Mona Lisa Eyes (Danny Logan Mystery #4) (29 page)

“This past Saturday night, a local man named Joshua Bannister
apparently took his own life by jumping from the top
of a five-story building located in the Capitol Hill
area. Mr. Bannister, who was Judie Lawton’s boyfriend, was
a convicted felon and was on parole at the time
of his death. Because of his past and his relationship
with the victim, I want to stress that he was
already a person of interest in the Judie Lawton homicide
investigation when he died. The subsequent investigation of Mr. Bannister
’s death was conducted by the task force and by
the Seattle Police Department’s Crime Scene Investigation unit. This
investigation led to the discovery of new forensic evidence in
Mr. Bannister’s residence that links him directly to both
the Judie Lawton and the Sophie Thoms homicides. Based on
the evidence, we now believe that Judie Lawton was murdered
by Mr. Bannister. In addition, we feel that Mr. Bannister
would also have been a prime suspect in the Sophie
Thoms homicide as well. As such, today, after consulting with
the King County District Attorney’s office, the Seattle Police
Department is closing the Judie Lawton homicide investigation.” He paused
and looked up before continuing.

“As I said, the physical
evidence that we have uncovered provides a strong indication that
Mr. Bannister was also involved in the murder of Sophie
Thoms just over three months ago. As I said, knowing
what we have learned, were Mr. Bannister alive, he would
be considered a primary suspect in that case today. But
in part because he’s not alive, several questions remain
unanswered in that particular investigation. Accordingly, we are not yet
in a position to close the Sophie Thoms case, although
we hope to be able to do so soon. There
’s still more to be done, and we’ll make
further announcements at such time as it becomes appropriate. Meanwhile
, the work of the Sophie Thoms Homicide Task Force will
continue until we are completely confident that Sophie Thoms’s
killer has been identified and brought to justice. Thank you
. At this time, I’ll take some questions.”

Toni and
I walked into Duke’s at five minutes before seven
for a meeting with Nicki Thoms. She’d been back
in town since Monday. Presumably, she felt that since Josh
Bannister was dead, the threat was over. I talked to
her yesterday and told her that we had a couple
of things to go over with her. She readily agreed
to meet.

“Hey, guys,” the hostess, a pert little redhead
named Kathleen, said when we entered. “Haven’t seen you
two for a couple of days.”

“We’ve been working
our butts off on a case,” Toni said. “But it
’s starting to calm down now.”

“Well, that’s good
, right?” She smiled and looked around. “We’re pretty busy
already, but I can put you in a table over
there in the corner.”

“That’s perfect,” I said. The
restaurant’s not that big—a table a little toward
the back and out of the way was a good
thing.

We took our seats, and Toni ordered a beer
while we waited for Nicki. I was still off beer
given that I had two weeks to go until the
race.

“Think she’ll be on time?” Toni asked.

“Who
knows.” I looked down at my menu and when I
glanced back up a few seconds later, Nicki was crossing
the floor. Heads turned as several restaurant patrons recognized her
. Without even trying, she made quite an entrance. “Wow. How
about that. A minute early even.”

Nicki smiled broadly when
she reached our table. “I cannot tell you how good
it is to be home,” she said, stripping off a
faux–leopard skin coat and tossing it over an empty
chair. “I mean, I adore London, but two weeks in
the same city as my father was nearly enough to
do me in. My God.” She pulled out a chair
next to me and sat down.

“So your trip was
good?” I asked.

“Boring.” She glanced around the room, then
focused back on me. “No drugs,” she said quietly. “I
’m going on three weeks sober.”

I smiled.

“Congratulations,” Toni
said. “Hang in there.”

Nicki nodded. “Thanks.”

“I was surprised
to hear you were back already,” I said. “I didn
’t think you’d come home until the police announced
the coast was clear. That didn’t happen until yesterday
.”

“So I’m told,” she said. “But that had nothing
to do with it. I left three days ago because
I couldn’t stand it at my parents’ home for
another minute. I was basically sequestered the whole time. I
had my own bodyguard, compliments of my father. And I
think my bodyguard also had a bodyguard. I ended up
spending every night at home, probably under lock and key
. I couldn’t have gotten high even if I’d
wanted. I think the guys stood watch outside my bedroom
door in shifts.”

“Since you’ve been back, I imagine
someone’s brought you up to speed on everything that
’s happened?”

She nodded as she reached over and put
her hand on my arm. “Cecilia told me. I simply
can’t believe it. First Sophie, then Judie, now Josh
? It’s so sad.”

“It is,” I agreed. “You understand
that the police think Josh Bannister killed your sister and
Judie Lawton, then himself, right?”

“Yes. I watched that awful
press conference.”

“What are your thoughts about him?”

She shrugged
. “Same as they’ve always been. This whole thing is
complete rubbish. The very notion of Josh killing anyone, and
then killing himself? Nonsense. That’s what makes this whole
thing so bizarre, right?” The waitress came and took Nicki
’s drink order. “Perrier, twist of lime,” Nicki said. She
noticed us looking at her and she said, “What? Surprised
? I said I’m trying to turn over a new
leaf.”

I nodded. “Well done.”

“You know,” Toni said, “we
’re starting to have a hard time ourselves accepting that
Josh actually did these things.”

Nicki stared at us with
no expression. I was a little puzzled, because I’d
expected her to be a little surprised that we hadn
’t bought in to the official police story. Instead, she
seemed to have expected it. “I figured you’d eventually
sort that out. Josh didn’t do any of this
. But who on earth would do such a thing?” she
asked. “And why?”

“That’s our focus now,” I said
. “Who and why? These are the questions we’re still
trying to resolve. And we’re down to our last
day to try and figure it out.” I explained to
her about our arrangement with Oliver and Cecilia. “Honestly, without
something to go on, I can’t feel right about
asking them to extend our contract. They could continue to
spend money on us forever.”

“Serves ’em right,” Nicki said
, reaching for her drink. She looked at each of us
, then, after a minute she nodded and leaned forward. “So
,” she said quietly, dramatically, “what
ever
shall you do?”

I
laughed. “We’re doing detective work. Tearing apart every possible
suspect, trying to figure out motives. We’re still trying
to reconstruct events and see if they fit that new
scenario. So far, no luck, but we’re still on
it.”

“Meanwhile,” Toni said, “the main reason we wanted to
meet you tonight is to tell you that you need
to consider the implications.”

Nicki looked at her curiously. “Implications?
Me? What do you mean?” She phrased it as if
this were a new topic, a new idea for her.
But looking at her, I couldn’t escape the feeling
that she’d already examined these issues herself. She was
just playing Nicki games again.

Toni kept going. “I mean,
if Josh Bannister actually did kill Sophie and Judie and
then himself, well then he’s dead—threat’s over.
No danger to you or anyone else.”

“Fat chance,” Nicki
said.

“Exactly. Because if he didn’t do it . . .” Toni
said.

Nicki looked at me. “Are you saying that I’
m still in danger?” She acted as though she were
not surprised by the notion—there was no fear in
her eyes.

“Maybe. We don’t know why Sophie and
Judie and Josh were killed. Josh was a drug dealer,
so one of the prime motivations is something to do
with drugs. And, being perfectly honest here, that involves you
way more than it ever involved Sophie, right?”

Nicki looked
at me. “Bullshit. It involves neither of us. Sophie had
no contact with drugs, and mine was limited to what
I bought and paid for. What reason could that be
for someone to want to kill us?”

Toni shook her
head. “We don’t know. Maybe none. But there still
might be a threat to you out there.”

Nicki pretended
to consider this, then she finally admitted, “Don’t worry
about me, okay? I’m quite aware that whoever killed
Sophie and Judie and now Josh is still out there.”

Toni nodded. “I’m glad you see it that way.
Is there somewhere you can go? Just for another week
or so? I know you apparently didn’t have a
good time in London . . .”

“Stop!” Nicki said quietly but sharply,
holding up her hand. “You’re not listening. I’m
not going back to London again, no way. I’d
rather take on the bad guy by myself in a
dark alley than go back to London.”

I smiled. “I
get that. Do you have someone you could stay with?”

She shook her head. “Yes, of course. But don’t
ask me his name. And I’ll be staying at
my place, just like always, thank you very much.” She
looked at me, then shifted her gaze to Toni, then
back to me. “I actually hope the bastard comes after
me so I can pay him back for what he
did to Sophie and Judie and Josh. I’m not
entirely defenseless, you know. I am prepared. I have this.”
She reached into her pocketbook, fumbled around for a second,
then pulled out a stainless Sig Sauer P333 in a
brown leather holster and laid it on the table, pointed
right at my midsection.

“Holy shit,” I said quietly, glancing
around to make sure no one had noticed. I reached
over and covered the weapon with my hand, rotating it
slightly so that it pointed somewhere else. “Put that thing
away, right now.” She took it and returned it to
her purse. “You’re going to get us all arrested.”
I was a little touchy about that nowadays.

She looked
around. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Where the hell’d
you get that?”

“I borrowed it. From a friend.”

“Do
you have a concealed carry permit?”

She looked at me,
puzzled. “A what?”

“Do you even know how to use
it?”

“Sure. He showed me. You turn off the little
safety lever thing on the side and then you just
point and shoot.”

Suddenly, she looked very determined. “If that
fucker comes looking for me, I’ll be the last
thing he sees—his last mistake.”

I sighed and shook
my head. We needed to solve this case, and soon.
God help us if Nicki Thoms actually pulled that weapon
out and started shooting.

C
hapter 18

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 9: OUR
LAST DAY
on the case. I had three main things
on the agenda today: meet with a new client so
that we could keep the lights on around here, have
lunch with Dwayne and Gus, and conduct an afternoon staff
meeting to wrap things up.

First thing in the morning
I met with a man named Nandi Vaman. Vaman owned
a wholesale plumbing supply distributorship in an industrial area of
Woodinville, a small town just north of Redmond on the
Eastside. He’d been talking to me since just after
we started working on the Sophie Thoms case. He was
a nice man, but I’d been putting him off,
and sooner or later he was going to run out
of patience. He had the usual problem—the physical inventory
he conducted at the last count didn’t match up
to what the books said it should, in his case
to the tune of nearly $50,000 worth of parts. Someone
was stealing him blind.

It never ceases to amaze me
how people think they can get away with blatantly stealing
from their employer, barely making even the slightest attempt to
conceal their larceny. Sooner or later, the employer wises up.
And sometimes, even a polite gentleman like Nandi Vaman gets
pissed when he’s ripped off and then he wants
to hire us to not only gather evidence against the
guilty person for use in their termination but also for
their prosecution as well. Fifty grand’s worth of plumbing
parts was going to be a pretty big felony. Hope
whoever did it had a good time while it lasted
because I was going to see that they got busted,
the scumbags.

Vaman gave me all the details and asked
me to provide a quote for installing cameras off-hours,
late at night. In addition, I was to build in
some surveillance time as well—a pretty typical job for
us, the kind that was not very exciting or spectacular,
but that helped pay the bills. Following on the Sophie
Thoms case, Vaman’s job couldn’t have come at
a better time. I explained that we could start Monday
morning. Vaman was happy. I took a deep breath and
let it out slowly. I was happy. And relieved.

“Try
the
unagi
,” Gus said. “It’s cooked.”

I watched as
a plate of meat of questionable origin, apparently smoked judging
by the dark brown color, drifted past on the little
conveyer belt that ran past our seats. Toni and I
were having our regular sushi torture-fest with Dwayne Brown
and his partner Gus Symanski. I’m not fond of
sushi. Of course, Dwayne and Gus and Toni know this,
and they take great delight in force-feeding me the
stuff once a month or so at Marinepolis in Queen
Anne.

“What is it?” I studied it closely as it
conveyed past. Part of the reason I don’t like
sushi is that I recognize hardly anything, and I’m
not much into experimenting with what I eat.

“It’s
eel,” Gus said, beaming.

I nodded and pursed my lips. “
Pass.” I looked back up the line and saw something
I recognized. “I’ll just have a couple of those.”
I pointed to something that looked like the California rolls
I was familiar with from the grocery store.

Dwayne laughed. “
Way to take a walk on the wild side, Danny.”

“
Yeah, well, I’m a red-blooded American, and I
keep waiting to see something that looks good. I mean,
what? Don’t they have chickens in Japan?”

He laughed
again. “Yeah, I imagine they do. But this place? They
call it ‘Sushiland.’ You won’t be finding any buffalo
wings here.”

I’ve known Dwayne for several years, extending
back to when I was in the U.S. Army
CID stationed at Fort Lewis and Dwayne was an SPD
detective. We worked several cases together and got to know
each other. Then, last year, we met his partner Gus
when Toni and I worked with them on a missing-person case. We keep in regular contact.

“Oh, by the
way,” Dwayne said, “before I forget.” He reached into the
breast pocket of his jacket. “They’re changing the parking
passes at the garage. Your old one won’t work
after the end of the month. This is an official
new one.” He pulled out a pass and put it
on the table.

Toni looked at me, and we both
started laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

I explained. “All this
time we’ve been using the old one, we thought
you’d forgotten you gave it to us. We wanted
to thank you, but we were afraid if we reminded
you then you’d want it back.”

Dwayne tried to
act indignant. “Forgotten? What do you mean, forgotten?” He looked
from me to Toni, then back. “And what, you just
weren’t going to say anything?” His act was weakened
by the smile he couldn’t keep hidden.

“He’s
full of shit,” Gus said. “He
did
forget. That is
until the bean counters sent around the notice last week.
Turns out they keep track of all the passes and
who they issued them to. When Dwayne got the notice
that they were upgrading, and he saw how many passes
had been issued to him, he thought I had ’em.
I had to remind him who he’d given them
to, including the fact that he gave you guys one
of ’em during the Fiore case last year.” He paused
for a moment before continuing, “Of course,
I
knew all
along.” He smiled at Toni. “I just couldn’t bear
the thought of you, my dear, being forced to walk
several blocks in the pouring rain every time you wanted
to come see me.” Gus is a big Toni Blair
fan. “And along those lines, my offer still holds.” He
nodded toward me. “If this skinny guy here so much
as pisses you off even just a little bit, my
door is always open.”

Toni beamed. “Why thank you, sir.
Who knows?” She gave me a sly grin, and then
turned back to Gus. “One of these days I may
have to take you up on your offer.”

“Can you
imagine? A bean counter whose job it is to count
parking passes,” Dwayne said, working on a piece of something
that had tentacles. “We’re up to our asses in
the Katherine LaRue case, and they come in with an
announcement from on high saying we got to audit our
parking passes. Our damn parking passes! They’re cutting our
operating staff and increasing our workload, but they damn sure
gotta have the dude who counts the parking passes. Betcha’
that sucker won’t ever get cut.”

“Katherine LaRue?” Toni
asked.

“Yeah,” Gus said. “That nurse who got abducted from
Virginia Mason hospital last week. We’re all over it.”

“
Leads?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Nothing that’s
panned out yet. Woman walks to her car in broad
daylight in a parking lot full of her coworkers and
she gets snatched, right in front of a dozen people.
All we got is that we’re looking for a
dark blue van. Know how many dark blue vans there
are to check out in Seattle?”

“A whole lot,” Dwayne
said, “but we have to pull off and go count
the damn parking passes.”

I inspected the food on my
fork before pulling a piece of what appeared to be
seaweed off and setting it aside. “Since you brought up
the brass, you’re aware of the fact that they’
re in the process of closing down the Sophie Thoms
Task Force?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I heard. Same problem: not
enough money to keep it going.” He paused. “Besides, word
is, the Sophie Thoms case is solved. Bad guy took
a flier off the roof or something.”

“That’s the
story.”

He looked up at me. “You don’t sound
very convinced.”

“We’re less convinced the more we work
it,” Toni said.

“So, knowing you guys, you must have
another theory?” Gus asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Bits and pieces,
anyway. If it wasn’t Bannister, then someone else did
a pretty thorough job of setting him up and making
it look like it was him. The trouble is, we
haven’t been able to figure out how.”

“Or who,”
Toni said. “Or why.”

I nodded. “That’s right. Or
even ‘if,’ for that matter. It’s hard to get
over the fact that what evidence does exist all points
more or less toward Bannister. Without knowing the motivation of
this bad guy, we’re kind of chasing our tails
with regards to figuring out who it was.”

“I understand,”
Dwayne said. “Maybe you should consider this: if the evidence
points to Bannister, like you say, and if even you
guys, smart as you are, are having trouble filling in
the blanks on your theory, then it’s small wonder
why mere mortals with average IQs like the SPD brass
might not be on board with you.”

I shook my
head. “Yeah, I guess.”

“And don’t forget,” he added. “
It might be just what it seems. You could be
overthinking it.”

I nodded. “I’ve heard that before.”

“If
the guy were being framed,” Gus said, “what are the
possible motives of the real bad guy? Why do this?
Who go through all the trouble?”

“We’re in the
dark there,” Toni said. “But we keep coming back to
something to do with drugs—it seems to be a
common theme. The problem is, from what we’ve been
able to learn, other than her connection with the other
two, Sophie Thoms wasn’t really into drugs at all.
We can’t figure out how she’d have been
caught up in this. We can’t see the linkage.”

“
Ah, linkage,” Dwayne said. “Good word. Let me tell you
something about linkage—the proverbial connection. Sometimes, that connection is
hard to figure out. Just because you see it, that
doesn’t mean it’s real. And just because you
don’t see it? That doesn’t mean it doesn’
t exist.”

I tilted my head.

“Remember, grasshopper,” he said. “
You’re on the outside trying to look in. You
gotta put yourself on the inside. You want to find
that linkage, sometimes you gotta look in unexpected places.” He
looked down at the conveyer. “Damn, almost missed it. Danny,
pass me one of those
takos
would you?”

I looked
at the conveyer. “They have tacos?” I looked up and
down the conveyer. “I don’t see any tacos.”

He
laughed. “Not t-a-c-o-s tacos. Japanese
tako
.
Octopus, man.”

I looked around at my team for a
moment as they waited for me to get started. I
think they knew what was coming. “Well,” I said, “D—
day. Today’s the ninth, last day of our contract
with the Thoms. We have a new job lined up
with Nandi Vaman starting Monday morning. We all feel that
there’s something wrong with Bannister as the killer, but
then again, we don’t have anything solid. As of
tonight, our contract expires, and we’re officially off the
case.”

“That means we’ve got tomorrow and the weekend
before the new case starts,” Toni said. “That’s three
more days. We can use these last few days to
keep pounding away for Sophie.” She looked around the room,
hoping to see support from the other guys. “And if
that doesn’t finish it, then we can just squeeze
it in between paying jobs until we settle things. I
don’t like not finishing something we started—especially if
it means that some asshole out there is getting away
with murder.” Her voice was firm—passionate, but firm. When
she gets her mind set, Toni can be a very
determined woman. We’d had this very discussion between the
two of us earlier this morning. It ended when I
reminded her that even though I was willing to give
up my free time and she was willing to do
the same, that didn’t necessarily mean the other guys
would as well. After all, they had their own lives.
The choice was theirs.