Mona Lisa Eyes (Danny Logan Mystery #4) (41 page)

“Dude, I’m here,” he said
. “But it doesn’t look like anyone else is.”

“Place
is dark?”

“Yeah. It looks empty.”

Ron swerved around a
Subaru, and I leaned into the turn. “Sounds like you
’re back in the car,” Doc said. “He’s not
there?”

“No. He’s supposed to be over at Oliver
and Cecilia’s house.” I thought for a second, then
I told Doc, “Okay. Just hang out there for a
minute. Matter of fact, call me in ten minutes, so
I don’t forget.”

“Move out of the way, asshole
!” Ron suddenly yelled to a slow driver.

I held on
as he swerved, then I turned to Toni. “You get
a chance to read the file?”

She shook her head
. “Hell no. I was too busy driving, following the ambulance
to the hospital, then racing back up here. I’m
lucky I didn’t get in an accident.” She handed
the folder to me, her eyes wide. “Here, you look
. I gotta hold on.”

I opened the folder and started
flipping through the pages as I wedged myself back against
the corner that the seat made with the door. About
four pages in, I suddenly froze, shocked by what I
’d seen. I scanned the document quickly and flipped the
page. Then I read it again. “Holy shit,” I said
slowly, a cold chill running through me.

Ron looked at
me. “What?”

I turned to him. “Better hurry, dude.”

C
hapter
27

WE CROSSED THE BRIDGE HEADING SOUTH
, and a minute
later we reached the intersection just before Interlaken Park. Ron
slowed down. “What do you think?” he asked. “Lake Washington
to Hillside?”

I nodded. “Definitely.” I was very familiar with
this area—we were actually driving a segment of my
racecourse, only backward.

He peeled off to the left. “Okay
, tell me,” he said when he hit a straight section
, “what’s in the files? What’d you see?”

I
explained what I’d seen. I’m no accountant or
lawyer, but I was familiar with the basic documents, and
those I’d seen in the file were clear and
unambiguous. There was no mistaking the implication. Toni and Ron
hit me with a dozen questions as we drove, answers
to which I was able to readily find in Linda
’s file, which held a very thorough record of the
Southern Star Relief Fund. When they were satisfied, neither Ron
nor Toni said a word while they both considered what
this meant. Then Ron shook his head once and said
, “Son of a bitch.” A moment later, he shrugged and
said, “Alright—that’s fine. Here’s our game plan
.” He finished laying out our assignments just as we pulled
up to the curb in front of Oliver and Cecilia
’s home just before nine. He turned to us and
smiled. “It’s showtime, boys and girls.”

The home’s
circular drive was completely full of cars—more Porsches, Jaguars
, and Mercedes than I’d seen in one place at
the same time, not counting a car lot.

We got
out and Ron looked at the driveway, then at the
cars that had spilled over onto the street. “Geez. Quite
a shindig.”

I nodded. “Oliver must appreciate his Monday night
football.”

“Yeah, he must,” Ron said. He turned and waved
for the officers in the patrol car. “You two with
us,” he said to them as they approached.

We walked
up as a group, and Ron rapped on the front
door using the brass knocker. I could hear cheering and
moaning at the same time from inside, apparently in reaction
to something happening in the football game. We waited and
a few seconds later, the door opened. Cecilia stood there
, a glass of white wine in her hand. She looked
at each of us in turn, a look of surprise
on her face. She turned to me. “Danny, I had
no idea you were coming tonight.” She paused, then, apparently
remembering the fact that I’d briefed her earlier about
our meetings this evening, she said, “Is it because of
your meetings? Has something happened?”

Ron nodded. “Yes, it has
. May we come inside?”

She stepped back, making way for
us. “Do you have information about Sophie?”

“We do,” Ron
said, nodding as he stepped inside.

Cecilia stared at him
intently. “We have guests over. Will that be a problem
?”

Ron shook his head. “Not for us.” Ron reached over
and held the door open for the uniformed officers while
Cecilia stared, wide-eyed. The men walked inside, keys and
equipment jangling lightly. For once, Cecilia didn’t say anything
—I think she was struggling to catch up. Instead, once
everyone was inside, she simply turned and led us back
to the family room at the rear of the home
where we could hear the football party under way.

I
guessed that there were about twenty people there, about half
of whom I recognized. Eric Gaston stood at the bar
with Oliver and two other men I didn’t know
. They were staring intently at the big television, watching the
49ers kick the hell out of the Bears in the
closing minutes of the Monday night football game. I was
surprised to see Nicki Thoms there, sitting on a sofa
beside a young guy with long blond hair whom I
’d never seen before. Maybe her stay in London had
made Nicki appreciate her extended family a little more, and
she’d decided to join in. She smiled when she
saw me looking at her.

“Everyone!” Cecilia called out when
we entered, clapping her hands together. Heads turned our way
, but still it took a second for the room to
begin to quiet down.

“Hey, Danny!” Gaston called out. “Miss
Blair.”

Cecilia found the remote and muted the television. “Everyone
, please.” The people in the room turned to face her
. “Everyone, this is Lieutenant Bergstrom with the Seattle Police Department
.” She turned to Toni and me. “And this is Toni
Blair and Danny Logan from the Logan Private Investigation Agency
. I think they have news.” She turned to us, her
eyes full of anticipation.

Everyone else turned to us as
well. The room, which had been noisy, almost raucous a
few seconds ago, was suddenly very quiet.

Ron looked around
at the group, his eyes coming to rest on Gaston
and the men standing beside him. He turned and whispered
something to one of the officers, who nodded in reply
. Ron looked up and walked over to the group.

Gaston
set his drink on the bar as Ron walked up
, but Ron walked past him.

“Oliver Ward,” he said, standing
face-to-face with Oliver, “you’re under arrest for
the murders of Sophie Thoms and Leonard McKenzie. Turn around
and put your hands up against the bar.”

Oliver stared
at him for a second, frozen.

“Do it now!” Ron
commanded, sharply.

Cecilia stepped forward. “What? Oliver? What’s happening
?”

I put my hand on her shoulder. “Wait,” I said
, quietly.

“Excuse us,” the officers said, stepping forward past us
. Gaston and the other man he’d been talking with
moved aside for the officers. One of the officers used
his foot to kick Oliver’s legs apart before he
patted him down and cuffed him. The rest of the
people in the room were silent, shocked into a state
of complete immobility. Mouths were half-open, drinks half-raised
, gestures frozen in place. The other officer read Oliver his
Miranda rights. When he asked if he understood the rights
, Oliver nodded without speaking.

“Okay,” the officer said. “Turn around
, then.”

Oliver turned and faced us. His eyes locked on
to Cecilia, but he said nothing.

“Oliver?” she said.

Oliver
looked at her, then he grimaced and shook his head
.

Cecilia stared back, her eyes wide, shock written all over
her face.

“Take him outside,” Ron said. “I’ll be
there in a minute.”

The officers took him by the
arms, one on either side. “Let’s go.” They led
Oliver back down the hall and outside.

“What the hell
. . . ?” Eric Gaston had a stunned look on his face. “What
just . . . ? Oliver?”

I nodded.

“Well,” Cecilia said defiantly, “There’s
obviously been a mistake, hasn’t there? This needs to
be set straight immediately. I have some phone calls to
make.” She turned to leave.

“Cecilia,” Ron called out. She
turned back to face me. “Wait a minute. Please. Allow
us to walk you through what’s happened, what we
’ve discovered.”

She stared at me for a moment—a
hard, mean stare.

“You don’t want to make any
mistakes with your brother, right?” I asked.

After a moment
, she nodded. “Alright.”

I turned to the others in the
room. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid that unless you
’re part of the immediate family,” I looked at Gaston
, “or part of the Foundation, we need you to collect
your things and leave now.”

Three minutes later, the room
was cleared except for ourselves and Cecilia, Gaston, and Nicki
. Ron nodded to me.

“Eric, I know you did, but
Cecilia, Nicki, I think you also knew Robert Brownell.”

“Knew
?” Gaston said, jumping in. “What do you mean, knew?”

“Brownell
was killed tonight in Bellevue.”

“What?” he cried. “Oh, dear
God. Another one? Another one murdered?”

I shook my head
. “Brownell wasn’t murdered. He was killed in self-defense
.”

Gaston froze. Cecilia opened her mouth to speak, the shock
in her eyes obvious. “Self-defense? What does that . . .”

Ron
stepped in. “Just about two hours ago, Robert Brownell shot
Linda Ramos and Kenny Hale, one of Danny’s associates
, outside a restaurant in Bellevue.”

“Linda?” Gaston said, now completely
stunned. “Linda’s dead too?”

“She’s not dead,” Ron
said. “We just got word. She’s in surgery at
Harborview right now.”

“Why? Why would Robert Brownell shoot Linda
Ramos?” Cecilia asked.

“He was trying to keep her from
giving Danny this,” Ron said, holding up the file. “It
’s a secret file she kept. It detailed all the
activity of a group called the Southern Star Relief Fund
.”

“I know Southern Star,” Gaston said. “They’re one of
our biggest partners. They do work in east Africa.”

I
smiled. “You’ll be surprised to find out, then, that
they’re a sham,” I said.

“What?”

I nodded. “A
bogus operation. They don’t really exist. I mean, they
exist as a shell, but they don’t actually do
anything except take your Foundation’s money and send back
pretty pictures. False pictures. I’ve seen documentary photographs, and
now I’ve seen the records—it’s all in
the file. Linda has a report that chronicles how the
Beatrice Thoms Memorial Fund donated more than thirty million dollars
to projects over the past four years that were to
have been implemented by Southern Star.”

Gaston nodded. “Yeah, that
sounds about right. But—”

“But only about five million ever
made it into actual projects,” I said. “They must have
hired someone to do that. The other twenty-five million
was distributed directly to the owner of Southern Star.”

“Twenty
-five million dollars?” Cecilia said. “To the owner?” She paused
for a moment, then said, “And who might that be
. . . ?”

The tentative way she left the question dangling made me
think she had a pretty good idea of the answer
before I gave it to her. “It was Oliver, Cecilia
. He was behind the whole operation. He directed Linda and
Brownell. He set up the Southern Star Relief Fund and
ran it. And when Sophie turned the heat up after
hearing from Leonard McKenzie, he orchestrated the cover-up, including
all the murders. He paid Brownell and Linda for their
help, but Oliver was running the show. Linda documented everything
.”

Cecilia gave me a hard look. “Are you quite certain
?” she asked.

I nodded. “I’m sorry to say that
I am. Like I said, we have photographs. We have
a confession from Robert Brownell. And now we have Linda
’s files. She kept detailed records of all the paperwork
—formation documents, distribution records, everything. It’s all there. She
was a compliance person. Apparently, it’s in her nature
to document things. If she pulls out of surgery, I
imagine she’ll testify to this, now that the other
guys tried to kill her.”

The room was silent for
several seconds before Cecilia finally said, “My God. Sophie. Oh
my God.” Her face was white, the shock of the
revelation clear to see. Then, she did something I would
have expected from most people, but not from Cecilia. She
broke. The tough facade she wore just sort of fell
away. Her face became red as she slumped back on
the sofa and quietly started crying.