Six O'Clock Silence

by Joanne Pence

  The officers reported that back to the employer and closed the case.

  Rebecca had to wonder about this. It made no sense. If the mother thought he had left the country, why didn’t she become concerned when she never heard from him again? Even if Najjar and his mother weren’t close, as might have been the case, she should have had some contact with him over nine years’ time, or have been worried that she had heard nothing.

  It was, if anything, highly suspicious, and made Rebecca suspect the mother knew from the beginning what had happened to Yussef Najjar.

  She gave Sutter the material to read through. They decided that before they confronted the mother or anyone else in the family about Najjar’s death, they wanted a little more information about him, the family, and even the ease of traveling into and out of Lebanon.

  She began by searching for Najjar’s status in the US and learned he was here as a permanent resident. Rebecca called Patti Flynn, a contact who worked with the US Department of State, to find out how to go about checking if Najjar had traveled to Lebanon. Also, she couldn’t help but wonder if someone traveling to that country might not have been flagged by the Department of Homeland Security. From Flynn, she learned about the electronic “Advance Passenger Information System,” one of many systems used by the State Department as well as Homeland Security to track certain international travelers.

  Many such programs were not known to the public, and not available for public scrutiny. Rebecca gave Flynn all the information she had about Yussef Najjar, and Flynn said she would get back to Rebecca as soon as she found out anything.

  o0o

  Ethan Nolan got off the number 41 Union Street bus and started walking up the hill to his home on Filbert. Richie had parked near Nolan’s address, and as the Superior Savings Bank's data operations manager neared, he got out of his car and waited.

  “Mr. Nolan?” Richie called.

  Nolan stopped and cautiously eyed the man who’d spoken his name. Nolan was youthful looking, of medium height, with blond hair cut quite short, thick black-framed glasses, and wearing an inexpensive dark blue suit. As Richie stepped toward him, Nolan pushed his glasses higher up on his nose, and a glint of recognition filled his eyes. “Yes?”

  “The name is Richard Amalfi. I'd like to talk to you.”

  “I know who you are. And I'm sorry, I have nothing to say to you.” Nolan walked even faster towards his apartment.

  Richie didn't give up. “I only have a few questions, and I can ask them here on the street if you'd like, but I would imagine it would be more comfortable and perhaps better for you if we spoke indoors, inside your apartment.”

  Nolan stopped in front of a six-story building. He used a key to unlock the main entrance door. As he stepped inside, he made no effort to stop Richie from following him. “I understand from Brian and Grant that you've already talked to them,” he said as he pushed the elevator button. “They told me that they tried to answer your questions, but that they had nothing of particular interest or note to say to you. And I know I have even less. I had nothing to do with your fiancée, Mr. Amalfi. And for you to ask me questions or to insinuate that I was in any way involved with her or with her death, is simply a waste of your time, and an insult to me.”

  The elevator door opened. Richie stared at it. He hated elevators, always had, always would. There was something unnatural about willingly getting into a box that dangled in the air, held only by a thick cable. Richie got on, held his breath up to the sixth floor, and when the doors opened, he was the first one off.

  Richie followed Nolan into a starkly modern apartment with a dark purple, armless sofa, two high-back black easy chairs, a wrought-iron-and-glass coffee table, matching end tables, and a big-screen TV that hung over a starkly modern fireplace.

  “I guess you may as well ask your questions,” Nolan said as he sat on the sofa and gestured toward a black chair for Richie.

  “I know about the real estate holding company scheme that Audrey Poole was involved in,” Richie said. “But I don't know how much Isabella knew about it. It's obvious that she did find out something, something that got her killed. You, on the other hand, had to have known quite a bit about it since you oversaw the data input to your system.”

  “That's where you're wrong, Mr. Amalfi,” Nolan said. “To me, it was nothing but API Holdings, LLC, one of a gazillion LLC’s and corporations the bank handles. If there were such a scheme, and I'm not saying that there was or there wasn't, I would have had nothing whatsoever to do with it. My job is to make sure that the input from the local branch gets processed on time and accurately. And then, each morning when our branch opens its doors, I need to be sure all the prior day’s information has been updated. I have nothing to do with real estate, fancy holding companies, or tax evasion schemes.”

  “How did the data from the real estate transactions get input to your data operations?” Richie asked.

  “Inputs are made at the time the loan is taken by the staff that took in the forms and pieces of evidence,” Nolan said. “At the time of Isabella Russo's death, the ones inputting such high-value account data would only have been Isabella herself, or her assistant.”

  “And who was her assistant back then?”

  “Cory Egerton, of course. Why?” Nolan asked.

  “API Holdings dealt with extremely large transactions,” Richie said. “Surely someone in your department had to oversee them to make sure that everything ran smoothly.”

  “Do you have any idea how much money there is in the city?” Nolan asked. “It would be impossible to keep track of every account with large transactions.”

  “I know that the FBI is very interested in what happened to Audrey Poole's company,” Richie said. He knew no such thing, but why not get Nolan to sweat? The data operations manager was too smug by half. “There’s already a great deal of evidence that this might have involved some kind of racketeering. If so, your bank is going to be sucked into it. And you might be as well.”

  “I'd only be sucked in if I had done something wrong. And I haven't.”

  “For your sake, Ethan,” Richie said, “I hope you're telling the truth.”

  o0o

  Rebecca used her lunch break to meet retired traffic investigative officer, Jim Taylor, at a coffee shop on Mission Street near the Hall of Justice.

  The day before, after looking at the Isabella Russo accident file, she phoned Taylor and asked if he remembered a single-car accident that had resulted in the death of a young woman on Doyle Drive about four years earlier. He did, and agreed to meet with her at lunch to talk about it.

  She was sitting at a table when Taylor walked in, and she immediately knew who he was. There was something about a cop, retired or not, that other law enforcement officers recognized. A constant wariness and awareness of their surroundings, and the way their eyes scanned every stranger who came into view. She smiled at him, and he smiled back a nod of mutual recognition.

  He ordered a black coffee and a sandwich, and sat across from her at the table. After greeting each other and making small talk about the state of the Bureau of Inspections—who still worked there, who had retired, gotten promoted, and so forth—the time came for Rebecca to ask her questions.

  “Something came up that caused me to look into the accident that took Isabella Russo’s life,” she began. “No one, yet, is thinking that the accident was anything other than an accident, but still, I’d like to hear your reaction to what you saw that morning. I realize it was a long time ago…”

  “No problem,” Taylor said. “I remember it well because it did bother me. It didn’t make sense unless she fell asleep. It’s possible, of course, but something didn’t feel right. The way the car hit, the way the fenders were so banged up. I mean, anything can happen, but still…”

  “And it was a fairly small car?” Rebecca added before taking a sip of her latte.

  “Yeah,” he said with a shake of the head as if he was remembering a few too many ugly accidents.


  She gave him a moment, then said, “There had been a call shortly before the accident concerning two cars speeding along the parkway. I saw nothing in the file about those two cars. Did anyone attempt to follow-up on them?”

  “Yeah, I did, but the caller didn’t have any real information for us. Maybe I forgot to note that because it was a big nothing. Remember, it was still dark that time in the morning, and there was a thick fog. That made it hard to see the color or make of the cars involved. We looked at results from red light traffic cams to see if we could find anything. We did see a car, one car, that ran a red light just before the parkway. It turned out the car had been stolen. It was never retrieved. The whole thing added to my suspicions, but there isn’t much that can be done with suspicion—not legally, anyway. Soon, we had no reason to continue the investigation, and it was ruled an accident.”

  “What about traffic cameras on the bridge?” Rebecca asked.

  “Nothing suspicious. There were few cars heading north, but there are turnoffs before getting on the bridge itself. Besides, everyone took the accident as a tragic, single-car fatality. People were actually glad no one else was killed—as might have happened if the accident had occurred just a half-hour later in the morning.”

  Rebecca understood what he wasn’t saying. This wasn’t an accident the higher-ups wanted to spend manpower, time, or money investigating. It was easy to mark “closed,” and move onto the next one. One of the ironies in Traffic was that the two-car accidents where people survived and started suing anyone they could, took the majority of time to investigate. When it was a single car fatality, well, the dead don’t complain.

  “Did you talk to anyone who had an idea of where Isabella Russo was going at that time of the morning?” Rebecca asked.

  Taylor took another bite of his sandwich and swallowed before answering. “After getting your call, I took a look at my notebook to refresh my memory. Some of the managers of the bank lived in Marin County, so she could have been going there, but none had any idea why. They were all shocked and nervous when talking to me. I didn’t care for any of them, personally, but there was nothing I could put my finger on.” He handed her a piece of paper. “I wrote down the names of the people who lived in Marin in case you want to talk to them.”

  “Thanks.” She was grateful for his thoroughness. Clearly, the case had troubled him. She glanced at the names—Brian Skarzer, manager; Grant Yamada, assistant branch manager; Cory Egerton, assistant loan officer. She folded the paper and put it in her pocket. “What about things found in her car? Was there anything especially noteworthy or interesting?”

  “All I remember were her handbag and laptop.”

  “She had a cell phone?”

  “Yes. In her handbag.”

  “I guess you checked her phone, text messages, and emails to see if there was any explanation of where she was going and why?”

  “We did. We found nothing.”

  “What about the laptop? Did you look at it to see if it had an explanation for her trip north?”

  “Like I said, no one wanted to question what had happened to the woman. So, when they saw that the laptop was password protected, and no one had the password, it was put aside. We talked to her boss, but he said it wasn’t the bank’s. We looked a little into her personal life. Other than her fiancé being a bit sketchy, we saw no reason to think anyone wanted to harm her.”

  “Did we keep any of her things?”

  “No. We gave everything back to her parents.”

  Rebecca nodded. “Okay, thanks. You’ve been a big help. If anything comes of this, I’ll let you know.”

  “Good to hear. Some cases stick with you, as I’m sure you’ve learned, Rebecca. That one did,” he said softly. “If I think of anything else, I’ll give you a call.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Later that afternoon, Richie met Shay and Vito at one of Richie’s favorite eateries, The Leaning Tower Taverna on Columbus Avenue in the North Beach district.

  Shay and Vito were already seated at Richie’s preferred booth in the far back of the diner when he arrived. The cafe’s owner had been known to ask other patrons to leave the booth whenever Richie showed up unexpectedly.

  The waitress followed Richie with his favorite beer in hand, Anchor Steam, and then waited patiently while he greeted his friends before ordering carbonara with prosciutto for lunch.

  Shay had a cup of tea in front of him, while Vito was working on a beef tongue sandwich on a sourdough roll. Vito was Shay’s opposite in every way, from his wide, ham-fisted build, to his grungy clothes, including the brown car coat he wore rain or shine, with bulging pockets so filled with junk they actually made Richie nervous that something might have died in there. And Shay would never have worn anything as garish as Vito’s pancake-size wristwatch or chunky, solid gold pinky ring. Also, Vito was married with five children, while Shay was a consummate loner.

  “What’s Shay telling me, Richie?” Vito asked when the waitress had gone. “You gotta know you shouldn’t go looking for no trouble. Isabella, may she rest in peace, needs to be left in peace!”

  “I’ve got to check this out,” Richie said. “You know me, Vito. How could I forgive myself if I didn’t? I’ve already talked to the bank manager, assistant manager, and data operations manager. While I can’t be sure that anyone of them had anything to do with Isabella’s death, I can say that each looks guiltier than the other.”

  “What dicks,” Vito grumbled.

  “You got that right,” Richie said.

  “And it ain’t no job I’d wanna do,” Vito said, and the other two nodded in agreement.

  “Anyway,” Richie continued, “I’ve asked Shay to look into the bank’s books. If anything is going on, that’s where we’ll find the evidence—but probably he's not going to find anything. Right, Shay?” He actually was hopeful that his prediction would be correct.

  Shay continued to stir his tea, staring absently at the cup. His silence was uncomfortable. When he looked up, his expression was solemn. “There is a problem. You told Vito to keep an eye on Rebecca. But who’s watching you?”

  “Me? Why me?”

  Shay looked to Vito to reply.

  Vito looked more hangdog than ever as he explained, “Well, you see, I was talking to Carmela about you just this morning. You know how she always wants to keep tabs on you and she’s worried about what’s going on with you because of Isabella.”

  “Jesus! How did she find out…?” Richie didn’t bother to finish his question. He knew Carmela routinely phoned Vito “just to say hello” and then grilled him about Richie’s life. And no matter how much Vito tried to keep things from her, Carmela knew how to get information out of him. “When will that woman realize I’m not a little kid anymore?”

  “Probably never,” Vito said honestly. “Anyway, she told me about a guy who showed up at her house and asked her questions about you. He said his company had some money to give you from an old investment that was finally paying off—a couple grand, in fact. But they didn’t know how to reach you and needed an address. She wouldn’t give it to him but she told him that he should be able to find you just about every evening down at Big Caesar’s. She asked me if she did right. I told her she did.”

  “What a crazy ass story,” Richie mumbled. “Did she say what the guy looked like?”

  “Only that he was young and acted like he was just repeating words someone told him to say. She asked what company, but he said he didn’t know. Sounded like some stooge someone sent to question Carmela.”

  Richie frowned. “How the hell did this guy find her? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Well, she’s in the phone book. Maybe he just called around. But whoever’s behind it must’ve gone down to Big Caesar’s because next thing I know, I’m watching the Inspector’s apartment and when you showed up, I see a car trailing you. When you left, the car left. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it, but I followed it. It went right up to your home, remained a while, and
then split. I stopped following when they got on the Golden Gate Bridge approach, and went back to the Inspector’s place.”

  Vito described the car as a black Lexus SUV with tinted glass. He thought only one man was inside, but he couldn’t be sure of that.

  “Okay,” Richie said. “Thanks, that’s good to know. What about Rebecca? Does she seem safe?”

  “Yeah. She seems fine. I just watched her have lunch with some guy.”

  Richie’s eyebrows rose. “Someone she works with?”

  “No, didn’t seem to be. They looked like friends. He looked like a plain clothes cop, if you ask me. I’m sure she’s safe with him. Anyway, they seemed to have a nice lunch, then she went back to work.”

  Richie grimaced. “A nice lunch. Great.”

  “What’s the deal?” Shay asked Richie. “Why are you having Vito do this? In the past, whenever you’ve worried about Mayfield, you’ve looked after her yourself. Why not do that and free up Vito to watch your back?”

  “Not this time,” Richie said, simultaneously feeling guilty, stricken, and idiotic. “Not now.”

  Shay stared at him hard. “What do you mean, not now? Why not?”

  “Nothing!”

  Shay’s eyes narrowed. “This doesn’t have anything to do with you looking into what happened to Isabella, does it?”

  That was a question he wasn't sure he could answer. He was saved from trying to when the waitress placed his lunch on the table in front of him.

  He stared at the bowl of pasta, his appetite gone. He could feel Shay's questioning stare and continued to avoid him, at long last taking a bite. He chewed, but found it hard to swallow.

  Shay leaned back in the booth, his arms crossed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “What?” Vito asked, confused, looking from Shay to Richie.

  Richie scowled at Shay. “It’s nothing, all right?” He faced Vito. “Nothing, got it?”

  Vito gulped. “Sure, boss. Hey, I don’t mind watching the Inspector. It’s fine.”