Dear Crossing (11 page)

“It sounds like you have some serious reservations about your son-in-law,” Ray said. “Is it true you plan to endorse his election as your successor?”

“Despite our personal differences, I have every confidence in his ability to run this company effectively. Passing the company on to Paul was as close as I could get to turning ACC over to Valerie.”

“Now that your daughter’s gone,” Ray asked, doing his best to be tactful, “has your commitment to Paul Davis changed?”

An indefinable darkness clouded Stockton’s face. “Should it?”

“Sir?” Ray said, seeking clarification.

“I think you know what I’m asking.”

“Are you asking me if he’s responsible for your daughter’s death.”

“Yes.” Chet Stockton rose, struggling to force his stooped shoulders back. “Over the years I heard rumors that Paul was unfaithful to Valerie—nothing I was meant to hear presumably, but gossip has a way of traveling beyond its intended boundaries.” He raked a hand through his wreath of white hair. “She loved Paul. Whether he was deserving of that, I don’t know. My daughter meant the world to me, but it wasn’t my place to intrude on her private life. I had no proof Paul was unfaithful and, given my resolve to stay out of their marriage, I made a conscious choice not to look into the allegations. I respected my daughter’s right to run her own life.”

Ray said, “Had she come to you in tears over his—”

“The point is,” Stockton replied, “she didn’t. Frankly, I don’t think she ever would have. She had to have known I would have seen Paul ruined. Right or wrong, she loved him too much to let that happen. That was Valerie.”

The discussion was taking an obvious toll on the seventy-one-year-old executive.

Waverly said, “Let me ask you something, sir. Do
you
think your son-in-law murdered your daughter?”

Tears pooled in Stockton’s eyes. “Forgive me. I’m grasping at straws. If I truly thought for one second that Paul actually killed Valerie�” He paused, pulling himself together. “The truth is, whatever problems they may have had, to my knowledge, Paul treated Valerie very well.” He brushed a tear from his eye. “In any case, for twenty-two years, he’s been nearly as involved in ACC as I have. I’m sure he’d deny it, but from the start he’s had his sights set on the presidency of this company. He’s too close to realizing his goal to jeopardize his chances by doing anything so insane.” He sank back into his chair, pale and unsteady.

“Are you all right, sir?” Ray asked.

“Yes, thank you. I’m fine.”

“Can I get anything for you? Some water? Do you need some kind of medication?”

“I’ll be all right.”

Fearing for Chet Stockton’s well-being, Ray turned toward Waverly, signaling that the interview was over.

Waverly nodded. “Thank you for seeing us, Mr. Stockton. We appreciate your help.”

“No, gentlemen. Thank
you
for what you’re doing. Please, don’t stop until you’ve found my daughter’s killer.” His eyes glistened. “Please.”

“You have my word,” Ray promised.

Ray and Waverly said goodbye, leaving Stockton alone with his thoughts. They’d met an astute business tycoon, but left behind a brokenhearted old man.

15

On the off chance of catching Paul Davis between meetings, Ray stuck his head into his outer office. The young woman at the desk looked up from her work, pasting a professional smile on her face. “May I help you?”

“I’m Officer Schiller. Detective Waverly and I would like to have a word with Mr. Davis. We only need a couple of minutes.”

She swept a lock of copper-colored hair aside. “I’ll check. Hold on.” She pressed the phone to her ear. “Mr. Davis, an Officer Schiller and Detective Waverly are asking to see you.” She cast a furtive glance at Ray. “Yes, sir—Schiller.” She listened for several long moments without comment. “Yes. Yes, sir,” she said and hung up. “Please, go in.”

Ray followed Waverly inside.

“We’ll keep this short,” Ray told Davis, shaking his hand.

“You’ll have to,” Davis said, checking his watch. “I’m expecting a call shortly.”

“Down to business then. The biker. Have you been able to place him yet?”

“Place him? I already told you I never saw him before.”

“And you can’t provide a description because it was night and it was dark inside your car.”

“That’s right.”

“Interior lights come on when a door is opened.”

“Only briefly. In any case, I had no reason to take notice.”

“How about an approximate height or weight?” Ray struggled to keep accusation from creeping into his voice. “What about his license plate? Any part of that come back to you? You were traveling behind him; you would’ve seen it.”

“Officer Schiller, I don’t know what you want from me.” Davis sighed. “I’ll give you my impressions if you like, but that’s all they are. He struck me as being on the taller side—maybe a little over six feet. Well-built, I suppose. As for his license plate… Frankly, it wasn’t entirely accurate for me to say I’d been
following
him. On his motorcycle, he couldn’t travel in the rain at the same speed I was traveling in my car. I’d simply caught up just before the deer darted out in front of him. Would you have been paying any attention to his license plate? Would anybody?”

“You gave the guy a ride into town after his accident,” Waverly said. “You must’ve talked on the way. What’d he have to say?”

“Mostly ‘thanks’ and that he didn’t want to be taken to the hospital.”

“Anything else?”

“Nothing of consequence. Look,” Davis said, turning to Ray, “you’ve implied that this biker may be the bastard who killed my wife. Don’t you think I’d help you if I could?”

The desk phone rang before Ray could reply.

“Yes?” Davis listened briefly before covering the mouthpiece. “I’m afraid that concludes our conversation. I have to take this call.”

Ray and Waverly turned to leave.

“Gentlemen,” Davis said as they opened the door, “stop wasting my time and yours. I didn’t kill my wife and don’t know who did. Look elsewhere.”

They closed the door and nodded a goodbye to Davis’s executive assistant. Walking down the echoing marble-floored hallway, Ray lowered his voice to a whisper. “Okay, what did you think?”

Waverly shoved his beefy hands into his pant pockets. “He’s arrogant. Arrogant with a bad case of nerves. The question is why. I’ll tell you something else. That call he got? I think he had that hot little number in his outer office make it so he could give us that high-class bum’s rush.”

Waverly’s observation drew a smile from Ray. “Great minds…”

Already informed that Ed Costales would be out of the office all day, they got in a vacant elevator and punched the button for the ground floor.

“Davis isn’t just smart, he’s slick,” Ray said. “He’s hiding something. An affair maybe. Maybe his wife’s murder.”

“Maybe both,” Waverly said.

Two floors down, the elevator door opened admitting two stodgy executives. Unable to speak freely any longer, Waverly ran a hand over his grumbling belly. “What d’ya say we grab a burger or something before our next stop?”

Ray agreed. Speaking to Dana Danforth was one of his top priorities, but it could wait; his stomach felt like it had started feeding on itself.

The trip to Dana Danforth’s Mendota Heights address yielded nothing; she wasn’t at home. Waverly drove toward downtown Minneapolis. “If we can’t get information from the horse’s mouth, guess we’ll get what we can from her old stallmates first.”

“We’re going to this Logan’s place you mentioned?”

“It was her last listed place of employment. That makes it worth a shot.”

“From the looks of her house,” Ray said, “I’d have expected her to be an owner, not an employee.”

Waverly snickered. “Take it from me, the owner of Logan’s would probably be lucky to make the taxes on that swanky joint of Danforth’s. The bar’s a dive with delusions of grandeur—a wannabe nightclub. You’ll see.”

When they arrived it was clear that the bar, located mid-block on a street inside the fringes of the inner city, left a lot to be desired. Like the neighborhood surrounding it, it had seen better days. Much better. The place reeked of stale cigarette smoke and faint traces of cheap perfume. Several men sat scattered along the length of the bar in various stages of drunkenness—some just off work, others on their way. A lone woman sat at a table, nursing a cocktail, trying to wink her way into getting another freebie. Ray had seen dozens of bars just like it in Chicago—all the same, just a different location. It was a watering hole for the blue-collar crowd—an oasis with enough booze to get them through the night.

Waverly straddled a bar stool and scooped up a handful of peanuts from a nearby bowl. “Hey,” he said to the bartender, “how’s it goin’?”

The man wore a white dress shirt opened at the collar, the sleeves rolled up his hairy forearms to his elbows. “What’ll it be?” he asked.

Ray leaned against the bar. “Orange juice.”

“The same,” Waverly said. “On the rocks.”

The guy sneered. “Cops, huh?” He filled a couple of glasses, set them on generic napkins, and slid them across the bar. “Whatd’ya want?”

“Dana Danforth,” Waverly said. “What can you tell us about her?”

“Who?”

“Dana Danforth,” Ray said. “Our information says she used to work here.”

“Dana. Dana,” the man repeated. “Oh. You must be talking about Lucinda Harger. Yeah. That’s gotta be a couple years ago already. She was using her real name then. Talked about trading it for something classier. So, now it’s Dana Danforth?”

Ray jotted the name Lucinda Harger down in his notebook. “Why the name change?”

“Big career move.”

“What career is that?”

“Singer.” He pointed to a baby grand piano tucked in a dark corner of the room.

The piano’s yellowed keys bore cigarette burns, the once rich wood scarred by careless scratches. It was a fine instrument blemished by its years of service and the abuse of drunken bar patrons. It stood on a small raised platform serving as a primitive stage.

“So,” Waverly said, “a singer. We just came from her place. She must be doing pretty damn well for herself.”

“I wouldn’t know, but if she’s living high on the hog, I doubt it has anything to do with her singing.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning she’s got the diva attitude but not the talent to back it up. I hired her anyway.”

“You’re Logan?” Ray said.

“Logan Kobilinsky.” He reached across the bar and shook their hands.

“What else can you tell us about her, Logan?”

“Nothing much. She kept to herself. It wasn’t shyness—more like a superiority complex. I advertised for a singer a few years ago, and she showed up. Pushy broad. Over-inflated opinion of herself
and
her voice.”

“But you gave her the job anyway.”

“Hell, yeah. I’m a businessman, not a talent scout. I know what my customers want. She was it. Her and the booze.”

Ray downed the last of his orange juice. “Dana Danforth was a big draw?”

“Are you kidding?” Logan Kobilinsky took Ray’s empty glass away. “I’m betting she starred in all of my customers’ wet dreams—males
and
dikes. Could be she still does. Whatever it was about her, she kept the customers coming back. That meant money in my pocket. Right now this place would be worth more to me as a pile of ashes.”

Waverly popped a few more nuts in his mouth. “You couldn’t find anyone to replace her?”

“No one who pulled them in like she did.”

“Why’d she leave?”

Kobilinsky shrugged. “She didn’t say. Didn’t give me any notice either. Like I said, she was a diva.”

“Had she been seeing anyone?”

“Anyone she wanted to would be my guess.”

“No one special?”

“The only person she thought of as special was herself.” He paused and set Ray’s washed glass aside. “About a week after she ditched this place, one of my regulars told me he’d seen her with some classy guy—definitely upper-crust. That explained a lot as far as I was concerned. She always had her sights set high, if you know what I mean.”

“Any idea who the man was?” Ray asked.

“Not a clue.”

“Would anyone else around here know?”

“It’s possible, but I doubt it. She didn’t socialize with us riff raff. If you want to check with my employees, drop by when they’re on duty and ask around. He looked to the far end of the bar. “Be right there, Randy. S’cuse me, gents.”

“Well,” Ray said to Waverly, “unless Davis developed an interest in showbiz, that alleged business call to this Danforth babe Saturday morning is starting to sound like a lot of bullshit.”

Waverly tossed back a few more peanuts. “Smells like it, too.”

16

Thursday, April 8th

Spring, Valerie Davis’s favorite season—a time of renewal and fresh beginnings, but not this year. Not for her. Her remains had been consigned to a perpetually dark crypt in a sunless mausoleum.

The funeral service at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Minneapolis was as well attended as a state affair. Family members and personal friends stood at the front of the standing-room-only crowd. Business associates and industry wannabes solemnly took their places in the hope that their attendance would be duly noted by Paul Davis and Chet Stockton.

Scattered through the crowd, clusters of people stood out, partly due to their less fashionable attire, but even more for the clear depth of their sorrow—recipients of her charitable work, Ray realized. Scores of them.

Ray and Waverly were there to pay their respects and observe—just two more faces in the crowd. A police videographer tried to make himself equally inconspicuous as he recorded the attendees for later assessment.

Tears trailed down Chet Stockton’s face. He made no effort to hide them. To Ray, Stockton appeared to have aged visibly since the day before, his sorrow so deep it seemed to be sucking the life out of him. Paul Davis remained at his side—the image of a grieving husband and dutiful son-in-law. Ray couldn’t be sure whether it was a sham or the real thing.