Six O'Clock Silence

by Joanne Pence

She carefully looked over the front and back of the small sheet. “No, but I found the same drawing under my car’s windshield wipers at work today.”

  “What?” Richie bellowed. “Someone is telling you he knows where you live and where you work. This means danger.”

  “Yeah, and I’m quaking in my boots.” Her tone was sarcastic. “I face bullets. I face you. Some little pencil sketch isn’t going to scare me.”

  “It’s no joke. This should scare you! It’s a warning.”

  Rebecca dropped the paper into a baggie. “I’ve pissed off a lot of people as a cop. I’m used to threats. But, for you, I’ll give it to the CSI unit to look for fingerprints. Happy?”

  He didn’t look happy, but turned away to take the casserole out of the oven. “The lasagna is hot. It needs to sit a few minutes.”

  Rebecca put together a salad, while Richie sliced some sourdough bread. Then he opened the wine and poured them each a glass.

  Rebecca watched him work in silence.

  Silence … that wasn’t like him. In fact, given the way she’d greeted him, she was surprised they weren’t in her bedroom right now. Something was definitely wrong.

  “Salut’,” both said as their glasses clinked. His dark eyes followed her. But then she turned and walked to the dining table. Still, he said nothing. Richie was usually the more animated one, talkative and joking.

  “You’re quiet tonight.” She studied him as they both sat.

  “Am I?”

  “You aren’t mad because I’m not all freaked out about a skull and crossbones, are you? Believe me, if anyone dressed up as a pirate comes after me, I’ll know I should have listened to you.”

  “Very funny. But you’re right—I may be over-reacting.” He took a big bite of lasagna and then a sip of wine.

  She, too, began to eat, but couldn’t help studying him and wondering for the umpteenth time how he managed to become such a big part of her life. Tonight he seemed different, though, almost sad. His deep-set dark eyes were downcast. She took in the faint lines along their outer edges—“crow’s feet” she’d heard them called. And few gray hairs punctuated the temples of his thick, wavy black hair. She reached out and placed her hand on his.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  “I’m just a little tired. It’s nothing.” His words were soft, introspective, but then he said, “Tell me about your day.”

  As they polished off more than half of Carmela’s lasagna, which Rebecca found to be the best she had ever tasted, she told Richie about the ugly meeting that took place that very morning with her boss, Lt. Eastwood. “He called me into his office and told me the mayor wasn’t happy with my performance in Homicide. The mayor, mind you, as if he knows anything about the cases I’ve worked over the years.”

  “Why did he say that?” Richie asked.

  “Because I questioned the mayor’s chief-of-staff about a case.”

  “Oh yes, your old boyfriend.”

  “Sean Hinkle wasn’t a boyfriend. I only dated him a few times. But anyway, the mayor believes I ‘badgered’ Sean, which led to his suicide. Is that ridiculous or what? Frankly, I never believed that Sean killed himself, but it wasn’t my case.”

  Richie let out a low whistle. “That’s a good reason for the mayor to be irritated.”

  She put down her fork. “Don’t you dare say that! I had nothing to do with Sean’s death. I tried to defend myself to Eastwood, but he wouldn’t hear it. He sided with the mayor. And if you do, too—”

  “Calm down.” Richie held up his hands in an ‘I surrender’ gesture. “I know you acted correctly. And I think your boss is a real shithead.”

  She smiled even as she took a deep breath. “Good. And yes, he is. I keep hoping he’ll get promoted out of Homicide. That might be the only way I’ll be free of him.”

  “Yeah, except that he’s already beyond the Peter Principle.”

  She thought a moment. “That’s where you keep getting promoted until you reach a point where you’re incompetent, and then you’re stuck in that position forever, right?”

  “You got it.”

  “That’s not encouraging, Richie.” She frowned. “It would mean my career has ended as well. No way will Eastwood ever recommend me for promotion.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said softly. “People know how good you are. You’ll be running the place long before Eastwood. And then you can fire him.”

  She lifted her wine glass. “I’ll drink to that.”

  “Me, too.”

  Dinner over, as the two cleaned up the kitchen and Richie still wasn’t being his usual talkative self, something came to mind that would surely intrigue him, and possibly get him out of his funk. “Eastwood did one good thing today,” Rebecca said. “He sent Sutter and me to a case that may turn out more interesting than he ever expected. Some workmen found a few bones in Golden Gate Park. I suspect Eastwood thought the bones were some animal’s. But this afternoon, the Medical Examiner confirmed that they’re human. We’ve now got the crime scene unit out there looking for the rest of the body.”

  “The rest of the body?” he repeated. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “No, it’s not. We saw no flesh, just bones—a hand and forearm. It seemed they’d been buried for some time.”

  “Buried like in a grave?”

  “Possibly. Some pipe layers were out there digging a deep trench for a new sewer line.” While Rebecca covered the remaining lasagna and refrigerated it, Richie filled the dishwasher.

  “What if,” Richie shuddered, “they’ve stumbled across an old Indian burial ground? That’s not good mojo, you know.”

  “Hopefully, it’s nothing like that.”

  They moved into the living room and sat on the sofa. She studied him. “Are you sure there’s nothing wrong?”

  “Why?”

  Because you’re letting me do most of the talking. She always enjoyed Richie’s ability to talk about anything, anytime, and to simply be entertaining in an often humdrum world. But tonight, he was unnaturally quiet. Finally, she said, “You seem to have something on your mind.”

  “Not at all. How about a movie?” he asked.

  “I’d probably fall asleep.” She gave him a smile and come-hither lift of her eyebrows. That type of comment always led him to some sort of suggestive remark. She felt rather suggestive herself tonight. She waited.

  “Oh.”

  That’s all? She put her hand on his knee. “There are better ways to spend an evening.”

  “You’re sleepy,” he said and stood up. “I’d better get going and let you get some rest.”

  She was stunned.

  He wore a strange expression as he gently touched the side of her face. “Yeah, that would be best.” He picked up his jacket, and patted Spike.

  “I’ll call soon,” he said, and then left the apartment.

  She stared at the door he had just exited without giving her a goodnight kiss or even a backward glance. She was certain something was very wrong indeed.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Richie rested his head against the high back of his leather chair. It was early afternoon, and he was in the office of his nightclub, Big Caesar’s. He had never imagined he would become a nightclub owner, but when a deadbeat owed him a lot of money and couldn’t pay cash, he gave Richie the club instead. The club had been losing money at the time, but now, despite everyone warning him that nightclub ownership was a fool’s mission and a great way to lose one’s shirt, the club was doing quite well.

  At this hour, Big Caesar’s was empty. Richie liked being there with no one else around. He used the quiet time to go over his books and to figure out which bands, singers, and types of music made money and which didn’t. He had a bookkeeper and an accountant, but he’d learned long ago that the easiest way to fail at a business was to rely on other people’s advice on how to run it.

  He sat at his desk, a beautiful walnut desk in an elegantly remodeled office that even had its own bathroom with a show
er. No one who knew him as the scruffy little fatherless boy who spent most of his time on the streets would imagine such an office could one day be his.

  But now, as he looked at the figures on a spreadsheet in front of him, he wasn’t able to concentrate. The numbers might have been chicken scratchings for all the sense they made.

  He felt bad—bad about asking Shay to look into Isabella’s actions prior to her death, and bad about the way he’d walked out on Rebecca last night. Rebecca was warm, desirable, and caring—but after a day filled with memories of Isabella, he felt as if being with Rebecca was some kind of insult to Isabella’s memory—as if he were being unfaithful to her.

  Such a reaction was wrong, and he knew it. Stupid. Childish. Assholish—if there was such a word. He called himself every name in the book, but he simply hadn’t learned to compartmentalize his life the way some people could. “Then” versus “now.” That wasn’t him. His life was one big emotional jumble. And sometimes he hated himself for it.

  He rubbed the skin under his eyes and tried once more to concentrate on the financial reports before him.

  But his wayward thoughts only delved deeper into the troubling situation.

  He would never forget the day he walked into Superior Savings Bank, and his life changed forever.

  Isabella Russo was a bank loan officer. On that particular day, a stomach flu had spread through the teller staff, so it was “all hands on deck” to help customers. Since Richie’s usual teller was out sick, he had sauntered over to the woman with rakishly short black hair who stood in her place. Her dark eyes were heavy with mascara that made her lashes the longest he’d ever seen, and her dark red lipstick matched the color of her dress.

  “Where’s Nancy?” he had asked. Nancy was the blonde bombshell of the bank. He always did his best to get into her line.

  “She’s sick today, Mr. Amalfi.” Isabella gazed up at him through those maddening lashes, and a smile slowly crept across her face. The effect hit him like a bolt of lightning, leaving him almost at a loss for words. Almost.

  He was initially surprised she knew his name, but since he did talk to and flirt with Nancy every week, he imagined word got around. “Oh, okay.” He cleared his throat. “Well, I’d like to withdraw nine thousand nine hundred dollars.”

  “What size bills?”

  “Hundreds.”

  “One moment.”

  He waited as she got the money, returned with nine thousand-dollar packets, and then counted out nine single C-notes. “Thanks,” he said, gathering it all together.

  “Mr. Amalfi, maybe I shouldn’t say anything, but I’m wondering why you’re taking out such an amount.”

  He noticed her left cheek formed a slight dimple as she spoke.

  “It’s not ten grand, so what’s it to you?” He jutted out his chin.

  “I know the Feds tell everyone they don’t look at any withdrawals less than ten grand.” With that, her dark brown eyes caught his and held steadily as she added, “But I normally work with loans and in accounting, and if you’ve in any way caught their attention ... Look up the definition of a crime called ‘structuring’.” She lifted an eyebrow.

  Richie got the message. His mouth went dry as the implication of her words struck. And then, two things happened. He realized that he and everyone else who listened to the Feds were being played for fools. And that he was in love.

  “May I ask you something?” he said.

  “Sure.”

  “May I take you to lunch today?”

  They were nearly inseparable after that.

  Everyone liked her. Even his mother. What was not to like? Isabella Russo was Italian, Catholic, had never been married, wanted kids, and could make ravioli from scratch, a skill she had learned from her saintly, now departed, grandmother. Richie was in seventh heaven. His only problem was that she seemed so perfect, he constantly feared it would all blow up in his face. His friends, relatives, even his mother, Carmela, told him he was wrong. “Ask the girl to marry you, Richie,” Carmela would say. “What do you think? She’s gonna say ‘No’? Are you that pazzo?”

  No, he wasn’t crazy.

  He had thought about proposing for nearly a year, the whole time afraid to ask, afraid she'd turn him down, or that simply asking would turn karma against him.

  He was scared. He admitted it. Nothing had ever been easy for him. From the time he was a kid, he had to fight for everything he ever wanted, for everything he ever achieved. Meeting and falling in love with Isabella seemed to have happened too easily. Other people met and married and lived charmed lives. But he didn’t think that would ever happen to him. Then, finally, three years after meeting her, he proposed.

  And she said yes.

  He was the happiest man alive.

  For three days.

  But then…

  Memories flooded over him, shaking him to the core.

  But then she’d been killed in an inexplicable single car accident on the approach to the Golden Gate Bridge, a deadly roadway that long-time San Franciscans called “Doyle Drive,” but had been officially re-named the “Presidio Parkway.” No matter what its name, lots of bad accidents happened there. He always knew it was dangerous. So did Isabella.

  What he didn’t know, however, was why she was there at six o’clock in the morning, heading north, away from the city. He nearly went crazy from not knowing. Why was she there? Where was she going? If she was going to meet someone, who? Why? He never found any answers.

  The evening before, she had called him and said she couldn’t see him because something had come up at work, something big, and she needed to get all the facts straight before a meeting “with all the bosses” the following morning.

  She had been putting in a lot of overtime, and something at the bank bothered her. He didn’t worry about it. Why should he? How dangerous was working in a bank’s loan department? Plus, she had no cash in her office and, in the rare situation of an armed robbery, her office was in the back, away from the tellers.

  Not even her working late worried him. The bank’s Marina district location was one of the safest areas of the city, and she lived less than five miles away on Telegraph Hill. In fact, she still lived with her parents, which made her affair with Richie a bit difficult, but at the same time, kind of old-fashioned and sweet—two things he had never experienced with any girlfriend before her. Fortunately, back then he was living in a condo he called his own, and she spent a lot of time there. He always made sure she reached home before her parents woke in the morning. That was their deal. And if her parents heard the key in the lock, or heard her tiptoeing up the stairs in the middle of the night, they had the good taste not to say anything. They weren’t crazy about Richie when they first met him—like everyone else, they’d heard stories about him being “connected”—but they quickly realized he wasn’t a lost cause, and had a lot of good in him. They suspected that Isabella was exactly what he needed to straighten out his errant ways, and often told both of them so.

  No one, not her friends, parents, or co-workers had any idea where she was going on that fateful morning. Several of the bank’s bosses lived beyond the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County. But every one of them claimed to have been home asleep at that time of the morning, and none had been expecting a visit from their loan officer, or could imagine what couldn’t wait until their morning meeting.

  He didn’t want to think there could be any connection between the illegal real estate dealings he’d recently learned about and Isabella’s death, but what if there were? What would he do about it?

  He knew what he wanted to do. Make the bastards pay. But how, without destroying his own life even more than he had already?

  That wasn’t fair. His life was hardly destroyed—although he would admit it seemed pretty damned fraught much of the time. Not that he cared. Or, he didn’t used to care.

  Now, things were changing. He could feel himself changing, feel himself drawn to the idea of leading a quieter life, one not so fi
lled with messed-up people getting themselves into trouble and needing someone to “fix” the situation for them. Even—dare he think it?—to settle down with a good woman.

  With Rebecca, if she’d have him, and if she’d give up running around the city after murderers.

  The last thing he wanted, especially now, was to dredge up any of the old pain that had consumed him when his fiancée died. For Chrissakes, life is for the living. Yet, he had unanswered questions. Now, for the first time since Isabella’s death, he had a small hint of where he might find some answers.

  Just then, the buzzer by the back door sounded. A glance at the security screen showed who was out there: Shay. He buzzed the door open and in a short while, Shay walked into the office.

  He was a tall man, taller than Richie, and while he seemed lithe, his body was rock-solid and muscular. Between his unique style of dress—that afternoon he wore a heather sports jacket, gray slacks, and a tan and green plaid ascot—and his wavy blond hair, blue eyes, and chiseled good looks, he always caught the eye of women. And held it … until they got to know him.

  He could be more than a little cold and intimidating, and that was on a good day. On a bad day, he could be downright scary. Plus, he was a military-trained sniper, and the best computer hacker Richie had ever known.

  “Any luck?” Richie asked. He got up from his desk and moved to the liquor cabinet.

  “Only bad.” Shay sat on the sofa, facing Richie. “Something must have spooked whoever had been overseeing the bank accounts of API Holding because last night, they vanished.”

  “Vanished?”

  “They’re no longer on the bank’s main system. The bad news is I’m going to have to find where the account’s data is now. The good news is, once I find it, I should be able to track down who moved it. That could be a major clue as to who knew about the real estate holding company’s illegal activities.”

  “My visit to the branch manager had to be the reason for the move. Either Skarzer moved the records, or he told someone about my visit and that person moved them. But we now know, of the four bankers possibly involved in the scheme, that Egerton is out since he no longer works at the bank, but one or more of the remaining three must definitely be involved.”