Angel Dance (Danny Logan Mystery #1) (28 page)

“I know. That’s what I’m saying, you know.”

“You don’t know shit, numbnuts. You should be so lucky to end up with a woman like that. All those fucking teenaged
chiquitas
you hang with.”

“Look, I know I’ll never be so lucky as to end up with someone like her.”

“Damn right. You stop talkin’ shit.”

“I wasn’t talking shit,” Kenny objected. “I was just talking to you. My friend. Private conversation.”

“Just remember,
pipucho
,” Doc said. “I like her more than I like you.”

Just then, I heard Toni walk past Kenny’s door. “My office is right next door,” she said. “I can hear every word you’re saying, you little fucker. I heard you talking shit about me. Get your ass in the conference room. It’s time for the meeting.”

“I wasn’t,” Kenny said quickly. “I was saying how nice you looked in black leather.”

“Bullshit, I heard you. You’re busted. You better hope you bleed out fast when Doc cuts your nuts off because when he’s done, then it’s my turn.”

She walked toward the conference room and without slowing down, turned and looked at me, smiled, and winked as she passed by.

~~~~

“So am I to understand that we’re now officially focusing solely on a voluntary disappearance scenario?” Richard asked. We were in the conference room, and I’d just brought everyone up to speed on the events of the last week or so.

“That’s right,” I answered. “By now, Gina’s either dead or she’s choosing not to come out of hiding for some reason. Otherwise, she probably would have showed up already. If she’s dead, we can’t help her. If she’s hiding, our job now is to figure out where and why she’s hiding. We need to figure out her motive.”

“Indeed,” Richard said. “Why would a twenty-seven-year-old woman, daughter of a successful businessman, holder of a very nice job, suddenly up and disappear?”

“Good question,” I said. “Let’s throw some ideas out and brainstorm a little. So that we don’t fixate, I think it’s important that we consider scenarios related to Eddie Salazar, and also scenarios unrelated to him. Let’s recap the facts first.”

I got up and moved to the whiteboard.

“Fact one,” I said, “she’s been missing for two weeks—since the twelfth.”

“Fact two,” I continued, “She comes from a good family and had a good job.”

“Objection,” Toni said. “We
think
she came from a good family, we don’t know the inner dynamics. And even though her job looks good from where we sit, we don’t really have any idea how she felt about it.”

“Good point,” I admitted. “I’ll use green for facts, and I’ll write the questionable stuff in red. We’ll call this category ‘observations’ instead of facts. Observations, by nature, are subject to interpretation and, as such, we can get them wrong. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Toni answered, nodding.

“Fact,” Doc said. “She hung out with Eddie Salazar.” I wrote it in green.

“Fact,” Kenny said. “She hung out at Ramon’s Cantina, a nasty little place.” I wrote this down as well.

“Fact,” Doc said. “Eddie Salazar’s toast.” Couldn’t argue with this—wrote it in green.

“Fact,” Kenny said. “Her family is connected to the Chicago mob. And another fact, a senior member of the mob is in Seattle.” I wrote these down in green.

“I got one,” Toni said. “Fact. Her personality is domineering, controlling, and manipulative. She’s extremely intelligent and a very clear thinker.” She looked at me as I considered what she’d said. “Use whatever color you like,” she added.

“Several people have said those things about her,” I acknowledged. “My own experience seems to back that up, at least somewhat. I’ll use green.” Toni smiled.

“I’ve got a couple, too, then,” I said. “Fact. She’s very attractive, she’s got a magnetic personality, she’s very easy to talk to, and she has a great body. Green, right?”

“Sounds like you’re writing a personal ad for Craigslist,” Toni said. “Chicks wanted.”

“Write it in green,” Richard agreed. “It’s factual and helps round out the picture.” I smiled. Toni stuck her tongue out at me.

“Okay,” I said, after I wrote it all out on the whiteboard.

“Before we try to figure out scenarios that help us with Gina’s motives, who killed Eddie Salazar and why?”

“One. Drug rip-off,” Doc suggested. “Happens all the time.”

“Two. Beef with his employer,” Kenny said. “No severance packages in his line of work.”

“Three,” Richard said. “The girl, Rita, was married and her husband discovered them. He killed them both.”

“Four. Gina killed him,” Toni said.

I turned and looked at her. “No offense, but that’s bullshit,” I answered. “She’s no killer.”

“Write it down,” she insisted. “It’s a possibility.”

“I’ve known her for more than ten years. I don’t believe she has that in her. Besides, she went missing more than a week before he was killed. Why would she come out and whack the guy?”

“Because he was pressing her?” Toni said.

“You should write it down,” Richard said. “You haven’t seen Gina in five years. You don’t know her all that well or what she may have become, or especially why she might be doing what she’s doing. She could have hired anyone to kill him in order to get him off her back. Ironic that it could be he thought he was the bad guy and she was the weak one, when in reality it was reversed.” Reluctantly, I wrote it down.

“Short of a completely random murder, which would be at odds with the crime scene, any other obvious scenarios that lead to Eddie getting killed?”

There were none. “Okay,” I said. “We’ve recapped the facts, and we’ve worked through three possibilities where Eddie could have gotten himself killed—and nothing to do with Gina at all.”

“And one in which she was very much involved,” Toni added.

“True,” I admitted. “Next topic. Why is Frankie the Boot here?”

“Vacation,” Kenny said. “But I don’t really believe that,” he added quickly.

“Family called him in,” Toni said.

“They said they’d let us know if they were going to do that in order to keep us in the loop. They haven’t. If they did call him, they’re holding out on us,” I said. “It’s definitely possible. Could also be that they plan on telling us later.”

“Or they just hoped we wouldn’t find out,” Toni said. “How about Gina called him in for help with Eddie?”

I wrote down an abbreviated version of both of these then said, “Okay, now let’s talk about Gina leaving. Let’s dream up some scenarios that fit all these facts and can help us develop a motive.”

“Scenario number one,” Toni said. “She’s stressed out from her job, her life, etc. She’s throwing in the towel and she just wants to disappear. She’ll come back when she pleases. Eddie Salazar had nothing to do with her disappearance, and the fact that he’s dead is just a coincidence and doesn’t motivate her to come home. The family’s hired Frankie the Boot to come and help locate her.”

“Good,” I said. “But why was Eddie Salazar pissed then? Why did he want to find her and kill her?”

“Who knows,” Toni said. “Maybe she embarrassed him in public. I get the impression with a little peacock like Eddie Salazar, there wouldn’t have been a much bigger sin in his eyes than being publicly humiliated by an attractive woman.”

“Okay,” I said. “She disappeared because she’s fed up with the world and she wants out. I’ll go with that. It fits all the facts.”

“Okay, then. Here’s scenario number two,” Toni continued. “The obvious one. She starts teasing Eddie Salazar and then something goes wrong. She holds out, and he gets pissed. Or they get into a lover’s spat, and he gets pissed. Maybe he’s no good in the sack, and she tells him to his face and, you guessed it, he gets pissed. It doesn’t seem like it would’ve been too hard to piss off Eddie Salazar. She knows he wants her dead, so she hides out. Eddie gets popped, unrelated. Family brings Frankie the Boot out to bring her in. Now that he’s dead, she’ll come back soon.”

“That fits them all,” I said.

“Scenario number three,” Kenny said. “Like Toni said, Gina strikes up a relationship with Eddie Salazar, who considers himself a world-class ladies’ man—God’s gift. At some point, she puts him in his place and tells him to fuck off. He takes offense. He threatens to kill her. Before he can make good, though, Gina calls in her cousins, and they whack Eddie first. Frankie the Boot, retired mob executive that he is, is simply coming in to oversee the mop-up. When the coast is clear, legally speaking, he’ll give the word, and Gina comes home.”

I wrote it down. “There’s one common denominator in all three of these scenarios that we might be able to use,” I asked. “Anyone notice it?”

“Of course,” Richard said. “Frankie the Boot. In every case, we have either the family or Gina asking him to come out.”

“Kenny, do you think this might create some sort of phone record trail?”

“Probably,” he said.

“Then I think you should try to grab the information on Frankie’s home phone and cell. See if calls took place between him and the Fiores since the twelfth. Also, look to see if any unusual calls to unidentified numbers started popping up for him after the twelfth.”

“If Gina knows about things like prepaid cell phones,” Kenny said, “I won’t be able to trace her calls back to her even if she were the caller.”

“But at least you’d see the number,” I said. “Maybe you could spot a pattern.”

“True,” he said. “I’ll get right on it.”

“Other theories?” I asked.

“I have an observation,” Richard said. “If our theory is correct that either the family or Gina herself called in Frankie the Boot and didn’t tell us, then it’s obvious that either the family or Gina or both knows more than we do and, most importantly, more than they’re telling us.”

“That’s true,” I agreed.

“They’re lying to us?” Kenny asked.

“Starting to look like a possibility,” I said.

“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not comfortable being the only one who doesn’t know what’s going on,” Richard said. “Paul Newman said, ‘If you’re playing poker and you can’t tell who the sucker is, it’s you.’”

“Do you think we might be the suckers here?” Kenny asked.

Richard looked at us all, and then settled on me. He nodded.

“I think you owe another visit to the family—Robbie, in particular. It’s entirely possible that they know more than they’re letting on.”

Chapter 18

THE NEXT MORNING
was beautiful. The temperature had cooled back down to normal, and I was comfortable in dark green khaki pants with a dark blue short-sleeved shirt. Toni wore pressed jeans and a vest over a long-sleeved light blue shirt. The sky was a deep, clear blue with only a few clouds. As agreed, we met with the Fiores at their home at ten o’clock. I rang the bell on the front door of the grand home, and we waited. Inside, we could hear music playing—sounded like traditional jazz. Outside, a lawn mower was running, either in the backyard of the Fiore home or next door. The air smelled sweetly of freshly cut grass. A minute later, the door opened, and Angelo Fiore greeted us.

“Please,” he said. “Come in, come in.” He led us through the entry and back to the family room where we’d met before. The glass doors to the back patio were open, and he led us outside onto the patio. Carina Fiore was seated at a wrought-iron table reading a newspaper. She stood when she saw us and greeted us warmly.

“Please, have a seat,” Angelo said.

We sat. I looked around. “Is Robbie joining us?” I asked.

“I apologize,” Angelo said. “Robbie had to run up to Bellingham this morning. He said the auditors are inventorying our warehouse up there, and he didn’t trust anybody else with them.”

“Oh, okay,” I said. “I hope that works out well.”

“He said it was routine. He said he’ll call you tomorrow, and you guys can arrange a time to get together,” Angelo said.

“Good,” I said.

“Something to drink?” Carina asked, nodding toward a tray of soft drinks on the patio table.

“Thanks,” I said, taking a bottled water.

“So,” she said. “Bring us up to date. Robbie keeps us pretty much filled in, but we appreciate the opportunity to hear from you directly. Where are we?”

“First off, thanks for meeting us this morning,” I said. “We won’t take much of your time. We have been making progress. Robbie’s probably told you, we’ve been able to uncover some of Gina’s activities on the day she went missing and the next day or so afterward. We’ve identified some of her friends along with a man that she used to see.”

“Salazar,” Angelo said.

“That’s right,” I answered.

“Good that the bastard’s dead,” he said.

I thought for a second, and then said, “I agree. He was a bad man. As you know, it’s been two weeks now since Gina disappeared. You’ll remember that when we first met, I told you there were three basic scenarios we felt were in play. We’ve now eliminated two of them from our focus.”

I paused before continuing. “First, since we never heard any kind of ransom request, no note, no message of any kind, we’ve eliminated the kidnap-for-ransom scenario..”

Angelo nodded.

“Next,” I continued. “We’ve found absolutely no evidence to suggest that Gina was abducted by a stranger. Her condo was absolutely clean. Seattle Police sent in a Crime Scene Investigation unit into the condo, and they found nothing. If she was abducted, it almost had to have been from her condo, otherwise why would her purse and keys be there? And if she was abducted from the condo, it was either done with no struggle, or whoever abducted her cleaned up perfectly afterward. This might have happened, but probably not. None of her neighbors heard or saw anything that night. It doesn’t seem Gina would have voluntarily left with someone without her purse and her keys. Nor does it seem Gina could have been easily abducted forcibly without anyone noticing—particularly because the abductor would have had to take the time to clean up and lock the door with a new key that he’d somehow managed to discover. This whole scenario seems a big stretch, so we’re basically dropping it as well and moving on.” I didn’t mention that after two weeks, there’d be little hope of recovering Gina alive anyway.