Anguish showed on her face as she signed again.
“I didn’t know what to do and there was no time to think. Once I drove away, I didn’t see any headlights in my rearview for quite a while. I just kept driving as fast as I could.”
Elena’s hands were moving so rapidly, Santos had to speak in a rush in order to keep up. “There was something in my lane... an exhaust pipe, I think. I didn’t see it in time and I ran over it. My car started making a horrible noise and started slowing down.
“That’s when I saw a single headlight in my rearview. It was so far back it was nothing but a tiny dot. I thought it might be a motorcycle at first, but as it got closer and passed under a streetlight, I realized it was a banged-up car with only a broken headlight.
“When my car stopped running, I barely had enough time to get Nathan into that theater. I told him to stay there and wait for me.” Tears fell down her face. “I promised I’d be back for him and left.
“When I got outside, that bastard was standing beside his car, looking up and down the street. There was no one there—no crowd for me to blend in with and he saw me.”
Elena’s hands dropped into her lap, the physical and mental exhaustion mounting.
“And from there, you ran toward sixth street, right?” Waverly said. She nodded again. He chose his words carefully. “And you saw another man, didn’t you? A different man?”
Her eyes widened. The vivid memories had to be coming at her in quick, startling succession. She brought a hand to her mouth, stifling a silent cry.
Santos leaned over the bed and laid her hand on Elena’s shoulder. “It’s over. It’s in the past. You’re safe now, Ms. Dunn, but we need to know what happened.”
Elena lowered her trembling hand and began signing again.
“I ran,” Santos said on her behalf. “I heard him chasing me—his feet hitting the ground behind me. I was terrified. The older man—the one walking toward me… There wasn’t much he could do, but he tried to help. I saw him raise his hand and heard him yell ‘Hey! Stop.’ Then I heard a gunshot.” Elena’s eyes clenched shut.
“And you were hit,” Ray said, trying to help.
Elena shook her head.
“Not me, him… the man who was trying to help,” Santos interpreted. Elena bowed her head. “He fell, but I just kept running. I ran right past him. I just kept…” Tears spilled down her face.
“You had no other choice,” Ray told her.
“I don’t remember anything else, not even the gun firing a second time,” Santos said in Elena’s stead. “I don’t remember it.”
“Had you ever seen the older man before?” Ray asked.
“Never,” Santos said, relaying her answer. “He was just there… someone trying to help.”
Tears continued to trickle from Elena’s eyes.
Ray regretted having to push for more, but it was essential. “Ms. Dunn, I wish I didn’t have to ask this, but do you think your ex-husband could be behind this?”
Elena shook her head vehemently, too violent a response for her condition.
“Ma’am,” Ray said, “the car driven by the shooter came off the lot of your ex-husband’s Minneapolis dealership.”
As though she were trying to disappear altogether, Elena’s body sank deeper into the pillows behind her. Her eyelashes beat against the tears welling in her eyes as her hands began moving slowly.
“It wasn’t Dave,” Santos translated for them. “I don’t believe that. I can’t.”
“We know he wasn’t behind the wheel, Ms. Dunn,” Waverly said, “but we have to find out who was. Do you know of anyone who might want to see you… out of the way? Is there another woman in your ex-husband’s life—someone who might feel threatened by your relationship?”
“No. I don’t think so. No,” Santos interpreted.
“Did Georgia Schwartz have any enemies?” Waverly asked. “Anyone who’d want to see her gone?”
The nurse stepped up before Elena could answer. “You’re going to have to leave—all of you. That’s enough for today.” She started shooing them in the direction of the door. “Out. She needs her rest. Out.”
“Just a second,” Ray said, standing his ground. “Ms. Dunn, if you saw a picture of the man who did this, could you identify him?”
Elena shook her head.
35
In the corridor outside Elena Dunn’s room, Ray and Waverly thanked Santos for her help and put her on notice that they might need her services again. She walked away smiling after Ray suggested she keep her distance from opened car windows in the future.
Less interested in making a quick exit than they were in hashing out what they’d just heard, Ray and Waverly took their time leaving the building.
“That didn’t get us half as much as I expected,” Waverly griped.
“At least we know we got most of it right… eventually. When it comes to her ex, Elena Dunn could be in a total state of denial. Right now, it’s too soon to expect her to be objective.”
They strolled to a bank of elevators and Waverly punched the Down button. “Marguerite Lundquist deserves to hear that her husband died trying to help someone else—that he was exactly the decent kind of man she said he was. You want to share that information with her, or you want me to do it?”
“If you want to take care of that, I’ll see what other loose ends I can tie up.”
“You’ve got a deal. I’m making it a house call. Lundquist’s widow deserves a face-to-face apology along with an explanation. It shouldn’t take me too long.”
“Okay. I’ll see what I can accomplish before you get back.”
Waverly stepped into a vacant elevator ahead of Ray. “Whatd’ya think? About Rhonda Stark… Still part of our suspect list?”
Ray punched the lobby button like he had something personal against it. “We know it was a man who pulled the trigger, so as the shooter, she’s ruled out by virtue of gender, but I’m still convinced she’s got her sights set on Dave Dunn.”
Waverly watched the floor numbers blink by. “And you think she might be playing dirty to get him.”
“It’s a possibility. She’s got motive, but the cash?” Ray shook his head. Even a bargain basement thug would laugh in her face at what she could pay.”
“Don’t be sure,” Waverly said as the elevator doors opened. They stepped out and headed to the exit as Waverly continued. “You never know. Some messed-up crackhead or heroin junkie might’ve jumped at the chance for the price of his next fix.”
“I guess it’s not totally out of the question,” Ray agreed. “Still, I can’t see her giving the keys to that Regal to an accomplice unless she was trying to frame Dave Dunn.”
The two of them matched stride for stride as they left HCMC and walked to their car.
Waverly stood in the open doorway of the vehicle, talking to Ray over the car’s roof. “Actually, you could be onto something, buddy. Maybe setting Dunn up is her idea of the ultimate payback for his rejection.”
Ray got behind the wheel. “Right this second, I don’t know what I think.”
“When it comes to women, I tend to go with my gut feelings,” Waverly said, buckling up. “Unfortunately, that’s kinda iffy. That’s why I resort to the duck-and-cover approach when it comes to dealing with them. You just never know.”
“You could be right about Rhonda Stark.” Ray drove out of the hospital lot, thinking about it. “Maybe she went over the edge.”
“Okay, look,” Waverly said. “Whaddya say we start checking bank records, ’cause it’s a cinch somebody got paid to commit a murder.”
“Right, but if the payoff was in drugs like you said, it won’t do us any good,” Ray reminded him. “And we still don’t know, for a fact, who the intended victim was. All we’re sure of is that somebody was paid to kill someone.”
Waverly pulled his sun visor down. “We’ve gone over this before, Ray. The target had to have been Elena Dunn. What are the odds of someone deciding to whack Georgia Schwar
tz in somebody else’s house?”
“Fifty, fifty,” Ray said. “Either the shooter made that choice, or he didn’t.”
“Okay, wise guy,” Waverly said. “You know what I’m getting at. Unless he had the I.Q. of a Zagnut Bar, it would make more sense for the perp to go after a victim in their own home rather than in someone else’s.”
A red light stopped Ray at the third intersection. “Look, Elena Dunn and Georgia Schwartz were both there at the time of the shooting. Someone wanted one of them dead. I’m not ready to say which one had the bullseye on her back.”
“Logically,” Waverly said, “I think it had to be Elena Dunn. She and the Schwartz woman could’ve passed for sisters. The hired gun would’ve expected Elena to come to the door, but when Schwartz answered instead—”
“Dick, we’ve been over this ground so many times already—”
“All right, but first tell what about that doesn’t make sense?”
“Nothing,” Ray admitted. “But the way I see it, two plus two equals four, but so does three plus one. You can come up with the same result using all kinds of different combinations.”
“What are you getting at?”
Ray turned right off North Ninth Street onto North First Avenue, paralleling Hennepin Avenue. “I’m just saying I’m not sure we’ve come up with the right equation yet.”
Four blocks later, Ray took a right down North Fourth Street, the one-way street running past the First Precinct station. He drove down the narrow alley between the police building and the bar next to it and pulled into a parking space.
Waverly got out before Ray could turn the engine off. He leaned down, one hand on the car’s roof, the other on the opened door. “All right, I’m off to Edina. I’ll be back as soon as I’ve talked to Marguerite Lundquist.”
“I’ll see you when you get back.”
Waverly walked away and Ray let his head drop against the headrest, trying to ease the throbbing in his temples. As days went, it hadn’t been the worst, but it had gotten off to a shakier start than most. The awkward moment between Julie Monroe and Gail that morning had brought Ray down fast after the high of their anniversary the night before. He’d been trying to put it out of his mind all day, but that incident and the others stockpiled in his head kept inching their way forward.
When he’d asked Julie about the Monday night redecorating venture, her brief but unmistakable deer-in-the-headlights expression explained why Gail had been trying to rush him out of the house. Unless he missed his guess, Gail was rightfully worried the topic would come up before she’d had a chance to clue Julie in on her cover story.
Cover story. There was no way he could make that sound good. The headache pounding in his temples kept time with the implications hammering in his head. He made another desperate effort to reason away his suspicions. Ray thought about Laurie’s account of seeing Julie driving toward the Cities when Gail was supposedly meeting Julie at her home.
Okay, wait. Gail explained that. What did she tell me? Ray ground the heels of his hands into his eye sockets and tried to remember. Okay, right. Gail said she stopped at Eddie Bauer’s on the way, and Julie made it back home ahead of her. He fought to keep his trust alive, but he hadn’t seen the new sweaters yet. That doesn’t necessarily mean anything. They could be in a closet or a drawer.
Like striking flint on steel, he used reasoning and wishful thinking to ignite a spark of hope. The bomber jacket... Going to Julie’s could’ve been her excuse to get to Men’s Wearhouse for that. He laughed to himself. Tangled webs, all right. So, when I told her what Laurie said about seeing Julie, she had to scramble to come up with another story—the one about buying sweaters at Eddie Bauer’s. Not bad for being on the spur of the moment.
The explanation helped until his next thought doused him with a bucket of cruel reality. But why keep up the pretense today when she told me about the jacket last night?
He hated arguing with himself; he always lost.
Ray flinched, startled by someone rapping on his window.
“Hey, Schiller,” Detective Burke said, “trying to catch a nap, or are you solving crime right from the front seat of your car these days”
“I’m trying to shake a headache,” Ray told him.
Burke dug in his pocket and pulled out a small, green bottle. “Here.” Tipping it over, he emptied the bottle’s last two tablets into his palm and reached through the gap in the window. “Try these.”
“Thanks, but if those are your last ones—”
“Are you kidding?” Burke said. “I’ve got two more bottles in my desk and another in my car. I practically buy these things by the case.”
“Okay, thanks.” Ray took them in his hand and got out. “When I get inside, I’ll wash these down with what’s left of my wife’s coffee.”
There it was again… his wife. Gail kept creeping into his thoughts. And his thoughts, no matter how he tried to slant them, were making him increasingly uneasy.
Two hours later, Ray’s desk phone rang—the seventh or eighth time that afternoon. Nothing unusual. He stopped sorting through the papers stacked in front of him just long enough to pick up the receiver and tuck it between an ear and a shoulder.
“Schiller.”
“Hey, buddy,” Waverly said on the other end. “I didn’t think I’d be gone so long. Sorry.” Before Ray could answer, he said, “Hey, have you seen my cell phone? It must’ve fallen out of my pocket. It’s prob’ly in your car.”
“I didn’t see it. Where are you calling from?”
“A landline.” It wasn’t the answer Ray was going for, but Waverly moved on before he could ask for specifics. “Have you come up with anything interesting?”
“A couple of things,” Ray said. “Steve Winchell has a record—simple and aggravated assault. I can’t say I’m surprised after seeing the kind of temper he has. He got out a couple of years ago after his last conviction. His record doesn’t mean he’s involved, but it ups the possibility.”
“Yeah, interesting,” Waverly said. “Anything else?”
“Dave Dunn comes up clean—one DWI, and a few parking and traffic tickets. Oh… and a restraining order, but he filed it—business related.”
“What about Frank and Georgia Schwartz? Forget it, buddy,” Waverly said. “You might as well wait until I get there. You can fill me in then.”
“I might as well do it now. I’ve gone as far as I can for the time being, so unless there’s something pressing you’ve got to do here, there’s no point in you coming back today.”
“Great. That’s the best news yet.”
“All right, so listen up,” Ray told him. “Rhonda Stark’s background is pretty innocuous. She’s held a lot of different retail jobs and has a long list of previous addresses, but nothing that sends up any red flags.”
“Prob’ly moved from one boyfriend’s place to the next, to the next, to the next,” Waverly speculated.
“That’s what I figure, but she and Winchell aren’t sharing an address at the moment.”
Waverly muttered a surprised. “Hm.”
“I’m not entirely surprised by that. At the dealership, she was making noises like she wouldn’t mind Winchell staying at arm’s length. Oh, and I got in touch with Frank Schwartz’s insurance company,” Ray said. “His claim checks out—a minor parking lot accident. One marriage before he and Georgia tied the knot. No kids. Financially, it gets a little more interesting. His records show one bankruptcy to his name before the first Mrs. Schwartz died in a single-vehicle accident. But before you ask, none of the coroner’s findings suggested foul play.”
“What did you come up with on Georgia?” Waverly asked.
“What I turned up supports what Rachel Beatty told us already. Georgia started with nothing, came into money left to her by her first husband, and married two more times.
“I managed to get in touch with one of Georgia’s sisters. She gave me the same story we already got from Rachel Beatty—that Schwartz bled Georgia
nearly dry and never paid a penny back—that everyone was happy when she left him. She said Georgia was a warm, unpretentious woman, who deserved much better.”
“So down-to-earth, she was practically underground, eh? Doesn’t sound like the kind of woman who makes a lot of enemies,” Waverly said.
“It only takes one,” Ray said. “Oh. I finally got ahold of Mrs. Dusek’s daughter.”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Dusek, the old woman who saw Rachel Beatty walking around Elena Dunn’s place.”
“Oh, her. What’d you find out?”
Ray switched the phone to his other shoulder and scrawled his signature on two more forms. “The daughter apologized for not having called. She didn’t see my card, and her mother must’ve forgotten to tell about our conversation. Anyway, her mother got the day wrong. It wasn’t Friday night they saw Beatty outside Elena Dunn’s house; it was Saturday. That’s all I’ve got, Dick.”
“Let’s hope the subpoenas come through tomorrow,” Waverly said. “Maybe the bank records will turn up something we can run with.”
“They’d better.”
“I’ll kick around what you just told me and see you in the morning, buddy.”
Ray started to replace the receiver in the cradle, but hesitated, tapped the switch hook with a finger and punched in his home number. With each successive ring, he felt the weight on his shoulders getting heavier. Four… Five…
“Hello?”
He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath. “Hey, honey, it’s me. I was just about to hang up.”
Exasperation shaded Gail’s laugh. “Joey got into a bottle of Elmer’s glue. I was in the bathroom, trying to clean him up. Head to toe, Ray, head to toe!”
He chuckled. “When I was a kid, I used to like peeling that stuff off my fingers.”
“Well, Joey had a real blast. Why did you call, Ray? Is everything all right?”
That’s what he wanted to know.
“Yeah, everything’s fine. I just wanted to tell you I’ll be home early—in about an hour or so.”
“Are you kidding?”
Web of Silence: A Ray Schiller Novel (The Ray Schiller Series Book 4) Page 23
