Angel Dance (Danny Logan Mystery #1) (29 page)

The Fiores digested this, and I continued. “Because of all this, we feel that Gina is most likely alive and well. We feel that she’s gone underground—perhaps somewhere other than Seattle. We don’t know why. One of our theories had been that Gina was hiding from Eddie Salazar for some reason. We were very concerned that Mr. Salazar was looking for Gina with intent to hurt her.”

“Why would he want to do that?” Angelo asked.

“That’s a question we’re still trying to answer,” I said. “Salazar was looking for Gina. Salazar beat up one of Gina’s friends, Kara Giordano, when she couldn’t tell him where Gina was. He told her he wanted to kill Gina. But Gina was already gone.”

“Good,” Carina said.

“That’s right,” I said. “It also sounds just like Gina to me—at least one step ahead of this guy.”

Angelo and Carina both nodded their agreement.

“But with Eddie Salazar dead, why doesn’t she come home?” Carina said.

“That’s the question we’re trying to answer,” I said. “We don’t know her reasons yet, but they might be related to Eddie Salazar—it’s certainly a heck of a coincidence if they’re not. But we don’t have a full understanding yet. And the fact that Salazar’s been dead for a few days now and Gina hasn’t returned is troubling. Clearly, there’s much we still don’t know.”

I paused while the Fiores considered this news for a few moments. The only sounds were the birds singing in the trees and the muffled hum of the lawn mower outside.

“Well, even though she’s not home yet, I suppose this is good news,” Angelo said finally.

“Compared to either of the other two scenarios, I think so. I think she’s out there—alive and well. I don’t know why she hasn’t come home yet, but we’re determined to find out. Sometimes, our work is a process of elimination.”

Angelo nodded.

“Any questions about where we’re at? What we’ve been doing?” I asked.

Angelo looked at Carina, then back at me.

“No. You’ve made terrific progress. We’re very grateful.”

“Well,” I said, “we’re not done yet. We’re still committed to finding Gina and making sure she’s safe.”

They both nodded.

“Next issue. Mr. Fiore,” Toni said, “when we met here last time we asked you to notify us if you decided to ask for help from your cousins in Chicago. I need to ask you, have you asked them for any assistance with finding Gina?”

“Absolutely not,” Angelo said, a little indignantly. “If I did, I would have let you know, just like I said.”

“Good,” I added. “We believe you. We just needed to ask.”

“Why? Is something going on I don’t know about?” Angelo asked.

“Do you recognize this man?” Toni asked, putting an eight-by-ten glossy of Frankie the Boot’s airport surveillance photo on the table in front of him.

“That’s Frankie,” Angelo said. “Francesco. Francesco Rossi. He’s a second cousin. He works for Johnnie and Peter.”

“By Johnnie and Peter, do you mean John and Peter Calabria?” Toni answered.

“Yeah,” Angelo said, nodding as he looked at the photo.

“This photo was taken two days ago at Sea-Tac,” I said. “Did you know he was here?”

“Frankie’s here in Seattle?” Angelo said. His surprise seemed genuine. Then it seemed to turn to anger. “Hell no, I didn’t know he was here,” he said loudly, plainly agitated. “What the hell is he doing here?” He stood up and began pacing back and forth.

“That’s what we want to know,” I said.

“Sit down, Angelo,” Carina said. Angelo looked at her, and then sat back down. She turned to me. “Usually, whenever someone comes from Chicago to Seattle, they at least stop by and say hello,” she said. “I don’t know why Francesco wouldn’t stop in.”

“Well, it’s got us confused as well,” I said. “We’re going to work on it and we’ll keep you informed.”

Angelo said, “Why don’t I just call Johnnie and ask him?”

“We—that is, the police and the two of us—think that it might be better not to let your cousins know that we’re aware of Frankie being in Seattle,” I said. “It might make it that much harder to figure out why he’s here if they know we’ve seen him. It was only a matter of luck that we were able to spot him in the first place.”

“You sure?” Angelo asked.

“Yes. It could be important in our finding and helping Gina. Please don’t contact them.”

“Okay. Whatever you say,” Angelo said. “We’ll do whatever it takes to get Gina back.”

“Besides,” I said. “It’s very probable that Frankie’s visit to Seattle has nothing at all to do with Gina. Better not to get your cousins all worked up over an airport photograph if Frankie is here for some other reason.”

“That makes sense,” Angelo admitted.

“There is something you can do for us, though,” I added.

“What is it?”

“Earlier you mentioned a warehouse in Bellingham. I think it could be helpful if you’d list every piece of real estate the Fiore family owns—even leases. Start here,” I said, “then list every piece of property you either own or lease, home or business. For example, do you have a vacation home?”

“No.”

“No cabins, no condos, nothing like that?”

“None.”

“No other personal real estate other than the house here?”

“None.”

“How about business property?”

“Yes, we have three warehouses and probably half a dozen other businesses. We own three bakeries and two pizza restaurants. Plus, we own an excavating company in Mount Vernon.”

“Could you write down the addresses and phone numbers of all of these places—anything that your businesses own or rent—and then e-mail them to us?” I asked.

“Certainly,” Angelo said. “Give me an hour.”

“Did Gina ever work at any of these places?” I asked.

“She’s worked at our offices here the whole time she’s been with the company, except for a four-month period in ’09 when we bought the bakeries. Then we sent her to Port Townsend to get to know the operation there, so she’d have a better understanding of the numbers. She moved into a little apartment up there.”

“Did she keep the apartment?” I asked.

“I don’t think so,” Angelo said.

“Do you have the address?”

“I’ll get it for you and send it with my e-mail.”

“Great,” I said, jotting that down. “I think that does it for us. Do you have any questions for us before we go?”

“Just one,” Carina said. She looked me straight in the eye. “Do you still think you can find her?”

“Yes, ma’am, I think so,” I said. “We’ve done a pretty good job of putting events together and figuring out where she isn’t. Now, it’s time for us to start zeroing in on where she is.”

~~~~

“He seemed sincere to me,” Toni said as we drove back to the office. “I think he was surprised to see Frank Rossi here in Seattle.”

“I think so.”

“Do you think he can control himself and keep from calling his cousins? It really would be better if they didn’t know we had surveillance on Frankie.”

“That’s a fact,” I said. “I’ll bet the Feds would be a little smoked at us if they knew we’d said anything. I sure hope he stays quiet.”

We drove in silence for a second. Something was gnawing at me, something that Angelo’d said. Then, there it was. It hit me.

“Son of a bitch!” I said. I turned and looked at Toni. “He lied!”

“Angelo lied?” she asked.

“No, not Angelo. At least, I don’t think it was Angelo. Robbie lied to us.”

“Lied about what?”

“Last week, when we were interviewing Reggie and Cindy Dunlap in Gina’s office, I asked Robbie if Gina ever worked anywhere else. He was emphatic when he said no. He said the only place she’d ever worked was at the main plant in SoDo.”

“I remember that,” Toni said slowly, now seeing the inconsistency. “But Angelo just said she spent four months in Port Townsend learning about a new business they bought there two years ago—that she actually moved up there for a little while.”

“That’s right. Robbie remembered just fine that I had spent four hours with the family five years ago at Thanksgiving dinner, but he forgets that Gina was reassigned for four months just two years ago? Sounds a little strange to me.”

“Can’t wait to talk to him again,” Toni said.

I agreed.

~~~~

We got back to the office, and I went straight to Kenny’s office.

“What are you working on?” I asked him.

“I got Frank Rossi’s numbers. I just finished downloading his cell phone records. I was just about to download his home phone records,” he said.

“Good. Go ahead. Also, I want you to get the phone records for Robbie Fiore. Home and cell.”

“Got ’em. I already pulled them earlier this morning,” Kenny said.

“I’m downloading three months of data for each phone. I’m going to export to Excel. Then, I’ll split the data into two categories: calls before August 11 and calls since August 11. I’ll do a simple macro to identify all the calls since August 11 that are from a new number—any number that doesn’t also show up before August 11.”

“I get it,” I said. “Then, if we see a pattern developing in those new numbers, it’s possible it just might be Gina.”

“Right, that’s the premise,” Kenny answered. “I’m making the assumption that this disappearance gig is a big enough deal for her that she’d not want to make calls using a phone number that she’s used in the past. She’d take the precaution of assuming someone might be monitoring that number.”

I thought for a second, and then asked, “What’s the area code for Port Townsend?”

“That would be 360,” Kenny answered. “Why?”

“Because Gina lived in Port Townsend for four months,” I said. “If she was going to hide anywhere, she might feel comfortable going back there. Pay special attention to new numbers from the 360 area code.”

“Give me a few minutes to write the macro,” he said.

~~~~

Twenty minutes later, Toni and Kenny came into my office. They handed me a copy of a printout for each of the four phone numbers—Robbie’s home, Robbie’s cell, Frank Rossi’s home, and Frank Rossi’s cell.

“This is fascinating,” Kenny said. “On average, each of these phones had one hundred calls per month incoming and about the same number outgoing. If you look here,” he pointed to a heading on my report, “you’ll see the new phone numbers that appear on the incoming call list only after August 11. You can see that Robbie’s home had zero. His cell had two—one was a 360 area code. Frank Rossi’s home had zero, and his cell had one, also a 360 area code. Look at the number.”

I did. “It’s the same number for both of them!”

“Bingo. What kind of coincidence is that? Suddenly, after August 11, both Frank Rossi and Robbie received phone calls from a brand-new, 360 caller—someone who hadn’t called either of them in the previous two months.”

“Holy crap!” I said. “Any pattern to the calls?”

“Turn the page,” he said. I did. “You can see that the caller with the new number is making a call to Robbie’s cell phone every other night at ten, just like clockwork.”

“Holy shit! Little sister is calling in!”

“Sure looks like it,” Kenny said. “And turn the page on Frank Rossi’s report.”

I did. There were two calls, one dated August 13, one dated August 24. “If that’s Gina, she called Frank Rossi a couple of days after she disappeared and the very day Eddie Salazar was found dead.”

“Unless Robbie suddenly found a friend who started calling him every couple of nights right after Gina disappeared—a friend who also happens to know cousin Frankie and decided to start calling him at the same time—then he’s lying to us,” Toni said.

Kenny ran the same phone analysis on Angelo and Carina Fiore’s home number. No matches—no calls from the new number. I wasn’t surprised. I’ve seen some good actors in my time, but if they could pull off a concerned parent act as well as they were, when they knew there was no reason to be concerned, then I needed to find another line of work. Fortunately, I was safe. For a while, anyway.

~~~~

With Robbie out of town, there wasn’t much left for us to do. I sent everyone home at two thirty. I was in the lobby talking to Kenny and Doc when Toni walked out, ready to leave. She looked at Kenny and said, “What are you doing tonight?”

“When Danny said we had the night off,” he said, “I simply referred to the black book, Saturday section, and dialed up a lucky, beautiful young redhead. I’m not certain, but I imagine that at some point, we’ll end up at what I like to call Ground Zero—the king-sized bed at Casa Hale.”

“You are so full of shit,” Toni said, laughing. “Do me a favor. First, check her ID. Make sure she’s older than sixteen. Second, make sure she’s literate.”

“Why?” Kenny said, feigning confusion.

Toni laughed. “And you’d damn sure better wear a raincoat.”

“It’s not supposed to rain tonight,” Kenny said.

“Raincoat, dumbass,” Doc said. “You know, the rubber variety. R-U-B-B-E-R.”

“Oh, I get it,” Kenny said. “Not to worry. Ground Zero is well stocked with a variety of—raincoats.”

“Oh, Jesus,” Toni said.

“And you,” I asked, looking at Toni. “What are you doing with your free evening?”

“Well,” she said, “it may interest mister ground zero here that I have a date.” She looked at Kenny. “With a man.”

“Really?” Kenny said. “Do you mind if I ask—”

“Stop. You’re two seconds away from swimming in Lake Union,” Toni said. “It’s none of your goddamned business. But,” she added, “I don’t know why, but I’m going to tell you anyway.” She paused for effect.

“He, and I repeat, he, plays for the Seahawks. He’s six four and 230 pounds of solid muscle. Six percent body fat.” She looked at Kenny. “He could break you in half and not even realize he did it.”

“Wow,” I said. “He sounds like a stud.”

“He is,” she said.

“Well,” I said, “have fun. You should ask Kenny if he can spare you some of his raincoats.”

“There’s an idea,” she said. “You never know.” She left.

~~~~

I got home and went for a longish sort of run—twelve miles or so. I like to do this when I need to clear my head. We were getting close. It looked like Gina was safe. Why she continued to hide, I didn’t know, but I intended to find out, starting tomorrow. I was seriously motivated to find Robbie. He was lying, and I wanted to find out why. Angelo said he’d call me. If that didn’t happen by ten or so the next morning, I was going looking. If he led me to Gina, and if Gina was safe, then we were about done. In which case, I’d probably owe Angelo some of his $120,000 back. Oh well—easy come, easy go.