony. “At the sound of the gunshot, Nathan woke up and got off the couch. I motioned for him to run to me. The man look startled. I don’t think that man expected to see either of us. A second later, he started to come after us.”
A tall, slender nurse hurried into the room, went to the bed and checked the monitors. “You need to wrap this up,” she told them.
Elena touched the nurse’s arm, shaking her head.
She handed a tissue to Elena and gave Ray, Waverly, and Santos a look of warning.
Judging by its effectiveness, it was a skill she’d perfected over time. “You’re going to have to keep this very short.”
“We’re trying,” Ray told her. “So, he saw you,” he said to Elena. “That’s when you grabbed Nathan and ran.”
She nodded.
“I knocked a chair over, hoping to slow him down. He must’ve have tripped on it,” Santos said, “otherwise I don’t think Nathan and I would have made it as far as my car.”
Trying to spare her from unnecessarily exerting herself, Ray filled in where he could. “And then you drove as far as you could before your car broke down completely. You abandoned it near the theater on Hennepin. Right so far?” She confirmed it with a nod. “From there you took Nathan inside the theater.”
Web of Silence: A Ray Schiller Novel (The Ray Schiller Series Book 4) Page 22
