by Joanne Pence
Just then, Rebecca’s phone vibrated. It was Richie. She walked away from Seymour and answered. “Where are you?” she whispered. “What are you doing?”
“It’s about time your friends got here,” he said. “I’ve been freezing my ass off waiting for them.”
“Richie, the men who have Claire are killers! You’ve got to—”
“Just tell Seymour that Claire Baxter is in the warehouse office. Tell him to wait until the action starts, then arrest those mothers.”
With that, he hung up.
“Wait! Hello? Hello?”
Seymour turned to see what was going on, and she relayed Richie’s message.
“He knew he was followed here?” Seymour said.
“I didn’t tell him, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she said hotly.
“What action is he talking about?”
Just then, Richie appeared at the edge of the parking lot. Rebecca smacked Seymour’s arm both to get him to be quiet and to watch. They moved a little closer to the warehouse parking lot, taking care to stay huddled next to a building so that it would be difficult for anyone in the warehouse to see them in the fog.
Rebecca watched Richie take a few more steps, then stop and look around. He glanced up towards the area where she and Seymour stood, although she suspected he couldn’t actually see them. The realization struck her that if anything went wrong, she might never see him alive again. The thought hurt, even more than she had imagined it would.
She wanted nothing more than to stop him, to tell him to go back to safety and let the FBI handle this. But she knew if she did anything, bullets might fly, and he could easily be the first one killed.
“What the hell is he doing?” Seymour muttered. He used his mouthpiece to tell his men not to move.
Rebecca’s heart was in her throat, and at the moment, all she could do by way of answer was to shake her head.
“Damn!” Seymour said. “He should know better than to trust those guys. He could get Claire Baxter killed. Him, as well. We better stop him.”
Rebecca found her voice at that. “No. Let it play out. He knows what he’s doing.”
“Does he?”
She sure as hell hoped so.
Seymour studied her a moment, his eyes narrow.
Richie began to walk again. In his hands, holding it out in front of him, was the package he had picked up at Claire’s home. The Assyrian relief. It was, as the FBI suspected, time for a trade.
Someone opened the warehouse office door and Richie went inside.
Rebecca could scarcely breathe as the minutes ticked by.
“I don’t want to wait much longer,” Seymour said. “We could warn them that we’re here, use hostage negotiators.”
“Not yet,” she said. “He wouldn’t be here alone. His people know what’s going on.”
“You seem to know a lot about him and his ‘people.’”
“Which means you should listen to what I’m telling you.” Her voice sounded both harsh and scared, and Seymour again gave her a strange look.
Finally, they saw the office door open. Claire stepped out. Rebecca froze, not even breathing. Where—?
Richie appeared in the doorway and lunged at Claire, knocking her to the ground. At that very moment, a shot rang out, and then all hell broke loose as a barrage of gunfire from the alley opposite the parking lot hit the warehouse walls and broke the leaded window by the office door. People inside the warehouse fired back through the open door and broken window.
“What the f--!” Seymour yelled and began barking orders at his men through his earpiece.
Richie half-dragged Claire to one side of the warehouse. A Mercedes sped towards them. The back door swung open and Richie pushed Claire into the car and then jumped in after her. As the door was pulled shut, the Mercedes sped away.
“Move in!” Seymour shouted to his people. “Stop that car and surround the warehouse. We’re going in!”
The Mercedes sped out of the parking lot. Federal agents in a black SUV raced after it as others ran towards the warehouse. They stopped and took cover as they exchanged gunfire with the warehouse inhabitants.
Then, the shooting from inside the warehouse office stopped, and one of the garage doors on the far side of the building rolled open. A voice shouted that they were giving up.
All went silent as two agents carefully approached the truck bay. Two men soon came out of the building, their hands high in the air.
“I guess you can go down and see what’s left in the warehouse,” Rebecca said to Seymour.
“Who the hell was doing all that shooting?” Seymour demanded. “Just who are Amalfi’s ‘people’?”
“I suspect you know as much as I do,” she replied.
Seymour fumed. “I’m not so sure about that,” he muttered, then took a deep breath. “But right now, come with me and take a look. You know this is an FBI case, but the rest of the SFPD might not agree. Maybe if you’re there, we can avoid a jurisdictional fight.”
She looked in the direction of the street that the Mercedes with Richie and Claire had fled down, the street the FBI had taken while chasing them. It looked empty, although the fog limited visibility greatly. She could only hope Richie and the others had been able to get away.
“Be assured,” she said after a while, “I don’t want any part of what went on here just now.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Despite everything else going on, Rebecca and Sutter remained the on-call team that week, and Rebecca was awakened by a six a.m. call about a dead body in the Ingleside district. It turned out to have been a gang shooting, and although the two homicide inspectors had taken charge of the case, the Gang Task Force quickly arrested the killer. Witnesses and a confession ended the case.
Rebecca was glad of that since she had been in Homicide until midnight the night before, writing a report on the shoot-out in Hunters Point. She stuck to the facts as she saw them—four men, two had died at the scene, the FBI took the other two men into custody, and a number of people—as yet unofficially identified—had fled the scene. Her report made it clear this had been an FBI-led operation, and she had been called in as a courtesy to the SFPD since it took place within the city limits.
She had not heard anything from Richie last evening or that morning.
Now, although weary, Rebecca knew it would be impossible to go back to sleep if she went home. Instead, she turned to the information pulled from Geller’s condo by the crime scene investigators. His autopsy had been scheduled, but not yet performed.
She had just taken a quick look at the report—nothing new jumped out at her—when Brandon Seymour phoned.
“The two warehouse survivors are singing like birds,” he said. “Thanks to them, we’ve already retrieved the five missing pieces of Nimrud jewelry.”
“Good news,” Rebecca said. She didn’t care about the artifacts. “Have you talked to Amalfi or Baxter yet?”
“Not yet. Baxter was given a sedative by her doctor, and her lawyer doesn’t want her bothered. He says we have everything wrong, and that she wants no part of anything. Right now, we can arrest her for trying to sell illegal artifacts, but the attorney claims the paperwork she was given will prove that she acted in good faith. He asked if we’re claiming she should have been suspicious simply because the seller was an Iraqi Muslim, and if so, wasn’t that profiling? Did we plan to arrest her because she’s not bigoted?
“The bastard even accused me of trying to ruin the lady’s reputation as a legitimate art dealer, and said he would do everything possible to keep her far away from us or any investigation. As if I give a rat’s ass about her sales creds.”
“In other words, she’ll get off,” Rebecca stated. At Seymour’s mumbled ‘yeah,’ she then asked, “What about Richie?”
Seymour snorted. “Baxter’s lawyer claimed he was only there to bring the Middle Eastern artwork to the men with Claire—that they were her clients, and this was a sale, not a kidnapping. He said Cla
ire believes the people shooting at them were rival smugglers or thieves, God only knows. The lawyer claims Amalfi was lucky to get Claire out of there unharmed. That we should be praising him, not wanting to arrest him.”
“There are more holes in that story than Swiss cheese,” Rebecca said.
“It’ll completely shatter once we find the shooter.”
“What does Richie say?”
“We haven’t located him yet, or the men with him.”
“I see.” That wasn’t good.
Seymour continued, his frustration evident with every word. “The bullets that killed the two men in the warehouse were from a high-powered semi-automatic rifle, probably an AR-15 or something similar. The shooter was outside the building, supposedly firing blindly, but still managed to hit two men. Despite Claire Baxter’s story that the attack came from a rival group of smugglers, we’re sure the shooter was one of Amalfi’s men. Have you heard of a sharp-shooter among them?”
“Me? How should I know? I was with you, remember? You’re the one who told me what was going on.”
“I think you have a good idea who was firing that rifle, Mayfield.”
So it was “Mayfield” now, she thought. So much for a friendly relationship, which actually had never been all that friendly. She was all but certain Shay had been the shooter, and could imagine him using an infrared camera, or even better, Richie wearing some sort of camera to let Shay see the inside of the office, Claire, the men involved, who was armed and so on. Shay had the kind of computer brain that could triangulate distances and whatever else he needed to come up with to know where to shoot. She was also certain Shay’s first shot had to have been a kill shot. If he had missed, Richie or Claire or both, might be dead now.
But she wasn’t about to tell Seymour any of that. “Richie Amalfi doesn’t tell me what he’s up to, believe me.”
“We’ll find him and nail him and the shooter to the wall.”
She wouldn’t have been surprised if Seymour arrested Richie as a ploy to get more information out of him about the shooter. After all, two men had been killed.
“That’s pretty gutsy of you,” she said.
“Gutsy? To take on Amalfi? I don’t think so!” Seymour all but spat the words.
“Not him. This case. You think the media won’t have a field day if you tell them the FBI stood around doing nothing while a civilian pulled off a hostage rescue that led to the recovery of valuable art work? Or, even worse, that it was a trigger-happy civilian, probably a former military sniper given the accuracy, who got involved in a shoot-out on a San Francisco street, and the FBI let it happen?”
“It wasn’t that way.”
“No. I agree, but you know the press. They’ll do whatever they can to make the FBI look bad. And that won’t help you or anyone else.”
There was a long silence. “I really hate this,” Seymour admitted. “And the press!”
“I know, but given reality in this city and how ugly things can turn, it might be in the FBI’s best interest to walk away. As things now stand, an FBI sting recovered eight pieces of irreplaceable Nimrud jewels, and arrested a deadly smuggling ring. Few will mourn the two dead smugglers. Besides, the press and public are so much more interested in my case—the murdered psychic—that this one can fly under the radar. Unless you want to bring it to their attention.”
“No, I definitely don’t want to do that.”
“It’s up to you, of course.”
“Damn it! Screw them all!” Seymour shouted, and with that, hung up.
o0o
Rebecca and Sutter returned to Geller’s Octavia Street offices that afternoon. The press was all but camped out in front of the beautiful building housing them, and it had become a fixture on local news.
While Sutter gave the reporters a brief statement, Rebecca went inside. The secretary had taken charge, and had called everyone in to work. There was a surprising amount of activity going on.
Rebecca went straight to the office of Stan Bendix, the bookkeeper. “I understand Mr. Geller has been sending out payments to a number of his Sandorista clients,” she said. “I’d like to see those records.”
Stan Bendix was shaped more like a big overstuffed teddy bear than a man. He was pudgy and soft-looking; with long, brown hair; flat, round, brown eyes; puffy cheeks; and a heavy brown sweater. He stood as she entered. “I don’t know what you mean,” he said with a slight stutter.
“I mean I have proof that eight people—at least—were receiving payments. Surely, you know that.” Her eyes narrowed. Shay couldn’t have been wrong, could he?
“No payments like that were sent out of this office,” he repeated.
“Prove it,” she said.
“Now?”
She showed him her search warrant for the facility, then pulled the guest chair to his side so she could look onto the computer screen with him. “Of course, now.”
Bendix opened up his files. She didn’t really know much about what she was looking at, but had him walk her through the different categories of the Geller account.
Nothing struck her as odd until they reached the Sandorista category. The overall budget for the account showed a yearly income of $48,000, an outgo of $48,000, and a net of $0.
“What’s that all about?” she asked.
“The Sandoristas are a great group. I’m one myself. Sandy set up the Sandoristas as a non-profit association for educational purposes. He donates money each year for a scholarship for people who can’t afford his fees. This is that category. The members take care of determining how to spend the money—who it should go to and all. Sandy has, had, no part in that.”
“So, who did they decide to give scholarships to?” she asked.
Bendix blanched. “You’ll have to ask one of the Sandoristas. They don’t give me that information.”
“They don’t? If that’s the case, how do you know how much should go into this scholarship category?”
“That’s easy. It’s been the same amount for the past four years. It started small, but then rose. As I said, Sandy makes his yearly contribution, and that ends our involvement.”
“Let me see who’s being granted the scholarships,” Rebecca said.
“Okay.” He opened the Sandorista online bank account. “Hmm. This is strange.”
She looked at the computer screen. It showed, each year, a transfer of the entire $48,000 from the Sandorista bank account to a completely different account owned by the Colonial Bank on Noriega Street in San Francisco. “Why there?” she asked.
Now, Bendix’s skin was white, his chin quivering. “I have no idea. We always understood the group made donations directly out of the account we set up for them. No one told me about that bank.”
“Who does know about it?”
“I’m not sure. The head of the Sandorista club is a woman in New York City, at the moment. She should know.”
She claimed she had never accessed the account or had anything to do with it. She had the account’s information, but no password. She understood Geller’s office—his bookkeeper—handled the scholarships. Bendix was horrified to hear that.
Bendix made a quick phone call to the Bank. Fortunately, the account had been opened under the Sandorista umbrella. He gave his credentials, Rebecca explained the police involvement, and the bank manager gave them access.
“Oh, my,” Bendix said.
From the account, $500 per month was transferred to eight people. Also, every few months, a large amount—tens of thousands of dollars—went into that account. It was withdrawn, in total, one or two days after it arrived.
Rebecca did a quick calculation giving eight people $500 per month would be $48,000 a year. The larger amounts, she suspected, were life insurance payouts when one of them died. It was quickly withdrawn by whoever was behind the scheme. So the question was, who?
“I’ll get my computer forensics experts on this,” she said, and used a thumb drive to copy the files pertaining to the off-book “scholars
hip” operation.
She planned to give the information to Shay for him to figure out who was getting into that account to withdraw money.
She left the bookkeeper staring blankly at the screen.
She then went off and found Sutter. He had left the press and was talking to Geller’s other employees—secretary, receptionist, advertising and newsletter writers. All were devastated by Sandy’s death, and certain that Lucian Tully had nothing to do with it. They believed he might have seen or knew something that made him fear for his own life, and had gone into hiding.
Rebecca and Sutter were well aware that some unknown third party could be involved in this tangled web, so Sutter went off to question some disgruntled former clients as potential leads. Rebecca returned to Homicide.
There, she got Lt. Eastwood to issue a BOLO on Lucian, making it clear it was a “be on the lookout” because he was wanted for questioning, not due to an arrest warrant.
She dug into Lucian’s background, doing computer searches, but found out little.
She phoned his parents’ home in Joplin, Missouri. His mother, Dora Tully, answered. Rebecca quickly explained who she was and that she was trying to locate Lucian.
“I have no idea where he is,” Dora said. “I haven’t spoken to him in quite a while.”
“No one here seems to know who his friends are, or if he has anyone he’s particularly close to. Do you have names of any people we might check with?”
“Lucian never talked to me or his father about friends. In fact, he doesn’t talk to us at all, not since we told him he was being ridiculous working for someone who holds séances. I mean, really, what kind of a career choice is that?”
Her words made Rebecca curious. “When did you last talk to him?”
“Let’s see. He’s now twenty-six. It was on his twenty-second birthday. The call ended up being so ugly, we never called him back, and he never phoned us.”
“I see,” Rebecca said. So much for that lead. She quickly ended the call.
She was trying to think of a way to get a search warrant issued for Lucian’s apartment. Maybe the easiest way would be if Shay could find a connection to him on the bank account information she’d gotten from Sandy’s accountant. That should help convince a judge to let them search Lucian’s apartment. She knew she should go to the CSI unit for that, but her request would have to wait in line—the big murder case Paavo and Yosh had been working on these past few days was taking up most of their time. She could get an answer faster from Shay.