Mona Lisa Eyes (Danny Logan Mystery #4)

by Grayson, M. D.

  Toni nodded. “Was she happy? A happy person, generally? Did she seem troubled by anything?”

  He thought about this for a second, then he said, “She was happy almost all the time until there at the last. Then she was a little different, maybe like she was preoccupied, you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, I read where you told Ron that.” Toni looked at her notes. “Ron’s notes say that you couldn’t pinpoint any reason why she might have felt that way?”

  He shook his head. “No, I asked her if everything was okay, and she said it was. It’s just something I noticed—maybe like a feeling I had.”

  “Like a vibe?” Toni asked.

  He nodded. “Yeah. Like something was hanging over her.”

  “So she didn’t say anything? Didn’t give you any reasons?” Toni asked.

  Ryan shook his head. “No. Nothing.”

  “When was this, Ryan?” I asked.

  He thought about this for a moment. “End of June, first of July.”

  “So not long before she went missing.”

  “Leading right up to it, actually,” he said.

  Toni wrote this down in her notebook, then looked up. “If you’re right—if something was bothering her, hanging over her, even—obviously that’s something that would be of interest to us.”

  “I understand. I’ve tried to work through this myself for the past three months.”

  “Maybe we can help,” Toni said. “Was Sophie involved with drugs in any way?”

  Ryan shook his head. “No. She wasn’t into it.” He hesitated. “Some of her friends were, I think. And her sister too. But not Sophie—neither drugs or alcohol. She’d barely even take a drink of anything.”

  “You mentioned her sister. Were you aware of any problems she might have been having with her family?”

  “No. She has three relatives over here: her sister and her aunt and uncle. She loved them all, but she was really close to her sister. I’d have to say that Nicki was definitely Sophie’s best friend.”

  “That’s what Nicki said too.”

  He nodded, then his face got serious. “I should probably say that Nicki doesn’t like me all that well.” He rolled his eyes. “She’ll probably say I killed Sophie, for that matter.” He paused, lost in thought. Then he shrugged. “But still, Sophie adored her.”

  “Actually,” Toni said, “we talked to Nicki earlier this week. She was actually pretty complimentary. She said she appreciated the way you made Sophie happy.”

  He smiled. “Really? I’m surprised.”

  Toni nodded. “It’s true.”

  “Wow.”

  “What about Sophie’s aunt and uncle?”

  “I’ve only met her aunt Cecilia a few times—she doesn’t come in all that often and frankly, that’s probably just as well. From what I can see, she’s a real . . . she’s pushy. I’m being polite, and please don’t tell anyone I said that.”

  “Your secret’s safe,” I said.

  “And Oliver?”

  He nodded. “Good guy. No problems.”

  “How about other people at work? Eric Gaston, for instance?”

  “I work mostly with Eric. He’s an interesting guy. I mean, on the outside, he’s this smiling, back-slapping, good-natured guy. Underneath, though, I’ve seen him when he can get pretty tense.” He took a drink from his water bottle. “Then again, his job has a lot of responsibility. I guess a little stress probably goes with the territory, right?”

  I nodded. “Probably so.”

  I flipped a page in my notebook. “Did Sophie ever mention any other problems at work? Any conflicts or problems that you’re aware of?”

  “No, everything was pretty routine as far as I know—just the normal stuff. Ron checked this out with Eric and so did I—Sophie was just working on normal stuff at work.”

  I nodded. “When was the last time you saw Sophie?”

  He smiled. “It was that Thursday—the day before she went missing. I saw her at work.”

  “Did she seem okay?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah. She was busy, but she seemed okay. We were supposed to go to lunch, but she called and canceled—she was at a meeting out of the office and she said she wouldn’t be back in time.”

  “She made it back, though?” Toni asked.

  Ryan nodded. “Yeah. I saw her later that afternoon.”

  “Okay,” Toni said. “Would you normally have gotten together in the evening?”

  “Yeah, probably. Except not on Tuesdays and Thursdays—those are class nights here at the studio. I’d usually just go home and study. On that particular night, though, like I said earlier, after class I went to my parents’ house. My mom wanted me to go with her to a breakfast meeting the next morning—some political talk she was giving.”

  Toni looked at her notes, then up. “I haven’t looked through all the phone records yet. Did you talk to Sophie at all on the phone that night?”

  Ryan shook his head. “No. I can save you the trouble. I had class here at the studio, and she was going out with her sister, so we didn’t get a chance to talk. I wasn’t supposed to see her until the next morning.”

  “The witnesses said that Sophie left the Genesis at a little before 10:00 p.m.,” I said. “She apparently received a phone call and then told Nicki she had an early meeting. This make sense to you?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I can’t explain the phone call, and I didn’t know about her meeting schedule, but I do know that it wasn’t unusual for her to have early meetings. She wouldn’t have normally stayed late at a club on a weeknight if she had to work the next morning.”

  “And it was normal for her and Nicki to drive separately?”

  He laughed. “Yeah. If Sophie didn’t drive herself, she’d have had to take a cab to get home at a decent hour. Nicki would stay at the club all night if they’d let her.”

  “Understood.” I reached into my notebook. “Speaking of the club,” I said, pulling out the photograph of the mystery man and placing it on the table, “do you recognize this guy?”

  He picked up the photo and studied it intently. “Yeah,” he said, after a few seconds. “Where’d you get this?”

  “From Nicki.”

  He nodded slowly, studying the picture. “I haven’t seen this picture before, but I’ve seen this guy. A couple times, I think.”

  “Do you know his name?”

  He shook his head. “No, I never heard.”

  “Does the name ‘Josh’ ring a bell?”

  He thought about it, then he shrugged. “I don’t know . . . maybe. I honestly don’t think I ever heard his name.”

  “He wasn’t like part of the group you were with?”

  “No—well, maybe. I don’t know. As I think about it, when we’d go to the Genesis, he’d just show up—I think that’s where I’ve seen him. Now that I see this, I think he may have been Nicki’s friend, but I don’t remember her ever actually introducing him or anything.” He studied the photo for another few moments, and then he said, “Do you think you could send me a copy of this?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, you bet.”

  “Thanks.” He handed the photo back to me.

  After a second, Toni said, “What happened next?”

  “You mean the next day?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Sophie wasn’t there the next morning, so I talked to our receptionist. She told me Sophie hadn’t been in yet. I thought that was a little odd since she was supposed to have an early meeting, but I just figured it must have been out of the office. When I hadn’t seen her by noon, I talked to Eric. He said he didn’t know where she was, either. When I told him she was supposed to have had an early meeting, he said he didn’t know anything about it. That got me a little worried. I tried her cell several times, but there was no answer—went right to voicemail. She ended up never coming in the whole day—” he shrugged, “obviously. I must have left fifty messages on her phone. By about four o’clock, none of us in the office had heard from Sophie, so we
told Oliver. We didn’t hear anything that night, so the next morning Oliver called the police.”

  “I think it’s kind of weird.” Toni was talking to me from the kitchen of our apartment. After we left Ryan, we went home for dinner, and she was fixing us a salad while I sat in the living room, barefoot with my feet on the coffee table, listening to Ana Vidović absolutely hammer Bach’s “Partita in E Major” on the classical guitar.

  “What’s weird?” I asked, reaching for the remote to turn the volume down.

  “Somebody close to you dies suddenly. One second they’re there. Next second, they’re gone. Forever. No good-bye. No see you later. Nothing.”

  “It’s sad. But even if they would have had the chance to say good-bye, how do you do it if you know it’s the last time you’d ever see the person? If you knew that they were going to die? Take it from me: final good-byes suck.”

  She thought about it and then shook her head. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never had to face it. When my dad got killed in his car wreck, it was instant. He left in the morning, and he didn’t come back. There wasn’t any chance to say good-bye.” She paused, thinking, and then she continued. “You went through it in the war?”

  I nodded. “Yep.”

  “Did you ever talk to someone you knew was going to die? Like someone who was mortally wounded?”

  I looked down and remembered, then I nodded. “Yeah. There were a couple of times.” As a general rule, I don’t like to talk much about my war experiences. The war hero stuff mostly makes me feel guilty that I made it out while some of my friends didn’t. Thinking about them breaks my heart so, as a result, I pretty much wall it off and don’t even like to think much about the war. I’m not sure if hiding from your own memories is the right way to deal with them, but whatever works, right? Toni’s about the only one I’ll open up with.

  “Twice, actually. Both times, guys I went through basic and shipped out with got hit. I had to hold their hands and talk to them, and I knew they were going to die. You could look at ’em and you just knew. And the thing is, they knew they were going to die too.” I shuddered as I said it. “And you know what?” I shook my head. “I pussied out. I didn’t say good-bye. I don’t know if I was in denial or if I was just trying to comfort them, or maybe a little of both. Instead? What did I do? Both times I lied to them on purpose. I told them they were going to be okay when I knew they weren’t and they knew they weren’t.” Sitting there in my living room, I could see the faces of my friends, almost as clearly as the day it had happened. I could see the look in their eyes, the fear, as I’d held their hands tightly in their last moments. They knew I was lying to them. “You wanna know something else?” I asked.

  “What?” She looked at me, clearly concerned at the expression that had come over my face as I remembered those times.

  “It’s no easier knowing in advance. In fact, it’s harder.” I stared straight ahead and rubbed my chin. After a few seconds, I shook my head. “In advance—or after the fact, for that matter—there’s no easy way to say good-bye.” I looked up at her and smiled. “I think the best thing you can do is to try and conduct yourself day by day, so if something bad does happen, you’re not left holding the bag on a bunch of regrets you’ll have to deal with for the rest of your life. Or at least the regrets you’re left with are kind of minor—no big things.”

  She thought about this for a moment, tears forming in her eyes. “It’s still sad.”

  I shook myself out of my funk and hopped up and walked over to her. I wrapped my arms around her. “For the record,” I said, “and not because I expect either of us to meet an untimely demise anytime soon, but when it comes to you, I have no regrets.” I pulled her tight. “None at all.”

  Chapter 10

  THE BEATRICE THOMS MEMORIAL FOUNDATION HEADQUARTERS is located downtown on Second Avenue at Pike Street, across from the Benaroya Concert Hall and just a few steps away from Pike Place Market. We walked in at 9:25 a.m., five minutes early. Eric Gaston had arranged a series of interviews for us with the people who Sophie worked with on a frequent basis.

  We announced ourselves to the receptionist and stood in the lobby, waiting. Brass letters spelled out the words “Beatrice Thoms Memorial Foundation” on a marble wall behind the reception desk. Large pictures of smiling African children in school, in a clinic, and playing soccer hung on the walls, spotlighted by overhead ceiling lights. Annual reports for the Foundation were stacked on an end table beside a sofa in the lobby. The unmistakable feeling was that this place was important and had a purpose—a real reason for being here. I was impressed. Toni grabbed a report for us just as a man entered the room.

  “Good morning,” the man said, in a voice that seemed higher-pitched than it should have for one so tall and lanky. “I’m Robert Brownell. I’m Mr. Gaston’s assistant and also the office manager. You must be Mr. Logan and Ms. Blair.”

  Brownell was in his mid-thirties. He had short, dark red hair cut in a military style and piercing, bright blue eyes that seemed to be eerily lit from within. He wore tan khakis and an olive knit shirt with Beatrice Thoms Memorial Foundation embroidered on the breast. “Eric’s finishing up a conference call. He asked that I get you two set up in our conference room. He’ll be joining us shortly.”

  We followed Brownell back to a very nice room with a large marble-topped table and eighteen plush leather seats surrounding it. The west wall of the room was all glass and looked out across the top of the neighboring building to Elliott Bay and the Puget Sound.

  “Can I offer you some coffee? Water, maybe?”

  I nodded as I pulled out a chair. “Yes, please. Water would be great.”

  “Make it two, please,” Toni said.

  Brownell left and before he returned, Eric Gaston entered.

  “Good morning, you two.” He wore olive green chinos—the kind with the little pleats in front—and a light blue oxford button-down shirt, no tie. His dark brown Sperry Top-Siders were polished to a warm glow. He had a big grin on his face, and his sleeves were rolled up already this morning, first thing. The way he bounded into the room, he seemed to be a man full of energy—clearly a guy ready to tackle the new day.

  “Good morning,” I said. I started to stand to greet him and as soon as I did, my quads started trembling—a sharp reminder that this morning’s training run had featured “hill intervals”—a hard sprint up the side of a steep hill followed by a jog back to the bottom to recover. Then, do it again. Twelve times. By the last round, my legs were like jelly, and they were still talking to me now. Toni noticed.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  I smiled and leaned forward on the table. “I’ll make it.”

  Gaston had been pulling out the chair at the head of the table for himself. “Athletic injury?” he said.

  I shook my head. “No, it’s not an injury. I’m getting ready for the Seattle half marathon next month. This morning’s training run was particularly brutal.” I shook my head. “Seems to take longer and longer to recover nowadays.”

  “He’s a distance runner,” Toni added. “He runs about fifty miles a week. Not jogs—runs.”

  He smiled. “Happens to the best of us. Are you competitive?” Eric asked. “I know some people run for fun and others are more serious.”

  “He’s competitive,” Toni said. “Very.”

  I smiled. “It keeps getting harder. I usually finish in the top ten. We’ll see this year.”

  Gaston shook his head. “Wow. That’s impressive. But it sounds like a hell of a lot of work to me. My sport’s a little easier on the legs.” He nodded toward a very large photograph of a racing sailboat on the wall across from the window. The boat was heeled over dramatically, with all the crew members hiked out on the windward rail to help balance the force of the wind.

  “You’re a sailor?” Toni asked as she stared at the picture.

  “I am.” He stared at the picture for a moment, then he turned and looked at me. “As a matter of fact, that’s my boat.
” He pointed to a figure at the back of the boat. “See that guy in the back there—the one steering? That’s me. My back’s to the camera. This picture was taken from a helicopter last year up at Orcas Island at the annual Round the County race.”

  “Very impressive,” I said as I studied the uniformed crew and what, to my untrained eye, looked like a pretty sophisticated boat. “It looks like you’re really serious about it.”

  He nodded. “Yeah—it’s a passion, that’s for sure.”

  “So I don’t know anything about sailing,” Toni said. “Do you use like the same team of guys all the time?”

  He looked at the picture and nodded. “We do. At our level, everyone onboard is a specialist. And we practice hard too.” He smiled at me. “Of course, it’s not as physical as competitive running, but it can be pretty demanding. Most of the crew have been together for a few years now—ever since I got here.”

  “Judging from the picture, it looks like you’ve been doing this awhile?” I asked.

  He laughed. “Yeah, I grew up with it. In fact, I think sailing’s in my DNA. The family’s had a boat ever since I can remember. When we lived in Boston, we used to race and sail all over New England—up to Maine and all the way down to Long Island. When we were considering moving out here in 2008, one of the things that I found most attractive about this place is the sailing—the water. It’s fantastic. Some of the best sailing in the country.”

  I nodded. “That’s impressive. It sure looks like you guys know what you’re doing.”

  “Thanks.” He turned to me. “You know, Danny, speaking of sailing, I can always use a good athletic type such as yourself as a crew member. We have to deal with attrition, so we bring on a new guy or two each season. You should join us for one of our practices and give it a try.” He smiled. “It’d be a lot easier on the legs.”

  I looked at the photo, skeptically. The boat was pounding across a wave, the bow sending a shower of spray all the way to the stern. “I don’t know. Those guys look like they’re getting pretty wet. And that water looks ice-cold.”