“What . . . what . . . what’s the meaning of this?” Nicki sputtered, her eyes wide, struggling to keep an adequate grip on the sheet to ensure that her ample assets remained hidden from view. Lucas, still sprawled on the floor, was slowly unfolding himself and moaning as he rubbed his head.
“We heard the screams,” Officer Bennett said, “and we . . . well, we . . . are you alright, ma’am?”
“What?” Nicki said sharply, recovering quickly now and firing daggers from her eyes. She focused on Bennett. “Of course I’m alright, you . . . you . . . you bloody idiot! What the hell are you doing here?”
“We heard a scream. We thought you might be in danger,” I said. “So we took action.”
“Danger?” Nicki asked, looking at me, then at Lucas. “What? Were you standing outside my bedroom door?”
I shook my head. “Yes . . . I mean no . . . we just got here.”
Suddenly, Toni started laughing. Everyone turned to her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, as she holstered her weapon. “Trust me, Nicki, tomorrow you’re going to think this was funny.” She laughed again. “And it is. Really funny. But right now, we need you two to get dressed and meet us in the living room.” She turned to us. “Show’s over, guys. That’s it. Everybody out. Let’s give these two some privacy.” She shooed us out and closed the door behind us once we’d cleared the room.
We walked back toward the living room, and when we reached the foyer, we thanked Keith and Officer Bennett for their help. Bennett chuckled quietly.
“No one’s ever going to believe this shit,” he said, shaking his head. “Not in a thousand years. Are you guys always this entertaining? I mean, every time we meet, it’s like the highlight of my day.”
Toni laughed. “Trust me, the fun never stops.”
Five minutes later, the bedroom door opened, and Lucas and Nicki walked out.
“I can explain,” Lucas started to say.
I held up my hand. “Not necessary. I get it.” I paused. “You were just chaperoning a good friend.”
Lucas’s expression turned into a glare. I guess he didn’t have a sense of humor.
“Lucas,” Toni said, “we need to talk to Nicki. Alone. It would be best now if you gathered up your belongings and went home.”
He nodded and did just that, without saying a word to us, without even saying good-bye to Nicki. For her part, she gave him a pretty good dose of stink-eye as he left. When he was gone, she shifted targets to me.
“I trust there is a good explanation for your outrageous behavior,” she said, clipping each word off to emphasize them in a really cool, pissed-off British fashion.
I nodded. “There is. We were worried about you.”
“Worried? About me? Why? Why on earth would you be worried about me?” She looked at me, then at Toni, then back at me. “And what made you feel compelled to break into my house and crash into my bedroom? At that precise moment?”
“Let’s sit down,” I said.
“I don’t want to—”
“Nicki!” I said sharply. “Sit down.” This former army grunt can give orders too. She stared at me for a moment, fuming, but then she sat down on the sofa. We sat across from her. “Nicki, this afternoon, we found Judie Lawton. She’s been murdered.”
Her mouth dropped open. After a few seconds, she said, “Judie?” Her eyes started to fill with tears. “Judie’s dead?”
I nodded. “I’m afraid so. She was strangled.”
“Oh, my God.” She covered her mouth with her hand.
We let her cry for a minute, and then I said, “Unfortunately, there’s more.”
She looked at me, confusion all over her face.
“It’s starting to look like whoever killed Judie may have killed Sophie as well.”
“Sophie?” she cried. “How can that be?”
“We think whoever did it used the same kind of rope for both murders. That’s either a very unusual coincidence, or else it’s a pretty strong hint that the same person killed both girls.”
She paused for a moment. “My God. Do you know who did it?”
I shook my head. “No. But we’re looking to talk to Josh Bannister. It might just be a coincidence, but Josh decided to go on vacation this past Tuesday—the same day the police think Judie was killed. Now he’s nowhere to be found.”
“Josh?”
“We don’t know what his disappearance means yet. Could be he’s just scared. If someone else killed Judie and Sophie, Josh might be thinking he’s next. He might hiding from whoever did it.”
“Or it’s possible that Josh killed them,” Toni said. “Judie’s apartment was completely sacked. Somebody went through it looking for something. But they didn’t find it. Later, when the police did a more thorough search of the apartment, they found a large quantity of cocaine hidden way up under the bathroom vanity.”
Nicki looked from Toni to me.
She shook her head again. “I don’t know what to say. I have no idea how this could be tied to Sophie. But Josh? I can’t imagine Josh doing this. He could never hurt anyone.”
“We have some theories, but that’s all they are right now,” I said. “We’re going to be working hard on them over the next week or so. But the real reason we came here tonight is to tell you that there was once a gang of four: you and Sophie and Judie and Josh Bannister. Now, half of your group is dead.”
“Maybe three with Josh missing,” Toni said.
I nodded. “Right. That means there’s only one other person of the original group left.”
She looked at me. In the last few minutes, her emotions had shown up on her face starting with surprise, then indignation, then shock at hearing of Judie Lawton’s murder. Now, though, she started to look scared. “Me. I’m the only one left.”
I nodded. “Exactly.” I leaned forward. “Nicki, you need to be completely honest now and tell me. Is there any reason that you’re aware of why this might be happening? Were there any problems with someone that might have blown up and caused this? Anything at all?”
She shook her head immediately. “There’s nothing. I don’t know anything.”
I looked at her. I’ll admit that I had no confidence in my ability to read her, but I have to say, if she was lying, she was damn good at it. “Fair enough,” I said. “We think it would be wise if you were to go on a little vacation for a while. Someplace far away. Like your father’s place in London.”
“What? London? At my parent’s home?” A disgusted look crossed her face. “I’ve got news for you—that’s no vacation.”
“Maybe true,” Toni said. “But it’s safe. Whoever killed Sophie and Judie is still out there.” She shrugged. “But you could be right—it might not be necessary to go to London. He might not be after you.”
Nicki stared at Toni for a few moments. Finally, she took a deep breath and shook her head in resignation. “Okay. When? Flights aren’t that easy to come by. I might not be able to get out for several days.”
I smiled. “Good news. We called your aunt on the way over. She’s a powerful woman. She pulled some strings. You have a first-class ticket on British Airways tonight at 11:54 p.m.,” I said. “Like us, they are very concerned about your safety.”
“Tonight?” She was flabbergasted. “Close to midnight? That’s only a few hours from now!”
“Exactly. You’ll need to hurry. Go to London until this blows over,” Toni said. “Clear your head. Relax.”
Nicki nodded and took a deep breath. “What a fucking day,” she said. She leaned back and stared straight ahead for a few moments, then she smiled and gestured toward the wineglasses. “No drugs tonight. Just a glass of wine.” She looked at me. “I just called him because after the interview, I needed some company. And look what happens.”
I smiled. “Don’t sweat it. Just go, get away from all of this. Call us when you get settled so that we’ll know how to get in touch with you in case we have to.”
Three hours later, accompanied by two unifo
rmed SPD officers who helped clear us through Sea-Tac TSA, we escorted Nicki aboard British Airways Flight 1255 for the late-night flight to London. We stayed in the gate area until the 747 taxied to the runway and took off into the night sky.
Chapter 13
A STEADY RAIN WAS FALLING THE next morning. Ron and Yoshi were picking me up at nine, so I finished my training run and made it into the office by eight fifteen. I wanted to spend a few minutes reviewing the background information on Gabriel Bannister that Kenny pulled up yesterday. He’d been able to assemble a pretty full package: criminal records, employment, credit, residences—the whole picture. I hoped that a careful review of the background information might just reveal something in Gabriel’s past that would help us strategize—a door that might be partly opened to make it easier to talk with him.
I’d just leaned back in my chair and gotten comfortable when Kenny walked in.
I lifted the package he’d prepared. “Good morning. And thanks for putting this stuff together.”
“No problem, boss. Now that we’re officially part of the task force, I didn’t even have to hack in. All I had to do was call and ask, and an hour later they emailed me the package. Just like magic. It was sweet.”
“That’s a switch.”
He nodded. “Yeah, it is. Say, while I’ve got you, I have a request.”
I looked at him for a second. He had a serious expression on his face, so I went ahead and set the file down and sat up straight. “Another request? What is it?”
“Doc said you guys go to Krav Maga training every week.”
I nodded. “Yeah, in Bellevue. More or less every week. We try to, anyway.” Krav Maga is an Israeli army–developed martial art that Doc and I learned in the military. I introduced Toni to it four years ago when we started the agency. Now, Toni, Doc, and I were serious about staying tuned up in hand-to-hand combat.
“I’d like to start going. I want to learn.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” he said enthusiastically. “It’s in keeping with my ‘Special Agent’ title, you know?”
I smiled. “Dude, you never had any interest before. You sure you haven’t been watching too much Person of Interest?”
“I’m serious,” he said. “Think about it—it would add value to the firm.”
I don’t know if I agreed with that or not, but I really didn’t have a problem with Kenny training in martial arts. Except for the money. It’s not that expensive—only $100 a month or so. But at that particular moment, every penny counted.
This was balanced, more or less, by the fact that it couldn’t hurt Kenny personally to learn a little self-defense—even aside from showing off for his girlfriend. I already had him training with us on firearms for the rare instances where we needed him to back us up, but that’s mostly because I don’t want anybody handling firearms who’s not been trained—especially somebody I might be counting on to back me up. The good news is that we’d only had to resort to gunplay once in four years. Physical altercations, on the other hand—little tussles that didn’t require lethal force—they happened from time to time. Not that I really expected Special Agent Kenny Hale to be involved in a fight on behalf of the company, but I suppose it was possible.
I made my decision. “Okay,” I said. “Get yourself signed up. Ask Doc—he’ll give you the particulars.”
He smiled. “Thanks, boss.”
“Keep me posted on your progress,” I called out to him as he turned and walked away. I smiled. Maybe I could claim a group rate and get a discount.
I leaned back again, opened the Gabriel Bannister file, and started reading. Twenty minutes later, I completed my review, and I have to admit that I’d failed to discover any kind of hidden key in the data that may have been helpful in getting Gabriel Bannister to work with us. I guess I just assumed, him being in prison and all, that he’d not be all that interested in talking to the police, just as a matter of form. It was up to us to convince him that it was actually in his little brother’s best interest to come forward.
In the end, essentially all I learned was that the Bannister brothers were born and raised by a single mother in southern California before the family moved to Seattle in the early ’80s, just in time for Gabriel to complete high school. Since the move north, things had gone steadily downhill for the family, and both Gabriel and Josh had cycled in and out of the King County criminal justice system for a series of minor, nonviolent offenses. They stepped up to the big leagues in 2006 when the two men were busted for selling six ounces of cocaine to an undercover narcotics detective. Although they hadn’t been the primary focus of the investigation, the fact that they refused to roll over on their supplier didn’t help their cause, and they each ended up getting convicted of “Selling a Controlled Substance for a Profit”—a Class C felony in the state of Washington. Josh Bannister received a five-year sentence, of which he served four years before being paroled. Gabriel, due to the fact that his record already featured a prior drug conviction, got seven years. He was due to be released next year.
All that notwithstanding though, the thing that stood out the most as I reviewed the history in light of our current case was the fact that neither brother had ever been arrested, never mind convicted, of any sort of violent crime. Both Gabriel and Joshua seemed to be completely nonviolent—not the type to brutally strangle two young women.
Monroe is a small town located about thirty miles northeast of Seattle at the busy junction of State Route 522 and Highway 2. From Interstate 405 just north of Bothell, it’s a short thirteen-mile hop up SR 522. Ron had arranged a 10:00 a.m. interview time with the prison, and we arrived about fifteen minutes early.
The Monroe Correctional Complex is a large facility made up of five separate units in which inmates are segregated based on whether they pose minimum, medium, or maximum risk to the public; whether they suffer mental health problems; or whether they’ve been incarcerated for sexual offenses. We checked in with the guard at the visitors’ entrance and were given driving directions. Gabriel Bannister was being held in the oldest building, originally built in 1910, called the Washington State Reformatory. WSR houses medium-security inmates. We drove around to the east side of the complex and parked in the visitor area in front of the institutional looking four-story building. Inside, we registered with a guard at the desk, checked our weapons into an area for law-enforcement officers, and were led to a secure meeting room where we were locked in from behind. Ten minutes later, a guard led Gabriel Bannister in through a door on the opposite side of the room.
I’d seen Bannister’s pictures, but in person he looked quite a bit older than his real age of forty-three—prison life must have been wearing hard on him. He was clean shaven with short reddish-blond hair already going gray. I’d say he was five nine or so, a little on the plump side. He wore an orange jumpsuit. When he walked in, he paused and studied each of us in turn, a look of amusement in his blue eyes.
“You guys have been here before,” the guard said to Ron and Yoshi. “You know our rules. The room is constantly video monitored. It’s not audio monitored though, unless you signal us. If you need something, just wave. We’ll kick on the intercom. The red light on the wall will go on when the intercom is active. When you’re all through, wave. We’ll come and get him, then we’ll unlock you. Until then, you’re locked in.”
“Got it,” Ron said. “Thanks.” The guard left through the same door he had entered from. Bannister looked around.
Ron motioned to Bannister. “Have a seat.”
Bannister smiled. “Don’t mind if I do.” He pulled out a chair and sat down. We introduced ourselves and handed him our business cards.
He read each of them, then looked up. “Two homicide cops and a private investigator.”
“That’s right,” Ron said. “Hope we haven’t interrupted your day.”
Bannister smiled. “Interrupted? Hell no. I got a free pass out of the laundry. I should be thanking you.”
“You sti
ll get paid?” I asked.
He nodded. “Sure do. Fifty-five of the taxpayers’ cents every hour.” He leaned back in his chair. “Gettin’ wealthy by the minute, here. Feel free to take all the time you want.” He looked at each of us and smiled. After a second, he said, “But I’m guessing you didn’t drive all the way up here to beautiful Monroe to talk to me about the prison industry, right?” He sat up straight and before we could answer, he continued, “So if it’s not my job in the laundry, what is it that you want to talk about?”
“We’re here to talk about your brother,” Ron said.
Bannister gave him a hard look. “Joshua? Why? Is he okay?” Caught off guard, he seemed genuinely concerned, as if he knew nothing and had not been in contact.
Ron shook his head. “We don’t know. He seems to have disappeared.”
“He what?”
“He seems to have disappeared,” Ron repeated. “Maybe I’d better start at the beginning.” He spent the next ten minutes giving an abridged synopsis of the Sophie Thoms case—at least the part cleared for public release, leading right up to the events at Judie Lawton’s apartment yesterday. “So, like I said, we found Judie Lawton. She’d been strangled. Her apartment was completely torn apart, presumably by her killer. Obviously, whoever did it was looking for something. But he didn’t find it.”
Mona Lisa Eyes (Danny Logan Mystery #4) Page 17