Mona Lisa Eyes (Danny Logan Mystery #4)

by Grayson, M. D.

  Toni joined me when I started Logan PI in early 2008 right after we both graduated and I was discharged. After four years of professionally inspired “noninvolvement,” we finally connected early this year. Now, seven months later, things are clear to me. Toni was it—she is the one for me. I’m not saying I’m ready to actually get down on one knee and propose—I’m not quite there yet. But for me to even be thinking about the M word is pretty mind-blowing. I’m sure my head hasn’t fully caught up with my heart, but I am getting there.

  Which causes me no small amount of consternation given the nature of our job. I turned and made my way back to my office. In the past year alone, I’d managed to put Toni into situations where she’d been jumped by assailants, kidnapped, drugged and left to die in a burning barn, been shot at, and forced to confront a gang of lecherous drug-addled pimps in order to save my sorry ass. Through it all, she came through better than I’d ever hoped. She doesn’t seem to get scared—she mostly gets mad. Sometimes, I think she’s as tough as I am. Other times, I’m pretty sure she’s tougher. And she’s smart and has a detective’s intuition to boot. But the closer we’ve grown, the more I worry about her.

  I’d just opened a budget spreadsheet when she walked in. She plopped down in the chair across from me and, as is her habit, propped her Doc Martens up on my desk. “So what do you think?” Her eyes were sparkling as she grinned at me while giving her gum a real workout.

  I shrugged, pretending nonchalance. “Interesting case.”

  She stopped chewing, cocked her head and looked at me like I’d said something funny. Not hee-haw funny, but weird funny. “Interesting case? Okay. Let me put it to you another way. What do you think about the wealthy British family—royalty, practically—that seem to have decided that none other than little ole’ Logan PI is the only outfit in Seattle that can help them bring their daughter’s killer to justice? What do you think about that? Is that the kind of case you might happen to think would be good for our reputation? Our careers?” She shrugged. “Just askin’.”

  I smiled. I knew Toni’s style well by now, and I’d seen and experienced most of her methods. Often, when she wanted to make a point with me, she started by questioning me, probing, to see if she could get me to commit one way or the other. I was wise to this, so I decided to flip the Q & A session back her way—see if I could get her to speak first. I shrugged, continuing to stare at the spreadsheet and act at least a little disinterested. “I’m not sure. What do you think?”

  She gave me a hard look, then she shook her head and laughed. “Jesus, Logan. What is this? A test?” She stared at me for another couple of seconds, then she nodded and smiled—a sly little smile. “Okay. You want to play devil’s advocate. You want me to go first.” She nodded, then hopped up. “Alright, Mr. Smarty Pants, I’ll bite. How about this.” She leaned forward and said a single word. “Yes.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes. Hell, yes, in fact. Assuming Ron Bergstrom’s okay with it, I say yes—I think we should take this case. Yes, we can handle it. And, unless there’s some sort of dramatic revelation in the next, oh, say, ten minutes or so, I will state this very recommendation at the staff meeting.” There it was—the Toni Blair direct, in-your-face approach. No problem. I knew this approach too. I could deal with this.

  I leaned across the desk until my face was inches from hers. “You’re sure about that, are you?”

  She nodded. “Yes, I am. It’d be good for our rep.” She glanced at my computer screen and played her trump card. “And besides, think of the business. We sure could use the money.”

  Ouch—not fair. Toni knew my soft spot and she went right for it. We hadn’t had a decent paying job in over a month and, if we didn’t get one soon, I’d be forced to dip into my “rainy day” fund—something I loathe doing. I equate it to going backward, and I’m a “going forward” kind of guy. Besides, I’d already had to tap the rainy day fund twice this year and it wasn’t all that healthy to begin with. This case could certainly be helpful, money-wise.

  “And even aside from the money? Here’s something else,” she said.

  “There’s more?”

  “Yeah. There’s more.” She paused. “I like them.”

  “You—” I started to say before she cut me off.

  “I like them.” She enunciated each word slowly and distinctly. “I like the Wards. I know—Cecilia’s a little pushy, but that’s just who she is. Underneath all that, they seem like honest, sincere people.” She stood up. “Their niece has been murdered, and they need our help. The police seem to be stuck in the mud. Maybe we can make a difference.”

  I shook my head. “Geez, Toni,” I said, speaking sincerely now. “It’s been three months. You really think we’re going to be able to do anything?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. But we’ll never know until we give it a try, right? That’s all they’re asking.”

  I nodded, but I was skeptical.

  She looked at me and gave me a smile. “Besides, you know us. We can usually stir things up if we try. Bull in a china shop, right?”

  I thought about this for a few seconds, and then I shook my head. “Alright. Let’s bring it to the group.”

  The rest of the Logan PI crew was already in the office, so after Cecilia and Oliver left, I’d called a quick huddle-up in the conference room for an hour later at 11:00 a.m. When I walked in a couple minutes early, Toni was already there, talking to Richard Taylor. Richard’s a tall, white—haired seventy-something-year-old with bright blue eyes and a quick smile. After serving twenty-eight years on the Seattle PD and rising to the rank of lieutenant, he retired in 1988 and started Taylor Investigations. Twenty years later, he was slowing down a little, having fun doing guest lectures at the University of Washington where, in the fall of 2007, he’d met a couple of enthusiastic criminal justice students—Toni and me. A few months later, Richard and I made a deal, and he sold me his company. A couple months after that, we changed the name to Logan Private Investigations. Although he’s not technically an employee (he works his own hours now and receives no salary), Richard still loves the detective business. He’s been involved in nearly every major case we’ve worked. If he’s in town, he shows up nearly every day, and he rarely fails to make a meeting. We get the benefit of his nearly fifty years of law enforcement wisdom in exchange for simply providing him an office and a desk. He’s happy; we’re happy.

  I walked over to my chair at the head of the conference table. “Morning, guys.”

  “Good morning,” Richard said. “I understand you’ve got us a new case.”

  I smiled and glanced at Toni. “I see that someone’s already filled you in.” Toni stuck her tongue out at me.

  “No, no,” Richard said, sensitive to the game of office politics. “She just gave me a quick summary.”

  “I’ll bet she did.” I sat down and leaned back in the big leather chair.

  Richard continued. “But I have to say, from what I’ve heard, the case sounds excellent, Danny—a real high-profile job. Just what the business needs to bump us up to the next level.” Among Richard’s many talents is a keen appreciation for the business aspect of running a private investigation firm. He should know—he actually lived it for twenty years. He knows the importance of keeping the casebook filled. He smiled. “I can’t wait to talk about it.”

  At that moment, Joaquin “Doc” Kiahtel walked into the conference room. Doc is a tall Chiricahua Apache Indian, transplanted to the rainy Northwest from the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation in New Mexico by way of an eight-year stint in the U.S. Army Special Forces. He’s a quiet man, someone who doesn’t usually reveal much in the way of outward emotions. I met him at Fort Lewis. Not counting Toni, he’s probably my best friend. “Hey, bro,” I said when he walked in.

  He glanced at me and gave me a very slight nod and said, “Ya Ta Say.” This actually means something like, “Welcome, brother” in Apache, but Doc uses it more as an all-purpose greeting.

 
Doc was followed by Kenny Hale two minutes later. Kenny’s what you’d have to call the opposite of Doc. While Doc is tall—maybe six four or so—Kenny’s no more than five eight. Doc weighs in at around 230; Kenny’s 150 or 160 tops. Doc’s the strong, silent type. Kenny rarely shuts up. Doc’s an action guy. Kenny’s a cerebral kind of guy. He gets in trouble when he tries to become an action guy, which is why he’s our technology wizard. The firewall that Kenny can’t breach is yet to be invented. This comes in pretty handy for us because so much of PI work these days involves obtaining and interpreting data, which is invariably kept tucked away on databases somewhere.

  This morning he was breathless. “Dude, I found her. This is it.”

  I cocked my head and looked at Doc. He rolled his eyes a little and gave a quick shrug. I turned back to Kenny. “Great, man. I’m really happy. What are you talking about?”

  He slid his chair back and flopped down. He paused, letting the tension build, and then he said, “I met someone.”

  I studied him carefully. This had happened before, more than once.

  “Not just anyone,” Kenny continued, “she’s the one.” He was beaming, and then suddenly got very serious. “Danny, I need to talk to you right after the meeting. Okay?”

  I nodded. “No problem. Anytime.” This could be interesting.

  I looked around and got the meeting started. “Well. Now that the announcements are out of the way, it appears as though Toni has a new case she wants to present—” I smiled at her, “—to those whom she hasn’t already presented it to.”

  We hadn’t discussed how we’d present the case to the others beforehand. I’d have thought that my turning it over to her like that an hour after our meeting would have at least caught her a little off balance, but she jumped right in like we’d rehearsed it. I shouldn’t have been surprised. She’d even found time in the last hour to prepare a little PowerPoint presentation. She fired up the projector and had the show all ready to go, one step ahead of me. She walked to the monitor. “Okay. Let me get started.” She opened the file, and her first slide was a close-up of Sophie. “Please meet Sophie Thoms.”

  The room was quiet—we all stared at the large photo without speaking. I’d only seen newspaper and TV photos before but seeing her now, larger than life on the screen in our conference room, I could see that Sophie had been a hauntingly beautiful young woman. She had long, golden-blonde hair with bangs and big, dark brown eyes that seemed to look right inside you. Her skin was very tan—the contrast with her light hair was striking. Knowing, as I did, that she was gone gave the photo a powerful, dramatic effect. Eerily, her eyes seemed able to look right through me, directly into my soul. I shuddered and stared, mesmerized, while Toni got started.

  “You’ve all heard over the past few months about Sophie’s murder,” she said. She proceeded to give the timeline, such as we knew it, anyway. She flipped through maps that showed where Sophie lived, worked, and was ultimately found in the water. She described Sophie’s background—her parents, her sister, and her aunt and uncle. Her presentation was surprisingly detailed for one hour’s worth of prep. She was playing for keeps—she really wanted to sell the guys on this job. When she was finished, she concluded by saying, “Apparently, the police aren’t getting anywhere in finding Sophie’s killer, so when the family brought it up, SPD recommended that the family bring us in. This presents us with a wonderful opportunity to step into a high-profile case and maybe do some good and raise our image at the same time.” She paused a second, then advanced the slide back to the start—the close-up of Sophie. Cleary, she recognized the power of the photo. She turned to me. “That’s pretty much it.”

  I nodded. “Good. Very good.” I turned to the group. “Comments?”

  “Well, as I said earlier, I think this is very exciting,” Richard said. “Very exciting. A real opportunity. My only concern would have to be about coordination with SPD. But frankly, that’s an easy problem to solve. If SPD recommended us, then I suppose we just need to confirm that with Ron Bergstrom and figure out how they’d like us to fit in.” He looked at Toni, smiling broadly. “But Toni’s right. This is the kind of case that puts PI firms on the map.”

  I nodded. “Thank you. I appreciate the high-profile aspect of this case, but there is something for us to consider.”

  “Here he goes,” Toni said. “Mr. Buzzkill.”

  I ignored her. “The last time we tracked down a murderer, three of us almost got burned up in a barn.”

  “And blown up too,” Doc added.

  I nodded. “That’s right. Who could forget? Anyway, burned up and then blown up. Nobody’s bothered by that? Nobody’s worried about the danger of going after a killer?”

  Doc’s expression flashed a picture of contempt before quickly returning to normal. He’s seen plenty of bad guys in his time, and they don’t intimidate him much. “That last one didn’t turn out too bad,” he said. “And those guys were nasty. I’ll bet they were a lot more dangerous than whoever killed this girl.” He nodded toward the picture of Sophie.

  “Could be,” I said. “But remember the old saying—just because you walk through a pit of snakes and come out the other side without getting bit the first time doesn’t mean the next snake you meet’s not gonna kill you.”

  He looked at me and smiled slowly. “I like snakes.”

  “Very funny.”

  “C’mon, boss, let’s do it,” Kenny said. I turned to him. Kenny. Poor Kenny wasn’t even experienced enough to be scared.

  I looked at Toni. “I already know how you feel,” I said.

  She gave me a little shrug, and then raised her hand, rubbing her thumb and fingers together in the universal sign for money. She knew where I was weak, and she was reminding me.

  In the end, she was right: this was a good job for us—we could definitely use the funds. I made my decision. “Alright. Let’s go the next step. We’ll talk to SPD and see how they feel. But listen to me and listen good: if we get in—we’re going to be careful, and we’re going to work as a team. Nobody gets kidnapped this time, right?”

  Ron Bergstrom works in the homicide division at SPD headquarters in downtown Seattle. He was out when I called, so I left a message. I hoped that he’d call back sometime that afternoon, because we’d promised the Wards we’d answer them the next morning. I’d just checked the time on my computer when Kenny knocked on the door frame. “Now a good time, boss?”

  “You bet. Come on in.”

  He stepped into my office and closed the door behind him. “Can I sit down?”

  “Sure.” I pointed to one of the chairs across from my desk.

  “Thanks. I’ve got something I need to ask you . . . it’s kind of a favor.”

  “Fire away, man.”

  “It’s big.”

  “Okay. What is it?”

  “It might piss you off.”

  I tilted my head a little. “Quit screwin’ around—you’re starting to piss me off now.” I waved my hand in a “come on” motion. “Out with it.”

  He squirmed in his chair. “Okay. I know that technically I’m supposed to be the head of IT around here.”

  “Technically? Dude, you are the head of IT around here.”

  “Yeah, I know. But I’ve got a new girlfriend . . .”

  “So you said.”

  “Yeah. It’s like, I was over at the GameStop in Bellevue Square, right? And I was checking out a poster for Halo 4.” He looked at me. “It’s not out yet. Anyway, I was looking at it, and I was asking this guy at the counter about video resolution on it, and this good-looking girl walks up and first thing she’s like, ‘It’s native 720p’ and I’m like, ‘No way,’ and she just nods her head.” He nodded his head to show me. “So I look at her and I’m like, ‘Really?’ And she says, ‘Yeah. I work for 3-4-3 in Kirkland. I’m on the development team.’” He leaned back and slapped his hand to his forehead. “Can you believe it? So we started talking and, and—dude, it was like magic.” He shook his head in wonde
rment. “We just hit it.”

  I smiled and nodded. “That’s very cool, man. I’m happy for you.”

  “Right.” He leaned forward and spoke softly. “Danny, she’s the one, I’m telling you. I never felt this way before.”

  I smiled. “Congratulations. I can see she made an impression.”

  “I knew you’d understand,” he said, “with you and Toni and all.”

  I will say that even though I’d seen Kenny pretty worked up from time to time, I don’t think I’d ever seen him as excited as he was then. “So what’s all this have to do with you being head of IT?”

  He sobered up fast. “That’s just it. I kind of fucked up.”

  I stared at him for a few moments and, when he didn’t say anything, I made the little “c’mon” motion again with my hand.

  “When I met Meghan—that’s my girlfriend’s name, Meghan. Anyway, when I met Meghan, I told her I was a private investigator.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  “Well, she heard me, and she immediately interpreted that to mean I was like a field guy—kind of like Magnum, P.I.”

  I nodded. “I can see where she might mistake you.”

  “C’mon, boss,” he protested. “This is serious shit! She thought I was out doing hard-core investigation, like the kind of work you and Toni and Doc do.”

  “You didn’t straighten her out? You didn’t tell her that you’re our computer specialist?”

  He squirmed some more. “Not exactly. I mean, by that time, it was kinda too late. I couldn’t. I mean, she knows I work with computers. But she thinks I do that just as part of my bigger job.”

  “Your ‘bigger job’ meaning Joe Super PI?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  I leaned back and rubbed my chin with my fist. “You tell her you sit in on stakeouts?”

  “Yeah. She was impressed. But I think she believes I do more. She thinks I’m out solving cases.”

  I thought for a few moments. Without doubt, Kenny does as much to solve cases around here as anyone. “Dude,” I said. “Hell, anyone can park their sorry ass in a van and stare at a door all day. No one can do what you do on computers though.”