Mona Lisa Eyes (Danny Logan Mystery #4) (21 page)

Toni
smiled. “What, you don’t want me in a men
’s prison?”

He laughed. “Shit, no. You’d start a
riot. We’d have to fight our way back out
.”

Toni smiled again. “Aren’t you kind.”

Ron nodded. “That
’s me.”

“What about Judie Lawton?” I asked. “She’s
a hell of a lot closer than Monroe—only a
couple of blocks away. Why don’t we run up
there now and see if we can get her to
talk to us?”

“Relax, cowboy,” Ron said. “I was just
about to get to that. Saddle up, that’s our
next stop.”

C
hapter 12

IT ONLY TOOK A COUPLE OF
minutes to drive to Judie Lawton’s apartment on Twelfth
Avenue. The building was three stories with the bottom floor
entirely filled by a beauty salon. At three o’clock
on a Thursday afternoon, the place was doing a brisk
business—we were lucky to get a parking spot across
the street. Ron pulled up, and we hopped out.

Yoshi
looked up at the apartments. “Unit 302. Top floor.”

“Naturally
,” Ron said as we started across the street.

“Ever notice
how whenever the building has an elevator,” Yoshi said, “then
the unit we want’s usually near the bottom, but
if it’s a walk-up with no elevator—like
this one is—then our unit’s always on the
top floor?”

Ron nodded. “Yeah. It’s the natural order
of things. It’s God’s way of keeping us
honest.”

“And fit,” Yoshi added.

“Maybe the bad guys want
it that way,” Toni added. “They always pick the top
floor on purpose.”

“Humph,” Ron grunted as we reached the
building and started up the stairs. “Interesting theory. Pain in
the ass, though.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Toni
and I are both a bit younger. It’s probably
not something we’d notice.”

“‘Probably not something we’d
notice,’” Ron mimicked sarcastically as he started up the stairs
. “Wiseass. Wait ’til your knees start to give out. Come
talk to me then.”

I smiled as we reached the
landing on the second floor. “Now, don’t go getting
defensive. I didn’t mean it as—” Suddenly, I was
hit by something. “Stop!” I said, lifting up a hand
in a reflexive military “halt” signal. The others froze, alarmed
. They looked at me.

“What?” Toni asked. Ron had instinctively
flipped his coat back so that he could reach his
sidearm.

I gingerly took a breath. “Smell that?” I asked
, still holding my hand up. I smelled a faint but
very distinguishable, sweet, sickening odor.

The others sniffed the air
. “I smell hair spray and fingernail polish remover,” Ron said
.

I inhaled again carefully and sure enough, there it was
. Memories of the same smell in the small villages of
Afghanistan and Iraq came flooding back. It was the smell
of death—dead animals, even an occasional dead human. Death
was all too commonplace over there, and anyone who’s
experienced it will tell you that it has its own
unique and unforgettable smell. “That’s not it,” I said
quietly. “There’s a body around here somewhere. The smells
coming up from the beauty shop are masking the odor
, but it’s here.”

Ron looked at me. “You sure
?”

I nodded slowly, scanning the surrounding area. “Guaranteed.”

Toni suddenly
looked past me up the stairs just as the thought
popped into my mind. “Judie Lawton!”

With that, we hustled
up the stairs. At the next landing, the smell became
unmistakable.

“Oh geez,” Toni said when we reached the hallway
, reaching to cover her mouth with her coat sleeve. “You
were right.”

Ron went past us and banged on apartment
302’s door, but there was no answer, so he
banged again. I was tempted to point out that if
Judie Lawton was inside and if she was dead, banging
on the door wasn’t going to help. Toni recognized
this, so she said, “I’ll run down to the
beauty shop and see if they know how to contact
the manager—someone to get us in.”

“Hold up,” I
said. I turned to Ron. “Give me a glove.” Homicide
cops always have a few pairs of standard-issue blue
rubber gloves in their jacket pocket so as not to
disturb evidence at a crime scene. Ron pulled out a
pair and handed them to me. I slipped one on
and reached for the doorknob. It turned easily. I turned
to Toni and smiled. “See? Saved you a trip.”

“Let
me go,” Ron said, stepping in front of me. He
and Yoshi both drew their service weapons. Ron nodded at
Yoshi and said, “Ready?”

Yoshi nodded. Ron pushed the door
wide open and yelled inside, “Seattle Police!” There was no
answer, so they stepped quickly into the living room. Toni
and I followed. Toni had her Glock 23 drawn, but
I didn’t bother. I had three trained professionals going
in in front of me. Besides, judging by the smell
, it wasn’t going to be necessary. I covered my
mouth and nose with my jacket, and when I looked
at Toni, I saw that she was doing the same
thing. A quick look around the room showed that no
one was here.

Seattle Police!” Ron yelled again as he
stepped farther into the room. Doing so forced him to
step over sofa cushions and other items strewn on the
floor. The living room was a mess. Books had been
pulled off shelves, vases knocked over; even the sofa itself
was pulled away from the wall. The living room opened
onto a small dining area and a kitchen. The cabinets
and drawers were opened, contents strewn onto the countertop and
the floor.

Yoshi leaned in and checked the part of
the kitchen not visible from the living room. “We’re
clear in here,” he said. He nodded to Ron and
pointed toward a small hallway connected to the living room
. Ron, his sidearm at the high, ready position, stepped down
the hall and took a quick peek into the bedroom
located off one side of the hallway, and then into
the bathroom off the other. Satisfied that there was no
threat in either area, he stepped into the bedroom doorway
and put his sleeve over his mouth and nose as
he returned his Glock to his holster.

“Clear!” he called
back to us. “Back here. It looks like her.”

I
followed Yoshi and Toni into the bedroom. Judie Lawton was
dead, eyes frozen wide open, as if she was shocked
at her own murder. She was sprawled across her bed
, fully clothed although a pair of panties was stuffed into
her mouth. I’m no expert, but judging by the
smell, the lividity, and the distension of her body, I
’d guess that she’d been dead for a few
days, anyway.

I grabbed a quick breath through my coat
and glanced about the room. All of the dresser drawers
and nightstand drawers had been opened, the contents dumped onto
the floor.

I turned back and took a closer look
at the body. “Son of a bitch—look at that
.” There were three small, circular marks on her arm, right
in a line. They looked like burn marks. “Are those
—?”

“Cigarette burns,” Ron said with disgust. He looked around the
room. “Seen ’em before. Some asshole was looking for something
. Apparently, she didn’t know the answer—or else she
didn’t want to tell him—so he beat her
and tortured her and then—” he pointed to Judie’s
neck, “—he strangled her.”

I looked at Judie’s neck
. “The rope’s still there.” Judie’s skin was distended
and almost entirely obscured by the rope, but it was
still visible in spots, dark gray and sinister looking.

Ron
nodded. “Yep.”

I noticed Yoshi pull a small vial from
his pocket, dip a finger in, and smear a cream
-type product under his nose. He offered the vial to
Ron. “NOXO?” NOXO is a deodorizing cream that blocks smells
.

Ron looked at the vial, then shook his head. “Nah
. I’ll get used to it in a minute.” Toni
and I also declined when Yoshi offered it to us
.

Ron looked around, then he looked at the body again
for a second. “Yoshi, go call it in. Make sure
they send the unit.”

The Crime Scene Investigation unit detectives
arrived twenty minutes later. The first thing they did when
they reached the apartment was to turn right around without
saying a word and march back downstairs. Five minutes later
, they reappeared, this time hauling a large fan, which they
proceeded to set up just outside the living room window
to circulate fresh air throughout the apartment. Even on a
very low speed so as not to disturb any evidence
, the effect was immediate and now, an hour after they
’d arrived, either the fans were really working well or
else I’d become totally used to the odor, because
I couldn’t smell Judie Lawton’s body anymore even
though the ME team hadn’t moved her yet. I
did note that something had caused the beauty salon to
pretty much empty right out. It might have been all
the police traffic, but I really thought it had more
to do with the ME’s fans pumping the odor
out of the apartment and down the hall where it
wafted right on downstairs. Probably didn’t fit in too
well with the facials and pedicures.

Now, the four-person
CSI team was conducting a thorough search of every square
inch of the apartment. They’d already taken pictures and
measurements and collected numerous fingerprints, hairs, and fibers when one
of the techs working in the bathroom called out, “Got
something here!”

People moved toward the hallway and the bathroom
to see what it was. I tried to look across
the top of those in front of me, but the
place was too small and too crowded, so I had
to rely only on what I heard.

“Look there, boss
,” the tech said to her supervisor. “Up under the vanity
.”

A second later, the supervisor said, “What is that?”

“It
’s a pretty good-sized plastic bag. From the looks
of it, I’d say it’s full of some
white powdery substance, most likely cocaine with a bag that
size. It’s strapped way up there out of sight
.” She paused. “I almost missed it.”

“Good eyes,” her supervisor
said, leaning over and peering up under the vanity with
a flashlight. After a minute she nodded. “Take some pictures
just like it is, and then take it out of
there. Be careful not to rip the bag.”

Three minutes
later, the supervisor walked into the kitchen carrying a blue
plastic bag.

“That’s it?” Ron asked.

“This is it
.”

“What do you think?”

“White powder. Granular. Looks like coke
to me. I’ll field test it and have you
some results in a few minutes.”

Three minutes later, she
walked over with a small vial of blue liquid. “The
Scott test comes back positive for cocaine. We’ll take
it to the lab and confirm, but I’m pretty
sure you’re looking at maybe a half pound of
reasonably high-grade cocaine.”

“A half pound?” I said. “Wow
. What’s that worth—about five grand?”

Ron looked at
the package. “Fifteen, twenty grand a pound, makes this probably
eight or ten thousand or so.”

“Ten thousand bucks. That
’s a lot. I didn’t think that Joshua Bannister
and Judie were moving that kind of weight.”

“Yet here
it is,” Ron said.

I nodded. “Here it is.”

Toni
looked at the bag. “I wonder how Judie Lawton ends
up with ten thousand dollars’ worth of that stuff?”

I
looked at the bag, then at her. “I don’t
know, but it looks like we found what our murderer
was looking for.”

“Hope it was worth it,” Ron said
. “Looks like the woman died hiding it.”

There was nothing
more for Toni and me to do at the scene
, so not long afterward, Yoshi drove us back to SPD
headquarters where my Jeep was still parked. Ron called us
at home just after dinner. I put him on the
speaker so that Toni could hear.