8
That evening, just as Richie had done the night before, he made a detour before going to Big Caesars—actually more than a detour, a cross-city jaunt. He now found himself ringing the doorbell of a mid-century modern home in the exclusive Sea Cliff district. He had contacted his cousin Angie to be sure she and her husband, Homicide Inspector Paavo Smith, would be home before he drove all the way out to the western edge of the city. It wasn’t really all that far, but to Richie, who spent most of his time in the chaotic hubbub surrounding Fisherman’s Wharf, North Beach, and the crowded Nob Hill-Tenderloin morass where Rebecca lived, this area was so quiet it could be a cemetery, the houses nothing but mausoleums. He wondered how Angie stood it. She was his favorite cousin, warm, funny, and
