Mona Lisa Eyes (Danny Logan Mystery #4) (32 page)

I jotted a couple things
in my notebook. “And this worked out pretty well?”

“Yes
, very. I think from the time we started until just
a month or so ago, we probably made donations to
twelve projects with the Foundation—I think on the order
of twelve million dollars. I’m looking at a new
project now, as a matter of fact.”

“A million dollars
per project, then,” Toni said. “Very generous.”

“On average. Some
more, some less. It seemed to be helping, at least
according to the reports.”

I considered what she’d said
. On the surface, I didn’t see anything suspicious. “Would
you say that everything with the Foundation seemed to be
above board? I apologize—I don’t have any idea
how the donation process works. But I get the sense
that you do. So, in your opinion, was the donation
process with the Foundation along the lines of what you
’d expect?”

She nodded. “Oh, yes. They were very professional
. And besides, Leonard checked them out thoroughly. And when Leonard
would check something out thoroughly, you can rest assured it
was really checked out. He was satisfied.”

“Okay. And aside
from the donations, that was it?” I asked. “No other
involvement with Sophie or the Foundation?”

She shook her head
. “No, that’s it.” She paused and furrowed her brow
.

“Is there something else?” Toni asked.

“Well, I don’t
know. But earlier this year, not long before he was
killed, actually, Leonard actually went to Africa. He wanted to
tour the projects we were donating to, and he wanted
to meet some of the people involved. He spent three
weeks over there.”

“When was this?” I asked.

She again
referred to her iPhone. “He left on June third and
returned June twenty-fourth.”

“So he was only back a
couple weeks before he was murdered?” Toni asked.

Gloria nodded
. “That’s right.”

“What did he find over there?” I
asked.

She shrugged. “He said everything was fine—everything checked
out just like he’d expected.”

I looked at her
. “If that’s the case, why do you seem a
little hesitant?”

She stared at me for a few moments
before she smiled. “I didn’t believe him,” she said
. “Leonard was a lousy liar. He was quite bothered by
something—something he’d seen over there, but he never
told me what it was.”

I thought about this. “Do
you think he went there expecting to find problems, or
do you think he was just going to verify that
everything was okay?”

“I’m sure it was the latter
,” she said. “Before he left, he thought everything was fine
. He called this a ‘working vacation.’ He offered to take
me, but I had no desire to go, so Leonard
took my brother along for company instead.”

“Did you tell
the police about the trip?” Toni asked.

She nodded again
. “Yes, of course. But they claim they looked into it
and found no connection to Leonard’s murder. I think
they bought into the mugging-gone-wrong theory pretty early
on.”

I thought for a moment. “Gloria, if Leonard found
anything wrong over there, why wouldn’t he have told
you? Why would he keep it from you?”

She smiled
. “That was Leonard’s way. He had this chivalrous notion
that it was his role as the man of the
house to protect me from what he used to call
‘little problems.’ It’s entirely possible that he found a
problem and simply decided to handle it on his own
. Over the years, I learned to trust him, to not
bother him. If he wanted to tell me—if he
thought he needed to tell me, he would. Otherwise,” she
shrugged, “I just let him work out the issues as
he saw fit. He preferred it that way. Over the
years I grew to accept this. It’s just who
he was.”

“And you said he went with your brother
?”

She nodded. “Gary.”

“What’d Gary say? About the trip
?”

She shrugged. “When I talked to him about it, he
said nothing seemed wrong. He said they weren’t together
all the time—Leonard apparently separated the business part of
the trip from the tourist part. He told Gary he
needed to take care of some things, and he’d
go off on his own. But Gary said that as
far as he could tell, Leonard was not upset about
anything.”

“Would he have kept some sort of records?” I
asked. “Maybe photographs? Did he take pictures while he was
there?”

Gloria smiled. “Leonard took pictures of
everything.
He
was quite an amateur photographer. He took his camera with
him everywhere. It’s inconceivable that he wouldn’t take
pictures of a trip to Africa.”

“Would you mind if
we had a look?” I asked, hopefully.

She shook her
head. “I wouldn’t mind at all. Except I’ve
been looking for them for three months. I can’t
find a trace of them anywhere.”

C
hapter 20

“WHERE’S
YOUR PARTNER THIS MORNING?” RON
asked. “If I can only
have one of you, I’d rather have breakfast with
her than with you anytime. She’s better looking.”

“And
she’s nicer,” Yoshi added.

I was just sitting down
to breakfast with Ron and Yoshi at the 5-Point
Café on Cedar Street just off Denny in the downtown
Seattle area known as Belltown, right in the shadow of
the Space Needle. The 5-Point is a seventy-year
-old diner consistently voted one of the “best dive bar
/diners” in Seattle. It was Ron’s favorite.

“She stayed
with her mom and her sister last night up in
Lynnwood,” I said. “And just for the record? I’d
rather have breakfast with her than with you two mutts
any day.”

“At her mom’s, huh?” Ron said. “Uh
-oh.” He turned to Yoshi. “Methinks our boy here may
have fucked up.” He turned back to me. “Out with
it. You in the doghouse?”

I smiled. “No. Not that
it’s any of your damned business, but it’s
a planned thing. Toni likes to spend time up there
with her mom once a month or so.” I shrugged
. “Last night just happened to be the night. She’ll
be home this afternoon.”

Over breakfast, I explained our meeting
with Gloria McKenzie, Leonard McKenzie’s trip to Africa, and
the link we’d discovered between Sophie and Leonard.

“There
’s a connection,” I said, as we were finishing up
.

“What? You mean the simple fact that Sophie Thoms was
this guy’s contact at the family Foundation and she
happened to be murdered the same week as this guy
—what’s his name again?”

“McKenzie. Leonard McKenzie. And there
’s more than just the fact that they were murdered
in the same week.” I told them about McKenzie’s
trip to Africa two weeks before his death. When Leonard
got back, he’d made several phone calls to Sophie
Thoms. We verified this last night on her cell phone
records. We’d seen them before when we ID’d
the number and it came back to McKenzie, who was
on the Thom’s Foundation donor list that Eric Gaston
provided, but we didn’t think it was suspicious. Of
course, when we saw ’em then, we didn’t know
he’d been murdered just afterward.

Ron shrugged. “Yeah. It
might sound a little suspicious just on the face of
it. But it’s entirely possible—actually, entirely probable, that
it’s nothing more than a coincidence. Impressive coincidence, but
not enough for me to go to the captain with
.”

“Well, tell me something, then,” I said. “How many people
connected with the Beatrice Thoms Memorial Foundation would need to
go visit the Foundation’s projects in Africa, come home
, and then be murdered in the same week as one
of the Foundation’s board members in order for it
to rise to the level of ‘suspicious enough to go
to the captain with’?”

Ron gave me a serious dose
of stink-eye. “Smart-ass.” He turned and reached for
his coffee cup before turning back to me. “Tell me
, smart guy, how many investors does the Foundation have, anyway
? From what you describe, the murders sure as hell don
’t seem to have anything in common, aside from the
fact that this guy gave money to the Foundation. Suspicious
?” He shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. But in the end, ’less
you got something else you’re holdin’ back, my guess
is that it’s probably just a coincidence.”

I shook
my head. “Intransigence is an ugly thing.”

He took a
sip from his coffee cup, then set it down and
looked at Yoshi. “You know what intrans . . . intrance . . .” he turned
back to me. “What was that word again? The big
one?”

“Fuck you,” I said.

He laughed. “Yeah, that one
. Look, man, I want to believe what you’re saying
. Really. I agree there’s enough questions about this case
that I’m not entirely comfortable pinning it on Bannister
—even though my gut says he did it. But he
. . . well, let’s just say I’m not close-minded
. Ain’t that right, Yoshi?”

Yoshi was reading the paper
while he worked on his coffee. “Man’s wide-open
,” he said without looking up.

“See?” Ron said. “Now, if
you could just come up with something a little more
solid? Something that pushed it beyond the level of ‘suspicious
coincidence,’ maybe up into the level of ‘solid connection’? Well
, then I could actually go to the captain,” Ron raised
his voice, “
without fear of having him handing me my
ass just after he went on national TV and said
we’ve got our man
.” He took a breath. “As
you can probably imagine, he’s likely to find that
to be just a tad embarrassing. And if there’s
one thing that a high-ranking public servant like Captain
Jerry don’t like? Yosh?”

Yoshi looked up. “Being made
to look like a jackass.”

“Exactamundo.”

I looked at Yoshi
, then back at Ron. “Do you two always finish each
other’s sentences like that?”

Ron beamed. “We’re pards
.”

“Yeah, I can see.” I sighed. Time for the trump
card.

“Alright. What if I could show you pictures?” I
asked.

Ron looked at me, then he nodded. “Pictures? Pictures
are good. Solid. We love pictures, right, Yosh? What do
these pictures show, anyway?”

I cringed a little. “I don
’t actually know. We haven’t seen them.”

“Oh, shit
,” Ron said, laughing. “You get my hopes all up and
then you leave me to go jerk myself off. There
’s a word for that. Help me out, Yosh.”

“I
don’t want to know!” I interrupted. “Look, we just
discovered Leonard McKenzie and his trip to Africa yesterday. We
’re working with his wife to try and find the
pictures. She feels pretty confident that McKenzie took some—apparently
, he was quite the amateur photographer. Her brother—he went
on the trip too. We’re trying to contact him
and see if he knows anything. Maybe McKenzie left the
pictures with him? Who knows? Meanwhile, I’ve got Kenny
Hale, our computer wizard, helping Gloria McKenzie sift through their
computers looking for records. When they’re done with that
, they’re going to go recheck the McKenzies’ safe deposit
boxes again today—Gloria already looked once, but it’s
possible that she might not recognize what she’s looking
for. Kenny will.”

“We didn’t find anything like that
at Sophie’s condo, did we, Yosh? No pictures?”

“Nope
.”

“Well,” I said, “we’re looking. One thing’s for
sure, though: something made Leonard McKenzie upset on that trip
. His wife says he was bothered. When he got home
, he started calling Sophie Thoms. Two weeks later, both of
them are dead. So do the math, guys. What does
that point to?”

Ron stared at me. “It points to
the fact that it’d sure be handy if you
’d just go ahead and find those fuckin’ pictures, that
’s what it points to.”

“Because you provided this morning
’s entertainment, I’ll buy,” Ron said, as we prepared
to leave. He flopped a credit card down on the
bill.

“Thanks, I—” I started to say when Ron’s
phone rang. He held up his hand and looked at
the caller ID and then smiled when he saw who
it was. He tapped the screen and answered.

“Carlos, my
man. Long time no speak. What could possibly lead to
your calling me at this ungodly hour?” He paused, allowing
the man to speak.

“Yeah? That’s what they do
. Women scream all the fuckin’ time. Could mean anything.”

I
couldn’t overhear the actual words of the caller, but
I was able to hear that the voice belonged to
a man, and that he was excited.

“You saw her
? So she screamed out a name,” Ron said. “What name
?”

Suddenly, Ron’s face turned stone-cold serious. I think
he actually lost a couple of shades of color. “Blue
? Where? Give me the fuckin’ address!”

Ron scribbled the number
down on a napkin.

“Thanks, man. We’ll talk.” He
hung up and pushed back from the table.

“We’re
done here. One of our CIs just heard a woman
scream up in Magnolia on Twenty-Sixth.”

We looked at
him, waiting for him to finish.

“She screamed out ‘Katherine
LaRue.’ The nurse.” Now it was my turn to lose
color as I had an instant adrenaline rush of my
own.

“CI says there’s a blue van parked in
the carport.”

“Holy shit,” I said.

“That’s right. We
’re close, let’s go,” Ron said. Ron turned to
me as we rose. “You carrying?”

“Of course.”

“Good. You
ride with us. We might need the backup.”

We piled
into Ron’s white, unmarked Crown Vic and took off
. As we shot down Denny, Ron grabbed the magnetic-based
flashing light and slapped it on the roof of the
car, then he hit the sirens.

While Ron was driving
, Yoshi called in the incident on the radio. “Dispatch!” he
yelled as Ron sped up, “we’re en route to
. . .”

“2244 Twenty-Sixth West!” Ron yelled.

Yoshi repeated the address
on the radio. “We just had a CI report that
the 110 victim Katherine LaRue is there. We’re requesting
backup!”

“Get your vests on!” Ron yelled. Yoshi turned around
and pointed to a stack of vests lying on the
seat next to me. I handed him his and Ron
’s and put a third one on as I struggled
not to get tossed from side to side as Ron
swerved back and forth avoiding traffic. I ended up wedging
myself into the corner by the door and holding on
to the armrest with both hands.

“We’re only a
couple miles away!” Ron yelled. “It’ll take dispatch a
second to get the word out. We’re close—we
’re likely to be the first on the scene!”

“What
’s the plan?” Yoshi yelled.

“If it’s quiet, we
’ll wait for the cavalry! If it ain’t, then
we’ll just have to figure it out when we
get there!”

Morning traffic was heavy as we hurtled west
toward the water past the Pacific Science Center. Fortunately, cars
, trucks, and busses headed in both directions saw our flashing
red light or heard the siren and pulled to the
right, leaving the middle lane more or less open for
us. Ron didn’t hesitate and pushed the big car
for all it was worth. He slowed slightly at each
intersection, barely giving Yoshi the opportunity to yell out “Clear
!” before he proceeded. A couple of seconds later, he slammed
on the brakes and we half-turned, half-slid around
the corner onto Western, now northwest bound on Elliott.

Here
, the downtown traffic thinned a little—we were headed away
from downtown while most of the commuter traffic from Ballard
and other points north was heading in. Ron picked up
speed until a mile later, when he again slammed on
the brakes and hung a sharp right onto the ramp
for the Magnolia Bridge. The bridge spans what used to
be tidal flats of Smith Cove and has now become
a built-up industrial area. The tall bridge itself is
an impressive structure, all the more so since it was
built more than eighty years ago in 1929. I’ve
heard it was damaged in the big earthquake we had
here in 2001 and is scheduled for replacement, but budget
problems in the city have prevented that from happening yet
. Hopefully, it’s not too damaged. I usually just cross
my fingers and hurry across whenever I have to use
it, kind of a modern version of whistling past the
graveyard.