“On account of the fact that Gina’s cell phone is in her condo,” Toni said.
“I’m checking every number Kara’s called since last Thursday,” Kenny said. “I’ll try and pin down anything that looks suspicious.”
Progress? I hoped so.
Chapter 9
KARA’S CONDO WAS located about five miles from our office. We took Highway 99 northbound and crossed Lake Union on the Aurora Bridge. Two miles later, 99 skirts the western edge of Green Lake. We exited onto Green Lake Drive. The lake is always popular in the summer and today being another gorgeous sunny day, it was packed. People were everywhere—walking, skating, sitting at the benches and tables, riding bikes. Looking out on the water, I saw several radio-controlled sailboats—the same type my parents had given me for my twelfth birthday. Good memories here at Green Lake.
Not much further north, Green Lake Drive circled the top of the lake and swung to the east. “Seven fifty-six Green Lake. I think it’s up ahead on the left,” I said to Toni.
“Gray lap siding, two-story building,” she answered immediately.
“How the hell do you know that?” I asked.
“I see it. It’s right up there. There’s a sign.”
I searched for what she was looking at and located a sign that said Green Lake Terrace. The address was printed just below.
“Got it. Good eyes,” I said. “Looks like there’s a parking lot right in front.”
A second later, I swung the Jeep beneath a sign that said Residents and Guests Only and parked in the last remaining empty spot. “Three o’clock in the afternoon and the lot’s nearly full,” I said. “I think we’re a guest, don’t you?”
“You bet,” she answered.
I parked, and we walked up the stairs and across the landing to get to Kara’s unit. The curtains were drawn but, as we walked past, there was the very slightest ruffle of drapery fabric inside. We walked past the window.
“See that?” Toni whispered.
“Yep.”
By habit, we assumed a tactical position at the doorway—one of us on either side of the door, not directly in front. If anyone inside was inclined to start shooting, statistics indicated that they tended to aim for center mass, right through the middle of the door. Bad idea to be standing there on the other side.
I looked at Toni, and she nodded. I knocked on the door.
No answer.
I knocked again.
This time, the doorknob started to turn. Toni and I both had our hands on our guns, both on belt holsters on our right hips.
The door opened two inches and a male voice said, “Who is it? What do you want?”
“Good afternoon. We’re here to speak to Kara Giordano,” I said loudly enough to be heard inside. “We’re private investigators and we’re friends of Gina Fiore’s family. We’ve been hired by the family to help find Gina and bring her home safely.”
“There’s no one here by that name,” he said.
“I mentioned two names,” I said. “Which name do you mean?”
“The first one you said.”
“Okay. Kara Giordano. Well, does Kara Giordano live here at least?” I asked.
“There’s no one here by that name,” he said again.
“You already said that,” I said.
The door opened enough so that we could see a medium-height, dark-haired man wearing a dark blue short-sleeved shirt over a white T-shirt. He wore khaki shorts with no shoes. He looked to be in his early twenties. His eyes were wide open, darting around, looking behind me—he was clearly nervous. He looked at me. “There’s no one here by that name,” he said yet again.
“Jesus,” I said. “That’s the third time you’ve said that, dude. We get it. We just wanted to know if Kara Giordano lives here.”
He was silent for a minute, then he said in a more menacing tone, “You should leave now.” He slowly pulled back his shirt to reveal some kind of compact Glock semi-auto tucked into an inside-the-belt holster.
I held up my hands in mock surrender, trying to calm the fellow down. “Whoa! Okay, we’ll leave,” I said. “We don’t want any trouble. But dude, you’re not very friendly, you know? Tell you what, before you shoot us,” I raised my voice now, just in case Kara was inside listening, “do you mind if we leave a business card with my phone number to give to Kara—just on the off chance that you happen to bump into her?”
He stared at me and said nothing. I shook my head and turned and looked at Toni. “Do you think he heard me? Does that mean it’s okay?”
“He heard. I think it means it’s okay,” she said.
“Okay,” I said, nodding my agreement. Then again, loudly, “Here’s my card with my cell phone. Please ask Kara to call me. I’d like to talk to her about Gina Fiore, and I have some information that she might find useful.”
I handed him my card and kept my eye on his hands. Now that I could see him clearly, I didn’t want to have to shoot the poor bastard if he made a move for his gun, so I planned instead on giving him a quick, measured poke in the eye. Hard enough to hurt like hell and incapacitate him, but not hard enough to blind him permanently.
Fortunately, it didn’t come to that. He took my card and closed the door. We headed back to the Jeep.
~~~~
We climbed in, but I didn’t start the car.
“Jumpy kid,” Toni said.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Now what?” she asked.
“Now we wait.”
“Wait?” she said. “How long?”
“For a few minutes, anyway. If she’s there, she should call.”
Two minutes later, my cell phone rang. Toni looked at me, surprised.
“I’m a professional,” I whispered to her as I looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Kara’s cell phone.
“Hello, Kara, this is Danny Logan,” I answered.
“How did you find out about me?” the female voice on the line asked.
I ignored her question. “Kara,” I started, “I’m a private investigator. I’ve also been a friend of Gina’s family for many years. Earlier this week, the police department recommended to Gina’s family that they hire a private investigator. Since the family knows me, they hired my company. We’ve been working on the case, tracking down leads ever since. We mean you no harm whatsoever, and we might be able to give you some information and maybe some advice that might help you out.”
I paused to let this soak in, then said, “Will you let us come up and talk to you in person?”
There was silence on the other end for a second, then she said, “Come up.”
“Good,” I said. “And Kara—please tell your boy up there not to shoot us.”
~~~~
This time when we knocked, the door opened and Mr. Jumpy said, “Come in.”
We entered the condo, and I glanced around. The front drapes were still drawn, but the lights were turned up bright. The television was on, but the sound was off.
I turned back to Mr. Jumpy and pointed to the gun on his waistband. “We okay now?” I asked. “No shoot-outs at the O.K. Corral?”
“Sorry,” he said, looking somewhat flustered. “I’m Nick Giordano, Kara’s little brother.”
“Hi, Nick. I’m Danny, and this is Toni.” I pointed again to the spot where the gun was hidden on his waist. “Do you know how to use that thing?” I asked.
He nodded. “I have a permit.”
“That doesn’t mean you know how to use it, though. Here’s a quick hint, Nick. Never lift up your shirt and show your weapon or try to threaten someone with it the way you did. Keep it hidden, or pull it out and point it. Otherwise, you completely lose the element of surprise and that’s a real good way to get killed.”
He nodded. “Sorry, you’re right. We’re a little nervous around here.”
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“Have a look,” he said, pointing to Kara as she entered the room from the bedroom area. The left side of her face was a sickly yellow
ish-purple color and puffy. Her left eye was surrounded with a nasty black bruise and was nearly swollen shut. Her lower lip was split and also swollen.
“Now you can see why I’m being careful,” Kara said.
“Holy crap,” I said, “what happened to you?”
“I got the shit beat out of me,” she said. “What does it look like happened?” Her swollen lip caused her words to come out like “I got the thit beat out of me.”
“It looks like what you said,” I said, nodding in agreement.
Toni walked over to Kara and looked at her closely. “Have you been to the emergency room?” Toni asked. She reached forward and tilted Kara’s head back so she could inspect her wounds.
Kara allowed Toni’s touch and said, “No.”
“You look like you should go.”
“See?” Nick said. “I told you you needed to go to the hospital.”
“When did this happen?” Toni asked.
“Last Thursday the eleventh.”
“Is there any other damage?” Toni looked Kara up and down. “Stuff that we can’t see?”
“No,” Kara said. “I just got slapped around a bit.” Thapped around.
“Sweetheart, you didn’t just get slapped around,” Toni said. “You were right the first time. You got the shit kicked out of you.” She pointed to the sofa. “Let’s sit down and talk.” Toni took over the meeting.
Kara sat on the chair at the end of the sofa, and Toni sat on the end of the sofa next to her. I took the chair on her other side, while Nick sat across from me on the other end of the sofa, next to Toni.
“Who did this to you?” Toni asked.
“If I tell you, you got to promise me you won’t tell anybody—even the cops.”
Toni shook her head. “No. We can’t make that promise,” she said. “We’re working together with the police to try and bring Gina home.” Kara didn’t look too happy about this. Toni continued. “I can say that whatever you tell us will not be used in any way to bring more heat down on you. The two detectives we’re working with are very discreet.”
Kara thought about this for a few seconds, then said, “I don’t want to have to testify against anybody.”
“If it ever comes to testifying against anybody, that will be totally up to you,” Toni said. “Nobody can make you testify, and nobody is going to release your name. That I can promise.”
“Okay,” Kara said, nodding her head quickly. “I’ll tell you what I know.” She reached for a pack of cigarettes on the table but then hesitated. “Will it bother you if I smoke?”
“Go ahead,” I said.
She grabbed a cigarette. She had trouble holding her hand steady enough to work the lighter. I reached over, took the lighter from her and held it until she finally got her cigarette lit.
“Thankth,” she said.
I nodded. She leaned back and slowly blew the smoke up toward the ceiling. Then she looked straight at me for a second before she quietly said, “I got beat up by a Mexican prick named Eddie Salazar.”
Toni and I looked at each other. Kara noticed. “You know him?” she asked.
“His name’s come up,” I said. I pulled out the group photo and showed it to Kara.
Her eyes flared, and she nearly panicked. I’ve seen scared people many times and Kara fit the bill, no doubt. “That’s him,” she said, her fear clearly visible despite her swollen face. She studied the photo. “Where the hell did this come from? The very last thing in the world I need is to have my picture taken with this psychopath. He’ll kill me if he knows this is out there.”
“It’s okay,” Toni said, trying to soothe her. “He hasn’t seen it, and he won’t. You’re safe.” When it appeared that Kara had settled down a little, Toni continued. “Let me tell you what we know. First off, the picture was taken on a cell phone camera owned by this girl here who’s a friend of Gina’s—someone she works with.” She pointed to Reggie in the photo.
“Shit,” Kara said, her hand trembling as she smoked her cigarette. “Eddie must not know this is out there. I swear he’d kill us all.”
“We’re the only ones with a copy of this photo,” Toni said. “We were able to find you because of the photograph and a note on Gina’s bulletin board at home.”
“Do you know Eddie? Have you ever see him?” Gina asked, still basically petrified. “Did you ever talk to him? He’s insane.”
“No, we’ve never seen him,” Toni said. “We talked to him over the phone. We agree—he’s an asshole. He threatened us. The closest we got in person is when we went to Ramon’s Cantina in Kent. We almost got jumped in the parking lot just for asking a question.”
“That’s the way this guy is,” Kara said.
“Why did he do this to you?” Toni asked.
“He wants Gina. He wants her real bad. He said he’s going to kill her,” Kara said.
Toni and I glanced at each other.
“Really,” I continued. “Did he say why?”
She shook her head. “Not a word. Not to me. He just asked where she was. I said I didn’t know, that I hadn’t seen her or talked to her in a couple of days. I wasn’t going to lie to him, not after the stuff I heard about him at the bar.”
“What kind of stuff is that?” Toni asked.
“They said he’s some kind of hot-shit Mexican gangster. They told me that he’s killed people before. I believed it then, and I really believe it now—he’s a sadistic son of a bitch. Just look what he did.” She started to cry.
“You’re okay now,” Toni said, reaching over to pat her on the shoulder as Kara grabbed a tissue. “We’re not going to let anything happen to you now.”
Kara nodded, wiping away her tears.
“Can I ask you to do two things?” Toni said.
Kara looked at her without answering, so Toni continued. “First, I think it would be helpful to get a couple pictures of you, particularly of your bruised face. I can use my cell phone.”
“Why?” Kara asked.
“Just to make a record,” Toni said. “I won’t show them to anyone outside our team without your permission. But if we ever need to document what this bastard did to you, we won’t be able to do it after your bruises and cuts have healed.”
“Okay,” Kara said. “But no one sees them without my permission.”
“Agreed,” Toni said. She snapped off a dozen photos of Kara’s face, neck, and arms from different angles. While she did this, I considered Eddie Salazar. He was already on my shit list for being an asshole over the phone and threatening us, particularly Toni. Now, though, he’d threatened Gina and beat up Kara as well. Congratulations, Eddie, I thought. You’re now my new public enemy number one.
“Second thing, why don’t we back up for a second and have you tell us how you know Gina?” Toni continued.
Kara nodded. “Gina’s dad owns Pacific Wine and Spirits—you probably already know that,” she said. “Gina runs the finance operation there. I run finance for Northwest Evergreen Markets. We buy beer and wine from Pacific. Gina and I met at a seminar we both attended.”
“About how long ago was that?” I asked.
“Two years,” she said. I scribbled in my notebook.
“We started going to lunch, and then, seeing as how we’re both single I guess, we started going out together at night.”
“Do you know if Gina has any boyfriends?” Toni asked.
“No one serious,” Kara said. “That didn’t seem to be her style. She’d go out with a guy for a few dates, then move on. No one really connected with her, I guess.”
“Why’s that, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” she said, thinking. “She’s like, twice as smart as anyone else. She’s always in control, even when it seems like she isn’t. Nothing surprises her. Nothing seems to get to her. Most guys can’t even begin to keep up with that. I think she gets bored with them and just moves on.”
Been there and done that, I thought.
Toni was reading my mind. “Seems consist
ent with your experience, Danny?” she asked.
Ouch. She just had to get that in. I smiled my best “fuck you” smile. Thanks a bunch.
“How did the two of you end up going to Ramon’s Cantina?”
“It was Gina’s idea,” Kara said. “I normally wouldn’t go within ten miles of a dump like that, but I think she liked to live on the edge. She took me there a couple of months ago.”
“How did she meet Eddie Salazar? Was it there?”
“The first time I went with her to Ramon’s, she already knew him,” Kara said. “I don’t know how she met him. He was hanging all over her. First, she would tease him; then she was cool to him. I could tell it was driving him nuts. She was playing with him, and he never seemed to catch on.”
“When was this?” I asked.
“June. Two months ago,” she said.
“How often did you go to Ramon’s after that?”
“Maybe once a week or so. I don’t think we ever went more often than that.”
“Did you see Eddie Salazar every time you went?”
“He seemed to always be there. Looking back and knowing Gina like I do, she may have told him that we were going to be there in advance, and she just didn’t tell me.”
“Do you think that Gina would have gone to Ramon’s without you?”
“Sure. She told me she did.”
“Interesting,” I said.
“Did you ever notice Eddie hanging out with other people—other guys—at Ramon’s?”
“Oh, yeah. He seemed to know a lot of people. They all treated him with respect, like he was an important guy. When we went there, I don’t think I ever saw him buy anything. People would send over drinks all the time.”
“So it was like a private party there at Ramon’s?” Toni asked.
“Yeah, sort of,” she said. She thought for a second before adding, “I guess it was fun in a weird, scary sort of way.”
“Did the party ever move to other locations?” Toni asked.
“Not for me, it didn’t. Not for Gina, either, at least not whenever we were together. I’m not sure about what she did when I wasn’t there—I know she knew where he lived because she told me she’d been to his house a couple of times. I always got the impression that she was teasing Eddie, and it’s possible they had some sort of history together. But she never provided any details. She was kind of private that way. And she never got passionate with him in the club, at least not that I ever saw. I think part of the fun for her was driving him nuts.”
Angel Dance (Danny Logan Mystery #1) Page 13