“Or your old man set it himself to collect the insurance.” Logan loved playing devil’s advocate.
Polidori’s jaw clenched. “He was killed, Logan. He was knocked over the head and left in his office in the hotel while kerosene was poured all around and over his body and then someone just struck a match and dropped it. I’ll never know if my father died unconscious or if he was awake, screaming and writhing, feeling the agony of hot flames eating away his flesh. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wonder.” He sipped his drink and caught Logan’s gaze in the mirror over the bar. “Stephano was a decent man. A faithful husband. A good father. And he was turned into a human torch by Julius Danvers. Witt knew all about it.”
“Conjecture.”
Polidori’s smile turned deadly. “How much is he paying you to keep you in his corner, Jack? Whatever it is, it isn’t enough.”
A muscle ticked in Logan’s jaw. He thought about reaching for his drink, but settled back in the chair, hoping to appear unruffled. “Let’s get back to Witt’s little girl. Where is she?”
“I don’t know. As I said before, there’s nothing I can tell you.”
“You didn’t decide to finally extract your revenge by stealing the kid?”
“Get serious.” Polidori snorted, but his knuckles whitened as he gripped his glass.
“What better way to make Witt twist in the wind than by stealing his daughter? You couldn’t do anything that would hurt him more.”
“Trust me, I didn’t do it. Now, if you’re going to continue to badger me, I’m calling my lawyer.” He walked to his desk and reached for the phone.
“I don’t believe you.” Logan’s voice was flat and he stared at Polidori so hard he noticed the tiny beads of sweat collecting at the old man’s graying sideburns. He was guilty as hell. But of what?
“Doesn’t matter what you believe, Jack. It’s what you can prove. Now, either you’re here for a social visit and if you are, mind your manners and drink the whiskey I so graciously offered you. If you’re here on police business, you’d better charge me with something or get the hell out of my house.”
Jack didn’t budge. Now he was getting somewhere. Polidori had lost his cool. “Joey Siri and Rudy Gianotti worked for you.”
“Not recently.”
“Then they worked for your boy.”
Polidori’s calm face flushed red and he leaned across the desk. “Leave Mario out of this,” he ordered, his lips barely moving beneath his neatly trimmed mustache.
“He could be in it up to his eyeballs,” Logan replied. “Rumor has it he was involved with the Danvers girl—the older one—a few years back. She was underage at the time—sixteen, if memory serves—when the romance went sour.”
Polidori’s nostrils flared. “My boy was in Hawaii when the little girl turned up missing.”
“Convenient.”
“He knows nothing about the kidnapping.”
“Everyone in town knows about it, Tony. It’s been in all the papers, even hit national television. I’ll even bet it made it into the news on Waikiki.” He pinned Polidori with one of his hard-ass, bad-cop stares. “The way I see it, someone just wanted to fuck Witt Danvers. So I’ve been checking into things, digging up people who have a grudge against the guy, and guess whose name keeps showing up at the top of the list?”
“I don’t need to listen to this.” Polidori reached for the phone.
“Is Mario around? I’d like to talk to him.” Logan finally felt that he had the upper hand. He reached for his drink. So he was on duty. What the hell.
“You have nothing to say to Mario.”
“I can talk to him here,” Logan said, rimming his glass with his finger. “Or I can cuff him and haul him down to the station.” He frowned thoughtfully, as if considering. “Still a lot of reporters hanging around there. Hungry guys. Looking for a story. But it’s your choice.”
“You’re a pig, Logan.”
“And you’re a liar.” He leveled his gaze at the shorter man in the expensive suit. “So what else is new?’
Polidori dropped the receiver and straightened his jacket. Logan could almost see the wheels turning in his mind. God, it felt good to make the bastard sweat a little.
“If Mario cooperates here, I probably won’t have to run him in. If not—” Logan lifted his huge shoulders and watched Polidori over the rim of his glass. The whiskey was expensive. Smooth and warm, it burned a familiar and welcome path to his stomach. “—Well, it wouldn’t look too good in the society papers if all that old trash about your son was brought up again.” He smiled into his glass. “Scandals have a way of raising their ugly heads time and time again. People in this town have long memories.”
Polidori’s eyes narrowed just a fraction. “You’ll keep this quiet?”
“I might be a pig, but I don’t lie.”
With a snort of disbelief, Polidori dropped into an oxblood chair, pressed a buzzer hidden in the drawer of his desk, and a guard appeared. After a rapid-fire exchange of Italian in which Mario’s name was repeated several times, the guard slipped away. Logan sipped his drink. Within minutes, Mario appeared in the doorway.
About twenty-six, he was taller than his father by a full head and his eyes were a lighter shade of brown. Curly dark hair, easy smile—the playboy son of the rich father. When he wasn’t racing cars, or sailing the Caribbean, Mario ran the family restaurant downtown. And he was edgy. A restless energy kept him moving. Drugs? Adrenaline? Or plain old, kick-you-in-the-gut fear?
Anthony motioned toward Logan’s chair. “You know Detective Sergeant Logan.”
“We’ve met,” Mario said, his gaze flicking toward Logan for only a second. Logan didn’t bother to get up.
“He thinks you might know something about the Danvers kidnapping.”
“In your dreams, Jack,” Mario said, resting a jean-encased hip against the edge of the desk. His foot never stopped bouncing nervously. “I was in Hawaii.”
“You know Joey Siri and Rudy Gianotti.”
“They used to work for me.”
“Doing what?”
“Whatever I asked,” Mario said with a charming smile of even white teeth. “Mainly odd jobs down at the restaurant. I fired Rudy six months ago—he was into drugs, uppers and downers. Caught him dealing and cut him loose. Joey had a fit, claimed he wouldn’t stick around if I let Rudy go. So I fired him, too.” He shoved away from the desk, moved to the window. Avoided the policeman’s gaze.
“That was it? You’ve never seen them again?” Logan finished his drink.
Mario lifted a shoulder. “I’ve seen them around. Some of the guys who work for me know ’em, but Rudy and Joey stay clear and I like it that way.”
“You know Zach Danvers claimed they attacked him?”
Mario’s shoulders bunched. “Zach Danvers lies.”
“Not this time.” Logan pretended interest in his empty glass. “Rumor had it that you and Trisha Danvers were…well, involved.”
Almost imperceptibly, the corners around the younger Polidori’s mouth tightened. “I know her.”
“The way I heard it, you knocked her up.”
“What’s your point, Logan?” Mario’s eyes snapped with an inner fury as dark as hell. Despite all his wealth, the boy carried one helluva chip on his muscular shoulders.
“Somehow Danvers put a stop to it. Wouldn’t let his daughter be seen with a Polidori. Made sure she never had the kid.” Logan set his empty glass on the desk.
“Is that so?”
“I don’t know all the details, but I’m looking into them. My guess is you’ve got plenty of motive to get back at Witt Danvers.”
“Lots of people in this town would like to see Danvers go down,” Anthony said from his position behind the desk.
Logan lifted a bushy eyebrow. “Some more than others.”
“I was in Hawaii. On business. At the time of the attack on Zach Danvers. I was—”