by Joanne Pence
Rebecca took out her cell phone. She looked worried. Richie knew that wasn’t a good sign. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m calling Captain Eisen, the arson investigator on the Easy Street fire. He found, there, that an incendiary device had been tossed in through a broken window.” She turned and started to walk away. “Warren, Rebecca Mayfield here. I’m at a fire and …”
Richie stopped listening. What she was saying was troubling. Diego Bosque’s shop was firebombed and now his nightclub. There was no connection between the two of them … except for one thing …
And didn’t Logan Travis say someone was sneaking around his house?
No. No way.
He didn’t want to think about it, and instead flung his arm over his new manager’s shoulders as he said, “Thank God you decided to check out the heating system tonight. You saved the place.”
Tommy looked pleased at the praise. “I hope so. We’ll find out soon enough.”
“He’s coming,” Rebecca said to Richie as she put her phone in her pocket. “It may be nothing more than a coincidence.” She stopped talking and stared into the crowd. Her eyes narrowed.
Richie, too, looked over the crowd. She took a step forward, and a man, a stranger, seemed to notice her stare. He wore a San Francisco Giants’ baseball cap and a beige zip-up jacket, and looked like a thirty-year-old suburbanite who had come to the city to take in a ball game.
Rebecca took another step towards him. The stranger backed up, cautiously at first as though testing the waters, not quite believing he’d been singled out. He bumped into other onlookers as he backed away, then looked over his shoulder, turned, and ran. She took out her badge and waved it over her head as she sprinted into the crowd. “Police!” she shouted. “Get out of the way!”
Richie was too dumbfounded to do anything for a moment, and then ran after her. But almost immediately the spectators had closed ranks, and he didn’t have a badge to clear a path. He caught up to Rebecca on the corner of Bay and Powell. She looked as if she was contemplating stepping into the intersection where four lanes of cars were zipping by, bumper-to-bumper. He grabbed her arm. “Forget it.”
“Damn! The light changed as he ran across the street,” Rebecca said. “And drivers here don’t wait a second before they start to move.”
“Who was he?”
“He was at this morning’s fire. I wasn’t sure until he ran. I’ll run some checks on him. This area is lousy with security cameras. It should be easy to pull a photo of the guy.”
Richie did all he could to neither show surprise or alarm at her words, but his mind raced. Why would both he and Diego Bosque have their businesses targeted by the nerdy guy he saw watching? The guy wasn’t familiar in the least. He didn’t like where this was going. “Okay,” he said. “I’m heading back to talk to the fire crew. I need somebody to tell me how bad the damage is.”
CHAPTER THREE
Rebecca spent the morning looking at security footage from the area around the Easy Street fire as well as the fire at Richie’s place. As she’d suspected, the man with the Giants baseball cap was at both places, but he wore the brim so low she couldn’t run him through any sort of facial recognition software. She’d tried last evening with no luck, and hoped to do better this morning. She didn’t.
She then went to Easy Street Clothiers. The manager, Dan Peters, was a youthful fellow who epitomized the stylish look of the store in his loosely casual tan silk jacket, baby blue pullover and brown slacks. But at the moment, he looked overwhelmed and harried. Rebecca flashed her badge. “Hello again, Mr. Peters,” she said.
“Call me Dan, please,” he murmured, glancing at his buzzing phone and then silencing it.
“Is your boss here?”
“I’m afraid not.” He swallowed hard.
“Have you heard from him since yesterday morning?”
Dan rubbed his temple. “He called late in the day and said he still had some things he needed to handle, but he would try to get here. I never saw him, however.”
“Did you tell him I’ve got to talk to him? He knows a man died here.”
Dan looked even more distressed. “Yes, ma’am. He knows it.”
She showed him the photo of the man in the baseball cap, but he didn’t recognize the fellow at all.
She asked a few more questions, but he was of little help. She was about to leave when Fire Captain Eisen called.
The arson team identified kerosene as the accelerant used in both the Easy Street and Big Caesar fires.
o0o
The front doors of Big Caesar’s were open wide as a crew worked to clean the carpets, scrub the tile and dance floor, and generally do all they could to remove any hint of smoke, water, and fire damage. A large sign posted on the front of the building said “Closed Tonight - Will Open Friday.”
Richie surely hoped so. He decided to use the post-fire clean-up as an opportunity to scrub down everything in the club and shine it up the way a place as popular as Big Caesar’s should be.
He guessed one good thing came from the arson attempt. He’d never realized just how much the nightclub had come to mean to him until he’d almost lost it.
The sound of hammers and the smell of fresh paint greeted him as he inspected the place.
It was going to feel odd to see the ballroom empty the next few nights. Usually the white cloth covered tables were ringed with customers entertained by a band and singer. At least two bartenders worked, three on weekends, along with a number of attractive cocktail waitresses. The fresh paint on the walls would look good, however. Richie expected the reopening to be on-time and go well.
He spotted Tommy Ginnetti talking to men out back. He took out his phone, put on the liar application, and then said, “Tommy.” He walked outside.
“Everything’s under control, boss,” Tommy said, “for the reopening tomorrow. Should be okay, but the band insisted they be paid even if we’re closed.”
“Yeah, well, I can see their point. I guess we’re stuck,” Richie said. He talked to the owner of the crew doing the restoration and clean-up. The man had found no serious problems, and Tommy’s instructions to him were clear and precise.
Richie soon headed back to his office. He was glad none of the damage had reached it. When he took over the club, he had decided that if he was doomed to be stuck in an office, he wanted a nice one. He had a high-quality walnut desk and bookcases put in, plus a plush leather desk chair. The office even had its own bathroom, with a shower. He didn’t know why he’d ever need one, but since he’d had the private bathroom installed, why not? His desk, computer and such were on one side of the room, and on the opposite were a large sofa, a couple of side chairs, and a mini-bar.
He was tempted by the mini-bar as he looked at how high his paperwork had grown with this mess. He didn’t trust anyone but himself to oversee the business’s money, both incoming and outgoing, and forced himself to sit down and go over the invoices, recording each into his accounting program. Before long, his tie was off, and the long sleeves of his shirt rolled back to the elbows. He really hated this kind of tedious work.
He was staring at an invoice that made no sense and running his fingers through his hair when he was struck with the sense of being watched.
He looked up to see Rebecca standing in the doorway.
“I see that you’re planning to reopen Friday,” she said, walking towards him. He leaned back to enjoy the sight. She was tall—nearly his height—her body shapely in all the right places. Her hair was blond and straight, now pulled back in a ponytail for work. But it was her eyes that caused his heart to tango—big, blue, and expressive. He loved watching her walk his way, even when she was dressed in jeans, boots, and a black leather jacket—her work “uniform.” He also loved that she had no idea how sexy she looked in it.
He smiled. “It’s coming along, and we’re even making some improvements.”
“But you’ve also increased your security, right?”
&
nbsp; “Of course.”
“The damage wasn’t as bad as you’d feared, I take it.”
“We were damn lucky. And did you have any luck finding the guy you chased from here?” He got up and crossed the room towards the sofa and chairs.
She did the same and sat on the sofa. “Not yet. We caught him on security and traffic. He was the same guy seen at Easy Street Clothiers, but he kept the brim of the baseball cap too low to clearly see his face. Arsonists tend to enjoy watching their handiwork, which makes me suspect he’s our man.”
“I’ve heard that. Do you have time for a beer or coffee?” He had a small refrigerator as well as an automatic espresso maker in the office.
“No, thanks. I’m on duty and can’t stay. But I wanted to tell you that the accelerant used on Diego Bosque’s store is the same as used here. So, what’s the connection between you and Bosque?” she asked.
Why would she assume … Surely, she can’t have heard, he told himself. The story’s not even out yet. Besides, she pays no attention to tabloids, and businesses don’t get attacked because of them. “Who knows why arsonists pick their targets?”
Her gaze seemed filled with disappointment. “There is a connection between Diego Bosque, and you.” Just then, her phone buzzed. “It’s dispatch,” she said, which meant she had to take the call.
She stood, her expression making it clear she wasn’t happy with him. “I’ve got to go, but we’re not finished with this conversation.”
He sat down as he watched her leave without even a good-bye. He took out the liar app to find it had marked just about everything she said as a lie. What the hell did that mean?
CHAPTER FOUR
The crime scene was a six-foot long trash receptacle in a narrow, shade-filled alley in the Polk Gulch district, a middle-class neighborhood of mostly two- or three-story flats and apartment buildings. Also, a string of businesses lined Polk Street from the foot of Russian Hill to the foot of Nob Hill.
A young policewoman stood guarding the dumpster, while other uniformed police kept a growing number of spectators away from the area. As Rebecca approached, she saw a black mylar bag on the street. When she got closer, she saw that next to it was fresh vomit.
A creepy feeling trickled along her spine as she showed her credentials and stated her name. Her partner, Bill Sutter, ran to catch up to her, and he also showed his badge.
The policewoman swallowed hard before saying, “Officer Meadows, Central Station.”
“The victim is in the dumpster?” Rebecca asked.
Officer Meadows shook her head. “No.”
“Where?”
She pointed at the bag.
Judging from the size, Rebecca’s heart sank. “A baby?” she whispered.
Again, Meadows shook her head, and quietly stated, “We haven’t found the rest of him yet.”
The rest?
Sutter gestured that the bag was all Rebecca’s. She snapped on her latex gloves. As her partner watched she found the open end of the bag and pulled it wide. The smell of blood and death hit her hard, making her stomach clench so badly she stepped back, needing some fresh air. Inside the bag was a human head, but the way the head lay, all she could see was the top of it—thick, straight black hair, apparently so heavily gelled that even as the head was being removed from the body, the style stayed in place.
“Good God almighty,” Sutter whispered.
Rebecca got down on one knee and carefully lowered the black sheeting off the head and to the ground, doing her best not to move or ruin any remaining trace evidence. She then tipped the head so that it lay face up. It was so bloodless, bloated and mottled, she couldn’t be sure of anything, but at first glance, the features and skin color appeared to be that of an Asian male.
As Rebecca stood up, her limbs quivered from the horror before her. She took a moment, and then focused on the policewoman. “What have you got so far?”
The young woman drew in her breath, doing her best not to look down at the head. “The call came in about one this afternoon from the diner on the corner. The waitress, Marian Rohe said a homeless man came by asking for coffee and toast, and saying he needed something because he was upset at finding a head in the dumpster in the alley. She asked the cook to take a look. He found the head and called us.”
“Who took it out of the dumpster?” Rebecca asked.
“The homeless guy. He hoped he’d find something good in it. But the diner’s cook is the one who, uh, messed up the crime scene.”
Rebecca nodded. “Do you have the names of those people?”
“Not the homeless guy. He’s gone. He took off when the waitress, Marian, said she wasn’t giving away food no matter what he found.”
Sutter chimed in. “I’ll go talk to the waitress and the cook. I’ll make sure we get his fingerprints so we can eliminate them from others on the bag. In fact, I think I’ll do that right now. The crime scene unit should be here any minute.” With that, he practically ran out of the alley. Rebecca couldn’t remember ever seeing him move so fast.
She surveyed the alley. It was one block long, running parallel to Polk Street, with entrances at both ends. On one side stood the backs of the shops, offices and restaurants that faced Polk, and on the opposite side were the backs of multi-unit residences that faced Larkin Street.
The first order of business would be to identify the victim. But how? She could go knocking on the many residential doors in the area, but it was hard to imagine something as violent as a beheading taking place in one of the residences, which were uniformly small with paper-thin walls. The businesses, especially after hours, seemed more likely as linking to a murder, but it was strange that no calls had come in, unless the actual scene of the crime was some distance away. But why leave the head here?
The dumpster was outside the back door of the third building. She knocked, but no one answered.
She walked around the corner to Polk Street to see what was on the business side of the alley. The third building was a large, well-known restaurant. She had first heard about it from Richie who told her that the restaurant, Kyoto Dreams, served some of the most exotic, most expensive food in the city. And that its chef-owner had a huge reputation.
She hadn’t paid a lot of attention to the other bachelors in the article about Richie and Diego Bosque. But she was pretty sure one of them owned a Japanese restaurant.
She phoned Elizabeth in Homicide.
As the Medical Examiner’s team took the victim—or what they had of him—to their lab, Rebecca’s phone chimed. A copy of the article and the image she’d asked the secretary to send her had come in.
Rebecca looked at the photo of Shig Tanaka, one of the bachelors in the infamous article and the owner of Kyoto Dreams. She was all but certain she now knew the identity of the victim.
o0o
Rebecca entered another world. A reception area with delicate ikebana plants and intricate scrolls on the walls greeted the visitor of the Kyoto Dreams restaurant, and soft koto music played in the background. Instead of a large dining room with tables shoved close together, shoji-lined walls hid away small tatami rooms where people dined in intimate privacy.
A tiny woman in a kimono bowed deeply to Rebecca. “Irasshaimasu.”
Rebecca showed her badge and asked to speak to Shigekazu Tanaka.
“You are the police?” the woman asked in a hushed voice, her eyes wide and frightened.
“Yes.”
“One moment, please.” She used her entire hand, palm up, to gesture toward some chairs, then hurried down the hallway as quickly as the narrow skirt of her kimono and her wooden getas would allow. In a short while, she returned.
“Please, this way. Doozo.” The woman bobbed up and down, speaking quietly.
At the end of the hall, the woman lightly knocked on a door, then opened it. “Hanemoto-san, your guest.” She held the door for Rebecca to enter the office, then pulled it shut behind her.
Kazue Hanemoto gave a slight bow and introduc
ed himself as the restaurant’s manager. He was probably in his forties, short, trim, and wearing an expensive business suit. “I understand you have asked for Mr. Tanaka. He is not here at the moment. Perhaps I can help you.”
“I’m afraid not. I need to speak to Mr. Tanaka,” Rebecca said as she showed her badge and gave her name. “Can you reach him for me?”
Hanemoto looked nervous. “He is out of reach, I’m afraid.”
“Is that common for him?” Rebecca asked. “Isn’t he your chef?”
“We have other chefs.”
“Is Mr. Tanaka all right?” Rebecca asked.
This time, Hanemoto didn’t look at her, but stared at the ground. “We hope he is fine. For some reason, he failed to inform us of his whereabouts. We suspect he thought he had, but simply forgot.”
“When did you last see him?” Rebecca asked.
“Last night. We expect he will be here to prepare dinner tonight.”
“Did he stay until closing time last evening?”
“Yes, well, almost. A friend of his came, and the two left together.”
“Do you know the friend’s name?”
“Yes. Diego Bosque.”
Rebecca drew in her breath. “Have you tried Mr. Tanaka’s home? It’s … a matter of life and death.”
Hanemoto stiffened at her words, then called in his secretary and asked her to call everyone she could think of to try to reach “Tanaka-san.” At the same time, Rebecca got information about Tanaka’s apartment and phoned his building manager, asking him to check to see if Tanaka was in his apartment but unable to answer his phone.
As she waited for the building manager to call back, Rebecca asked Hanemoto if he had known Mr. Tanaka very long.
“I can hardly remember a time when we weren’t friends. We grew up just two houses from each other in Kyoto, Japan,” Hanemoto said. “I was one year ahead of him in school. I went to the university and studied business, but Tanaka wanted to become a chef and went to a culinary academy. I thought he was crazy, but his fame grew quickly. Soon, he decided to open his own restaurant, and I became his business manager. The Kyoto restaurant did so well, we soon opened a larger one in Tokyo, and then in Honolulu, and finally this one in San Francisco.”