I nodded. “Could be.”
“That’s why I keep her on our POI list, and I think you should keep her on yours. Or put her on yours—whatever. I don’t know how you guys do what it is that you do. But I’ll say that from what we’ve learned, there’s probably no one who was closer to Sophie Thoms than Nicki Thoms.”
I think he was probably right about that, with the possible exception of Ryan Crosby. I pulled copies of the five photos out of my jacket. “Have a look at these guys in the pictures we sent you this morning. Let’s see—we ID’d Lucas Santos, Ryan Crosby, and Gary Margolian, right?” I laid the photos on the table.
“Technically,” Ron said, “for the record, the only new one was Gary Margolian. We already knew about those other two.”
I looked at him, then shrugged. “Whatever. Okay—we gave you Margolian,” I tapped his picture, “and you had these two. That leaves these two guys unidentified, right?”
“That guy there in picture number three is—”
“Edward Munsen,” I said, “Cecilia recognized him.”
“Right,” Ron said as he reached for his napkin.
“What’d you find out about him?” Toni asked.
“This Munsen guy inherited an automobile dealership kingdom—the family owned half the Toyota dealerships in the Northwest. Fifteen years ago, the kid’s a thirty-something-year-old screwball, one of those permanent student types, probably not unlike Nicki Thoms. Next day, his old man keels over with a heart attack and bam! Kid’s worth something like half a billion dollars. The old man was fifty-seven years old. He drops stone cold dead, just like that.”
I studied the photo of Munsen. He looked to be of medium height with thin blond hair. “We can go ahead and get started on looking at him.”
“We already did,” Ron said. “We talked to him just before we came and bailed your ass out.”
“Hey,” I protested. “I thought we agreed we were going to be involved.”
“Told you they’d be pissed,” Yoshi said quietly.
Ron wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Sorry about that. I forgot I said that you could tag along until we were leaving.”
“Yeah, right. Pretty damn convenient,” I said, a little annoyed.
“Hey, don’t push your luck,” Ron said. “Remember who bailed your asses out tonight. Besides, don’t sweat it. Munsen’s not our guy.”
“Care to explain?”
Ron set his burger down. “First off, he claims he hadn’t seen Sophie for six months. I had the guys run a search of Sophie’s phone records and her e-mail records, and we don’t see anything to dispute that. No contact at all. Besides, Munsen alibis out for the night Sophie was murdered: he was in the hospital.”
“How’s that?”
Ron continued. “He was in the hospital. Apparently, Munsen has a heart problem of his own—the same kind of condition that killed his old man.”
“No shit,” I said. “What a bitch. Good news: he inherits a boatload of money from his old man when his old man kicks it because of a heart condition. Bad news: he also inherits the heart condition.”
Ron nodded. “It’s a cruel fuckin’ joke, ain’t it? Guess he ain’t so lucky after all.”
I nodded too. “So we can scratch him, then.”
“Looks like. So back to Ryan Crosby and Lucas,” Toni said. “The records say they both have alibis. How solid are they? I see you guys have eliminated Crosby from the list, but I didn’t see anything that said you’d taken Lucas off.”
“Yosh?”
Yoshi set his fork down. “Technically, that’s right, we haven’t. But when we interviewed him, he denied any involvement at all—said he was just a friend. We checked around and found that Lucas was playing soccer on the Fourth of July. We verified it. The Sounders had a game.”
I waited for him to keep talking, but when he didn’t, I asked, “So? Wasn’t Sophie killed on July fifth? There some kind of legal rule that says you can’t kill someone the day after a soccer game?”
Yoshi smiled. “No. But there’s a physics rule that says you can’t be in two places at the same time. The game that afternoon was in Salt Lake. The team didn’t return home until the afternoon of the fifth.”
I looked at him. “But Sophie wasn’t killed until late that night. Lucas would have had plenty of time to get back.”
He smiled. “Excellent thinking, detective. The problem is, Lucas did not fly back with the team the next day. Instead, he took his own charter immediately after the game. He and two of his buddies jetted off in the other direction to the Hamanasi Resort in Belize for two fun-filled days with three Colombian ladies they’d met in Salt Lake—ladies, I’m told, who were not their wives. We’ve verified this with the resort.”
“I shoulda been a soccer player,” Ron said.
I nodded slowly.
He nodded. “Yeah. We should probably move him off the list, but if we do, there won’t be many left.”
“Great. What about Crosby. We saw he passed a polygraph.”
He shrugged. “Yeah. Besides, his alibi’s solid.”
“You’re going to go talk to both these guys for yourselves, right?” Ron asked.
I nodded. “Yeah, if for no other reason than to help us fill in the blanks about Sophie. They obviously knew her pretty well. Maybe they can point us in a new direction.”
“Go for it. Unless something changes, we’re done with them.”
“What about Margolian?” Toni asked.
“We didn’t hook up with him today,” Ron said. “Where we at with him, Yosh?”
Yoshi set his drink down and shook his head. “Nowhere. He’s a professor at U-Dub. We’re supposed to talk tomorrow. You guys want to come along?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “I’ll probably send one of my guys.” Yoshi gave us the when-and-where details.
“Anyway,” Yoshi continued, “I think he’s likely to be the same kind of deal as Munsen—onetime social date, no contact since Sophie hooked up with Lucas.”
I nodded. He was probably right. I looked down at the photos and pointed to the mystery ex-con. “That leaves this fellow here. Number five. He shows up in the photo with Lucas and the one with Crosby.”
“Yeah. The new guy, Mr. Ink. We got nothing on him today,” Ron said. “Nothing at all. We’re spreading the photo around to see if anyone recognizes him. You said you’re making progress?”
“Some. The bouncer at the Genesis recognized him. Said he thinks his name is Josh. Thinks he might work at UPS. And, believe it or not, Oliver Ward recognized him too. Said he thought the guy used to hang around the Foundation office.”
“Humph,” Ron said. “That a fact? Josh. No last name.” He thought for a few seconds, then he shrugged. “Well, it’s better than nothing. Yosh, you suppose we can run that name through the database tomorrow and see how many Joshes we turn up?”
“Sure. Probably only thirty, forty thousand of ’em.”
“So what are you guys planning with this guy?” Ron asked.
“We were trying to get started on IDing tonight at the Genesis before a couple of the patrons got a little testy about my not wearing black leather. We’ll show his picture around—see if anyone recognizes him. If he moved in Sophie’s circles, maybe someone will be able to ID him for us.”
“Maybe someone at the Foundation,” Toni added.
“Good plan,” Ron said. “While you’re doing that, try not to get busted again.”
We finished dinner, and I picked up the tab.
“Thanks again for springing us,” I said. “We appreciate it.”
“No problem,” Ron said as he put his hand on his chest and suppressed a belch. “We’re here to serve, ain’t that right, Yoshi?”
Yoshi nodded. “What he said.”
As we were walking out, the crowd seated at the bar suddenly groaned. I looked up just in time to see the Lions score a touchdown with thirty seconds left in the game to ruin the Bears’ shutout. Looked like it was a helluva game.
/> Chapter 8
“DOC, YOU AND KENNY NEED TO be at Ron’s office this morning at ten,” I said. “He’s interviewing this guy,” I pointed to the photo number three. “Gary Margolian. He’s a physicist who went on at least one date with Sophie last year. Might come to nothing, but I want to make sure that we don’t miss anything.”
“Both of us?” Doc asked, a little confused.
“Yeah. Special Agent Hale here can use a little introduction to interrogation methods, SPD—style. You guys will be on the other side of the mirror, observing, but I want him to watch.”
“Cool,” Kenny said. Doc gave me a look that made it clear he didn’t think it was cool at all and that he was aware I was essentially asking him to babysit Kenny. Still, Doc’s a good soldier and didn’t complain. At least not out loud.
I leaned back and looked at the timeline on the case board. “Well, we’ve been on this for a few days now. Anybody got any bright ideas? Any theories?”
“My early guess is that it was a complete stranger. So far everyone who knew her seems to have loved her,” Toni said. “We’ll know more after we talk to Sophie’s coworkers at the Foundation tomorrow.”
“What about the phone call at the bar?” I ask.
“Coincidental,” she said. “Work—related.”
“Speaking of work, could it be some sort of Foundation business gone wrong?” Richard asked. “Maybe an investor gets disgruntled and decides to get even with the person who convinced him to invest?”
“It’s not an investment,” I said.
“It’s a contribution,” Toni added. “There’s no dollar return to be disgruntled over.”
Richard nodded. “True.”
“Boyfriends?” Kenny asked.
“SPD’s cleared them,” I said, “but we’re looking too. Toni and I are going to talk to these two today.” I pointed to the photos of Ryan Crosby and Lucas Santos. “Neither one of ’em is a suspect—they’ve both got solid alibis. But they were close to Sophie, so we’re hoping maybe they can tell us something that might open up a new door. Meanwhile, this guy here—Munsen—he was in the hospital when Sophie was killed—got a problem with his ticker.”
“That leaves the prison dude,” Doc said.
“Exactly,” I said, staring at the picture. “Josh, the mystery prison dude. He might not know anything, either, but we definitely need to locate him and find out. We’ll ask Ryan and Lucas if they recognize him when we talk to them. If SPD forgets to ask Margolian about him, remind ’em.”
I-5 runs 1,300 miles from San Diego all the way to Canada, where it joins up with Highway 1 and the Trans-Canada Highway. In Washington, the freeway parallels the western edge of Lake Washington as it runs north and south, right through the heart of Seattle. An alternate route, I-405, is only thirty miles long. This heavily traveled bypass loop also runs north and south, but it’s located on the east side of Lake Washington. The Interstate 405 splits off I-5 in the north near the small town of Lynnwood, Toni’s hometown. Then it loops east around the lake and runs south through Bothell, Kirkland, Bellevue, and finally Renton before it swings back to the west and rejoins I-5 south of the lake near the small bedroom community of Tukwila. This makes Tukwila a busy place, being located centrally at the intersection of the south end of Seattle, the south end of Lake Washington, and the north end of the Sea-Tac airport. Which is, along with the normally heavy late-afternoon traffic, why it took us over an hour to cover the thirteen miles between our office and the Seattle Sounders training facility known as the Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila. Fortunately, we left at 4:00 p.m. straight up, so we were still a few minutes early for our 5:00 p.m. meeting with Lucas.
This was my first visit to Starfire. It’s a large soccer campus and is truly an impressive place. In addition to being the official practice and training facility of the MLS Seattle Sounders, Starfire hosts a bunch of leagues and tournaments pretty much year—round. There are a dozen outdoor soccer fields of various sizes including an outdoor stadium field plus two indoor fields. Of course, the Sounders are top of the roost here, them being an MLS team and all.
We went inside and found Café Sienna, a quiet little restaurant that overlooked the stadium field. Despite the activity below us on several of the soccer pitches, the café was empty except for us. A few minutes later, a man walked up wearing warm-up pants and a dark Sounders T-shirt and carrying a bottle of blue Gatorade. I recognized Lucas from his pictures.
“Danny Logan?” he said, walking up to us. “I am Lucas.” He had a pronounced accent.
Okay, I’ll go ahead and admit it. Lucas was a good-looking guy. He was probably six feet tall and obviously very fit. His long black hair was wet and combed back—just out of the shower after practice, I suppose. He was deeply tanned and his facial features were strong and pronounced. His eyes were a steel blue/gray color that was quite striking. I was surprised at how muscular he was—I didn’t know any soccer players, but for some reason I had expected a slim, speedy physique. Instead, Lucas had arms that rippled with long, corded muscles as he reached to shake hands.
“Glad to meet you,” I said. I introduced him to Toni, and glanced at her as I did. She was trying to play it cool, but she was impressed. “Thanks for meeting with us. Are we okay here?” I pointed to a table in the café.
“Yeah, is good,” he said. “Nice and quiet.” We made our way to the table. “Lunch and dinner? Very busy,” he said. “Now though,” he shrugged, “is good.”
“Good.” We took our seats.
He looked at me sternly. “You want to talk about Sophie? I talk to the police already about this. What else you want? You say you work for family, no?”
“Yes. They’ve hired us to conduct our own investigation into Sophie’s death.”
He nodded. “They worry about no . . . no . . . progress?”
I nodded. “They’re naturally concerned, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
“I understand.” He shook his head slowly. “Why would somebody wish to hurt Sophie? I don’t know. Sophie was a . . . a . . . a very sweet girl.” He paused for a moment, then he shook his head one more time. “So. What can I say to you?”
Toni said, “First off, thank you for agreeing to meet with us, Lucas.”
He smiled at her and nodded.
Toni started for us. “And let me start by saying that the police have made it clear that you are not a suspect.”
Lucas smiled. “Me? Why would I be?”
“Exactly,” she said. “But, like you said, there hasn’t been much progress in finding Sophie’s killer, either. So now that we’re involved, the first thing we’re trying to do is talk to people who knew Sophie, people who were close to her so that we can try to get a really complete picture of her and her life. We’re hoping that by doing that, we can uncover something that might lead the official investigation in a new direction—something that’s maybe been overlooked.” She smiled. “So that’s what’s led us to you. We’re hoping you can help us fill in some details about Sophie.”
I studied him while she was talking and watched his reaction to me, and then to Toni. It dawned on me that this guy was going to respond better to her than he would to me—a male/female thing, I suppose. Whatever—it wasn’t something I was going to change, so I went with it. Besides, Toni was probably better at interrogation than I was anyway. I looked over at Toni and nodded for her to continue.
She turned and looked at Lucas. “Is that a tattoo?” The edge of a tattoo was just visible beneath the sleeve on his left arm.
He smiled. “It is.” He reached over and pulled up his sleeve to show a full color tattoo of a jaguar. “It is onça-pintada,” he said proudly. “It’s where I get my nickname: Onça.”
Toni studied it closely. “That’s beautiful.” Then she looked up. “Check this out.” Lucas watched, as Toni rolled up her blouse sleeve on her left arm, revealing the full-sleeve tattoo hidden beneath.
When her sleeve was as high as she could get it, Lucas stared for a
few moments, transfixed. Then he whistled in admiration. “Magnificent!” He nodded his approval as he continued to study Toni’s arm, transfixed.
“Thank you,” she said.
Lucas smiled. “The flowers . . . the birds—they are like the jungle in my country.”
Toni smiled. “When I was younger, my mom and my sister and I went to Hawaii. I was inspired by the tropical scenery over there. See the initials? J-A-R? That’s for me, my mom, and my sister.”
This confused him. “You are Toni, no? Which one is you?”
“Toni is short for Antoinette.” She pointed to the A on her tattoo.
“Ah, Antoinette, I see.” He was clearly impressed. He looked for several seconds more. “The azul—the blue color on the feathers of this bird—they are the same as your eyes.”
“Isn’t that cool?” She zapped him with a pretty good smile—I’d say about 60 percent strength. Coming from Toni, that’s a pretty effective smile—plenty strong enough to work on Lucas.
“Fantastic.” He was mesmerized—a complete goner.
“Thank you.” She rolled her sleeve back down.
Lucas leaned back in his chair, and smiled at her. He looked relaxed and confident. The poor bastard was probably completely unaware that he’d just been softened up by a pro. Toni had him right where she wanted him. “So,” she started, “your name came up a couple of times as we were talking to people, so we thought we should contact you.”
He considered this for a second, then he said, “My name? People talk, no?”
She smiled. “That they do. You’re quite well-known, you know.”
He nodded. Of course he would.
“When you go out, people see you. They notice you. Obviously, you’ve been seen with Sophie, and you were seen with her by some of her friends.” She was trying the old razzle-dazzle to distract him.
It worked. He shrugged. “Is true. Sophie and I were friends. Like I say, she was sweet girl. We were good friends.”
“How well did you know her?”
He thought for a second. “I meet her this year at a party—New Year’s, I think. It was her sister Nicki the one who introduced us. Sophie tell me she was new to the area. She ask me to go with her to a function.” He shrugged. “I say yes. I like help young people.”
Mona Lisa Eyes (Danny Logan Mystery #4) Page 11