Angel Dance (Danny Logan Mystery #1) (2 page)

At 8:00 a.m., a helicopter put down in the landing zone that the team had cleared. The first of nearly thirty officers from various law enforcement agencies that would arrive throughout the morning disembarked. The men began to unload the supplies they’d need to remove the marijuana plants from the site. In addition to hauling out the plants, they estimated they’d need to remove one thousand pounds of trash, PVC piping, fertilizers, and supplies left behind by the growers. Not counting the prisoners, of course, who were hauled out with the first load.

By noon, the temperature had climbed to ninety degrees. Many of the men had stripped off their shirts. All were hard at work cutting, gathering, counting, and baling marijuana plants that would be transported to the Yakima Sheriff’s Department for eventual supervised burial in a landfill. Jackson was careful not to allow the men to fall victim to the heat. He instituted mandatory rest periods in the shade every hour. The team members downed more than a dozen cases of bottled water that had been flown in on the choppers.

Finally, just after sixteen hundred, their work was complete. All the weary men had been hauled out except for Jackson and his security team. The grow was clean and a single helicopter idled in the clearing, waiting for the men to load so that it could take off.

Jackson looked out over the former grow site. He’d been up for nearly thirty-six hours, the last half spent in hard physical work. He was hot, dusty, and tired, and he knew his men were, too. Above all, though, he was grateful that none of his team had been injured. “Did we forget anything or, worse, anybody?” Jackson asked.

“No sir, boss. We triple-checked,” Hamilton answered. “We got it all.”

“Good.” Jackson said, nodding. He gazed out over the now cleared site for several seconds, and then said, “We did good work today. Things turned out well.”

“What was it,” Mike Hamilton asked, “five thousand plants or so?”

“Yeah, five thousand three hundred four,” Jackson said, having memorized the count from his tally sheet. “Agrees with the Intel estimate.”

“At twenty-five hundred bucks a plant, what’s that—twelve, thirteen million bucks?”

“Yeah. Nice bust.”

The other team members nodded their agreement.

Another moment passed, and then Jackson pointed to the helicopter and said, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

PART 1

Chapter 1

SEATTLE IS SPECTACULAR
in the summer. I think it’s God’s way of paying back Seattleites for making us endure the long, drawn-out Pacific Northwest winters. From late October to early June, the color palette seems to meld into a gray-tone monoscape. The sky is gray. The water’s gray. Even the trees look gray. The later into the season, the grayer and the more monotone it seems to get. It’s almost always cloudy in the winter, but it usually doesn’t rain hard. Instead, it drizzles continuously—tiny misty raindrops. And it does so for days on end, pretty much nonstop. It’s not uncommon for the airport to record thirty days of continuous rain—a performance that begins to approach biblical standards. Then, just as people are about to grow moss on their feet or go insane (or both), summer finally shows up.

This generally happens around the middle of June when the “June Gloom” gives way to clear skies. The sun comes out in all its glory for four solid months. The gray landscape is shoved to the back of people’s minds, where it’s quickly forgotten. Seattleites hang up their Gore-Tex jackets and break out their shorts and T-shirts. Temperatures climb into the low to mid-seventies in the afternoons. Super-saturated greens of verdant forests set against brilliant blue skies and deep-blue sparkling waters touch the eyes in every direction. The contrast is so striking that tourists—sometimes even locals—stop dead in their tracks to admire the view. Summertime visitors marvel at the stunning scene and say, “It’s beautiful here! There’s no rain—what’s all this talk about rain? We should move here!” Some do. Then winter returns. Oops. Gotcha.

It’s hard to imagine anything bad happening in the paradise that is Seattle in the summer, but of course it does. There’s no slow time of year in my private investigation business. People take advantage of each other pretty much year ’round. Husbands cheat on wives. Wives cheat on husbands. Employees rip off employers. People skip bail, or sometimes just disappear. Here at Logan Private Investigations, we stay busy every month of the year.

Which explains why I was sitting on the balcony of my office on Lake Union on a fine Tuesday afternoon on the sixteenth of August, trying to finish a surveillance wrap-up report on my laptop. A client of ours who owns an electronics parts distribution company kept coming up short in her inventory audits. After bringing in her auditors and back-checking her internal control procedures, she finally deduced that one or more of her employees—most likely dock employees—must be stealing from the business. But she couldn’t prove it. Our client asked us to place the dock under video surveillance. That’s one of our specialties, so we agreed. We took our plain white surveillance van, stuck our “Ryan’s Quality Plumbing” vinyl to the sides and parked it across the street from her docks late at night. Three days later, we had the evidence to prove she was right. Now, I was trying to finish the wrap-up report.

Truth be told, I wasn’t making much headway. I kept getting distracted by a Laser-class sailboat regatta taking place on the lake directly in front of me. The windward mark was just forty yards from my chair, and each time the fleet of little boats approached the mark in a bunch, I noticed a very attractive blonde in a gray Laser with
Volvo 116223
painted on its sail. She was fighting hard, holding her position near the front of the pack. Her little boat heeled precariously, causing her to hike way out. Clearly, she was in it to win. Though I can’t say if she won or not, I know for certain she was a very effective distraction from the report staring up at me from my desk.

This bout of three-steps-forward-two-steps-back mind-wandering came to a sobering halt when my associate, Antoinette Blair, buzzed in on the intercom.

“Danny, there’s a man named Robbie Fiore here to see you.”

Robbie Fiore—now there was a name from the past.

“Thanks, Toni,” I answered. “Do me a favor and bring him on back to my office, would you?”

~~~~

I grew up in Seattle and knew the Fiore family. I graduated from high school with Roberto. Robbie and I ran with different crowds, but we were friendly. In fact, we were both on the track team—I ran the mile; Robbie was a pole vaulter. Through him, I knew his kid sister Gina.

Gina was two years younger than us. She’d show up at the track meets with her friends to root for Robbie. She was one of a kind. And short—maybe five two with a fiery personality, almost to the point of being cocky. Beautiful: thick, dark hair and a knockout figure, even in high school. Unfairly beautiful, with brains to match. I’d see her in the halls at school, surrounded by girlfriends and guys with stars in their eyes. She was the center of attention, to be sure. Even though I was older than she was, she intimidated the hell out of me in those days. I’d have loved to ask her out on a date, but in high school I could never find the nerve.

Now, Gina was missing. Gone. No trace. The story had been front page in the
Seattle Times
yesterday and this morning. Even the morning edition of the national news had picked up the story and started running with it. “Local Business Heiress Vanishes.”

Her picture was all over the local television news. According to the reports, Gina had not been seen since last Thursday. No clues, no ransom demand—no nothing. The police effort had started slowly, as is typical in an adult missing person case, but the press reports indicated that this was changing now. Gina’s lifestyle didn’t seem consistent with someone who’d simply disappear. The papers said her purse, her driver’s license and credit cards, and all her personal effects were found locked in her apartment. Her car was parked in its normal space. It certainly sounded unusual at the least. Maybe even suspicious.

When I first saw the newspaper accounts, I’d thought of calling the family to offer my services, but I hadn’t. I’m not sure why. Finding missing persons is one of the things we do, but I don’t know, maybe it was because the timing didn’t seem right yet. The police were starting to get fired up over the case, and they probably wouldn’t welcome my uninvited help. I couldn’t figure out how to bring it up with the family—I didn’t want to just barge in. Anyway, I hadn’t made the call.

~~~~

“Robbie,” I said, walking to meet him as Toni brought him into my office. We shook hands. “Good to see you.”

“Hi, Danny. It’s been a long time,” Robbie said.

“It has. I’m so sorry to hear about Gina.”

“Thanks. I guess you saw the news—seems everyone has. It’s not too hard to figure out why I’m here.” His voice wavered—he was clearly scared. I’ve seen people in this situation before and I felt really bad for the guy.

“She’s gone, Danny,” he said, “and my family’s scared to death. My parents flat adore her. She’s their baby.” He paused, then added, “I swear, if anything bad’s happened to her, it’ll probably kill them.”

I nodded that I understood.

“I’m here to ask for your help,” he said. His eyes were surrounded by dark circles and looked as though they were on the verge of tearing up. He looked whipped. His normally stout, six-foot frame was bent; his shoulders hunched. There were lines that appeared to be etched into his forehead. He looked like he hadn’t slept for days.

“I understand,” I said. “I’m eager to help. Let’s talk for a few minutes about what we might be able to do.” I nodded toward Toni. “Robbie, first let me introduce Toni Blair. Toni’s an associate of mine. If we end up deciding that my firm can help your family locate Gina, Toni will be in on it with me. She’s been with me since I opened the doors here. If it’s okay with you, I’d like her to sit in with us from the start. That way, she and I can compare notes later and make sure we don’t miss anything.”

Robbie looked at Toni and nodded.

“I’m glad to meet you, Robbie,” Toni said, shaking his hand. “I’m real sorry about your sister.” There’d been no time to brief Toni on what was happening, but it really wasn’t necessary anyway. She’s one of those unusual people—the kind that you never see studying, but they always seem to know everything that’s going on around them. More than that, I’ve noticed she has the unique talent of being able to put people at ease quickly. Her sincerity is genuine and shines right through. People respond well to her, as Robbie did now.

“Thanks,” he said, his face brightening a little. “I appreciate that.”

I directed Toni and Robbie to the little conference table in my office. “Let’s have a seat, and you can tell us what’s happened.” They sat down while I grabbed a notepad for me and one for Toni before joining them.

“Robbie,” I said, “I should start by saying we don’t know anything—only what we’ve seen on the news and in the paper. For a number of reasons, that’s not always very reliable.” At least at first, the press tends to report what the police feed them. Oftentimes, the police hold things back for tactical reasons. We needed all the information. I continued, “We’re going to take notes while you start at the beginning and tell us everything—everything you know—even the little stuff.”

He nodded. “Okay.” He looked at the water outside for a few moments while he seemed to gather his thoughts. He cleared his voice before starting.

“Gina works for the company—that is, my dad’s company: Pacific Wine and Spirits. She and I both work there. This past Friday, she didn’t show up for work.”

Toni and I both took notes as Robbie spoke.

“We called her and left messages at her condo and on her cell. We got no answer, no calls back. I sent her e-mails and text messages—again no answer. This isn’t like her—Gina never misses work. She won’t even be late for an appointment unless she calls first. By Friday afternoon, we were really starting to get worried. Cindy Dunlap, our HR director, and I decided to go to her apartment and check it out.”

“You have a key then?” I asked.

“Yeah. Gina and I have always exchanged front door keys and keys to each other’s cars so we can help out in case the other is out of town or something.”

“Or in case you lock yourself out,” Toni said.

“Right. I opened her condo and went inside and saw that she wasn’t there. At first, I was relieved. Then I noticed her purse was on the counter and her keys, too. When I saw the keys, I went back outside and saw that her car was in its parking space. I hadn’t noticed it on the way in.”

Toni raised her hand suddenly. “Let me interrupt you for a second, Robbie,” she said. “Before you get too far into what’s happened over the past few days—I apologize—I should have been more clear and asked a few background questions first. I need you to back up so that we can get a few basic things out of the way.”

“Oh, sorry,” he said.

“No, it’s not you,” Toni said, “but I don’t know anything about Gina—only what I’ve seen on TV or read in the paper in the last day or so. For instance, I don’t even know her full name or how old she is.”

“Oh,” Robbie said. “I see. Her full name is Angelina Theresa Fiore. She’s twenty-seven, born on June 14, 1984.”

“Her physical description?”

“She’s five feet two inches, about 105 pounds. Long, dark hair.”

“Any distinguishing marks? Tattoos, piercings—that sort of thing?”

“No, nothing.”

“Married?”

“No, never.”

“Home address?”

“Three twenty-seven West Olympic Place, unit 304, here in Seattle,” Robbie said.

“That’s right near where my dad lives,” I said, thinking of the house where I grew up.

“Yeah, I guess we all end up coming back to Queen Anne sooner or later,” Robbie said.

Toni scribbled furiously on her notepad. “How do you two guys know each other?”

“High school,” Robbie said. “Danny and I graduated from Ballard High in 2000. Gina was two years behind us.”