Chapter 2-2
2086 Words
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.”
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 nightclub 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?”
He shrugged, then took off his skewed bowtie, dropped it onto the coffee table, and unbuttoned his collar. The afghan she had placed over his shoulders now lay on the chair by the heater with Spike atop it.
“I thought about you a lot after that day.” He seemed to study her as he spoke. “You remember the one?”
She nodded. Christmas Eve. How could she forget it?
“I thought, maybe if I waited a while, I'd ask you out, you know. So I asked around and learned where you lived. That's all.”
She nodded again, then rubbed her aching forehead. Obviously, he had thought better of asking her out, for which she was grateful. She might have felt bad about refusing to see him if he had called. Now, she had no reason for guilt whatsoever.
“As I said, why are you here?”
“If anybody can prove me innocent and find Meaghan's killer, it's you,” he stated bluntly.
“Me? You're joking! Why not go to Paavo? He's engaged to your cousin, almost part of the family.”
“That's why. Anything he does would be suspect, and it would make him suspect as well. I don't want to do anything that could mess up him and Cousin Angie.”
“But messing up my career is just fine?”
“I trust you.”
That stopped her.
“I trust you,” he continued, his voice every bit as buttery smooth and oddly seductive as she remembered it. “I trust you to get to the bottom of this, to find out the truth. I saw the man who killed Meaghan. Not his face, but his height, the way he held himself, the way he moved. I want the bastard caught, but I can't do that if I'm sitting in jail.”
Clearly, the only reason she bothered to listen to him, or found him in any way convincing, was that she was too tired to think straight.
“Look,” Richie continued, “you're ready to drop. Get some sleep. I'll be right here when you wake up.”
“But ...” She glanced at her watch. She'd been awake more hours than she could count at the moment. Between dead bodies and Richie, it felt like a hundred. She sat on the sofa while he moved Spike and the blanket onto the floor.
“Look at it this way,” he offered, his tone soft and soothing. “Where would I go? If I wanted to run, I would already be far from here. But I don't want that. So get some sleep. Maybe I will too.”
He took off his jacket and then sat on the chair, resting his head back against it.
She waited for him to shut his eyes, but he didn't. Instead, she found herself nodding off. She tried to shake off the sleepiness, but the heater's warmth seemed to creep over her, soothing and restful. Spike jumped onto her lap, lay down, and soon snored softly.
As if with a will of their own, her long legs stretched out on the cushions and she slid down a bit on the seats. In a goofy way, Richie's words made sense, and a ten-minute power nap was tempting. She wouldn't let herself do it, however. Only in the interest of comfort did she turn onto her side and lay her head against the armrest while, as Spike scrambled to find a new comfortable spot, she heard herself murmur, “No way would I go to sleep with you here, Richie Amalfi.”
- Writer
