I wrote it down. “There’s one common denominator in all three of these scenarios that we might be able to use,” I asked. “Anyone notice it?”
“Of course,” Richard said. “Frankie the Boot. In every case, we have either the family or Gina asking him to come out.”
“Kenny, do you think this might create some sort of phone record trail?”
“Probably,” he said.
“Then I think you should try to grab the information on Frankie’s home phone and cell. See if calls took place between him and the Fiores since the twelfth. Also, look to see if any unusual calls to unidentified numbers started popping up for him after the twelfth.”
“If Gina knows about things like prepaid cell phones,” Kenny said, “I won’t be able to trace her calls back to her even if she were the caller.”
“But at least you’d see the number,” I said. “Maybe you could spot a pattern.”
“True,” he said. “I’ll get right on it.”
“Other theories?” I asked.
“I have an observation,” Richard said. “If our theory is correct that either the family or Gina herself called in Frankie the Boot and didn’t tell us, then it’s obvious that either the family or Gina or both knows more than we do and, most importantly, more than they’re telling us.”
“That’s true,” I agreed.
“They’re lying to us?” Kenny asked.
“Starting to look like a possibility,” I said.
“I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not comfortable being the only one who doesn’t know what’s going on,” Richard said. “Paul Newman said, ‘If you’re playing poker and you can’t tell who the sucker is, it’s you.’”
“Do you think we might be the suckers here?” Kenny asked.
Richard looked at us all, and then settled on me. He nodded.
“I think you owe another visit to the family—Robbie, in particular. It’s entirely possible that they know more than they’re letting on.”
Chapter 18
THE NEXT MORNING was beautiful. The temperature had cooled back down to normal, and I was comfortable in dark green khaki pants with a dark blue short-sleeved shirt. Toni wore pressed jeans and a vest over a long-sleeved light blue shirt. The sky was a deep, clear blue with only a few clouds. As agreed, we met with the Fiores at their home at ten o’clock. I rang the bell on the front door of the grand home, and we waited. Inside, we could hear music playing—sounded like traditional jazz. Outside, a lawn mower was running, either in the backyard of the Fiore home or next door. The air smelled sweetly of freshly cut grass. A minute later, the door opened, and Angelo Fiore greeted us.
“Please,” he said. “Come in, come in.” He led us through the entry and back to the family room where we’d met before. The glass doors to the back patio were open, and he led us outside onto the patio. Carina Fiore was seated at a wrought-iron table reading a newspaper. She stood when she saw us and greeted us warmly.
“Please, have a seat,” Angelo said.
We sat. I looked around. “Is Robbie joining us?” I asked.
“I apologize,” Angelo said. “Robbie had to run up to Bellingham this morning. He said the auditors are inventorying our warehouse up there, and he didn’t trust anybody else with them.”
“Oh, okay,” I said. “I hope that works out well.”
“He said it was routine. He said he’ll call you tomorrow, and you guys can arrange a time to get together,” Angelo said.
“Good,” I said.
“Something to drink?” Carina asked, nodding toward a tray of soft drinks on the patio table.
“Thanks,” I said, taking a bottled water.
“So,” she said. “Bring us up to date. Robbie keeps us pretty much filled in, but we appreciate the opportunity to hear from you directly. Where are we?”
“First off, thanks for meeting us this morning,” I said. “We won’t take much of your time. We have been making progress. Robbie’s probably told you, we’ve been able to uncover some of Gina’s activities on the day she went missing and the next day or so afterward. We’ve identified some of her friends along with a man that she used to see.”
“Salazar,” Angelo said.
“That’s right,” I answered.
“Good that the bastard’s dead,” he said.
I thought for a second, and then said, “I agree. He was a bad man. As you know, it’s been two weeks now since Gina disappeared. You’ll remember that when we first met, I told you there were three basic scenarios we felt were in play. We’ve now eliminated two of them from our focus.”
I paused before continuing. “First, since we never heard any kind of ransom request, no note, no message of any kind, we’ve eliminated the kidnap-for-ransom scenario..”
Angelo nodded.
“Next,” I continued. “We’ve found absolutely no evidence to suggest that Gina was abducted by a stranger. Her condo was absolutely clean. Seattle Police sent in a Crime Scene Investigation unit into the condo, and they found nothing. If she was abducted, it almost had to have been from her condo, otherwise why would her purse and keys be there? And if she was abducted from the condo, it was either done with no struggle, or whoever abducted her cleaned up perfectly afterward. This might have happened, but probably not. None of her neighbors heard or saw anything that night. It doesn’t seem Gina would have voluntarily left with someone without her purse and her keys. Nor does it seem Gina could have been easily abducted forcibly without anyone noticing—particularly because the abductor would have had to take the time to clean up and lock the door with a new key that he’d somehow managed to discover. This whole scenario seems a big stretch, so we’re basically dropping it as well and moving on.” I didn’t mention that after two weeks, there’d be little hope of recovering Gina alive anyway.
The Fiores digested this, and I continued. “Because of all this, we feel that Gina is most likely alive and well. We feel that she’s gone underground—perhaps somewhere other than Seattle. We don’t know why. One of our theories had been that Gina was hiding from Eddie Salazar for some reason. We were very concerned that Mr. Salazar was looking for Gina with intent to hurt her.”
“Why would he want to do that?” Angelo asked.
“That’s a question we’re still trying to answer,” I said. “Salazar was looking for Gina. Salazar beat up one of Gina’s friends, Kara Giordano, when she couldn’t tell him where Gina was. He told her he wanted to kill Gina. But Gina was already gone.”
“Good,” Carina said.
“That’s right,” I said. “It also sounds just like Gina to me—at least one step ahead of this guy.”
Angelo and Carina both nodded their agreement.
“But with Eddie Salazar dead, why doesn’t she come home?” Carina said.
“That’s the question we’re trying to answer,” I said. “We don’t know her reasons yet, but they might be related to Eddie Salazar—it’s certainly a heck of a coincidence if they’re not. But we don’t have a full understanding yet. And the fact that Salazar’s been dead for a few days now and Gina hasn’t returned is troubling. Clearly, there’s much we still don’t know.”
I paused while the Fiores considered this news for a few moments. The only sounds were the birds singing in the trees and the muffled hum of the lawn mower outside.
“Well, even though she’s not home yet, I suppose this is good news,” Angelo said finally.
“Compared to either of the other two scenarios, I think so. I think she’s out there—alive and well. I don’t know why she hasn’t come home yet, but we’re determined to find out. Sometimes, our work is a process of elimination.”
Angelo nodded.
“Any questions about where we’re at? What we’ve been doing?” I asked.
Angelo looked at Carina, then back at me.
“No. You’ve made terrific progress. We’re very grateful.”
“Well,” I said, “we’re not done yet. We’re still committed to finding Gina and makin
g sure she’s safe.”
They both nodded.
“Next issue. Mr. Fiore,” Toni said, “when we met here last time we asked you to notify us if you decided to ask for help from your cousins in Chicago. I need to ask you, have you asked them for any assistance with finding Gina?”
“Absolutely not,” Angelo said, a little indignantly. “If I did, I would have let you know, just like I said.”
“Good,” I added. “We believe you. We just needed to ask.”
“Why? Is something going on I don’t know about?” Angelo asked.
“Do you recognize this man?” Toni asked, putting an eight-by-ten glossy of Frankie the Boot’s airport surveillance photo on the table in front of him.
“That’s Frankie,” Angelo said. “Francesco. Francesco Rossi. He’s a second cousin. He works for Johnnie and Peter.”
“By Johnnie and Peter, do you mean John and Peter Calabria?” Toni answered.
“Yeah,” Angelo said, nodding as he looked at the photo.
“This photo was taken two days ago at Sea-Tac,” I said. “Did you know he was here?”
“Frankie’s here in Seattle?” Angelo said. His surprise seemed genuine. Then it seemed to turn to anger. “Hell no, I didn’t know he was here,” he said loudly, plainly agitated. “What the hell is he doing here?” He stood up and began pacing back and forth.
“That’s what we want to know,” I said.
“Sit down, Angelo,” Carina said. Angelo looked at her, and then sat back down. She turned to me. “Usually, whenever someone comes from Chicago to Seattle, they at least stop by and say hello,” she said. “I don’t know why Francesco wouldn’t stop in.”
“Well, it’s got us confused as well,” I said. “We’re going to work on it and we’ll keep you informed.”
Angelo said, “Why don’t I just call Johnnie and ask him?”
“We—that is, the police and the two of us—think that it might be better not to let your cousins know that we’re aware of Frankie being in Seattle,” I said. “It might make it that much harder to figure out why he’s here if they know we’ve seen him. It was only a matter of luck that we were able to spot him in the first place.”
“You sure?” Angelo asked.
“Yes. It could be important in our finding and helping Gina. Please don’t contact them.”
“Okay. Whatever you say,” Angelo said. “We’ll do whatever it takes to get Gina back.”
“Besides,” I said. “It’s very probable that Frankie’s visit to Seattle has nothing at all to do with Gina. Better not to get your cousins all worked up over an airport photograph if Frankie is here for some other reason.”
“That makes sense,” Angelo admitted.
“There is something you can do for us, though,” I added.
“What is it?”
“Earlier you mentioned a warehouse in Bellingham. I think it could be helpful if you’d list every piece of real estate the Fiore family owns—even leases. Start here,” I said, “then list every piece of property you either own or lease, home or business. For example, do you have a vacation home?”
“No.”
“No cabins, no condos, nothing like that?”
“None.”
“No other personal real estate other than the house here?”
“None.”
“How about business property?”
“Yes, we have three warehouses and probably half a dozen other businesses. We own three bakeries and two pizza restaurants. Plus, we own an excavating company in Mount Vernon.”
“Could you write down the addresses and phone numbers of all of these places—anything that your businesses own or rent—and then e-mail them to us?” I asked.
“Certainly,” Angelo said. “Give me an hour.”
“Did Gina ever work at any of these places?” I asked.
“She’s worked at our offices here the whole time she’s been with the company, except for a four-month period in ’09 when we bought the bakeries. Then we sent her to Port Townsend to get to know the operation there, so she’d have a better understanding of the numbers. She moved into a little apartment up there.”
“Did she keep the apartment?” I asked.
“I don’t think so,” Angelo said.
“Do you have the address?”
“I’ll get it for you and send it with my e-mail.”
“Great,” I said, jotting that down. “I think that does it for us. Do you have any questions for us before we go?”
“Just one,” Carina said. She looked me straight in the eye. “Do you still think you can find her?”
“Yes, ma’am, I think so,” I said. “We’ve done a pretty good job of putting events together and figuring out where she isn’t. Now, it’s time for us to start zeroing in on where she is.”
~~~~
“He seemed sincere to me,” Toni said as we drove back to the office. “I think he was surprised to see Frank Rossi here in Seattle.”
“I think so.”
“Do you think he can control himself and keep from calling his cousins? It really would be better if they didn’t know we had surveillance on Frankie.”
“That’s a fact,” I said. “I’ll bet the Feds would be a little smoked at us if they knew we’d said anything. I sure hope he stays quiet.”
We drove in silence for a second. Something was gnawing at me, something that Angelo’d said. Then, there it was. It hit me.
“Son of a bitch!” I said. I turned and looked at Toni. “He lied!”
“Angelo lied?” she asked.
“No, not Angelo. At least, I don’t think it was Angelo. Robbie lied to us.”
“Lied about what?”
“Last week, when we were interviewing Reggie and Cindy Dunlap in Gina’s office, I asked Robbie if Gina ever worked anywhere else. He was emphatic when he said no. He said the only place she’d ever worked was at the main plant in SoDo.”
“I remember that,” Toni said slowly, now seeing the inconsistency. “But Angelo just said she spent four months in Port Townsend learning about a new business they bought there two years ago—that she actually moved up there for a little while.”
“That’s right. Robbie remembered just fine that I had spent four hours with the family five years ago at Thanksgiving dinner, but he forgets that Gina was reassigned for four months just two years ago? Sounds a little strange to me.”
“Can’t wait to talk to him again,” Toni said.
I agreed.
~~~~
We got back to the office, and I went straight to Kenny’s office.
“What are you working on?” I asked him.
“I got Frank Rossi’s numbers. I just finished downloading his cell phone records. I was just about to download his home phone records,” he said.
“Good. Go ahead. Also, I want you to get the phone records for Robbie Fiore. Home and cell.”
“Got ’em. I already pulled them earlier this morning,” Kenny said.
“I’m downloading three months of data for each phone. I’m going to export to Excel. Then, I’ll split the data into two categories: calls before August 11 and calls since August 11. I’ll do a simple macro to identify all the calls since August 11 that are from a new number—any number that doesn’t also show up before August 11.”
“I get it,” I said. “Then, if we see a pattern developing in those new numbers, it’s possible it just might be Gina.”
“Right, that’s the premise,” Kenny answered. “I’m making the assumption that this disappearance gig is a big enough deal for her that she’d not want to make calls using a phone number that she’s used in the past. She’d take the precaution of assuming someone might be monitoring that number.”
I thought for a second, and then asked, “What’s the area code for Port Townsend?”
“That would be 360,” Kenny answered. “Why?”
“Because Gina lived in Port Townsend for four months,” I said. “If she was going to hide anywhere, she might feel c
omfortable going back there. Pay special attention to new numbers from the 360 area code.”
“Give me a few minutes to write the macro,” he said.
~~~~
Twenty minutes later, Toni and Kenny came into my office. They handed me a copy of a printout for each of the four phone numbers—Robbie’s home, Robbie’s cell, Frank Rossi’s home, and Frank Rossi’s cell.
“This is fascinating,” Kenny said. “On average, each of these phones had one hundred calls per month incoming and about the same number outgoing. If you look here,” he pointed to a heading on my report, “you’ll see the new phone numbers that appear on the incoming call list only after August 11. You can see that Robbie’s home had zero. His cell had two—one was a 360 area code. Frank Rossi’s home had zero, and his cell had one, also a 360 area code. Look at the number.”
I did. “It’s the same number for both of them!”
“Bingo. What kind of coincidence is that? Suddenly, after August 11, both Frank Rossi and Robbie received phone calls from a brand-new, 360 caller—someone who hadn’t called either of them in the previous two months.”
“Holy crap!” I said. “Any pattern to the calls?”
“Turn the page,” he said. I did. “You can see that the caller with the new number is making a call to Robbie’s cell phone every other night at ten, just like clockwork.”
“Holy shit! Little sister is calling in!”
“Sure looks like it,” Kenny said. “And turn the page on Frank Rossi’s report.”
I did. There were two calls, one dated August 13, one dated August 24. “If that’s Gina, she called Frank Rossi a couple of days after she disappeared and the very day Eddie Salazar was found dead.”
Angel Dance (Danny Logan Mystery #1) Page 23