Mona Lisa Eyes (Danny Logan Mystery #4) (40 page)

He turned his head a little and
stared away from me. Several seconds passed. “Didn’t want
to—kill her, you know.”

“You didn’t want to?
So why did you?”

He continued as if he didn’
t hear me, then he shook his head slowly. “She
was nice—never talked bad about anybody. But she got
herself dragged into this fuckin’ mess, and she learned too
much. Plus she had that stupid fuckin’ disc. Said she
was going to blow the whistle on us.” He shook
his head slowly. “Couldn’t let her do that. Had
to get that disc and shut her up.”

I stared
at him. “Blow the whistle on what? The Southern Star
Relief Fund?”

He smiled. “Very good. Yeah, Southern Star.”

“So
you killed McKenzie too?”

“Humph,” he said, which started him
coughing again. More blood came from his mouth. He spit
it weakly onto the ground beside him. “Fuckin’ little shrew.
He’s the one who started the whole thing. He
should have left well enough alone. But no-o-oo, he couldn’t do that. I tried warning him
off, but he was too tunnel-visioned to recognize the
danger he was in, the dumb shit.” He shook his
head slowly. “So he dragged Sophie into it. Had her
to carry the water. Little fucker.” He rolled his head
toward me. “How’s Linda?”

“I don’t know.”

He
nodded. “Silly bitch. She was in it with us from
the start. She made a shitload of money on this
thing. She’s been freaked out ever since Sophie. I
didn’t want to shoot her, but she was starting
to get too squirrelly. We couldn’t let her talk
about Southern Star.”

“That’s why you were here tonight?
To kill Linda?”

He nodded again. “Yeah. It was supposed
to look like a robbery again—just like McKenzie. I
was going to take that folder.” He shook his head. “
Stupid, huh?”

I nodded, trying to hurry now. “What about
Judie Lawton? You kill her too?”

He nodded.

“Why the
hell did you torture her?”

He flicked his eyes up
to me. “The fuck you talking about?”

“Cigarette burns on
her arm.”

He laughed quietly. “Jesus, she was already dead,
man. That was for show.”

I pictured the burn marks
on Judie Lawton’s arm. “For show? What do you
mean? So you could pin it on Bannister?”

“Yeah—needed
to make it look like she was ripping him off—
like he burned her so she’d give up the
drugs.”

“That you planted?”

He nodded slowly.

“So then you
killed Bannister too. How’d you manage to get him
off the roof without a fight?”

“Makes you think there
wasn’t a fight?”

“All the gravel on the roof
was smooth. There weren’t any scuff marks.”

He suddenly
went completely rigid for a moment, his eyes shut tight,
arms straining and fists clenched. “Damn, that fuckin’ hurts,” he
said, tears rolling down his face. “Thanks a lot.” After
a couple of seconds, he relaxed again. Suddenly, the cell
phone in his coat pocket rang.

I reached for it. “
Here—allow me.” Brownell was too weak to argue as
I reached into his pocket. I looked at the phone.
The caller ID said BLOCKED. For a second, I considered
answering it, but I thought better of it and let
it ring. Better that the caller think that Brownell was
busy than know for sure that he was either captured
or killed. I slipped the phone in my pocket. “I’
ll just hold on to this.”

He didn’t respond.
His eyes were closed, but he was still breathing, although
his breaths were shallow and labored.

“Brownell? You all right?
Stay with me now.”

He opened his eyes and looked
at me. “Truth? I been better.”

“Hang in there. The
ambulance will be here in a minute.”

He smiled. “It’
s too late. You know it. I know it. Besides.
I don’t give a shit. I sure as fuck
don’t want to go to jail. Rather be dead.
We had a pretty good run, made some good money,
had a good time.” I looked down and noticed the
blood was still pooling beneath his arm on the right
side of his body. There must have been a hell
of an exit wound.

“Tell me how you got Bannister
off the roof.”

“We were going to kill him—hide
the body, but the little fucker found Judie and got
scared. He went underground. But we lucked out and saw
him by his apartment. He put up a hell of
a fight for a minute, but there were two of
us. I whacked him upside the head with a leather
sap and it knocked him out cold. Then we took
our time—straightened up inside, left a few goodies for
the cops to find. Carried him up to the roof—
good thing he was a little guy. Took his shoes
off to make him look like a jumper, then flipped
his ass over the side. Fucker went to sleep and
never woke up. Easy. We scooted out the back. We
were long gone time the cops ever got there. He
was our backup plan in case someone got close. Pretty
lame, wasn’t it? Not my idea.” He paused for
a second, then he muttered, “Always thought it was fuckin’
stupid, actually. I figured that it wouldn’t end well.
A step too far.”

“If it was so stupid, then
why’d you do it?”

He glanced up at me.
His blue eyes were deeply sunken and had somehow lost
their bright glow. His face turned grayer by the second. “
We’re all good little soldiers, right?” He paused and
took a ragged breath before continuing. “We all follow orders.”
He tried to draw a breath and as he did,
he started to fall over.

I reached out and lowered
him to the ground. “You’re going to be alright.”

He gasped in pain and squeezed his eyes tight for
a second. “Bullshit,” he managed to say. “I’m almost
done.” He coughed again, a nasty hacking thing that brought
up a mouthful of thick bloody material. I turned his
head to the side so that he could try to
hack it out.

“Who is it? Who’s giving the
orders, Brownell? You may as well do the right thing
here and put an end to this.”

He gave me
a short quick laugh. “What? Since I’m about to
die anyway?” he gasped, just above a whisper. “Fuck you,
Logan. I never snitched on anyone. I’m checkin’ out
and I’m fuckin’ well going to do it with
a clean record.”

I looked down at him.
Great
, I
thought.
You’ll be the most stand-up man in
hell, psychotic bastard.

He stiffened again, eyes wide-open this
time. “Oh, shit.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “
There’s water. Everywhere. Always wanted a house by the
ocean.” Then, still staring straight up, he relaxed as the
breath slowly eased out of him.

C
hapter 26

“HE HAD
HELP. HE WASN’T ACTING
alone—he wasn’t even
the top dog,” I said to Ron. We were still
in the parking garage. Shortly after Brownell died, the Bellevue
Police had arrived in force and not long after that
, Ron showed up. I’d spent the past hour going
step-by-step through everything that had happened, leading right
up to them charging through the elevators and finding me
sitting beside Brownell’s lifeless body. The fact that there
were witnesses upstairs along with two shooting victims who’d
already been transported to the hospital made my part of
their investigation move pretty quickly, for a police investigation, that
is. No question about self-defense. Still, the interrogation only
ended when Ron arrived with a friend of his who
just happened to be a captain on the Bellevue PD
.

Brownell was still in the garage too, still slouched against
the pillar, head bowed slightly, lifeless eyes staring at the
floor. The ME team appeared to be wrapping up—they
’d soon release the body for transport to the morgue
. I’d just finished walking Ron through the events of
the evening. “Someone else is sittin’ back there calling the
shots.” I said. “Brownell said he was just following orders
.”

“You still think the boss—the guy behind the curtain
—is Eric Gaston?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I do. The rope
. . . the financials . . . the connections . . .” I shook my head. “He’s
at the top of the list. I sure as hell
think it’s time to bring him downtown.”

“We’re
going to need a more solid link between Gaston and
Brownell.”

I nodded. “I know. What’s the latest on
Linda Ramos?” I asked. “I think she knows everything.”

“Surgery
,” Ron said. “Don’t know yet.”

“Hopefully, she’ll be
okay. Then we can just ask her.” Suddenly, I remembered
the files Linda’d brought. “Wait a second, Ron—she
brought some stuff, a file folder. She said on the
phone she was going to get some information for me
. I’ll bet whatever’s in that folder could help
us.”

“Where they at now?”

“Toni has ’em. I talked
to her on the phone a few minutes ago. She
picked ’em up off the ground outside before she went
to the hospital with Kenny.”

“Good. But we need to
know what’s on those files, man.”

I nodded. “I
’ll call her, tell her to hurry back here.”

“And
here’s something else,” I said. I told Ron about
the phone call Brownell had received. “I’ll bet it
was Gaston, checking to find out how the little operation
went tonight. You know, as soon as he finds out
Brownell’s dead, he’s likely to freak, maybe even
run. If he has any evidence we don’t know
about, he’s going to have a chance to get
rid of it.”

Ron nodded. “Then we’d better go
knock on his door, right now, before he gets the
chance.”

We loaded into Ron’s car and took off
. While he drove, I called Toni and after making sure
Kenny was alright (he was—he really had just fainted
), I told her we needed the files. We agreed that
since we were more or less an equal distance away
, we’d meet up at Gaston’s house. “Hold on
!” Ron yelled as he cut a car off and jumped
onto I-405 at Eighth Street in downtown Bellevue. We
headed north for a mile or so until we hit
I-520 where we turned west, back to Seattle. He
had his red light and his siren on the whole
time, so we were able to make pretty fair time
until we hit the floating bridge that crosses Lake Washington
, where traffic slowed us right down. The bridge is two
lanes in each direction, but unless you’re making the
trip in the wee hours, the bridge is either busy
or it’s real busy to the point of being
stopped. Tonight, it was just busy. The traffic is compounded
by the fact that there’s road construction going on
as they widen the bridge and absolutely no shoulder for
people to pull onto to make room for emergency vehicles
. When they saw the flashing lights behind them, most drivers
had the sense to slow down and pull to the
right, but if they were in the left lane and
the right lane happened to be already occupied (or sometimes
, even if it wasn’t), then they tended to hit
their brakes and slow down, unsure how to proceed.

Ron
’s response was to race up right behind these confused
drivers an inch or so off their back bumper and
then lean on the horn, I suppose just to make
sure they were good and panicked. “Move out of the
way, you asshole!” he’d yell from the privacy of
the car. Then, he’d turn on the PA switch
on his radio and calmly say, “Pull over, sir!” if
he saw a space opening up on the right or
“Keep it moving!” if he didn’t. Eventually, the drivers
figured out what Ron wanted them to do, and they
picked up speed until they were able to pull to
the right, allowing us to pass. We never actually had
to resort to weaving back and forth.

“Ain’t this
a kick in the pants?” Ron called out as we
approached the western side of the lake. He actually seemed
to be in his element and having a good time
. I don’t know how he managed to do it
, but somehow he yelled at poky drivers, put his call
into the DA’s office, explained the situation regarding Eric
Gaston, and got their agreement that talking to Gaston was
a good idea—all while steering with one hand and
holding both his cell phone and the radio microphone in
his other. He even managed to turn and talk to
me from time to time. When he was done with
the DA, Ron checked with the squad car he’d
radioed into position near Gaston’s Laurelhurst home: there’d
been no movement in or out since they took up
position. Ron told them to hold in place while he
radioed in and called up another patrol car for additional
backup.

Meanwhile, I braced myself for the collision that I
felt was sure to happen any moment. I held tight
in the passenger seat and called Doc. Toni had already
called him earlier and told him about Kenny being wounded
. Doc and Kenny are tight, so Doc was just pulling
up to Harborview when we spoke.

“Pri just called,” he
said. “She saw him. She says he’s fine.” We
’re lucky in that Doc’s girlfriend Pri—Prita Dekhlikiseh
—happens to be a very talented emergency physician at Harborview
. Doc met her last year when he was a patient
. She’d take good care of Kenny for us.

“That
’s good to hear, man. Tell Pri thanks.” I asked
him to break off his trip to the hospital for
the moment to instead go check out the Beatrice Thoms
Memorial Foundation office. I explained what was going on.

“We
’re afraid that Gaston might get jumpy because he hasn
’t heard from Brownell. We want to make sure he
doesn’t try to bounce.”

A second later I hung
on as Ron exited the bridge onto Montlake Boulevard and
turned us north. We flew northbound past Husky Stadium and
hung a right on Forty-Fifth Street, now headed east
again. I leaned into the turn as Ron swerved hard
to the right when Forty-Fifth split into Sand Point
Way just past University Village. I had to hold tight
to the armrest to keep from ending up in his
lap.

“Almost there!” he said.

Thank God. Ron turned off
his siren, and we slowed down as Forty-Fifth changed
from an arterial into a much narrower neighborhood street. Another
half mile and Ron hung a left on Forty-Ninth
Avenue. Gaston’s house was six houses up on the
right.

The two patrol cars Ron had sent over were
parked at the curb, just down the street from the
house. We zipped past, and the officers hopped out to
meet us. I hadn’t been to Gaston’s house
before, but at first glance, the place was pretty grand
. The theme was red brick. House, gate pilasters, even the
driveway itself—all brick. Ron pulled up and swung his
Crown Vic right up into the home’s circular drive
. We got out just as the uniformed officers walked up
.

Two of the officers accompanied us to the door while
the other two proceeded to bring their car up but
hang back at the driveway. If Gaston tried to sneak
out the side or through the garage while we were
going in the front, they were to block him and
radio us.

We walked up to the tall double doors
, and when the patrol car was in position, Ron knocked
. Nothing happened, so he rang the bell and knocked again
, more forcefully this time. A moment later, we saw through
the glass door a woman with white hair walk around
the corner. She looked us over carefully. When she saw
the uniformed officers, a look of concern appeared in her
eyes. This I could understand—there’s hardly ever any
good news to be had when a bunch of cops
show up at your front door.

Ron held up his
badge. “Seattle Police Department, ma’am. Please open the door
.”

She looked at the badge, then reached down and opened
the door. “Can I help you, Officer? Is something wrong
?”

“Ma’am, we’re here to see Eric Gaston. Is
he available?”

The woman’s face took on a look
of alarm. “He’s my son. Has anything happened? Is
he alright?”

“I take it he’s not here, then
?” Ron asked.

The woman shook her head. “No. Eric’s
not here. What’s this all about?”

Ron smiled. “We
need to talk to Eric about some things. Do you
know where he is? When he’ll be back?”

She
shook her head. “He won’t be home until late
. He’s gone to a party—a football party. Monday
night football.”

Ron shifted his weight. “Would you happen to
know where?”

She nodded. “Yes. He told me. It’s
a party at his boss’s house.”

“Oliver Ward?” I
asked.

The woman looked at me, then she nodded. “Yes
. Oliver. That’s what Eric said. A Monday night football
party at Oliver’s house.”

Ron chuckled and then dropped
his head in frustration. Then he lifted it back up
and smiled at the woman. “What’s your name, ma
’am?”

“Camille. Camille Gaston.”

Ron nodded. “Sorry to bother you
this evening, Mrs. Gaston.” He handed her a card. “When
Eric gets home, would you give him my card? Tell
him I’d like to speak to him and ask
him to give me a call?”

She nodded. “Yes. Of
course.”

We started walking back down the driveway. “Oh, good
. Another stop.” He looked around. “Where’s your partner?”

“Here
I am!” Toni jogged up the driveway, waving the file
folder. “Had to park up the street.”

“Good,” Ron said
. “Just in time.” He turned to the rest of us
. “You ride with us. Okay, guys. Let’s saddle up
. Let’s go crash a football party.”

Ron turned us
around, and we started to retrace our course in reverse
: west on Forty-Fifth Street and then a left turn
onto Montlake, headed south this time. We flew past the
stadium again and just as we reached the intersection with
Pacific before the drawbridge at the Montlake Cut, my phone
rang. Caller ID: Doc.