One O'Clock Hustle: An Inspector Rebecca Mayfield Mystery (Rebecca Mayfield Mysteries Book 1)

by Pence, Joanne

  After that, she returned to Homicide to run a few quick checks on the name Meaghan Blakely. She could find no record of any kind under that name, not even using alternative spellings.

  Finally, she headed home.

  The case troubled her for a number of reasons, not the least being Richie's involvement. But before spending any more time investigating, she needed some sleep.

  If she had been tired before she went to Big Caesar's last night, it was nothing compared to the bone-aching weariness that consumed her now. Her eyes felt as if the entire Sahara had settled in them, and her headache caused shooting pains that rattled her teeth.

  After parking in her usual red zone, she stumbled towards the brown and tan stucco building she called home. She paused, not because of any sound, but the feeling that someone watched her. That someone was near. As she spun around, she unzipped her Galco holster handbag in case she needed to use her Glock. Normally, she carried her weapon in a middle-of-the-back holster, but it jabbed her when she drove. Tonight, she was too tired to put up with the discomfort and removed it. Besides, she was only going home.

  She scanned the street, glowing golden and hazy with early morning mist. Nothing moved. No cars, no people, no pigeons or seagulls, not even a piece of trash buffeted about by the ever-present bay breeze.

  Nothing but nerves and exhaustion, she told herself. She rezipped the gun compartment of her handbag, and took out her keys. Perhaps she had seen too much death this weekend.

  With eyes that scarcely had the strength to stay open, she found the lock in the door beside the garage, slipped in the key and pushed the door open. A hand clamped over her mouth, another around her waist and she felt herself dragged into the breezeway. The attacker didn't lift her—at five foot ten, it would take Shaquille O'Neal to lift her off her feet—and judging from the feel of the body against hers, he was about her height.

  She struggled to break his hold, and as she did, she caught a glimpse of a black onyx and gold cuff link. She recognized it. Fury replaced fear and she stomped down hard on the man's foot.

  “God damn, Rebecca!” Her would-be captor let her go as he hopped on one foot. “I just wanted to make sure you wouldn't scream and wake the neighbors!”

  “Richie!” She couldn't believe it. When she last saw him, Bill Sutter was leading him out to the patrol car for the ride to city jail. “I never scream.”

  “I don't want you to shoot me either.” He grabbed her shoulder bag. “I know this is where you've got your gun.”

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded as they played tug-of-war with her purse. He curled himself around it like a running back bracing to be tackled. “How did your lawyer get you released already?”

  “I've got to talk to you about that.” He looked from side to side, even at the roof, as if expecting a SWAT team to rappel into her garden. “I don't want you to go arresting me before I've had a chance to speak my piece.”

  “Let go of my handbag first!”

  He did. She placed it back on her shoulder and then folded her arms, still glaring. “You've already been arrested.”

  “Is there someplace warm we can go talk?” he asked, rubbing his arms. “I've been freezing my ass off out here waiting for you to come home. Where the hell have you been all this time?”

  “You've been here all night?” His words made no sense to her. Even a quick release after booking took time, and his case involved murder.

  “I asked the cop who was walking me to the squad car to loosen the handcuffs and then ... I don't know what happened. Something came over me, I guess. Or maybe the cop and Sutter tripped, because they were suddenly on the ground, and so I ran. Luckily, I'd left my car down by Sakura Gardens. I got out of the area easily except for one problem.” He held up his left wrist. One end of the handcuffs was still attached to it, and dangling down, the other end of the cuffs was wide open. Then his head cocked slightly as he studied her. “You mean Sutter didn't tell you?”

  Sutter! She could imagine that he didn't want to tell his partner that he'd managed to lose their main suspect. Suspect, hell! He had two eyewitnesses, and from all she'd heard and seen, enough evidence to incriminate a saint. And Richie Amalfi was no saint.

  But something--call it “cop sense” or whatever--told her he was innocent. And now, for some weird reason, he came here to her. She wanted to know why. Also, the more she thought about it, the more pissed off she became at Sutter. Why didn't he tell her immediately what had happened? Everything was so crazy, and she was so tired—and cold—she decided to take Amalfi up on his request. “We'll go to my apartment,” she said through gritted teeth. “My house keys must still be in the breezeway door lock.”

  He held out her keys, dangling them by the National Rifle Association medallion on her key chain. He glanced at it. “You are one bad-ass broad.”

  She grabbed the keys, shut and locked the door to the breezeway, and then marched to her apartment door and unlocked it. “Get inside, and don't try anything funny.”

  “Yes, Inspector,” he said with a grin.

  o0o

  For a moment, he thought she had unlocked the wrong door. The apartment was nothing like the gun-toting, NRA-joining, leather-wearing, karate-chopping, baton-wielding super cop he knew she was. He even heard she could watch autopsies and not flinch.

  Guys on the force called her the Iron Maiden, and from their comments, they weren't only talking about her prowess as a cop.

  Yet the homey, old-fashioned apartment reminded him of a country cabin. Quilts and throws in varying combinations of red, blue, and green ginghams, checks and plaids covered mismatched furniture, probably from second-hand stores. Ruffle-edged pillows looked comfortable and inviting. From the front door, he could see the whole apartment, a living room with a small kitchen area in one corner, and a bedroom with a queen-sized bed (hmm, what was the lady not telling?) piled high with a fluffy down comforter and more pillows.

  He took a couple of steps into the room and then froze at the sound of a low, deep growl.

  On a red satin pillow stood the silliest looking dog he had ever seen. Smaller than most cats, it was furless except for a tuft of hair pulled up into a blue ribbon on the very top of its head. Its eyes could have been big brown jawbreakers.

  “What in the hell is that?” he asked.

  The mutt barked at him then ran to Rebecca and stood on its back legs, its front paws against her knee, wagging its tail and begging to be lifted.

  She scooped it up. “You're right to bark, Spike,” she said, cuddling the beast as she carried him to the kitchen area. “He's a bad man.”

  Spike?

  “This is just a temporary reprieve,” Rebecca said to Richie as she dished barely more than a tablespoon of Alpo into a bowl. “I have to take you back, you know.”

  “I didn't do it, Rebecca—”

  “Inspector Mayfield!” she reminded him. The dog began eating as she turned on the heater.

  “Inspector,” he repeated. “I don't know if what happened to me was just dumb luck or if I've been set up, but I didn't do it. And you know I'm telling you the truth.”

  “Hah!”

  He couldn't stop himself from shivering from the cold and more—as if the tense, rigid way he had held himself while waiting for her, wondering what else to do, where else to go, could no longer be maintained.

  She must have seen him shiver because she grabbed one of the afghan throws on the sofa and put it over his shoulders. “Sit on the rocking chair by the vent.” She pointed to a maple rocker with green plaid seat and back pads, held in place by large matching bows. “You'll warm up faster so we can get you to City Jail. Coffee or tea?”

  “Coffee, please. Look, I know you believe me. You're a good cop. If you thought there was any chance at all I was guilty, no way you'd let me into your apartment. You'd whisk me off to stir so fast it'd make my head spin. But you didn't.”

  “Don't push your luck, Richie. It might just be that you looked like a whipped
puppy outside.”

  He shook his head and moved to the spot she suggested. Immediately, he felt warm air on his feet and ankles. He hadn't even realized how frozen his feet had become. He could have stayed warm if he remained in his car, but then he would have missed her. He had parked far from Mulford Alley, on a street she most likely wouldn't pass as she went home. She knew his car, a black Porsche, and even though this city had a fair number of similar cars, if she noticed a car like his nearby, she might become suspicious.

  So, he parked six blocks away, walked to her building, hid in nearby doorway, and waited for her to show up. He had become so cold and miserable, he wondered if it had been a mistake not to stay in jail and take his chances with the law.

  But he had overheard Bill Sutter and the cop talking, and their conversation convinced him just how dumb that would be.

  He could have tried to run fast and far, but the cops surely had put an APB out on his car within a matter of minutes of him taking off. Besides, where would he go? And if he ran, he would look guilty—even guiltier than he did by his escape.

  On top of all that, the real killer had to be laying low somewhere in San Francisco laughing his head off that Richie would take the rap for him. Whoever that figlio di puttana was, he wouldn't get away with it.

  He would find the bastard who did this, and prove to the world that he—Richard Joseph Francis Amalfi—was innocent.

  Somehow.

  Then he thought of Rebecca. Oh, pardon—Inspector Mayfield. If anyone could do it, she could.

  He hoped.

  He watched her as she took off her jacket and then moved around the kitchen making coffee. She was tall, and if he wasn't so worried about his situation, he could appreciate being here with her—in fact, he could appreciate everything about her. Her looks were off-beat, yet he considered her as close to gorgeous as any woman had the right to be, and she didn't seem to have any idea of it. She usually twisted her blond hair back and held it in place with a big barrette, as if she didn't know what long, lush hair like hers could do to a man. Her face was kind of triangle shaped, with a pointed, stubborn chin. Her lips were full, but her eyes really got to him. They were big and blue. He had always been a sucker for eyes like hers.

  She handed him a mug of black coffee, breaking off his wayward thoughts. He knew she wasn't the type of woman he should ever think about that way. He turned his focus back to himself and his predicament while taking a sip of coffee. To his surprise, it had bourbon in it. “Isn't it against the rules to ply the suspects with liquor, Inspector?” he asked.

  “Consider it medicinal,” she said.

  “Are you having some, too?” he asked.

  “Not on your life. I have the feeling I'm going to need all my senses to deal with you.” She sat on the sofa, holding her coffee mug, and said, “Now, let's start at the beginning.”

  o0o

  Richie shut his eyes a moment, then spoke. “I went to the races this afternoon, Golden Gate Fields. At the Turf Club, I saw Meaghan Blakely. She smiled, and we started talking. We hit it off. I asked her to dinner.”

  “Did you pick her up at her home?” Rebecca asked.

  “No. She said she'd meet me at the restaurant. We went to Sakura Gardens, and from there, we walked the block or so over to Big Caesar’s. Believe me, I never touched her! Why would I kill her? I'm a witness!”

  Rebecca plowed on. “Did she mention family, friends?”

  He gazed heavenward, as if for patience. “She claimed to be fairly new in town from L.A.”

  “Then what?”

  Richie slumped back in the chair with a scowl. “After a couple drinks, she excused herself to go to the ladies' room. A few minutes later, some guy, a really big guy, slipped me an envelope. Inside was a note from Danny Pasternak saying he wanted to see me immediately, so I went.”

  “He's the club bookkeeper?”

  Richie hesitated, then said, “Well … yeah, you could say that.”

  “Weren't you surprised to get a note from him?”

  Richie tugged at his ear, then looked from one wall to another. “Not really. We're old friends. We go way back.”

  She frowned. “Weren't you surprised he was working so late at night?”

  “It's Saturday night!”

  “So?”

  He shrugged.

  She pursed her lips. “Why did he want to see you?”

  “I never found out. When I reached his office, I knocked, then opened the door and walked in. Instead of seeing Danny sitting at his desk, I saw Meaghan on the floor.” He seemed to shudder from the memory, and then ran his hand over the back of his head.

  She waited.

  “From the corner of my eye,” he began, “I saw something move. I spun around to see this guy with a gun. A big mother … uh, guy. He wore a ski mask. I lunged at him, grabbing for the gun. It went off.”

  “Were you or this other man hit?”

  “I don't think so. I froze at the sound. I didn't feel anything, but I remembered guys who'd been shot telling me they didn't feel pain for a long time, only cold, horrible cold.” He went a bit pale at the thought, then cleared his throat. “Anyway, as I was saying, the shooter, the real shooter shoved me hard, and I fell over. The shooter went out the window. I picked up the gun—”

  “You picked up the gun? You got it away from him, then?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I must have.”

  “Why pick it up? Why not leave it?”

  “I was going after the killer! I wanted to stop him, and I didn't think he'd respond to, 'Stop, pretty please.'“

  She shook her head. “Go on.”

  “Like I said, I picked up the gun and ran to the window to go after the guy. Then I heard some people screaming behind me.” Richie paused as if reliving the scene. His dark eyes met Rebecca's. “All I remember are screams, lots of screams. The bouncers came running into the room, and yelled at me to put down the gun. I tried to tell them I didn't do it, that the shooter went out the window. No one listened. Instead, they hustled me into an office.”

  “The bouncers claimed they kept an eye on Pasternak's office, and that no one went in there all night except the woman and you. They said Pasternak wasn't even here.”

  “They're wrong! The waiter, or whoever he was, gave me a note from him!”

  “Where is the note?” Rebecca asked.

  Richie's gaze went to his jacket pockets, then the floor as if trying to remember. “I’m pretty sure I left it on the table. Meaghan's coat—full-length, black, probably cashmere—was there, plus our martinis. The note was from Danny. I swear!”

  Rebecca nodded. “We'll look for it. In any case, the bouncers told my partner the sound of a gunshot came from the room, and when they ran in, they saw you with the gun trying to climb out the window. They wrestled you down, took the gun, and called us.”

  “So? I already told you what happened. While you two waste time on me, the killer's probably half-way to Argentina!”

  Richie told a good story, Rebecca thought, one that would explain how the gun ended up with his fingerprints on it, and why he would have gunpowder residue on his hand when they tested it. There was just one problem. She didn't see any extraneous bullet holes in the victim or the office, and only one shell lay on the floor from the gun.

  No one heard two shots—and they would have if Richie's claim were true that he found Blakely shot to death and that the gun had been fired a second time as he fought with the 'real' killer.

  Richie wanted her to believe that the killer managed to shoot Blakely, and then retrieved the shell from the gunshot—a shot no one heard. But if he had the presence of mind to pick up a shell, why didn't he shoot Richie as soon as he walked in? If he had already killed one person, what stopped him from killing a second?

  She quickly phoned the head of the Crime Scene Investigation team. He and his team were still at the night club looking for evidence, and would be there many hours more. She asked him to let her know immediately if his team found
a second bullet hole and shell, and then she asked if he would locate the table Richie and Meaghan had shared.

  He did, and saw Meaghan’s black cashmere coat and two half-empty cocktail glasses at a table, but he found no note from Danny Pasternak.

  She thanked him and hung up.

  Richie had given her a good story about some other person shooting the woman and escaping out the window, except that no one saw anyone else enter Pasternak's office and the bouncers claimed to have run into the room within seconds of hearing a shot fired.

  Why, then, did she believe him?

  One thing she knew was true: he appeared exhausted and so was she. Even thinking about dragging him back down to City Jail was a chore. She knew she could do it, but for some reason, she didn't want to.

  Her phone rang.

  She stood and took her cell phone from her jeans pocket. It was Sutter. “What's happening?”

  She paced, growing increasingly irritated as a chagrined Sutter admitted their prisoner had escaped, that he'd been searching for him with the cops and that's why he hadn't called sooner.

  Yeah, right. “Well, guess what,” she began when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

  Richie pointed her own gun at her. Her eyes narrowed as they went from the gun to him. He shook his head and gestured for her to hang up.

  She knew she was safe with him, and knew she could take him if she had to. She pushed his arm so that the gun was no longer pointing at her, and continued her conversation. “Okay, Bill, keep looking. Let me know how things progress.” She listened to a few more words, then hung up.

  “I do not believe you.” Rebecca's voice dripped with disgust as she glared at Richie.

  He handed the gun back to her. “Okay, so I wouldn't have shot you,” he said. “But you've got to admit, being threatened made it easier for you not to tell Sutter I was here, no?”

  “No!” She folded her arms. Well, maybe so, she thought. “Why are you here, Richie? And how do you know where I live?”