Angel Dance (Danny Logan Mystery #1) (12 page)

“See here, this is a picture of the girl with some friends of hers at this bar. That’s why we came here. We wanted to ask if any of these people could help us find her. Do you recognize any of them?”

He studied the photo, then quickly handed it back to me. “I never seen none of ’em.”

“Too bad. Nobody inside recognized them either,” I said. “Well, I appreciate your help. You guys have a good evening. We won’t take up any more of your time.”

He turned and silently looked at Mr. Big and Tall with a confused look on this face. While he was still considering his options, I walked past and then turned and watched. I was ready to jump in if needed, but Toni walked past with no incident. The men stared at us, but they did nothing.

We climbed into the Jeep, and Toni said, quietly, “Whew! That was intense!” I don’t know if she meant intense thrilling or intense scary.

I fired up the Jeep and looked back to see the three men, still standing in the parking lot talking to each other.

“That little bitch Rita called in the welcome wagon, didn’t she?” Toni said indignantly.

“Looks like it,” I agreed. “Looks like Jorge was right—this Eduardo Salazar guy is dangerous. Hell, we didn’t even make it out of the damn parking lot before they were on us.”

It was quiet for a second, then Toni said, “That was good thinking back there, boss. I was wondering how that was going to play out. You confused the hell out of that guy. That could have gotten ugly fast if he thought we were looking for Salazar.”

“True,” I said. “Better to not have to fight your way to the car if you can avoid it. Speaking of which, did you have the flanker covered?”

“Of course. I made sure he noticed I had my hand on my gun.”

“Good. Avoiding a fight is one thing, but no sense in us looking like pussies.” I thought for a few moments. “I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but it’s pretty clear that these people are way fucking dangerous. I sure hope Gina’s not gotten herself involved with them.”

Chapter 6

DWAYNE AGREED TO
meet us at the police station first thing next morning after I called him and told him about Eduardo Salazar and our experience at Ramon’s. Gus met us in the lobby and took us back to Dwayne’s office.

“Heard you had a little excitement last night,” Gus said.

“Yeah, a little,” I said. “We met up with some mean-looking chulos in the parking lot at Ramon’s Cantina.”

“Ramon’s Cantina, eh?” he asked, laughing. “You trying to impress your partner here by taking her to an uptown establishment like Ramon’s?”

“Yeah, something like that. She likes to live life on the edge.”

“The gentlemen in the parking lot seemed to take offense at us looking for Eduardo Salazar,” Toni said.

“Did they try to muscle you around?” Gus asked.

“They were about to,” Toni answered, “but golden boy here whipped out a verbal razzle-dazzle on them. Confused them with so much quick-talking bullshit that they ended up with stars in their eyes. We just walked right past them, hopped in the Jeep, and drove away. They were still there arguing with each other there in the parking lot, trying to figure out exactly what Danny said. Might still be there, for that matter.”

Gus laughed. “Nice work. No sense creating a lot of extra paperwork.”

We walked into Dwayne’s office. “Were they gang members?” Gus asked.

“What do you think, Toni?” I asked.

“Too old. Too big,” she said.

“That’s what I thought, too,” I said. “These guys didn’t look like your normal Yakima/Tacoma skinny, teenaged gangbangers. I actually thought they looked more like La eMe types.”

“Really? Prison gang? Mexican Mafia?” Dwayne asked.

“Yeah. Older than your typical MS-13 kids. Wiser. Maybe a little less macho-psycho fire in their eyes, but colder, more calculating, actually more menacing. Somehow I get the feeling that the guys last night are much more dangerous.”

“They were bigger, that’s for sure,” Toni said. “One guy must have been six five and two-fifty.” She paused, and then added, “Oh, and two out of three were bald. Lots of ink, too.”

“Okay,” Dwayne said, pointing to the conference table. “Have a seat and tell us what happened from the start.”

We sat down and recounted the events of yesterday afternoon at Pacific Wine and Spirits and of last night at Ramon’s, of meeting the bartender and then Jorge, and finally of meeting the three bad guys in the parking lot on our way back to the car. We didn’t leave anything out.

“Here’s some enhanced photos that Kenny made,” I said, handing copies of all the photos over to Dwayne.

Dwayne studied them for a moment, then asked, “Who’s this?”

“That’s Reggie Campbell. She works with Gina.”

“And this?”

“We haven’t identified her yet. Karen, or Carolyn—something like that. We’re working on trying to ID her now.”

Dwayne pulled the photo of Eduardo Salazar forward and stared at it for a few more seconds. He said, “And you think the scumbags in the parking lot were upset with you because you were asking about this other scumbag here named Eduardo Salazar?”

“Technically, we never asked anyone about Salazar, specifically,” I said. “They had to assume that all on their own. Not counting these guys, we only talked to the bartender and to Jorge Sanchez. We just handed the bartender the group photo—never even told her who we were looking for. I’m guessing that she jumped to a conclusion and notified her buddies out back that we were asking about Eduardo Salazar. I doubt she cared about Gina or the others.”

“Maybe she was worried about covering something up,” Gus said. “Maybe something happened to Gina and her friends were involved.”

I thought for a few seconds. “Could be,” I agreed. “But if that were the case, then why would they have let us pass in the parking lot after I showed them the pictures of Gina and said we were looking for her? I took a bit of a gamble in assuming they were interested in protecting Eduardo Salazar when I told them we were focused on Gina. As far as he understood, we considered Eduardo and the mystery woman here as nothing more than information sources to help us find Gina. This seemed to defuse him.”

“Confuse him, more likely,” Toni said.

“Actually,” I said, “he seemed almost disappointed, like he’d been looking forward to messing us up. If he were there because of Gina, I doubt this little ruse would have worked. I think the quick explanation caught him totally by surprise.”

Dwayne stared at the ceiling and thought about that for ten seconds or so. Then he looked back at us. “I think you’re probably right,” he said. “Unless there’s some reason to think these guys are connected with the mystery girl here, then the only other reason they’d have been annoyed at you specifically had to have been if you struck a raw nerve with them when they thought you were asking about Eduardo Salazar. Even if you never did actually mention his name. The bartender must have jumped to the conclusion that that’s what you were doing without you actually ever having mentioned him. They moved quick.”

“They’re nervous,” Gus said. “Like a virgin in prison.”

“They must be,” I said. “So who is Eduardo Salazar? You find out anything?” I asked Dwayne.

“Yeah,” he said, opening a file. “After you called last night, I started making some inquiries. Eduardo Enrique Salazar, aka Eddie, aka Eddie Stiletto, has been in our system here since last year.” Dwayne turned a mug shot right-side up for us. The man staring back had a Manson-like glare in his eyes that made it clear he’d just as soon cut you up as look at you. He had long, thick, dark hair and long sideburns. He looked to be wearing the same black shirt he wore in the photo with Gina. “Eddie was busted last October for assault with a deadly weapon. He cut up his old lady,” he turned over the next photo of a young Mexican woman who had two vicious knife slashes on her cheeks, one on each side. “Apparently, the good Mr. Salazar was miffed because she smiled at another guy.”

“Nice guy,” I said. “Let me guess. He’s here on one of those high-tech worker visas.”

“Yeah, right,” Dwayne laughed. “Actually, Eddie’s a Mexican national from Baja, here illegally now on an expired work permit. No current known place of employment. No job, but he posted one hundred thousand dollars bail last year and then—surprise—all the witnesses disappeared. We ultimately had to drop charges.”

“Not only is he a sick bastard,” Toni said, staring at the photo of the mutilated young woman, “He’s a rich sick bastard.”

“Looks that way,” Dwayne said. “And he has a volcanic-sized temper. And, apparently, it doesn’t take much to set him off.”

“Yeah, just ask her,” Toni said, nodding at the photo of the girlfriend.

“Got a last known address?” I asked.

“We do, but it’s almost a year old and certainly obsolete,” Dwayne answered.

“Probably, but we’ll still check it out,” Toni said. “We’ll take everything you’ve got. A neighbor might remember something. It’s better than nothing.”

It was quiet for a few moments, then I said, “How the hell would someone like Gina get mixed up with an idiot like this?”

“Boggles the mind,” Gus said. “But I’ve seen plenty of instances where well-bred rich girls are attracted to outlaws.”

I racked my brain to try and answer my own question, to no avail. I couldn’t agree. The Gina I thought I knew would not even give this lowlife the time of day. I was stumped.

“Why don’t we just find him and ask him?” Toni said.

“Good idea. Might be you find him, you find Gina,” Dwayne said.

“That’s right,” Gus said. “Or maybe you can ask mystery lady here.” He pointed to the photo. “If you can’t find Eddie, maybe she knows what’s going on.”

“Could be,” I said, rising to leave. “We’ll start asking.”

“Be careful,” Gus said. “Sounds like you’re starting to stir up a shitstorm. Make sure you don’t get splashed.”

~~~~

I was lost in thought as Toni and I drove back to our office. I kept hearing the words of my investigation instructor at Fort Leonard Woods in Missouri during my CID basic training over and over again: “Never jump to a conclusion. Never fixate on an unproven solution. Never fill in the blanks. Let the facts speak totally for themselves.” The human tendency is to grab on to what appears to be a logical solution. Then, invariably, the mind focuses on that solution to the exclusion of all others. A person will start to rationalize every bit of evidence to fit the preconceived notion. When you fall victim to this sort of tunnel vision, the real solution can walk right past you completely unnoticed.

Because of this, I reminded myself that Eduardo Salazar, nasty and suspicious as he might be, was just one of many possible scenarios. We needed to keep it in that light. He might have something to do with Gina’s disappearance. He might not. Could be that Eddie Salazar was nothing more than a play toy for Gina. Just because Eddie Salazar’s a sadistic shithead doesn’t mean he had anything to do with Gina. Coincidence? Maybe. Take a further look? You bet. Stop looking elsewhere? No way.

~~~~

“How many?” I asked, incredulously.

“More than seven hundred,” Doc replied. “Seven hundred twenty-eight to be exact.”

I had a rule that when we were working a case, we tried to meet as a team every morning, first thing. We called it our daily briefing meeting. After we left Dwayne’s office, Toni and I had hurried back to the Logan PI office for our meeting. I’d just asked Doc how many registered sex offenders were on the list in Seattle.

“Wow,” I said. “That’s incredible.”

“Yeah, must be something in the water up here,” Kenny said.

“No shit,” Doc agreed. “How am I going to make sense of this, Danny?” he asked.

“You aren’t. You obviously aren’t going to be able to go through each one carefully. By the time you’re done, whatever you find will have become ancient history.”

“Agreed.”

“So you have to come up with some way to filter the list,” I continued. “All you can do is look at each record and try to make a judgment call on whether or not the pervert in question is into women of Gina’s description. Each record has some sort of report you can use, like an MO. I’m pretty sure that a sizable percentage of the people on that list won’t match our profile.”

“That’s right,” Richard said. “Who’s that lady teacher who got busted for having sex with a student a few years ago? The one who ended up having the kid’s baby?”

“Mary Kay Letourneau,” Toni answered.

“Right,” Richard continued. “She’s probably on that list.”

“Good point,” I added. “I’m sure she’s not a suspect in our case.”

“Okay,” Doc said. “I’ll try and whittle it down.”

“Good. Now, let’s take a minute and talk big-picture strategy,” I said.

“We’ve decided that of the three possibilities—predator disappearance, kidnapping, and voluntary disappearance—that because there’s no ransom demand, we’re going to ignore kidnapping and focus on the other two, right?”

Everyone nodded their heads.

“And we decided that if we’re talking predator disappearance, the clock is running. In fact, odds are that Gina might already be dead, right?”

Again, everyone nodded.

“Yet so far, all the angles we’re working focus on the predator disappearance possibility. One: Eduardo Salazar. Two: registered sex offender. Three: serial killer. We haven’t focused at all on the voluntary disappearance possibility.”

“For good reason,” Toni said. “We knew when we got into this that if Gina got abducted by a predator, and if she’s not already dead, her days are surely numbered. We’d need to be lucky to find her in time. You’re right—the clock’s running.”

“That’s right,” Richard said. “The vast majority of women abducted by predators are killed within seventy-two hours or so—three days. In this case, it’s already been almost a week. If she’s been abducted by a predator and she’s still alive, it would almost have to be some sort of sex-slave type of scenario. You know, the kind where the pervert locks her in a basement.”

I said, “You guys think we should just ignore the voluntary disappearance possibility for a while then?”

“I think we have to, boss,” Toni said. “There’s only the five of us.” She looked at Kenny. “And that’s counting shithead here as a whole person.” Kenny looked indignant. Doc and Richard laughed. “I think we have to focus our efforts on the most time-sensitive possibility first. If Gina’s been abducted by a predator, and we can find her and rescue her in time, we need to do this.” She paused for a moment, and then continued. “That said, I’ve told you before what I think—that she’s gone underground on purpose and has orchestrated the whole thing herself.”