Mona Lisa Eyes (Danny Logan Mystery #4)

by Grayson, M. D.

  The main Seattle ferry terminal was two blocks due west of Nicki’s condo; the ferry to Bainbridge Island was loading while the Bremerton ferry approached the dock. On the bay, the water was crowded with ships and boats of all sizes, from huge cargo ships to the small tugs that pushed and pulled them into position on the unloading docks with their massive orange cranes. Looking past the ships and boats, I could see straight across the bay to the north end of Alki Beach at the top of West Seattle with Bainbridge Island six or seven miles beyond and the snowcapped Olympic Mountains far away to the west. “Fantastic view.”

  “Thank you.”

  I turned to her. “Thanks for seeing us this morning. You ready to get started?”

  She smiled and gave a quick little nod. “Sure. Have a seat.” She dragged herself up on the sofa and sat cross-legged as Toni and I took seats in the chairs across from her.

  “You don’t mind if we take notes, do you?”

  She shook her head. “No. I’m getting used to talking to people who are looking down, furiously scribbling away as I speak.” She smiled. “Makes a person feel rather important, doesn’t it? As if you’re hanging on my every word.”

  “I suppose. When you say ‘people taking notes,’ I take it you’re probably on a first-name basis with the police investigators, then?”

  She nodded. “I am. They’ve been here three or four times in the last few months. They’re quite deliberate.”

  “I’m sure you can imagine that sometimes these things take time,” Toni said.

  “Time?” she said, looking at Toni. “Let me guess. That’s police code for saying that at this particular time, they don’t have the slightest idea of what happened to my sister.”

  There was a clear hardening in Nicki’s tone when she spoke to Toni as compared with when she spoke to me—definitely more of an edge there. I didn’t know if this was because of what Toni’d said at the memorial fund kickoff, or what she had said just now, or maybe Nicki didn’t like pretty women in general, but it was there, nonetheless. I looked over at Toni to see if she picked up on it, and she gave me a barely noticeable little nod. I gathered this was a signal for me to take the lead in conducting the interview.

  “Okay,” I said. “On that note, let’s get started, shall we? Just to be clear, we’re officially working for your family.”

  She nodded. “Good old Aunt Cecilia. She must be in heaven. You know, she’s not happy unless she’s got her hand firmly on the controls.” In the kitchen, one of the maids dropped a cup, and it clattered loudly on the countertop. Annoyed, Nicki turned in their direction. “Maria!” she said sharply. “Can’t you two go work on the other side for a while?” She rubbed her head. “You’re killing me here!”

  The maids looked alarmed for a moment. The older woman said something in Spanish to the other girl, and they both hurried down the hall.

  When they were gone, Nicki turned back to us. “So. She can’t control the police, so she hires you instead.” She smiled. “Lucky you.” When I didn’t respond, she added, “Well, then, what would you like to know?”

  “Why don’t you start by telling us about your relationship with Sophie? How close were you? Did the two of you talk frequently? That sort of thing.”

  “Humph,” Nicki said. “We can shorten this up some. Do either of you have a brother or a sister?”

  Toni nodded. “I do. A sister. She’s nine years younger than me.”

  “And you’re close?”

  Toni nodded again. “Very.”

  Nicki shrugged. “So there you are. You already know. I loved my sister. Very much. We were extremely close as well.” Nicki pushed back a strand of hair that had fallen into her eyes. “I am—was—two years older than Sophie. We shared everything.”

  “Except a place to live,” I said. “Your uncle Oliver told us when you both moved here, but he didn’t say why the two of you didn’t move in together. You already had a place. Why didn’t Sophie just move in with you?”

  “Well,” she said slowly, “I’d been living alone for a number of years. Frankly, I didn’t want a roommate—don’t actually have room. Not even for my sister. And in the end, I don’t think Sophie fancied a roomie, either. She’d been living on her own in London for several years. As it turns out, she picked a place that’s only a couple blocks away. It was just about perfect. Almost next door, but not quite.”

  “So it was a mutual decision, then?”

  Nicki nodded. “Definitely.”

  “Did you see each other often?”

  “Yeah, sure. Just about every day.”

  “At work?”

  Nicki smiled. “By ‘work,’ I presume you mean the Foundation?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  “My aunt and uncle must have told you about my interests there.”

  “Or lack thereof.” It just jumped out.

  She gave me a sly smile. “Precisely. The Foundation does meaningful work—Sophie certainly thought so. But I think mostly the Foundation is a salve for my father’s guilty capitalistic conscience. A public-relations ploy, nothing more. I chose not to get involved for that reason. But, to answer your question, Sophie and I would get together in the evenings, after she was done with her work, and after I was done with mine.”

  I looked at Toni, then back at Nicki. “Your work? I didn’t know you had a job outside of the Foundation. Do you mind telling us about it?”

  She shrugged. “I’m an artist.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Nobody mentioned that.”

  She sniffed. “They wouldn’t, would they?”

  “I don’t know why not,” I said. “What type of work do you do?”

  “I’m a painter.” She nodded to the large tropical landscape painting on the wall we’d passed when we walked in.

  “That?” I asked, surprised. “You painted that?” I was impressed.

  “Can you imagine,” she said, coyly.

  “Damn.” I got up and walked over to look at the painting more closely. The rich, deep greens and blues of the jungle in the cloudy moonlight gave way to a clearing that contained a pool and a small hut. A towering waterfall fell into the pool. A Polynesian woman with no top kneeled, faced away toward the pool as she brushed her long black hair. “This is fantastic, Nicki. Where’d you learn to do this?”

  “Slade. The Slade School of Fine Arts at UCL—University College London.”

  “We had no idea.”

  “I’ve turned my other bedroom back there into a studio. It’s nice—looks out over the water.”

  “You certainly have a gift,” Toni said.

  Nicki smiled. “Thank you.” Then the smile faded. “But I can assure you that a career in the arts is not much appreciated in the Thoms family.”

  I returned to my seat. “Why not?”

  “As you probably already know, my father is very wealthy. He took a small fortune given to him by his father and turned it into a very large fortune. I think he considers anything other than making money—or, I suppose, in Sophie’s case, giving it away—to be a complete waste of time. I don’t hold this against him—to each his own, right? For me, though, I’ve never been terribly interested in any of that. It’s not for me. And for his part, my father has never been interested at all in my work. It’s as if it simply doesn’t exist.”

  I shook my head. “That’s unfortunate. I think he should be quite proud.”

  She smiled. “You’re kind.”

  “What about Oliver and Cecilia?” Toni asked. “What do they think?”

  She shook her head. “Who cares?” she said. “I’ve not made any great efforts to hide my work from my aunt and uncle, but they’ve not made any effort at all to find out anything about it, either. My aunt is definitely my father’s sister—they’re very much alike. Uncle Oliver, the poor man, I think he just gets dragged along by her. Who can blame him? I wouldn’t want to fight my aunt either.” She shrugged. “In the end, I guess one could say that we simply coexist.” She thought for a second, then shrug
ged. “They believe what they choose to believe. For my part, I no longer try to influence anyone’s opinion of me. I live my life. If I’m fortunate, one day my art will do the talking for me.”

  “What are your plans with it?” Toni asked.

  She shrugged. “Oh, you know, the usual. Build up enough work to have a show, then take shameless advantage of the Thoms name and convince some unsuspecting gallery to sponsor me.” She smiled. “Then, I get discovered and a few years later—just like that—I’m an instant sensation.”

  I stared at her for a second. “That’s a little sad, you know? That none of your relatives support you.”

  Nicki shrugged. “Sophie did. She has one of my paintings on her living room wall.”

  I looked at her for a moment. “You cared for her a lot, didn’t you?”

  Nicki nodded. “I did.”

  “What kind of things did the two of you do together?”

  She smiled. “Lots of things.” Her hair had fallen into her eyes again, so she flipped it back. “We’d do the galas, some charity dinners, and clubs. We liked to go to clubs.”

  “Which clubs did you two visit?”

  “Oh, you know, there were several. We were young and alive and single. We had a good time. We went to Noc Noc and the Mercury. We liked to go to the Genesis.”

  “Really,” I said. “Yeah, I read that the night Sophie went missing, she’d been at the Genesis. That’s a little curious. The Genesis is a pretty rough joint.”

  She shrugged. “We never had any problems. It’s not as if we were into the lifestyle, nothing like that—no bondage, no BDSM or anything like that. I think we just fancied the costumes—the dresses. You know, get dressed up all in black, that sort of thing. It gave us a chance to act out. We used to go to Goth clubs in London, actually. Slimelight. AntiChrist.”

  “The two of you must have made quite an impression.”

  She smiled, wistfully. “We did. It was fun. Basically, Sophie was a bit of a prude, but she liked to dress up. She had a whole room full of dresses.” That made sense. Those clubs—particularly Genesis—were like Halloween all year long.

  “Did you meet guys at these clubs?”

  She shrugged. “Some. I don’t think I ever met anyone serious there.” She paused. “I know Sophie didn’t. More often, we’d bring guys with us so we wouldn’t get hit on.”

  “Do you happen to have any photos that might be helpful?” Toni asked. “Pictures of Sophie with you, your friends, maybe even other men that she might have met?”

  She thought about it for a few seconds, then she nodded and glanced at her phone before looking back up at me. “I think I have a few, but they’re on my other phone which, unfortunately, I’ve left in my car.”

  “Could you e-mail them to us?”

  She nodded. “I’ll run down as soon as you leave.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Here’s a sensitive question.” I looked down at the ashtray and the mirror on the table. “How about drugs? Did Sophie get high?”

  Nicki smiled. “Sophie drank just a little—barely what you’d call social drinking. Mostly, she just drank mineral water. If she did drink, she’d work on the same glass of champagne for an hour. So naturally,” she smiled slyly, “I felt it my duty to make up for her. Good name of the family and all that.”

  “And drugs?”

  “Same thing. Sophie would occasionally—and I do mean occasionally—take a hit off a joint if someone passed it to her.”

  “Nothing else? No coke, no ecstasy?”

  “Oh, God no.” She looked around the room and smiled. “I’m afraid there’s only one real party girl in the Thoms family. And I’m quite certain my aunt and uncle must have identified the nasty culprit.” She raised her hand and smiled.

  “There may have been a word or two,” I said.

  “Aren’t you the discreet one,” she said. She turned to Toni. “You’re quite lucky, you know, with this one.” She nodded toward me. “Tall . . . good-looking . . . smart. Listen—if things between the two of you don’t work out . . .”

  “New question,” I said, cutting her off. “How about boyfriends? Did Sophie have any boyfriends?”

  She smiled. “Aside from Ryan, not really. You know about Ryan Crosby, right?”

  “Just what we’ve read in the files. We haven’t talked to him yet.”

  “Alright. Sophie went out with a few basically anonymous guys at first, but I think there were only two she went out with more than once. Most of the early ones were just dates for social events.”

  “Ryan Crosby was one of those two?”

  She nodded.

  “Who was the other?”

  She hesitated for a minute, as if unsure whether to go on; then I guess she figured we were okay. “Well, she stole Lucas away from me.”

  “Lucas?” I asked, surprised. “You mean Seattle Sounders Lucas?”

  She nodded. “The very same. Lucas Santos, actually.”

  I lifted an eyebrow. Lucas—I recognized the name immediately even though I’d never heard his last name. Lucas was one of those Brazilian soccer superstars who used only one name. Like Pelé or Ronaldinho—sort of the sports equivalent of Madonna. Lucas had been recruited to come to Seattle to play forward for the Sounders a couple years ago.

  “That’s interesting. How’d that start?”

  “It started because he was seeing me at the time, the bastard, and I introduced them. Earlier this year—New Year’s—right after New Year’s—something like that. Lucas was at a party at a teammate’s house. I’d been seeing him for a while—maybe a month or two. Sophie and I went together because I thought she might meet another guy on the team. Instead, Lucas takes one look at her, and about a week later, he calls me up and he’s like, ‘I need to cool things down between us. I’m afraid my wife is going to find out’—that kind of bullshit. Then, the very next day, Sophie called and said she was going out with him! I was pissed!”

  “What happened? What’d you do?”

  “I went over to her place to have it out with her. She said she didn’t even know I was seeing Lucas—she thought we were just friends. I yelled and screamed a little, but in the end I could never stay mad at Sophie—I’d get mad, and she’d just smile and soak it up, waiting for my tantrum to pass. Besides, she was right—I’d never actually told her I was seeing Lucas. Anyway, she said she was sorry.” She stared at the ceiling for a second, thinking, then she turned back and smiled. “But she didn’t stop seeing him, either, the little thief.”

  “What’d you do?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing. I was about tired of Lucas by then. He lied about being married when we hooked up. He was probably shagging women all over the world when we were together. Besides, there are plenty of men in the world to choose from. I don’t need Lucas. Anyway, Sophie went home to London the first part of April for a few weeks. When she got back, she texted me and said she was done with him too. She figured him out even faster than I did. It only took her a couple of months to toss his sorry ass. What a wanker.”

  “So now it’s like, the end of April or so, right?”

  “Right. I think it was in May—yeah, definitely May, she told me that she met a new guy. Someone from work.” She smiled and shook her head. “I don’t know what I expected, but I remember when she introduced us I definitely did not expect this young kid . . .” She laughed. “I mean, he looked like he was just out of high school or something.”

  “That would be Ryan Crosby.”

  “Yeah, Ryan.” She shook her head slowly. “At first, I couldn’t see what Sophie saw in him. He was always pretty quiet and reserved. A real studious type. I actually think she may have felt sorry for him.”

  “How long did the two of them go out?”

  She shrugged. “Couple months. Right up until she was killed.” She paused. “You don’t think he had anything to do with it, do you?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think so, but I’ve never met him. What do you think?”

  Sh
e leaned back. “Wow. He was such a kid. Honestly, I didn’t know him all that well—Sophie knew that I didn’t care for him much at first, so we only went out together once or twice. But even from that little time, I can hardly imagine him ever getting mad, never mind doing something like what happened to Sophie.”

  “Why didn’t you like him?” Toni asked.

  Nicki looked at her, then shook her head. “No particular reason, I suppose. Not my type? I don’t know. I guess I just couldn’t figure him out. I mean, he was nothing like the guys Sophie and I usually hooked up with.”

  “In the sense that—”

  “He seemed like a normal bloke, like an accountant.”

  “Sophie never told you about him being violent? Nothing like that?”

  She shook her head. “About Ryan? No—not a word. She certainly went on about him, though.”

  “And you?” I said, “You changed your opinion?”

  She tilted her head back and forth, thinking. “I think maybe I grew up a little, watching the two of them.” She stared at the wall, thinking. “Sophie was really happy with Ryan. I think maybe I started to appreciate him a little more just because I saw how he made Sophie so happy. I started to see things a little differently. I think he’d have done anything for her.” She paused. “I really saw that after Sophie disappeared. The poor guy was devastated.”

  I nodded. “Understood.” I flipped a page in my notebook. “Okay. Other than Lucas and then Ryan, was there anyone else you can think of? Any other guys she saw that you’re aware of?”

  She smiled. “No. Just those two guys were the only ones that you could call regular.”

  “And as I understand it, you were with her the night she disappeared?” Toni asked.

  Nicki nodded. “Yeah. We went to the Genesis together with a group of friends.” She shrugged. “Sophie took a call on her cell, then she said she had an appointment the next morning and that she needed to go home early. That’s the last time I saw her.”