He cocked his head. “Well, who could have known that . . . really? Me? Why me? I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Yeah, now we know. Now that we have Linda’s files. But all along, you were in a central position. And you seem to have more money than we’ve been able to explain.”
“You checked out my financials?”
I nodded. “First, the police did. Then we did. Got started, actually. Didn’t get a chance to finish.”
He thought for a second, then he chuckled. “Well, if you would have finished with me, you’d have found that I’m wealthy by inheritance. My grandfather was the biggest leather goods manufacturer in New England in the fifties and sixties. He left my dad a fortune, who, in turn, left me an even bigger fortune when he died. How do you think I can afford to work at the Foundation for what they pay me?”
“The exact question we’ve been asking ourselves.”
“So I was that close to getting busted just because you guys didn’t understand how I finance my lifestyle?”
I shook my head. “You weren’t going to get busted—only questioned. You got to understand we’re detectives. We’re suspicious by nature. It’s in our DNA. We almost always suspect the worst. But there was something else. You were being set up.”
“Me? How?”
“Oliver had Brownell strangle both Sophie and Judie Lawton with a piece of line that was the exact same as the line you’re using on your halyards.”
He looked at me. “My halyards? What—you mean the Marlow line?”
I nodded. “Exactly. Dyneema D12. He knew if the girls were strangled with that, he’d be able to come back and make you a suspect if he needed to. He had Brownell actually leave a piece of it on Judie Lawton’s body. Did you ever show it to him or talk to him about it?”
“Son of a bitch!” He shook his head, incredulously. “Yeah, I did. We talked about it when I switched the halyards over last year. He knew all about it.”
“There you go,” I said. “When he decided to have Brownell kill Sophie, he must have remembered. Then, for a little insurance, he had him use it again on Judie Lawton. He planned on having you as a sort of fall guy all along. You were his backup plan.”
He shook his head. “Unbelievable. Bad enough he kills his own niece, but what a conniving motherfucker!”
“Indeed. Anyway,” I stuck out my hand. “I bought into it. And for that, I apologize.”
He looked at me, then at my outstretched hand. Then he reached down and shook it. “Accepted. You did what you had to do. I’m glad you figured it out before you arrested me, though.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe about Oliver, though. I’m in shock. Absolutely mind-blowing.” He paused, then added, “I tell you, Cecilia can be a pain in the ass, but I really feel for her now. I have no idea what she’s going through.”
I nodded. “Yeah, really. That’s going to take more than just a little explanation between a couple of guys.”
Gaston went home, and I went back in the house.
Ron and Nicki were outside on the back patio. Ron was pretty worked up—it looked like he was reading her the riot act.
Toni and Cecilia sat side by side on the sofa. Cecilia was crying as they spoke. “I’ve been married to the man for seven years. I loved him unconditionally.” She shook her head. “Have you ever been married?”
Toni smiled. “Not yet.”
“It was my second—Oliver’s third.” She paused and looked up at the ceiling. “Whatever shall I do? And how will I ever explain this to my brother?”
Her tissue was becoming waterlogged, so Toni handed her the box. “Just tell him what happened, Cecilia. You didn’t do anything wrong. Your brother can’t hold you accountable.”
Cecilia looked up at Toni. “Oliver is my husband, Toni. Believe me, there’ll need to be an accounting.”
“Well,” Toni said, “if that’s the way of it, then that’s your brother’s problem.”
“Would you like us to talk to him?” I asked. “Break the news?”
Cecilia thought for a second, then shook her head. “No. It’s my responsibility. I’ll call him myself.” She turned and stared vacantly at the television for a minute. “How could I have possibly missed this?”
I smiled. “Cecilia, you didn’t do a single thing wrong. Tell your brother that. And if he has a problem with that, you send him right to me. I’ll straighten him out.”
She smiled through her tears. “Oh, swell.”
I nodded. “Damn straight. I’m on your side.”
Suddenly, Nicki burst back into the room.
“Oh, Aunt Cecie! I’m so sorry.” She ran over to Cecilia and they hugged for a solid minute, before Nicki pushed herself back. “I want you to know that I’m on your side in this. I will never forgive Oliver for what he did, but I’ll never stop loving you. We will get through this. Together.”
Cecilia stared at Nicki for a moment, then she reached for her and took her into her arms.
The next morning, Doc was helping Kenny get released from the hospital, so Toni and I decided to take a little time off. We went to Gas Works Park at the north end of Lake Union, where we found a bench that looked south over the lake toward the city. The day was gray and cool, as autumn days in Seattle tend to be, but we were bundled up and it hadn’t started raining yet. The park was quiet except for the sounds of a group of small schoolchildren on an outing and a flock of seagulls at the water’s edge. A handful of workboats chugged slowly across the lake while a lone kayaker skimmed across the water not far off the beach. Mostly, we just sat and watched, lost in thought.
After ten minutes or so, Toni looked at me. “Cheer up, Danny. The case is solved.”
I smiled. “I know. I’m glad.” I paused. “But it’s a strange ending to a strange case. The whole notion of good guys and bad guys gets a little twisted.”
“Kind of makes you wish for a good old-fashioned warehouse surveillance case, doesn’t it?”
I chuckled. “It does.”
On the beach near us, a group of seagulls got into a feud and started screaming at each other before one of them jumped into the air and flew off, closely pursued by the others.
She smiled. “I talked to Doc on the phone. The hospital cleaned Kenny up and wanted to release him last night, but he insisted on staying overnight.”
I laughed. “He wanted to stay? Let me guess: his girlfriend hadn’t made it by to see him yet? He’s gonna milk this for all it’s worth, isn’t he?”
“You bet, the poor guy. Maybe we should get him some kind of certificate or something for his office.”
I smiled. “Good idea.”
We sat for another minute, then I said, “I talked to Ron this morning. He’s happy.”
She nodded. “Make’s sense. All the answers fell into place last night. Solves four murders at the same time. He’ll be a hero.”
“Good. He deserves it.”
She nodded. “He does. He’s a good guy. And I feel bad for Yoshi.”
“That’s true.”
We watched the birds for a few more minutes. “What about us?” I asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, the case is over. Our client turns out to be the bad guy, which is more than a little bizarre. It’s just . . . I’m struggling here. I can’t seem to find any kind of closure—any kind of satisfaction from this.” I turned to her. “Am I making any sense?”
She smiled. “Yeah, you are. Here—let me show you something.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. “Look,” she said after a second, holding the phone up. It was the picture of Sophie—the close-up. “See that?”
I nodded, staring at the photo, locking onto the eyes.
“We did our job, Danny,” she said. “Life is what it is. Sometimes, it’s not fair and sometimes in our job, there aren’t any perfect answers. You can’t find closure because you want to make things right. But you can’t make this right. They didn’t hire us to bring Sophie back to life, after all. S
he’s gone, and nothing we could have done changes that. But what they did hire us for? For our job? For that, we definitely did right by her. We found the answer, and we did our job. You should be proud of that. It’s all we can do, ya know?”
I nodded slowly and then took the phone from her, studying the photo for a minute—the beautiful young woman who’d died young before she had a chance to fully live, died at the hands of a family member who she should have been able to trust, died before her promise even had a chance to play out. Life’s not fair. I looked into the haunting eyes, frozen forever in her youth, beautiful and unchanging. After a minute, I handed the phone back to Toni and looked out over the water.
There aren’t any perfect answers.
The kids behind us up on the hill continued their excited jabbering. A new group of seagulls flew in to claim the territory on the beach. The lone kayaker rounded the point and headed toward U-Dub to the east. Far to the south, a jetliner made its final approach into Sea-Tac, silhouetted against a gray sky.
I smiled and nodded as I reached for Toni’s hand. Life is what it is.
Epilogue
November 28, 2012
11:30 a.m.
MY FEET WERE PROPPED UP ON my desk on a cloudy, rainy afternoon as I read the Seattle Times sports section coverage of the Seattle Marathon this past weekend. I’d worked my butt off for months in preparation for the race, and now that it was over, by God, I was relaxing—no more competition for me until next February. I looked at the story in the paper about the race. I’d pushed as hard as I possibly could for the whole race, and it paid off big-time. I had a personal best of 1:11 flat—good enough for fifth place overall and first in my age group. Which is kind of a funny concept—“age group.” Not that I mind getting beat by four guys, the oldest of whom is twenty-two. But this was the first time I’ve run as a thirty-something-year-old. Me, Danny Logan, now a member of the senior division. Holy crap. Toni says I’m aging well, but I’m guessing I’m going to have to work harder and harder as time passes, just to stay competitive. Well, I made a pact with myself. I’m going to continue measuring my performance against the “Overall” and not against the “Old Farts.” Least until I can’t keep up anymore.
“Kenny dropped this off.” I lowered the paper and saw Toni standing in the doorway, holding an envelope. She looked ravishing in faded blue jeans with the knees torn out and a purple Husky hoodie. She’d gone dramatic on the eye makeup this morning, and the effect was striking.
“Open it,” I said. She did, and reading it quickly, she started to chuckle.
I reached for it. “Let me see.”
To: Danny Logan
From: Kenny Hale
RE: Special Agent Position
Danny:
Since I’ve been made Special Agent, I’ve had a broken nose, I wrecked my car, and I got shot. I think that it’s probably best for all of us if I resign my Special Agent position and return to my Director of Technology position starting immediately. Is this a problem?
P.S. Mission accomplished with Meghan.
I laughed. “This is classic. Kenny’s throwin’ in the towel.”
Toni nodded. “Kind of hard to blame him. He’s not the luckiest guy in the world.” She leaned in and looked over my shoulder at the letter. “What’s this ‘mission accomplished’ thing mean?”
I smiled. Kenny’d asked me not to tell anyone, so I hadn’t. I shrugged. “Maybe it means they’re getting serious.”
She looked for a second longer, then she said, “Huh.” She shook her head and stood back.
Just then, we both heard the front door open. We weren’t expecting anyone.
“Shall we?” I said, standing up.
We walked out to the lobby to see Doc speaking to a man in a sharp-looking dark blue suit. A second later, who else but Nicki Thoms walked through the doorway. A very distinguished-looking couple followed her. The man wore a black, pinstriped suit and was fit, probably in his late sixties, early seventies. The woman had the same dark hair as Nicki. She was very pretty, but much younger than the man—I’d say mid-to late forties. Right behind them was Cecilia Thoms.
The distinguished-looking man surveyed the room as he entered. Then, seeing us, he stepped forward. “Would you be Danny Logan?” He had a thick British accent.
I nodded. “Yes sir, I am. And you must be Sir Jacob Thoms. I recognize you from your pictures.”
He nodded. “Indeed. I understand from my sister that you wish to—” he turned and looked at Cecilia, then back at me, “—straighten me out?”
Uh-oh. I looked quickly at Cecilia, then at Nicki, and then back to Sir Jacob. They were hard to read. Oh well, what the hell. “Uh, yes. I actually told your sister that if you were going to give her any grief over something that she had nothing to do with, then yes, she was to send you to me.” I stood up straight, stretching out to my full six feet and one inch. Sir Jacob was still two inches taller.
“Well,” he said, and then he suddenly smiled. This was apparently the signal for the rest of them and they all smiled as well. “I don’t suppose that will be necessary.” He turned to Cecilia. “Right, Cecie?”
I let out a slow breath.
“Sorry, Danny,” Cecilia said. “Despite my brother’s rather fearsome reputation, he’s always been a bit of a prankster.”
Sir Jacob stepped forward and extended his hand. “Allow me to thank you for your service to my family. As I understand it, were it not for you and your team, this case would not have been solved and we still wouldn’t know who was responsible for my daughter’s murder.”
I reached forward and shook his hand. “Thank you, sir. I only wish the resolution would have been less bittersweet.”
He nodded. “As do we all, young man, as do we all. But that’s something that we’re all going to have to figure out how to deal with on our own, isn’t it?” He smiled. “But we shall. We always do.”
“That’s good.”
Sir Jacob turned to Toni and smiled. “And you must be the American version of Tony Blair. Please allow me to introduce my wife, Allesandra.”
After the introductions, we learned that Sir Jacob had flown in late yesterday. Both Nicki and Cecilia were returning to London with Sir Jacob and Allesandra for an indefinite period.
“I’m hoping we can convince them both to stay home with us now,” Allesandra said.
“And,” Sir Jacob said, “along those lines, we wanted to extend an invitation to the two of you. Next time you’re in London, we’d like you to be our guests—stay at our home.”
“Wow,” I said, genuinely shocked. “That’s very gracious of you.”
“That’s right, Sir Jacob,” Toni said, beaming. “You should be careful about just throwing things like that out there. You’re likely to find us on your doorstep sooner than you might expect.”
He smiled. “My dear, first off, I don’t ‘throw things out there.’ Second, I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it. We shall expect to see you soon. Furthermore,” he reached into his jacket pocket. “Cecie tells me that you worked for a couple of extra weeks on our behalf, never once asking for payment. Allow me to square things between us. You’ll find a modest bonus as well. I believe in rewarding people when they do a job well.”
I smiled. “Sir, this is unnecessary.”
“Mr. Logan, we had a business deal, my family and your organization. I assure you that full recompense for your work is not only necessary, but it’s quite proper.” He smiled. “Besides, I just wrote a check this morning for twenty-five million to the Beatrice Thoms Memorial Foundation to replace the funds the accountants are saying my brother-in-law filched from our donors. We’ll be notifying each of them and hoping to retain their trust by stepping forward and doing the right thing. Believe me when I assure you that this little payment to your firm is not only invisible compared to the larger payout, but unlike that one, it’s for a job well done, and that makes it satisfactory as well.” He paused. “And,” he said, quietly, “I must ad
d I find your rates to be quite the bargain. I have no idea how you manage to stay in business charging so little, but who knows,” he said, glancing at Nicki. “I may find myself in a position one day where I could use your services again.”
“Oh, thanks, father,” Nicki said.
I smiled. “Thank you, sir.”
“Thank you so much, Sir Jacob,” Toni said.
After a few more minutes of pleasantry, they said their good-byes and left.
Toni turned to me. “Wow, can you believe that? That doesn’t happen every day.”
“Pretty cool, huh?”
Toni turned to Doc. “What about you and Pri? You want to go?”
“Humph. I think it rains almost as much in London as it does here. If Pri and I ever get time off at the same time, we’re going home to New Mexico. God’s country.”
I nodded. “Understood.” I turned to Toni. “Guess it’ll just be the two of us, then.”
Suddenly, the front door swung open, and Nicki popped in. “Just wanted to say bye.” She smiled. “And no effin way I’m staying in London. I’ll be back soon.” She winked, and then she was gone.
THE END
(for now . . . )
Author’s Notes
In my research into the history of the Seattle area, I constantly find old black-and-white photos—snapshots of people taken fifty, seventy-five, even one hundred years ago. For the most part, these people are long gone, yet in the photos they’re frozen in time, forever young. I look at the people in the pictures, and I wonder: What was their story? What were they up to? What became of them? Aside from the hundred-year separation—a simple shift of the calendar—was there really any difference between us? In other words, it’s fair to say that they strike me in the same way they hit Danny and Toni in the story. Then, not too long ago when I happened to see a modern photo of a pretty young actress with particularly striking eyes (thankfully, not deceased, and don’t bother asking who because I’m not going to spill), I thought of the old black-and-whites, and I came up with the core idea for Mona Lisa Eyes. Sadly, I had to kill her off to start the story, but that’s the way it is with mystery writers.
Mona Lisa Eyes (Danny Logan Mystery #4) Page 33