Two O'Clock Heist: A Rebecca Mayfield Mystery (The Rebecca Mayfield Mysteries Book 2) (17 page)

If, as the neighbor seemed to think, Baranski went out and didn’t come back, something was very wrong. “Where is the manager’s apartment?” Rebecca asked.

She went back down the stairs, waved her badge, and insisted the obviously hung-over manager unlock Yuri’s door.

As they went back upstairs, the manager
explained that the apartments, poorly furnished studios, could be rented by the week, and Yuri had been there only four nights, which, Rebecca realized, meant he took the rental the day after Karen was murdered. The manager unlocked the door and pushed it open.

Rebecca’s gaze zeroed in on
a child lying still in a playpen, an empty baby bottle on the floor.

“Oh, my God!”
she cried as she ran to the little girl. The child was asleep, her face pale and tear-stained. Rebecca touched her forehead and found it unnaturally hot. She picked up the bottle, put cold water in it, and gave it to the girl who awoke and greedily drank. Rebecca found a supply of diapers, and lifted the girl out of the playpen to change her.

At the same time, Richie looked in the nearly empty refrigerator. Some milk and a couple of eggs were in there, so he cooked a scrambled egg, spread it on a plate so it would cool off quickly, then gave it to Rebecca to feed the girl. There was no high chair in the room, nothing but an old playpen with much of the paint chipped and peeling away.

Rebecca held the girl on her lap, but she was hungry and used her small hands to put the egg in her mouth so fast Rebecca feared she would choke. Richie handed her some bread with butter on it, and she tried to stuff the entire slice in her mouth at once, until he took over and broke it into bite size pieces for her. He also found a sippy cup and put milk in it.

He seemed to do much better than Rebecca at getting the girl to eat slowly, so Rebecca handed the child to him.

Just getting her to eat and drink brought color back to her cheeks. Rebecca felt her forehead again. “She’s much cooler now. Do you think we should take her to a hospital?”

“She seems strong and healthy,”
Richie said, then he turned to the girl and smiled. “How do you feel, sweetheart? Do you feel sick?”

She shook her head.

“Does your tummy hurt?”

Same response.

“Can you tell me your name?”

She
studied him a moment, then said, “Nina.”

“Nina. That’s a pretty name.”

She nodded and finished the milk then held out the cup. “More.”

Rebecca took it and added more milk.

“Where’s your daddy?” Richie asked.

Nina shrugged, then ate the rest of the eggs and handed him the plate. “More.”

It was Rebecca’s turn to hold Nina while Richie cooked up another egg.

After Nina ate,
Richie sat with her, talking and getting her to laugh while Rebecca called Child Protective Services to send someone over to the apartment immediately.

o0o

After the social worker took Nina, Richie and Rebecca returned to his home. The BMW was back in the garage.

“You’re on speaker," Richie said as he put in a call to Shay. "What happened with the car?”

“I parked it, and sure enough, the Russians came looking for it. I flattened their tires and shot up their tracking device. They got the message. They won’t try that again, but it doesn’t mean they won’t try something else.”

“Right. Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

Richie put the phone back in his pocket, then looked at Rebecca. “You can drive it.”

Rebecca just shook her head in wonder.

Inside, they ate
Richie’s mother’s
osso buco,
veal shanks braised with wine, vegetables and spices. Carmela also included a good quantity of risotto with it. Richie explained that what his mother considered one portion was usually enough for two nights. With it, Rebecca put together a salad and Richie opened a bottle of Uncle Silvio’s wine. Rebecca found the meal delicious.

After they cleaned up the kitchen, Richie said, “I haven’t been
to the club in a couple of nights. I’d better get down there and make sure the place is still up and running. I never knew what a job I was taking on with it.”

“It seems to be doing wonderfully,” Rebecca said. “I keep hearing people mention how much they enjoy going there.”

“Yeah, it’s a big money maker. But it’s still a pain in the ass. Want to come with? It’ll be fun, I promise.”

She looked at him and was sorely tempted. She had enjoyed his company all that day, from meeting his uncle, through the sadness at the Larkin home, to watching him help care for an abandoned, hungry little child. And that was exactly the problem. She thought of the troubled life Karen led by her unfortunate choice of who she fell in love with, and Rebecca didn’t want to go through that in her own life.

“I think I’ll go to bed early,” she said, not meeting his eye. “It’s been a long day, and I’m going to work tomorrow.”

“Are you sure Eastwood will allow it?”

“I’ll find out. But I’ve got to try to track down Yuri. It makes no sense that he’d abandon his child. And if I can’t find him, I’m going to call the Larkins and let them know where Nina is.”

He nodded. “Okay, but I hate to leave you alone.”

“I’m fine. Really.”

“Well, the offer stands if you change your mind. I’m going to get cleaned up and get going.”

She took Spike out to the back yard, enjoying the full moon and the quiet in this part of the city. Nob Hill was never quiet.

A bit later, Richie opened the back door. “I’m leaving now.”

She went into the house to see him off. He looked heart-stoppingly handsome in his black suit with what she thought of as his signature black bow tie. Not many men could pull off wearing one these days, but it looked perfect on him. He had shaved and the after-shave he wore should have had an X-rating because the slightest whiff of it was a complete turn on. Or, she had to admit, it might have been the man wearing it.

Despite herself, she couldn’t keep her hands off him, and straightened his bow tie, even though it didn’t need straightening. “Very nice,” she said.

“Yes?” he asked.

She stepped back and took a deep breath. “Yes. Have a good evening.”

He headed for the door, and looked back at her before stepping out. “Good night, Rebecca.”

CHAPTER 19

The next morning, Rebecca went to Homicide, and Eastwood didn’t send her home. Sutter and Benson had gone out the day before to check on a prescription drug overdose, and later they were called to the home of a middle-aged woman who suffered cardiac arrest while watching the news on television. Neither had any sign of foul play beyond the drugs being illegally obtained.

Also, the highway patrol found Byron Yin Leong’s gray Lexus hidden in a forest near Monterey, about a mile from the home of his wife’s cousin. It was his car that had run down an old man on Mission Street earlier in the week. When the local police found Byron and his wife hiding at her cousin’s, she admitted she had been the driver who hit the pedestrian. She was arrested, and the case turned over to the District Attorney to deal with.

As a result, Sutter had never made it out to Harlan Stegall’s home for a follow-up interview on his fatal plunge down a flight of stairs onto a mosaic tile floor. It turned out not to be a problem since Evelyn Ramirez, the medical examiner, had just finished her analysis of the autopsy results. Deep in Stegall’s mouth and nose, she had found traces of down and fabric fibers. Both had specific characteristics. If they found a pillow that matched, it was most likely the murder weapon used to smother Stegall as he lay on the tile.

Rebecca and Sutter were granted a search warrant for the Stegall home.

“I don’t think you need to go there with me,” Sutter said, warily eying Rebecca. “Are you sure you should even be at work?”

“Everything is fine,” she said. “Let’s go.”

At the elevator, he announced. “I’ll drive. I don’t want to get into any car you’re associated with.”

She bit her tongue.

“On the other hand,” he continued as they reached his car, “how often do you hear of the Russian mafia trying to kill someone
twice
and not succeeding? It’s uncanny. You must have more lives than a cat.”

“If they wanted to kill me, I’d be dead.”

“Well, they were surely trying to do something. And if I’d been there, I might have been caught in the cross-fire. I think you’re putting all of us in danger.”

“Drive.”

At the Stegall home, they showed the search warrant and looked for a down pillow. There was none. Lyndsey was allergic to down.

They questioned her about her husband’s death. She said she tended to stay up late while her husband was an early to bed, early to rise type. When she got up Monday morning, she found him dead at the bottom of the stairs.

When questioned about her relationship with her husband, she spoke nothing but platitudes and clichés about their perfect marriage. That, and anger that she was being asked such questions.

Rebecca and Sutter next canvassed the neighbors, and that turned up a very different scenario. The divorced woman next door, Briona Horne, was certain Lyndsey had murdered
“poor Harlan.” She said the two fought constantly and never seemed to do anything together.

Back at the office, Rebecca checked insurance companies, and discovered that Harlan Stegall had a sizable term life insurance policy—a cool two mill.

Sutter spun his desk chair around to face Rebecca, then leaned back in it to discuss the case. A clear conflict existed between the wife's view of the marriage and what they heard from one neighbor.

They came up with a plan to sort it out.

Sutter requested that each of them show up in Homicide in one hour.

The timing couldn’t have been better. Briona Horne arrived first. She stood at the entry to Homicide when Lyndsey Stegall and her attorney walked in.

“What’s
she
doing here?” Lyndsey demanded of her attorney. The man looked as surprised as she was.

“I’m here to help the police,” Briona said. “They need to know what you’re going to do now that you can no longer spend every waking moment
making Harlan miserable.
”

“You
slut!
”

Briona smirked. “Say what you want, but at least I’m not a
frigid bitch.”

“Come on,” Lyndsey’s attorney took her arm and pulled her towards the interview room, but she wouldn’t stop shrieking.

“Harlan would have been happy, and I would have been happy, except for your meddling ways,” Lyndsey was all but screaming, then her voice turned high and mincing as she mocked Briona. “‘Oh, Harlan, you’re so nice to have around to help poor little me.’ Yeah, right. He was a jerk to fall for that. But he got over it. He was going to dump you on your fat ass, and you couldn’t stand that, could you?”

The homicide cops gladly let the two continue to fight until Lyndsey’s attorney got her inside the interview room and slammed the door.

When Rebecca and Sutter interviewed Briona, she admitted to the affair, but insisted it had not ended, and that Lyndsey killed Harlan out of jealousy.

Briona's involvement was enough to get a search warrant of her home. Sutter accompanied the crime scene investigators while Rebecca kept an eye on Lyndsey and Briona in their separate rooms.

Before long, Sutter phoned. He held a down feather in his hand from a pillow on Briona Horne’s sofa. CSI took the pillow to the lab.

Rebecca explained to Eastwood and the district attorney that she and Sutter may have found the murder weapon, and gave them a heads up for a potential arrest warrant request.

As she spoke, she couldn’t help but think about the similarities in Karen Larkin’s case.

Everything pointed to Baranski as Karen’s killer, but what if, as in Harlan Stegall’s case, the most obvious person was not guilty?

She needed to return to Sausalito, to the houseboat Yuri and Karen shared.

She would have a couple of hours until the down pillow results came in, which was time enough to go through the houseboat again. She left Homicide and headed north.

Instead of stopping in Sausalito, she continued to San Rafael. On the northernmost edge of the city stood the Marin County Courthouse, well known because it had been designed by Frank Lloyd Wright to fit in with the rolling hills of the area.

There, she located the Investigations Bureau, and hoped the detective assigned to the case would be more helpful to her than Larry Wong had been. Deputy Mike Vargas, the person in charge, was in the field on another case. Rebecca had to admit she was surprised that more than one homicide was being investigated simultaneously in the quiet, affluent streets of Marin County.

Vargas’ boss contacted the deputy, who agreed to meet Rebecca at the houseboat. They were still holding it, but the investigation had stalled. If nothing broke over the next day or two, they would release it back to its owner.