Angel Dance (Danny Logan Mystery #1) (8 page)

I think that the idea of having absolutely no control over things was most likely too hard for Gina to deal with. She wasn’t used to things she couldn’t control, and even Gina couldn’t control the U.S. Army. It didn’t matter if she got pissed and jumped up and down; if the military said go, I had to go. Period. In the end, I don’t think she was prepared for that. That little conflict ended us before we ever even really got started. My last happy memories of us together were sitting on the park bench together, my arm around her, watching the sailboats on Thanksgiving Day on Lake Union.

Now, of course, she was beyond reach. All I could do was take everything I’d learned, including some of the stuff from the very class that split us up, and try to find her and keep her safe. That is, if she wasn’t already gone.

~~~~

“Let me begin by saying, sir, that we’re starting with a completely blank slate. Not even a hint of a clue. This isn’t necessarily bad. In fact, in the schools I’ve attended, I’ve been trained not to jump to any conclusions early in any case. We’ve been taught to let the facts speak for themselves. What that means is that if we come to an agreement here this afternoon, then my team will begin to methodically collect evidence until the evidence itself speaks to us and tells us where to find Gina. We’ll do that as quickly as we can.”

The Fiores both nodded, so I continued.

“Now if I may, I need to be honest—brutally honest—for a minute.”

“Go ahead,” Angelo said.

I continued. “In all of my training and in all of my experience with missing person cases, I’ve found that there are basically three possible scenarios. As of right now, I don’t have any reason to believe that Gina’s disappearance is unique to this, so I’m going to give them to you in no particular order. Again, I don’t know what’s happened and I don’t have any clues or evidence yet.”

“Scenario one is that Gina’s been kidnapped. Somebody who wants something—it’s usually money—has grabbed her. Typically, some sort of ransom demand is made within forty-eight hours or so—most often sooner. Usually this demand comes by phone, sometimes by mail or even by courier. The initial problem I have with this scenario is that apparently, there’s been no ransom demand. Have either of you heard from anyone in any manner that might suggest a kidnapping? A ransom demand? A note? A phone call? Even an e-mail or a text message?”

“Nothing,” Angelo said. Carina shook her head to signal no.

“Robbie?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.”

“Exactly,” I said. “The question I have is why go to the trouble of kidnapping somebody to get something, and then not go ahead and make a demand? Because there’s been no ransom demand after Gina’s been gone for more than four days, I doubt this is what has happened to her. The police have already placed a monitor on the house line here. Aside from that, if we all jointly decide that my firm will be helping you look for Gina, we probably won’t spend any time on this scenario.”

The Fiores nodded their understanding.

“Second scenario. And I remind you, I have no reason to believe this is what’s happened. It’s just a possibility that we must face. Gina’s been abducted by a predator—either a serial murderer or a serial rapist. This is hard to say, and I hate to say it, but I have to tell you that if this is the case, she is almost certainly already gone. This type of person would have probably killed her within the first few hours after abduction, almost certainly by now. The good news is that I believe the probability of this happening to Gina is quite low, but it is a possibility and this might have happened.”

The Fiores were stone-faced. They’d surely already danced around this possibility in their minds, probably even out loud to each other. But hearing it from an outsider tended to make it more sobering.

“I should add that if we go to work for you, we will spend some time on this scenario, probably just at first. Eventually, though, we’ll want to shift our focus and our resources to scenario number three—and the one that I think is by far the most likely. That is, Gina’s gone because she wants to be gone. She’s hiding. She’s either run away with someone, or she’s run away from someone, or she has some other reason to disappear. I don’t know her all that well, but I think I know her well enough to say that she’s a very smart girl. I don’t know what might be driving her to want to disappear, but my guess is that she’s out there, and she thinks she has good reason to vanish.” When I looked at them, I saw hope in their eyes that Gina herself might be responsible for her own disappearance. I knew I’d said the right thing. Certainly, from my perspective, I wanted to believe Gina was alive.

“I will commit my four-person staff full-time to this case. If she’s hiding, we’ll do our best to find out why. Then, we’ll do our best to track her down and find her. We’re experienced at finding missing persons. I’ve already cleared this through Detective Brown at the Seattle Police Department—I believe you talked to him last week. He welcomes our help. In fact, as you know, he recommended us. We’ll be working as a team. We can go places and do things that he cannot. He recognizes this and is glad to have our participation because of it. When I was in the army, Detective Brown and I worked together on several cases. We get along well.”

“Again, if Gina’s alive—and I believe she is—we’ll find her,” I said with confidence, glancing at Toni. She smiled at me.

Angelo and Carina nodded, almost in unison.

“Good. Do you mind if I ask a question that came up in our internal meeting earlier today?”

“Go ahead,” Angelo said.

“Could there be any possible connection between Gina’s disappearance and your relatives in Chicago?”

“You mean is the Chicago mob involved in this somehow?” Angelo said, a puzzled look on his face.

“Yes.”

“No. No chance,” he said resolutely. “I talk to my cousins from time to time, but none of us has anything to do with the business of the other—completely separate. No connection at all.”

“Okay. Thank you,” I said. “I didn’t mean any offense, just had to ask.”

Angelo nodded. “Given the reality of the family connection, I suppose I’d have questioned your competence if you hadn’t.”

“Don’t want that to happen,” I said, smiling. “Would you do me a favor? It’s completely up to you if you want to turn to them for help. But if you decide to ask for their assistance—please let me know.”

“I’m sure I won’t be asking my cousins for help, but if I do, I agree to notify you.”

I smiled. “Thanks. Then, as to our business arrangement—”

“Mr. Logan,” Angelo interrupted, “Let me interrupt you. My wife and I have been fortunate. We don’t worry about money anymore. We’ll pay your going rate.”

“Thank you for that, Mr. Fiore,” I said. “But don’t you want to know what it is?” Before he could answer, I said, “You need to know that, as a four-man firm, we bill out at two thousand dollars a day, or sixty thousand dollars per month plus expenses.”

Again, Angelo interrupted. “Mr. Logan, I apologize. I should have phrased it differently. I realize that even though my wife and I don’t have to worry about money, I’m quite aware that you, as a young businessman, are not yet in that position. Your employees certainly have their own money concerns. I don’t want you worrying about money when I would prefer you should be thinking about my daughter.” He turned to Robbie. “Roberto, please have a check drawn for $120,000 on account for Mr. Logan.” He turned to me. “Will that be satisfactory?”

“Thank you. More than sufficient, sir.”

“Good,” he said. “You’re hired.” He stood up and reached for my hand. “Now, please. Stop wasting time. Go find my daughter and bring her home to us.”

Chapter 4

THE NEXT MORNING,
Wednesday, August 17, at 8:00 a.m., Toni and I met Dwayne and Gus in the parking lot of Gina’s condo. The day was bright and sunny and already warm with just a couple of little, puffy cumulus clouds drifting in from the southwest.

“I see they have no dress code at Logan PI,” Dwayne said, as he and Gus walked up to meet us. I think he was talking to me because I was wearing faded jeans, Nikes, and a short-sleeved Hawaiian shirt that I hadn’t tucked in. Then again, he could have been talking to Toni because she was wearing black denims and her Doc Marten black shit-kicker boots that made her nearly six feet tall. She wore a pink V-necked blouse with no sleeves. Her sleeve tat on her left arm and the Celtic armband tat on her right were on full display. Each ear had three pierced earrings, including a bar that pierced the same ear twice. Plus, she had some sort of tiny diamond stud in her nose. The effect was memorable.

“Unlike you fat cats, we don’t work on a union pay scale,” I said in our defense. “We can’t afford the fancy suits.”

Dwayne fingered his lapels and smiled. “I assume you’re referring to me. Pretty snappy, isn’t it?” he said. Then he turned and nodded toward Gus, who was wearing another plaid sport jacket. “I gotta balance out Gus, here. He does his shopping at the bargain bin at Joseph A. Bank.”

Gus acted offended until Toni said, “I think Gus looks quite dapper.”

“Dapper?” Dwayne said. “Dapper? I never knew anyone who looked dapper before. I’m impressed.”

“As well you should be,” Gus said, beaming at the compliment from Toni.

“Anyway,” Toni added, “When we dress in plainclothes, we actually try to not look like cops.”

Dwayne laughed. “Touché.”

“Sweetheart,” Gus said, reaching for Toni’s hand and kissing it. “Let me say that you look absolutely lovely this fine morning. And you don’t for one second look a goddamned bit like any cop I’ve ever seen.”

“See?” Toni replied, batting her eyelashes at him. “It worked.”

I smiled. “This is going to be fun, guys.” I noticed Robbie driving up to let us into the condo. “Robbie’s here. How about we get to work.” I pointed to the door of Gina’s condo. “Let’s start inside first; then we can take a look at her car.”

At the landing in front of Gina’s condo, Dwayne handed me a large envelope. “I got your paperwork in my e-mail. Thanks for that. This is a copy of the first responder report, a copy of the missing person report, a copy of my interview notes, and a copy of the CSI report. We’ve already filed with NCIC and WACIC.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Yesterday afternoon, we met with the Fiores. I assume you know that Angelo is directly related to the Calabria family in Chicago.”

“Yeah, we knew that,” Gus said.

“I asked Angelo if there’s any way Chicago might be involved. He was pretty adamant—said no way. I asked him to notify me if this changes.”

“You think he might ask them for help?” Dwayne said.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it’s something we should consider. If it was my kid missing, and my cousins had the necessary muscle and skills, I might be tempted to ask the family for a little assistance. I’d probably do anything to get my daughter back.”

Dwayne nodded his agreement as Robbie walked up. He said, “Yeah. Keep us posted.” Then he pointed to the envelope he’d just given me. “Let’s pull out the CSI report and walk through it. CSI already released the scene, but let’s act professional anyway. Does everyone have gloves and shoe covers? Good. Let’s put ’em on now.”

We all covered up and went inside.

~~~~

An hour later, we’d gone completely through Gina’s condo and compared what we saw against the CSI report. We found no discrepancies. The condo appeared completely undisturbed—nothing was amiss. There were no signs anywhere of any sort of struggle. There were no signs anywhere of forced entry—the windows were all locked from the inside. There were no unusual odors, no unusual stains. The bed was made and there were no dirty dishes lying about, although the CSI people had taken a coffee cup from the sink to test for fingerprints. There was a small amount of laundry in a clothes hamper in the bathroom. The trash cans were completely empty. The refrigerator was nearly full. The closet was full of clothes, with no empty hangers like you might expect to see if someone had packed for a trip. The bureau drawers seemed as full as you’d expect. The hall closet held two pieces of luggage. There didn’t appear to be anything missing; there was no room for anything else in the small closet. The bathroom shelves did not appear to be abnormally empty—no blank spaces, that sort of thing. Nothing appeared out of place.

Gina had a small desk in the corner of her living room. It held a cup filled with pens and pencils and a cordless telephone. The phone had no voicemail messages and no records of any recent phone calls. A small bulletin board was attached to the wall above the desk. The bulletin board held a calendar with no markings and a photo of Gina and her parents printed on plain paper. Most of the rest of the board was full of business cards tacked to the cork with colorful little thumbtacks. Gina had pasted a number of Post-it notes around the edges of the board. I had Toni take digital pictures of all the business cards and notes. When she was done, I had her shoot three dozen more pictures of the entire condo, top to bottom—even the inside of the refrigerator.

Bottom line—except for the fact that Gina’s keys were conspicuously on the counter next to her purse—the place seemed just like the owner had cleaned up and gone to work.

After we locked up the condo, we looked at Gina’s car, a near-new BMW 528. At first glance, the car seemed completely empty. When I looked in the pocket on the side of the door, however, I saw a Chevron receipt for a gas purchase. “Look at this,” I said to Toni. She looked at the receipt and said, “August 11. The last day anyone saw her.” Robbie had a key, and the car started normally. The tank was full. I had Toni photograph the interior of the car and the gas receipt.

After we finished the car, we huddled in the parking lot to compare notes. “Did we miss anything?” I asked after Robbie locked the car. “Seems like we pretty much got it all covered.”

“Seems that way,” Dwayne said.

“Scene matches the CSI description exactly,” Gus said.

“Sure seems to,” I said. “Very curious. Anyone got any ideas?”

“Just tossing out theories here,” Toni said, “but if she was abducted from here, it doesn’t look like there was a struggle. If there was, whoever snatched her did an almost perfect job of cleaning up the place and making the scene look normal. That doesn’t seem very likely.”