by Joanne Pence
He succeeded.
“It would be, wouldn’t it?” she said. Then drew herself up straight. “But first, business.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Really. There’s one venue I didn’t want to pursue, but now I have no choice. Karen’s parents. They may have information I need. They live in Santa Rosa. I want to find out what they know about everything that’s going on.”
“Are you thinking of driving up there to see them?”
“I’ll have to. It’s not the sort of thing to discuss over the phone. And I should visit Karen’s mother. I met her a few times and liked her. It’ll be hard though.”
He nodded; he could well imagine.
“I hate to ask,” she said, “but do you know anyone who can get your BMW from Charkov’s street?”
“Shay’s already on it. In the meantime I’ll drive you,” he said.
“I’ll rent a car.”
“No, I’ll drive you. With the Russians, you never know who they might be watching, and that could easily include Karen’s parents. Besides, I’ve got to visit one of my uncles who lives in nearby Glen Ellen. I have to discuss some things with him. No sense in us driving up separately.”
“Given all that, how could I object?” Her tone was wry, almost dismissive.
He wondered at this need of hers to put him—and them being together—down. “I would hope there’s more to it than that.”
She looked surprised, and then a bit embarrassed. “Okay, maybe you aren’t that bad as company.”
Not good enough, he thought. “Even though others, who know nothing about me, tell you I’m connected or whatever damn thing they go around saying?”
She shrugged. “Maybe they don’t know what they’re talking about.”
He grimaced. “I would say not.”
Rebecca called Karen’s parents, and after giving her condolences, asked if they would be available to meet her the next afternoon. They were.
“All set,” she told Richie when their conversation ended.
“Tired?” he asked. “You’ve had quite a day.”
She seemed to pale at that, her big blue eyes turned fearful. “I … I think I’ll sit up a while.”
He understood—thought of the dreams that might come scared her. He wished there was something he could do or say, but any promises of all this going away, or telling her she need not worry, would be a lie. He knew it, and so did she. “Well, then, how about a game of poker?” Images he couldn’t begin to stop danced through his head. He grinned. “In fact, I know a variation that could be fun and very interesting.”
He managed to get a small laugh out of her at that. “Not on your life!”
He wracked his brain. “My Uncle Sil taught me an old card game when I was a kid. He all but raised me after my Dad, well, you know. Anyway, it’s called cribbage. Ever hear of it?”
She looked surprised. “Cribbage? You mean with a cribbage board, His Nobs, and all that?”
He smiled with relief at her reaction. “If you know His Nobs, you’re a player.”
“I was. It’s been years and years. My mom taught my sister and me. It kept us busy for hours. But I can’t imagine Richie Amalfi, nightclub owner and bon vivant, playing cribbage.”
His smile broadened. “Now I’m a ‘bon vivant?’ Guess it’s a step up from ‘connected.’”
“Cribbage is fine, but you’ll have to refresh my memory.”
He had a game table in the living room with a hand-carved jade chess set on it. He moved the set aside, replaced it with a cribbage board and deck of cards, then said, “You’re on!”
He soon realized she played to win, and so did he. None of this “be a gentleman and let the girl win,” or “let the guy win so as not to bruise his ego” nonsense. He played his best; and she seemed to as well since they both won and lost fairly equally. It was actually fun.
Around one a.m., a game ended, and Rebecca rested her head on the padded arm of the sofa. He saw she was completely exhausted but still afraid to sleep. He shut off the music and told her he was going through his digital recordings to put on something else. He watched her from time to time as he scrolled through his collection, as if he was having trouble finding music he liked. He kept looking at screens, until finally, he glanced over at her and saw that her eyes were shut. He didn’t move until he heard a soft, steady, untroubled breathing.
He found an extra blanket and covered her with it, then shut off most of the lights, leaving one soft night light so the room wouldn’t be completely dark if she woke. He watched her a moment before he quietly went off to bed, leaving his door open a crack so that, if she had nightmares or cried out, he could hear her.
CHAPTER 16
Richie found a note from Rebecca when he got up the next morning saying that, when she phoned work, she learned the ME was performing an autopsy on one of her cases and she wanted to be there for the findings. Also, she would be issued a new cell phone and Glock. She took a cab to Homicide.
At 10:30, after the autopsy, Eastwood ordered her to leave. Richie picked her up for the trip to Sonoma County.
“Is everything okay at work?” he asked. He saw that her face make-up had covered much of the bruising she sustained, and a turtleneck sweater covered the rest.
“Just ducky. After I talked to Eastwood last night, he went straight to the Gang Task Force to get them to go after Charkov and his gang. I was expecting him to call me last night to go in and give my statements. But he didn’t. Today, I learned why. The FBI swooped in. You were right about them. They not only know where Charkov lives, they’re watching the group he’s a part of, hoping to go after ‘bigger fish.’ They had no knowledge of Yuri Baranski, me, or anything else. But if the SFPD picks up Charkov, that could cause those ‘bigger fish’ to go on the alert and possibly blow their case.”
“Holy shit!” Richie exclaimed. “So they don’t care that he tried to kill you?”
“Oh, they care all right. I’m now part of their list of crimes against him. I can’t begin to tell you how much it pisses me off. And then, there’s Sutter, who isn’t talking to me because the case we went out on yesterday morning turned out to be murder. The autopsy showed that Harlan Stegall didn’t die from breaking his neck in a fall, but died because after he fell, someone smothered him. Now, Sutter needs to follow up. Alone.
“Last of all, I was given a new phone and gun. Eastwood expedited both, given the problems with the Russians. The Glock works; the phone doesn’t.”
Richie shook his head. “That’s a lot for one morning.”
“I can’t begin to tell you how much I enjoyed it.”
“You seem to be taking it pretty well for a human piñata,” Richie said as he merged onto the Golden Gate Bridge.
She looked past the Bridge to the bay and the ghostly remains of the prison out on Alcatraz Island. “Maybe because it’s a beautiful day and”—she faced him and smiled—“and I’m happy to be alive. So take that FBI!”
Richie laughed, and so did she.
Their good spirits continued as Richie cruised north, going through the town of Sonoma and then past a cross-patch of small towns to Glen Ellen.
After a series of curving, hilly roads, Richie turned onto a driveway bisecting rows of grape vines. At the end of the driveway stood a small wooden house painted white and yellow, with smaller buildings in the distance.
“Here we are,” Richie said.
Two border collies ran to the car, barking and wagging their tails.
As soon as Richie got out, the dogs jumped around and greeted him like a long lost friend. They went over and sniffed Rebecca, treating her with polite curiosity.
An older man, tall, thin and slightly stooped, came towards them from behind the house.
“Zio!” Richie said as he greeted the old man with a hug.
“Eh, Richie! Che za deech’?” his uncle said, smiling broadly. “And who’s this?”
“Rebecca Mayfield. Rebecca, meet Silvio Castagnola. He’s
my mother’s brother.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Castagnola.” Rebecca put out her hand.
“Call me Sil.” Instead of shaking her hand, he gave her a hug. “Welcome to my home. If you can stay for lunch, Richie, I’ll cook a little macarun’ cu poip’. I know how much you like it.”
“Not today, zio.”
“Another time, then. Come on, let’s go inside.” He put his arm around Richie’s shoulders as they walked into the small home, and catching Richie’s eye, jerked his head towards Rebecca. “Ma che bell’!”
“She sure is,” Richie said.
Silvio slapped him on the back. Rebecca didn’t need to know Italian to understand the compliment.
Silvio poured her a cup of the strongest, blackest coffee she had ever tasted, and with it he put out round, lightly iced cookies so hard they could break your teeth. Then she watched Richie and Silvio snap off a bit of cookie, place it on a spoon and dunk the spoon into the hot coffee. She tried their technique and quickly found that both the coffee and the cookie tasted much better that way.
As the two men began to talk about grapes and wine, Rebecca remembered the ABC fellows showing up at Richie’s nightclub, and thought it best not to listen in.
“Do you mind if I walk around outside?” she asked Silvio. “You have a beautiful place here.”
“Enjoy!”
Richie hadn’t mentioned anyone else living in the house, and from the utilitarian style of everything, she guessed Silvio wasn’t married.
She walked towards the grape vines and then continued deep into the field. She could see that the plants were well nourished. The smell of the rich soil reminded her of growing up on her parents’ farm in Idaho. They grew corn and potatoes as cash crops, and a vegetable garden for the family’s use. It was a fantastic place for a child to grow up. When she got tired of chores, she would sometimes take a book, go into the field, and lie down and read. Her parents couldn’t see her, and she’d read about far-away places and cities she wanted to visit. She had thought the farm was the epitome of dull back then, not to mention long hours and hard work. Now, she would give anything to spend a few days there once more.
But her father had died far too young. A part of her suspected it was from too much work and heartache. Her mother was never happy on the farm, and Benjamin Mayfield was hardly cold in the ground before Lorene sold the property and moved to a small house in Boise. Rebecca had nothing to go back to.
The dogs apparently decided she was more interesting than two men talking about making wine, because they joined her. She found a couple of sticks and played fetch with them.
When she reached the top of a hill, she saw the vineyards of Sonoma stretched out before her. She had no idea so much of the land had been turned over to grapes.
The view was spectacular, and the sun warm on her face. She slowly pivoted taking in everything. At times like this, surrounded by nature, she couldn’t help but think of how much of life she was missing by spending so much of each day in a concrete world thinking about death.
She tried to shake away the memory of last night, of Charkov and his men, and how desperate she had felt. But then her thoughts turned to her murdered friend, and to Karen’s parents who waited for her. She shut her eyes, wishing there were a way to blot out such ugliness, wishing she had more peace in her life.
Below, she saw Richie and his uncle stroll out of the house into the warm sunshine. She was so used to seeing Richie dressed elegantly, that she found it odd to see him in jeans, a white pullover, and Nikes. His uncle was dressed very much the same. Richie was a little taller, and his hair black while his uncle’s was gray, but other than that, the family resemblance was strong in the two men. They both had a similar rangy build, angular features, and high Roman noses. Both stood with thumbs hooked onto their pockets as they talked.
Richie and Silvio stopped by some grape vines, stooping at times, as Silvio showed Richie something about them. Rebecca smiled, remembering similar discussions between her father and a friend of his as they went through the farm, and felt herself warming towards Richie even more.
As if he read her mind, Richie shaded his eyes with his hand and searched the hillside. He found her and waved.
She smiled and waved back.
When she saw him walking in her direction, she figured it must be time to go and started down the hill with the dogs.
They met half-way. He said nothing for a moment as he studied her face. “How are you doing out here?” he asked.
“I love it,” she said.
“It’s brought a rosy color to your cheeks. It makes you even prettier.”
A part of her wanted to make a snappy, off-putting retort to his compliment, to break the intimate spell she was feeling being here with him, but a stronger part kept her silent. She gave one of the collies a pat on the head.
Richie slid his hands in his back pockets. “I used to play all over this hill with my cousins when we were kids.”
She could easily imagine a little boy with black, curly hair running through these fields. “I’ll bet you had fun,” she said.
As he took in the setting his expression turned wistful. “I wish I had appreciated it more back then.”
“I know what you mean,” she said, surprised to hear his words echo her earlier thoughts. “At least you still have family here. And language. It’s nice you know Italian.”
He chuckled. “Not really. People in Italy would probably cry over how badly we mangle the language. It’s what southern Italian immigrants spoke when they came here years ago—a mixture of Calabrese, Sicilian, and American. My grandparents spoke it all the time, so my mom knows a lot, but I know just a few words. It’s disappearing, and I expect by the next generation, it’ll be forgotten.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said.
“Me, too.” He held out his hand. “Time to go.”
She hesitated a moment, then placed her hand in his and watched his fingers wrap around it. She told herself he was just trying to be helpful, that his holding her hand meant nothing at all these days. Yet, it made her heart do funny things. He carefully walked her back down the hillside to where Uncle Silvio waited.
“What do you think of all this?” Silvio asked as she approached, waving his arm in a proud sweep that took in all he owned.
“It’s magnificent,” she said as she freed her hand. “The view from the top of the hill is incredible.”
Silvio turned to Richie. “This girl has brains. You treat her right and bring her back here sometime.”
“That’s fine with me,” Richie said, facing Rebecca for her response.
“I’d enjoy that. Thank you,” she said.
Silvio walked with them to Richie’s car. “I have to ask, Richie, would it be okay if Tommy comes down to see you for a while? It would do him good. Me, too.”
Rebecca was surprised to see Richie hesitate a moment before saying, “Anything for you, zio.”
Silvio slapped his back a couple of times. “Grazie mille.”
Then they said their good-byes and Uncle Silvio first gave Rebecca a hug, and then Richie. She guessed she had made a hit.
As Richie drove away, Silvio continued to wave until they were no longer in sight. She felt warmed by the elderly man, even as she steeled herself for the meeting to come.
CHAPTER 17
Richie’s navigation system directed him through the busy streets of Santa Rosa. From a sleepy town not that many years ago, it was now not only the biggest city in Sonoma County, serving as the county seat, but had the dubious distinction of being one of the few towns in the area with commute-time traffic jams. Richie stopped for a quick take-out at an In-N-Out Burger. Rebecca could scarcely eat as she pondered her upcoming meeting.
They then went to Kenneth and Faye Larkin’s home in the older part of Santa Rosa.
Faye was trim, and stayed fit walking, gardening, and going to yoga practice. Rebecca had once thought her quite youthful looking, but now her age wei
ghed heavily on her, and her face was lined with sadness. Kenneth, a big-bellied man of medium height, looked devastated. His face was puffy, his eyes bloodshot, and his nose red.
Rebecca had gone to lunch with Faye and Karen a few times, and Faye remembered her well. She introduced Rebecca to Kenneth and thanked her for coming to see them. When Rebecca introduced Richie, she found herself surprisingly touched by his warm words of condolence. He said that although he had never met Karen, he had heard much about what a kind person and good friend she had been to everyone around her.
It was all Faye could do to control her tears as she served iced tea and peach pie to her visitors. “Thank you for coming, Rebecca. I know Karen would appreciate you trying to find out what happened to her. I just don’t have any faith in the Sausalito police.”
“They don’t have much experience with homicides, that’s for sure,” Rebecca said, trying not to bad-mouth her fellow officers, but knowing much more should have been done. “I had hoped the Marin County Sheriff’s department would be more involved. Normally, they handle homicides for the county.”
“I’ve only talked to a Detective Wong from Sausalito,” Faye said. “Are you able to help him?”
“Not officially,” Rebecca said. “It’s not my jurisdiction.”
“That’s the party line,” Richie added. “But unofficially she’s looking into it and asking all the right questions.”
Faye and Kenneth looked relieved to hear that. “Can we hire you as an independent investigator?” Kenneth asked.
Rebecca glanced quickly at Richie, then said, “I don’t have a license to do that, and my boss would more than object. But I will do all I can, believe me. I want to find out who would … harm … such a lovely person. Do you have any ideas as to who might be involved?”
Faye and Kenneth turned to each other a moment. Finally, Faye said, “We liked Yuri for the most part. He seemed nice, but Karen told us she didn’t like his friends at all. His Russian friends, I should say. He didn’t ever seem to connect with Americans, except for Karen. Sometimes, when Karen talked about his friends, she sounded afraid of them. Normally, Karen is, was, never afraid of anything.”