Blue Molly (Danny Logan Mystery #5) (24 page)

“I knew when I first saw you in the bar that you had what it took,” he said, smiling broadly as we shook hands.

“Thanks, Mike. I’m glad things turned out the way they did.”

After the niceties, we walked back to the Observation Room—the same place where they’d been taped to the chairs yesterday. “Got it all cleaned up,” I said.

Sylvia nodded. “Yes. The sooner we get all of this behind us, the better.”

“Very true. You’ll be happy to see this, then.” I showed them copies of the contracts. “The police found these in Laskin’s desk drawer last night. This confirms that he was behind the whole thing.”

They both smiled. “So it really is over,” Sylvia said, her eyes tearing up.

I nodded. “It is.”

I spent the next fifteen minutes going over our bill. The Logan PI team doesn’t come cheap, but we actually spent about a week less than I’d estimated up front, so the Lyons were happy. So happy, in fact, that Mike stepped right up, pulled out a checkbook, and paid the bill in full right there on the spot. I can’t ask for anything more than that. “Thank you very much,” I said.

Mike smiled. “Thank
you
. You saved our building. This is the best money we’ve ever spent.” He paused, then added, “Besides, when it comes to this building, I’ve got a hundred years’ worth of ancestors looking over my shoulder. You kept me in good standing with them.”

I chuckled. “Good. Don’t want to get sideways with those folks.”

He nodded. “Indeed not.”

“So with that out of the way, we’ll call the case closed.” I reached out and shook their hands. “But I have something I wanted to look at, just to satisfy my own curiosity. Would you mind if I had one last look at those blueprints of yours?”

He looked puzzled for a second, and then he shrugged. “Sure. Why not. They’re downstairs still. Let me pull ’em out for you.”

We went down into the basement, and Mike unrolled the blueprints on the worktable in the center of the room.

“What are you looking for?” Mike asked.

I shook my head. “You know, I was never able to figure out why Laskin would have wanted to pay thirty percent over appraisal for the building.”

Mike shrugged. “Doesn’t matter much now, does it.”

I smiled. “Nope. I’ve just got this thing about loose ends.” I turned to the blueprints. “Can you show me the page with the basements and the areaway?” Mike flipped the sheets to that page, and I pulled up a chair. “I’m just going to look at this for a minute.”

“Sure. Take your time. I’ll be right over there unpacking some frames.”

I’d already done it once, but I went through each basement space on the blueprints, one by one. I racked my brain, yet I saw nothing that stood out. “Son of a bitch,” I muttered. I leaned back and stared at the wall, waiting for something to come to me. It wasn’t happening.

Fifteen minutes later, I shook my head and started to get up when my phone buzzed, letting me know an e-mail had arrived. I looked and saw that Miguel had e-mailed a copy of the 9-1-1 audio file, along with a transcript. I read the transcript that SPD had included while we waited:

18 FEBRUARY 2014 1447 PST

DISPATCH:
911. What’s the exact address of your emergency?

CALLER:
Uh, uh . . . wait . . . uh, it’s the Pioneer Square Office Supply. Over on 211 South Second.

DISPATCH:
What’s the number you’re calling me from?

CALLER:
I’m calling from my cell phone.

DISPATCH:
Okay. What’s the nature of your emergency?

CALLER:
It’s a drug deal. A big one.

DISPATCH:
There’s a drug deal? Is it happening now?

CALLER:
No, ma’am. Not now. It’s
going
to happen. At four o’clock today.

DISPATCH:
A drug deal’s going to happen today at four o’clock at the Pioneer Square Office Supply store?

CALLER:
Yes, ma’am, that’s it.

DISPATCH:
Do you know the names of the people involved?

CALLER:
Uh, it’s . . . it’s . . . No. I don’t know ’em.

DISPATCH:
Well, then, how do you know there’s going to be a drug deal today?

CALLER:
There’s . . .

CALL DISCONNECTED 18 FEBRUARY 2014 1449 PST.

CALLBACK ATTEMPTED: NONE.

I reread the transcript a couple of times, then I set it down. No doubt, it was very specific as to time and place. I pressed the “Play” button on the phone, and the recording started to play back. As soon as the caller started speaking and providing the address, I almost fell out of my chair. I could barely believe what I’d just heard.

* * * *

I ran back up the stairs. Sylvia saw me dashing through her store. “Danny! Is everything all right?”

“Yeah! I’ll be right back!”

I crossed the street and luckily, Abraham was still in the park, seated on a bench on the north side. I jogged over to him.

He smiled. “Back already?” he said, as I came to a halt.

“Yeah. Got a quick question for you—just came up. Who was it that put you up to making that 9-1-1 call?”

The smile slowly melted. “9-1-1 call? What 9-1-1 call? What are you talking about, Sarge?”

I gave him a stern look. “Don’t even try. Don’t you even try to bullshit me, Abraham.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone. “I’ve got a recording of the call right here on my phone. Want to hear it? I know it was you—there’s no question about that. The only question is why. And as to that, there are only a couple of possible reasons. The way I see it, you couldn’t have possibly known about the drug deal you talked about on the tape unless you were an insider—unless you were in on the deal. Abraham, were you in on the deal?” I knew the answer to this question before I asked it.

“Hell no!” he said indignantly. “You think I’m messing with that E crap?”

I shook my head. “No, I didn’t think so. Then that means someone put you up to it. Who put you up to it?”

He looked down and took a deep breath. Then, he looked up at me, a resigned look on his face. “I needed a new coat, Sarge. That was the deal: I was supposed to get twenty dollars cash and a new coat out of it. Got the twenty sure enough, but where’s my coat?” He held up his arms to show the same ratty, old army jacket I’d seen him in before.

“Who?” I said to him, again. “Who put you up to it?”

He looked at me for several seconds, then he beckoned me closer. “Don’t want to say it too loud.” I leaned forward, and he whispered the name.

I immediately stood straight up. I was surprised at first, but then it was as if there was a long winding row of dominoes, carefully arranged. Abraham’s admissions caused the first domino to fall and then, once it got started, everything fell into place. I sat down on the bench next to Abraham and leaned back, taking a deep breath. I was thinking while the dominos still fell, falling into place. Everything fit—the blueprints, the posters, the timing, the voices—everything.

“We’re just around the corner!” Miguel’s voice blared out of my phone as I raced back through the park. “Don’t go in until we get there!”

“Okay.” As soon as I had a clear understanding of what had happened, I’d called Miguel and told him he needed to get a search warrant. Then I explained why. He got it faster than I expected, and even though the park was less than a quarter mile away from where I’d made the call, I waited too long before leaving, and now he was going to beat me there.

I reached the end of the park and crossed Main. “I’m just a couple seconds away.”

“We’re just rolling up.”

I picked up my pace and ran quickly down the Occidental Mall. There wasn’t much of a crowd, but the people who were there paid me no attention as I sprinted past. Perhaps after yesterday’s activities, they were used to the sight of desperate-looking men racing through the mall. At the end, where the mall ran into Jackson, I turned left. Miguel and Steve were just piling out of their car, double-parked right in front of the Natural World Health Food store.

“Let’s go!” Miguel yelled.

I sprinted up just in time to follow Steve through the front door. Miguel held up his badge and yelled “Seattle Police! We’re looking for Aaron Cunningham!”

Abby Roth was behind the counter. Her eyes flew wide-open. “He’s not here. What’s this all about?” she stuttered.

Steve held up the search warrant. “We have a warrant to search the premises!”

Two patrol cars, lights flashing and sirens blaring, screeched to a halt outside. The officers turned off the sirens, bailed out, and ran inside to assist.

“Who else is here?” Miguel asked.

She shook her head. “Nobody. No one else is here. Aaron hasn’t come in yet.”

“Nobody’s downstairs?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No.”

Miguel turned to one of the officers. “Read her her rights, then watch her.” Then he turned to me and asked, “Where do we start?”

“Downstairs. Follow me.”

I found the switch for the stairway lights, flipped them on, and then led Miguel, Steve, and two officers downstairs into the basement. The place looked the same as when Doc and I’d checked it out last week.

I looked around the rectangular-shaped space. Since Natural World, like Sylvia’s shop, was located on a corner, there were customer doors on both exterior basement walls that led to the areaway. Unlike Sylvia’s shop, though, the door on the west that opened out onto the mall was not centered in the wall. Instead, it appeared offset to the right. But I knew from examining the blueprints that this wasn’t really the case. I now recognized that the reason it
looked
offset was because Cunningham’s basement featured a long closet, built maybe ten feet out from the true wall. I’d seen it when Doc and I surveyed the building, but I hadn’t recognized the significance.

“Let’s have a look in the closet, there,” I said.

The closet ran the length of the room and had four doors. I opened the first one, the one closest to Occidental. Inside was a row of floor-to-ceiling shelves that held empty boxes and packing material.

“Safe to say that’s not the hidden doorway?” Miguel said.

I shook my head. “Doesn’t look like it.” I was not alarmed. I knew from the position of the closet wall that it had to be ten feet deep. The shelves behind this door were only two feet deep. There had to be space behind them.

I moved back toward the stairs and opened the second door. Same result.

“I’m starting to get a little antsy, here, Danny,” Miguel said.

I nodded. “Relax.”

I moved closer to the stairs and opened the third door. Bingo! This one revealed a large walk-in closet, ten feet deep and twenty feet long from end to end, just as I’d expected. The walls were lined with those beige-colored plastic storage shelves you can get at Home Depot. A single, six-foot-wide access hallway ran right down the middle between the shelves, with shelves at the end. The shelves themselves were mostly full of boxes, office supplies, and bottles and jars of inventory. The overall effect was that of a very large walk-in pantry.

Miguel and Steve followed me in. Miguel looked around. “There’s nothing in here, Danny. Nothing but store supplies.” His voice was tinged with alarm.

“Yeah, there is,” I said. “You just don’t see it yet.”

I walked down to the end of the closet, the west end closest to Occidental. I looked down at the gray-painted floor. “Come look at this.”

Miguel and Steve hustled over and crouched down. I took out my little flashlight and lit the floor. “What do you see?”

They stared for a second, then at the same time, both said, “Scratches?”

I nodded. “That’s right.” I stood and looked at the wall behind the shelf units. “This shelf slides back and forth. Step back for a second.”

They moved, and I reached over and pulled on the shelf unit. Surprisingly easily, it glided across the smooth floor and revealed a door hidden behind it.

I turned to Miguel. “Want to go on a little adventure?”

* * * *

I pushed the door open and very bright overhead lights automatically came on, bathing the hidden room in brilliant light. I froze. The space inside was about ten feet wide by twenty feet long—about the size of a single-car garage. Gleaming metal and glass laboratory equipment sat on large stainless countertops that ran the length of both walls. The counters were deep: even though the lab was ten feet wide, the center walkway was just four feet wide. Above the lab equipment, on both sides of the lab, a row of white cabinets was mounted to the walls. A large-diameter ventilation tube led straight through the ceiling, right through the floor of the shop above. It must have been built into a closet up there and rendered invisible.

I’m no expert on labs: I took a chemistry class back in high school, plus I’ve had my blood drawn numerous times and seen the lab beyond the swinging doors. That’s pretty much it. But instead of having microscopes and phlebotomy equipment on the counters, Cunningham’s lab featured such things as hot plates, thermometers clamped to stands, dozens of glass bottles and jars, a scale, several apparatuses that looked to be some kind of stirrers, and, notably, a machine that was obvious even to a layman like myself to be a capsule-filling machine. Beneath the counters were jugs and buckets of chemicals. At the end of the aisle, a stack of shelves held clipboards and, among other things, a large, clear plastic bag that must have held thousands of empty blue capsules.

Miguel and Steve followed me through the door, and then two patrol officers. Everyone was wide-eyed.

“Holy shit!” Miguel said. “Is this what I think it is?”

Steve nodded. “You got that right, boss. Mother lode!”

I looked around, taking things in, slowing moving down the center aisle. I reached the shelf at the far end and started to scan it when my eyes settled on one particular box, its lid open. “Hey, guys! Get a load of this.” I picked the box up and set it on the counter. I reached inside and drew out a sealed quart bag of Blue Molly capsules. The bag was the same as those we’d seen in Laskin’s shop. The DEA said those had held one thousand Blue Molly capsules apiece.