Mona Lisa Eyes (Danny Logan Mystery #4)

by Grayson, M. D.

  She reached for a tissue again before I noticed that she’d started to cry.

  “I’m sorry to put you through this again.”

  She nodded. “Sophie was my sister and my best friend. I can’t tell you how incredibly empty I feel now.” She sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. “I actually even considered moving back to London, if you can believe that.”

  “And have to deal with your father?”

  “Don’t worry,” she said, sniffing. “I suppressed the urge.”

  As she’d promised, Nicki emailed me four pictures she had of Sophie’s male friends. I had Kenny open up the files and enhance and enlarge them. These photos were now taped up on the case board, and I was studying them a little before 2:00 p.m. when Toni walked into the conference room. She sat down beside me and looked at the pictures. “Did Nicki say who they were?”

  “She knew three of them.” I pointed to a handsome, dark-haired man. “This fellow here on the left in picture number one is none other than Lucas Santos.”

  She leaned forward and stared at the photo. Lucas had his arm around Sophie, apparently at a party. They were part of a group of four other people. Toni whistled softly. “So that’s the famous Lucas. Well, I can tell you one thing—ugly he ain’t.”

  I looked at her. “I suppose. If you like the dark, mysterious Latin type.”

  “Yep. Works for me,” she said, still staring at the picture. Great. I have sandy blond hair and a fairly light Irish complexion.

  I pointed to the next photo that showed a very young-looking man. “This guy here in number two is Ryan Crosby.” He also had dark hair.

  “Wait a minute. I’m not done looking at Lucas.”

  I turned and looked at her. “Really?”

  She turned to me and gave me a sneaky little smile. “Jealous?”

  I shook my head. “Of him? Why?” Why should I be jealous of a good-looking soccer player who’s also a millionaire? I turned and pointed to the next photo. “Ryan Crosby.”

  She laughed and turned back to study the new photo. Ryan and Sophie, accompanied by two other people, stood next to each other, apparently at the Genesis. “Holy crap,” Toni said. “Look at Sophie.” I’d been doing it since before Toni’d walked in, hardly able to take my eyes away. In the photo, Sophie was wearing a full-length black dress gathered at the waist with a plunging neckline. Apparently, it was the dress she’d been wearing when they pulled her out of the river. The sleeves were long and shiny black, covered in what looked to be yards of black lace. Her eyes were heavily made-up, her smiling lips a deep red. Ryan Crosby, dressed in black slacks and tails and wearing his own eye makeup, stood next to her, his arm around her waist. “I expected a high schooler, based on what Nicki said. He doesn’t look like a high schooler to me.”

  “He’s not.”

  “Wow, he’s a good-looking guy too,” Toni said.

  “Take your word for it,” I said, continuing to stare at the photo for a minute before moving on. I pointed to the next photo. “Number three. Nicki didn’t know this guy here.” The man in the photo with Sophie was much older than she was. In the photo, he and Sophie were in formal clothing, apparently at some sort of gala or another.

  “If Nicki didn’t know who it was, then who took the picture, and how’d it get on her phone?”

  “Good question. Same thing I asked her. She says she took the picture, but she didn’t remember the guy. All of these pictures came off her phone.” I pointed to the next photo. “She did remember this guy in picture number four. His name is Gary Margolian—Doctor Gary Margolian.”

  “A doctor, huh? He’s an MD?”

  “Nope. A physicist. Works at U-Dub.”

  “Really?”

  “Nicki said he and Sophie met at some function, and he asked her out. Nicki says as far as she knows, they only went out the one time. She never heard anything else about him.”

  “Number five,” I said, pointing to the last picture. “It’s actually a close-up of this guy here in picture number one. See him there, behind Lucas? Check out picture number two. It’s the same guy. He’s the one with the group, almost hidden there behind Sophie. I had Kenny actually pull this guy out of the first photo and blow him up.”

  Toni leaned forward and examined the picture. The man was thin with blond hair and a big smile.

  “Nicki says she didn’t recognize him,” I said.

  “Really? That’s funny, seeing how he’s in half the pictures she sent over. Doesn’t seem like he just accidentally showed up and made his way into her pictures two separate times.”

  “Yeah, I thought that was a little curious too. Want to see something else funny? Look at his arms.”

  She looked at the picture again. “Those are tattoos, aren’t they. What’s that? Prison ink?”

  “Looks like it to me. Kenny’s trying to enhance that part of the photo now.”

  “Humph. But Nicki doesn’t know him?”

  “That’s what she said.”

  “R-i-g-h-t,” she said.

  I smiled. “You’re starting to sound like a nonbeliever.”

  “Me?” she said. “Moi? Hell, Danny, I’m sure everything Nicki Thoms says is the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” She smiled. “Know what I mean?”

  “How is it that you guys are on the case like, what, less than twenty-four hours, and you already uncover three people we never even heard of?” Ron and Yoshi were on the speakerphone. I was talking to him about our photo discovery and he was a little peeved. Earlier, I’d emailed copies of the five photos to Ron, and now I think he was a little embarrassed. “We knew about Lucas Santos and about Ryan Crosby, but not about any of the others.”

  “Simple,” Yoshi said. “Nicki never gave us these photos. She held out on us.”

  “What—Nicki Thoms has an agenda?” Toni said, feigning surprise. “Blame it on whatever you like, but it looks like we’re already paying off for you, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Ron said. “Maybe you’re right, and by tomorrow you’ll have it all figured out and we can go home.”

  “Probably,” I said. “Meanwhile, maybe you can help us identify this man in number three and the mystery ex-con?”

  “We’re already on it. You planning to talk to any of these people?”

  I nodded. “Thought we might.”

  “Okay. Listen up—here’s the deal. You’re cleared to talk to Lucas and to the Crosby kid for background if you want. If you really want to make yourself useful, why don’t you try and ID this mystery guy—the one with the prison ink. And by ID, I mean ID—no interview. Not yet.”

  “Why not?” Our job would be a little cumbersome if Ron only allowed us to talk to suspects that he’d already cleared.

  “Because we’re in the middle of a murder investigation—my investigation, and you’re part of my team. Bad enough you’ve got to ID the suspects for us. But I draw the line at you conducting the initial interviews.”

  When I thought about it, I could understand his sensitivity. “Okay. We at least have to be part of it.”

  The line was quiet for a few seconds, and then he said, “Done.”

  “Good. We’ll keep at it.”

  “Keep me posted. And don’t try to arrest anybody.”

  I thought the first place we might start would be to run past Oliver and Cecilia’s house and ask them if they knew the two guys we couldn’t identify in the photos.

  “I recognize this man here in the black tuxedo in your picture number three,” Cecilia said. “His name is Edward Munsen.”

  Oliver looked. “Of course! Edward Munsen. His family owns automobile dealerships. I missed him.”

  “He’s from Scandinavia,” Cecilia said. “Norway, I think.”

  I made a note. “How about this last man here—number five? He shows up in two of the original photos, so we figure he must be someone that Sophie knew.”

  Oliver studied the photos. “I’ve seen him before . . . yes, I believe I’ve seen him at the office a time or
two, believe it or not. Come to think of it, I’m certain of it.” He leaned back and closed his eyes, thinking, then he looked at the picture again and shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t recall his name.”

  “He doesn’t work for the Foundation?” Toni asked.

  Oliver shook his head. “Oh no.” Then he looked up quickly. “Not unless someone’s hired him without telling me.”

  Chapter 6

  AFTER WE LEFT OLIVER AND CECILIA’S, we had a decision to make. It was already after five. If we hustled, we could make the opening kickoff of the Monday night football game at Duke’s. The Bears were playing the Lions. Thing was, we like Monday night football, but we’re Seahawks fans. Neither of us follows the Bears or the Lions. Toni suggested, “We could always swing on by Genesis and see if anyone recognizes the guy in the picture. We could still make it home by halftime.” Easy call. We headed south.

  Seattle’s SoDo district is a transitional area that runs between the south end of downtown Seattle to the north end of the Industrial District, which lies farther south. It includes Safeco Field, where the Mariners play and CenturyLink Field, home of the Seahawks and the Sounders. I think SoDo is supposed to be Seattle’s version of New York’s SoHo district, except from what I can tell of the area, whatever it was in New York that led to people scooping up old manufacturing spaces and turning them into trendy lofts seemed a little more reluctant to take hold here. Mostly, except for the stadiums, there’s a bunch of industrial buildings, building-supply shops and boarded-up old brick buildings.

  Genesis is located south of Safeco Field at the edge of SoDo, just north of Spokane Street, in an old masonry building that used to house an air-conditioning contractor until the construction bust, following the dot-com boom in 2004, which knocked them out. Since it reopened a year later as a nightclub, it has become quite trendy with the black-leather-and-studs crowd. In fact, of all the Seattle nightclubs, Genesis has developed a reputation as the real deal, a no-compromise Goth club. For sure, there were other places that claimed to be Goth clubs in Seattle, but at Genesis you’d never find “Tuesday ’80s night,” or “Thursday Comedy Club.” The Genesis was pure Goth—filled with relentless pounding music from the likes of The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Bauhaus. At Genesis, there was no Friday night “Dress in Black” night. Here, every night was black leather and chains. From time to time, the fun was known to get out of hand. Parking lot fights were not uncommon. That wouldn’t be the case tonight, though, because it was raining and that tended to . . . dampen the action. So to speak.

  We parked, walked beneath a little awning at the entry, and went inside, where we found ourselves in a small vestibule. We were greeted by a bouncer and a ticket girl wielding a hand stamp. It took a few seconds to adjust to the surroundings in the small room: I was struck by the volume of the bass notes coming from beyond the swinging doors leading to the bar. It was as if we were sitting inside a barrel and someone was pounding on the sides with a sledgehammer. In addition to the noise, the ambience was enhanced by the dim light and the unmistakable aroma of cheap bar—your basic full-frontal assault on the senses. I wondered how these two could stand it in here for any length of time.

  The bouncer inspected me pretty carefully. I suppose I didn’t look much like the normal Genesis patron and this probably made him suspicious. For his part, he looked exactly like a normal bouncer. He looked Samoan, a little over six feet tall and well over three hundred pounds: the man was big. I think his arms were bigger around than my legs. His hair was short and dark, and he wore a name tag that said Randy.

  The ticket girl looked bored as she stared up at him from her chair behind a plastic folding table, languidly chewing her gum to the beat of the music. Her name tag read Amaranth. She had long, straight black hair. Her face was very pale (either because of makeup or because she got even less sun than a normally sun-deprived Seattleite), and her eyes were heavily made-up: dramatically dark eyebrows, eyeliner, and eye shadow. She wore deep red lipstick that was lined in black. Her long, frilly black dress had sleeves made of lace that were gathered at her wrists. I noticed tall, black platform boots sticking out from beneath the little table where she sat. Around her neck was a black lace choker with a red rose in the center.

  While Randy was still checking us out, Amaranth looked at Toni; then she checked me out. She was giving her chewing gum a real workout, snapping it loudly as she looked me over. Finally, she said, “Ladies in dress get in free before eleven. Ten bucks for guys, plus another ten for out of uniform.”

  Uniform? I looked over at Toni and saw that she wore all black: black jeans, a tight black T-shirt, and a black leather jacket. On the ride over, she’d even had time to put on some dark eye shadow and bright red lipstick, as if she knew the dress code by heart. She was stunning. I, on the other hand, was in my standard Seattle dress for a rainy autumn night: blue jeans with hiking boots and a dark green polo shirt under a navy North Face jacket. Works pretty well for me most of the time—but not so good if I wanted to get into a Goth club. “Twenty bucks? Just for me? Just to get in? We just need to ask a few quick questions.”

  She flashed an insincere little smile for a millisecond—then it disappeared. “Cool. Questions are good. Twenty bucks, and you can go inside and knock yourself out.”

  “Maybe I should just go in by myself?” Toni asked at the exact moment two guys staggered out the swinging double doors, talking and laughing loudly. Both were tall, near my height, dressed in black leather pants and leather jackets. They had matching red hair, gelled back tightly. Each had several rings and studs adorning his face. They could have been twins—in fact, maybe they were twins. They definitely reeked of alcohol and leaned heavily on each other, apparently having a little trouble with the balance thing. I’d say they were clearly into the .10-plus percent blood-alcohol range. They paused as the door swung shut behind them. Together, they sort of propped each other up and tried to focus on Toni for a moment, but neither could hold it together long enough to focus on us. Then, one of them started to get the heaves. Fortunately, Randy noticed and shoved them both out the front door just in time.

  I glanced at Toni quickly, then reached for my wallet. “Okay. Twenty bucks it is.”

  After I paid, I pulled the photo of the still-unidentified man out of my pocket and showed it to the two of them. “Ever seen this guy?”

  Randy studied the photo; Amaranth didn’t even pretend to. “Nope,” she said disinterestedly, lifting up her hand and inspecting her long, glossy black nails. “Never seen ’em.”

  Randy looked at Amaranth, then back at us. He shrugged. “Sorry.”

  We held out our hands and Amaranth stamped us. “Enjoy your evening,” she said cheerfully between snaps of her gum. We turned and went through the swinging double doors.

  The wall of sound when we entered felt visceral. I didn’t reach up and cover my ears because to have done so would have been decidedly uncool. But I sure as hell wanted to. “What is this . . . this noise?” I said to Toni, leaning toward her so that she could hear me.

  “Bella Lugosi’s Dead,” she said. “Bauhaus.”

  I looked at her. “You knew that?” She smiled.

  I like almost all kinds of music—rock, jazz, country, soul, good old Seattle grunge. But I have to say I had a hard time with this stuff. Maybe it was the so-called music combined with the red lights inside, I don’t know. I do know that I wanted out as soon as I’d paid my twenty bucks to get in. Great.

  I tried to adjust as I checked the place out. It wasn’t very crowded—we were early and apparently things didn’t get rocking at the ole’ Genesis until later in the evening.

  The main room was situated with a bar on the right and a stage and large dance floor—both empty now—on the left as we entered. There looked to be a couple dozen tables between the bar and the stage, maybe half of them occupied. Two waitresses wearing black bikini tops and black skirts shuffled between the tables and the bar. Toward the back, a half-dozen booths
lined the walls but even with the fake candles on the wall, it was too dark for me to be able to tell if they were occupied or not.

  “See anybody you know?” I yelled to Toni over the music.

  “Oh, sure!” she yelled back. “Nearly everybody.” That Toni. What a kidder she is.

  We walked over and took a couple of seats at the bar. Perhaps because we weren’t standing under a giant speaker at the doorway, it was maybe just a little less noisy at the bar. The bartender was working the other end of the counter. He was tall, maybe six three or so, and he was completely bald. For a shirt, he wore a simple black leather vest, unbuttoned, over his bare chest. His muscular arms and chest were covered with tattoos. The men he was serving turned to look at us as we sat down. One of them, a skinny man with dark hair all spiked up and dressed completely in black leather, stared openly at us. Then, he leaned forward and said something to the bartender. The bartender glanced our direction before he turned back and said something back to Leatherman, causing all the men to laugh. A few minutes later, he walked over to our end of the counter.

  “Looks like everyone’s having a good time,” I said, nodding toward the other group.

  “Yeah, we do our best. What can I get you?”

  “You got African Amber?”

  “Nope.” He didn’t say anything else or even offer another choice.

  I nodded and glanced over at the tap to see what they did have. “Okay. Make it two Rainiers then.”

  He walked over to the tap and poured the beers, then brought them back. “Eight bucks,” he said.

  Great. Four dollars apiece for a Rainier that I couldn’t drink even if I wanted to because I was training for the Seattle half marathon only a month away. And that on top of a twenty-dollar cover charge for a place where I didn’t want to be in the first place. Terrific. We’d have definitely had a better time at Duke’s. Not to mention being dollars ahead at the end of the night.