One O'Clock Hustle: An Inspector Rebecca Mayfield Mystery (Rebecca Mayfield Mysteries Book 1)

by Pence, Joanne

  She grimaced.

  “Sidwell started gambling again,” Richie said. “Did he make up the fake names to cover his gambling, or were both the actions of a desperate man trying to get his hands on more money? Probably, no one will ever know.”

  “Wait a minute,” Rebecca said. “Sidwell's first fake employee showed up six months ago. Meaghan Bishop started receiving nearly ten thousand dollars a month about eight months ago. What if Sidwell is one who was paying her? What if he realized he couldn't afford the amount she wanted, that she was bleeding him dry? As a former gambler, an addict perhaps, he might have turned back to gambling for a 'quick fix.' And when that got him into worse trouble, he embezzled from his own business.”

  Richie thought a moment, and then nodded. “That's it. Sidwell owed Danny and he owed me, and Meaghan Bishop was blackmailing him. He came up with a way to get rid of all three of us.”

  Rebecca high-fived him. “Now, we just have to prove it.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Rebecca contacted Sutter and gave him the information she had up to this point. He agreed that there was enough to bring Sidwell in for questioning, with an eye to an arrest.

  The two met at Big Caesar's but Sidwell wasn't there, nor was he at his apartment.

  They asked around, but no one had seen him, or had any idea where he might be. They sent out a BOLO, a “be-on-the-lookout,” for him and his red Miata.

  As they left Sidwell's apartment, they agreed to meet at eight p.m. at Big Caesar's. The club would be open by then, and Sidwell should surely be there. In the meantime, Sutter headed to Chinatown for an early dinner, while Rebecca decided to return to Homicide.

  She walked to her SUV, unlocked the door and was about to open it when she heard a voice behind her.

  “Step away from the car, and don't make any sudden moves!”

  She recognized the voice, and in the car's window saw Sidwell's reflection. He stretched one arm out, pointing a gun at her. He was alone. She took a step backwards and in one quick movement, spun to face him, grabbed his extended arm, and elbowed him hard in the stomach. As he gasped and doubled over, she smacked the arm she held against her knee, causing him to cry out in pain and his hand to open, dropping his gun.

  She then twisted that same arm behind his back and was about to toss him to the ground and cuff him when she felt massive, gorilla-strong arms go around her body and crush her arms against her sides in a vice-like grip so tight she feared her ribs would crack.

  Her assailant lifted her off her feet, swung her away from Sidwell and then threw her to the ground with such force it knocked the breath out of her.

  She could scarcely believe the size and strength of the guy. She was struggling to stand, still bent over, when he grabbed the neck and back of her jacket and hurled her into the side of her SUV. She hit it hard and rebounded off, falling backwards onto the ground. Her head struck the asphalt, leaving her dazed.

  Sidwell stood over her, gun in hand. “Meet Tommy,” he said, with a slow, lazy smirk devoid of any humor. Gone was the mousey nightclub manager and in his place was a man still nervous, but determined and potentially deadly. “Remove your gun and slide it on the ground towards him.”

  Pain slashed through her skull as she slowly sat up and glared at the bruiser who had tossed her about like a rag doll. His enormous body had a bulbous, jellyfish-like appearance with beady eyes so vacant they suggested the intelligence of a slug. Long, brown-tinged teeth showed through a loose-lipped, blubbery smile that was almost lewd as he stared down at her.

  She slid the Glock from her back waist holster and did as he ordered. Tommy picked it up and put it in his pocket.

  “Walk towards the apartment building,” Sidwell ordered.

  She rose to her feet and as she walked, she watched the distance between them, waiting for her chance to do something to free herself. Tommy followed, his beefy thighs rubbing together and forcing his legs so far apart he waddled.

  When they reached the building, Sidwell ordered her to follow the narrow path on its left. “Down there,” he said. Cement steps led to what appeared to be a basement.

  “No.” She stopped.

  “Go, or I'll shoot you here!”

  “What difference would it make, here or down there? I'd be dead either way.”

  “I don't want to kill you, Inspector,” Sidwell said in an eerily soft tone. “I simply need time to get away. I'm not a murderer, but I've made mistakes in my life, so I'm leaving. Now, go! If you want to live, listen to me!”

  She could see no benefit to defying him further. Slowly, she walked down the steps.

  He hung back, still not close enough for her to take him. “Open the door and walk to the far side of the room.”

  The door was unlocked. She played with thoughts of pulling the door shut behind her and locking it, but the paneling was so thin a bullet would easily penetrate it.

  Inside, she saw that heating and ventilating systems for the building filled the bulk of the large space.

  “Keep going. Move away from the door,” he ordered. “I will shoot.”

  She heard his voice quaver nervously, and knew that was when people with guns were at their most dangerous.

  As she crossed the room, she noticed some pipes on a table, and angled closer to them. Sidwell remained by the door. She had no idea if he was a good shot, but given his nervousness, the farther away he was, the more chance he would miss if he fired.

  Still, she didn't relish testing his ability.

  “Turn around!” he ordered.

  She complied. “There's no need to do this, Mr. Sidwell. We can talk. Let me hear what your reasons are for all that has happened. Tell me what caused you so much trouble.”

  He scoffed. “Why should I bother?”

  “If you had good reasons for whatever you did, you'll be helped. You and your attorney will be able to work something out, a plea deal. Maybe none of this was your fault, and you'll be let off altogether.”

  “It wasn't my fault! She was blackmailing me.”

  “Meaghan Bishop?” Rebecca asked.

  “That's right. Everything was fine until she came back into my life. She met Pasternak—I have no idea when or where, but he's the one who told her about Big Caesar's and when she heard the owner was Harrison Sidwell, she knew that was my real name.”

  Rebecca found this confusing. “I take it she wasn't glad about that.”

  His face turned ugly. “She saw all that I have now, that I made something of myself. The bitch came on to me big time. I started seeing her again, bought her things. Clothes. I got her a nice place to live. I paid for everything. But she had changed. She did it to get even with me. I tried to break it off, and she threatened that if I didn’t give her money every month, a lot of money, she would ruin me. I did some things in the past, bad things, that she knew about. She could send me to jail for years. I paid up as long as I could, doing everything I could think of to keep money coming in. But the more I tried, the worse everything turned. She ruined me! Everything I had worked for, everything I had, she destroyed!”

  “There's your excuse,” Rebecca said.

  “I know what you're doing.” He sneered at her. “I'm not stupid. It's not going to work. I'm out of here and no one will stop me.”

  “Why was Richie Amalfi involved?”

  He stared at her with tired but venomous eyes, as if he had reached the end of his rope, and pondered whether to answer or to quickly end this and kill her. She held her breath. At this point, the pretentious but timid Harrison Sidwell had vanished completely, and in his place she saw the desperate low-life who once called himself Sonny Blakely. Finally, he said, “I heard the bitch and Pasternak talking. She didn't know I had bugged her place; she still never realized how smart I really am. Anyway, Pasternak told her about the loan Richie gave me. They decided that she should romance Richie. The fool thought she could hustle him, and that, when I lost the club, he'd sell it to her and Danny. I could have told her Richie's a
lot smarter, and a lot better businessman than to fall for any of that.”

  And hopefully a better judge of character, Rebecca thought. But then, she remembered how stunned Richie had been at Sidwell's deceit, and also at the way Meaghan Bishop had played him. Maybe Richie was a more trusting person than he thought he was, especially to those people, like Sidwell, that he considered to be a friend. It wasn't a bad characteristic to have as far as she was concerned. “So what happened?” she asked Sidwell.

  “I learned that she planned to meet Richie on Saturday. She'd get him to bring her to the club, let him see that she was friends with his good pal, Danny Pasternak. Then, she was going to do whatever it took to get good and close to him. She could have done it, too. Richie's got a soft side, a good heart. And she knows how to use a guy like that.”

  Rebecca suddenly found that she disliked Meaghan Bishop almost as much as Sidwell did. “I thought Danny Pasternak wasn't there Saturday night,” she said.

  He gave a cold, hard smile. “He wasn't. I told him we got a tip the police were going to raid the place looking for bookmaking. He split.”

  “But he wrote a note to Richie.”

  “No. He wrote a note to me some weeks earlier. It didn't have my name on it, just 'I need to see you now. Danny.' For some reason I kept it. After I did away with Meaghan—and how surprised she was that I had the last laugh!—I put my plan in place. I picked up the shell from the bullet that killed her, and then, while Tommy delivered the note to Richie in a sealed envelope, I removed the gun's silencer and put in a magazine filled with only one bullet. Tommy hurried back to Danny's office where I gave him the gun, gloves, and a ski mask. All he had to do was get Richie to pull the trigger, aiming so that the blank went out the window. That was the diciest part of the whole operation. But Tommy's a strong guy, and the window in that room is big. He did it.”

  “But we found no second bullet,” she said.

  “That's because I watched from the back of the club while Tommy struggled with Richie so I could see where the bullet hit. I came back in to make sure the bouncers caught Richie and didn't let him go, then while everything was in chaos, I went out, removed the bullet from the wall of the building next door, then gouged and muddied it in a few spots.”

  “So that's why I didn't see you until late into the evening.”

  He shrugged. “I was a busy guy.”

  “Danny figured out that you were behind Meaghan's death, didn't he?” Rebecca said.

  “Danny was on borrowed time, and he knew it. He was easy to ice. Richie, however, was a problem. When he escaped from you coppers, I worried how I'd get him, but Danny gave the answer there as well. I simply got word out to Danny's customers that Richie had all the information on their debts and gambling and he was going to make them pay him or he'd go to the Feds with it. Rest assured that one of those guys—Reyes, Huang, somebody—will become nervous and get rid of him eventually. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet. But it will. Now, I'm tired of all this talk! Tommy, get over here!”

  “You won't get away with this Sidwell,” Rebecca said. “Turn yourself in, explain that you were a victim, that you were being blackmailed and ruined by a vindictive woman you once loved. That should save you from murder one. But nothing will save you if you kill me. A cop killer gets a lethal injection in California. You don't want that.”

  Sidwell shook his head. “Inspector, stop. You have no proof. Without proof, I'm free. Tommy!”

  The muscular giant lumbered closer. “Right here, boss.”

  “Shoot her.”

  Tommy lifted his gun, a cannon-like automatic, from his pocket, but kept it pointed at the ground. “You heard what she said, boss. If we kill a cop, it's gonna be tough to get away.”

  Sidwell pointed his gun at Tommy. “Do it.”

  “Don't listen to him, Tommy!” Rebecca cried as she stepped backwards, trying to increase the distance between her and the gun, looking for someplace to jump, to hide. “He just wants you to take the blame for everything. You can't trust him. He's gone after his friends, Danny and Richie, and even killed the woman he loved. He'll kill you, too, Tommy. You know it.”

  “She's lying,” Sidwell said. “We're in this together, you and me. We trust each other.”

  Tommy gazed vacantly at Sidwell, blinked, then nodded. “Okay, boss,” he mumbled as he raised his arm.

  A shot went off and Tommy's gun flew into the air. Rebecca spun behind a furnace. Another shot hit Tommy in the knee and he crumbled.

  Rebecca glanced towards Sidwell to see him turn and run for shelter. As Tommy crawled towards his gun, she lunged for a pipe, and hit him twice across the head and back, using all the strength she could muster. He fell flat, out cold. She scooped up his gun and dived behind some water heaters, all the while keeping an eye out for Sidwell.

  The shots had come from a small window near the basement's ceiling. No one was there now. With Tommy's gun in hand, she crept along the room, trying to find where Sidwell hid.

  The door to the basement lay open, and Sidwell was no longer in the room.

  Richie appeared in the doorway. “Don't shoot, Rebecca! It's me.”

  She lowered the firearm.

  He crossed the room to her in two long steps. “What the hell did they do to you?” He pushed her hair back and studied her face. “You're bleeding. Damn them! How do you feel? Let's get you to a hospital.”

  She stepped back and gingerly touched her forehead. Blood from a gash had run along her temple and cheek to her jacket. “I'll be okay. Just a little banged up.” Tommy was still out as she cuffed him and retrieved her Glock from his pocket. “Let's get out of here. I may still be able to catch up to Sidwell.”

  “No way! You're hurt! Shay's gone after him. If anyone can find him, Shay can. He'll let me know.”

  “Shay's here, too?” she said, and then realized he had to have been the sharp shooter who took out Tommy. “How did you find me?”

  “Shay was watching Sidwell until you collected enough evidence to arrest him, and after you were followed the other day, and then everything else that was going on, I thought I'd better keep an eye on you. To our surprise, Shay and I both ended up at the same place. Now, I'm taking you home.” He put his arm around her to help her up the stairs.

  “No! When Tommy wakes up, he'll tell us everything. He's the first step in our proof of Sidwell's actions. I've got to call this in right now, and he needs medical help.”

  “So do you!”

  “I'll be fine, really. I don't want you here when those squad cars and everyone else arrives.”

  “I'm no longer a suspect,” he murmured as he ran his thumb along her forehead, pushing a rivulet of blood towards her temple so that it wouldn't drip into her eye, then his hand cupped her cheek. “I'm not leaving you alone.”

  His touch on her face was gentle, but she took hold of his wrist, stopping him. “Please. It's best if you aren't here. Believe me.”

  His eyes met hers a long moment, then he simply nodded.

  She made the call. When she finished and turned his way once more, Richie was gone.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  While Rebecca waited for an ambulance for Tommy, she contacted Sutter and told him what had happened, leaving off—at least for the moment—the part about Richie and Shay turning up to save her.

  She knew she would have the problem of Tommy's version of events, but he probably didn't know where the shots had come from. She might even convince him that Sidwell shot him because he had hesitated to kill her. Tommy the hero. She shook her head.

  Sidwell would cause her a similar problem when he got caught. He might well talk about the shots that were fired from the window.

  She had no idea what she would say, and decided to cross that bridge when she came to it.

  An entire cavalry of patrol cars converged on the scene as word of the shooting got out.

  Tommy was just coming to as the ambulance arrived. He started to cry over the pain of the gunshot, and refused
to speak as the EMTs helped him into the ambulance. Rebecca read him his rights, and then one of the patrol officers rode in the ambulance with Tommy as they took him to the hospital.

  Rebecca refused any medical care beyond cleaning and bandaging the cuts and abrasions on her forehead. She also washed the blood from her face.

  More than anything, she wanted to find Sidwell. Neither Richie nor Shay contacted her, making her believe Sidwell had somehow gotten past Shay and must be on the run.

  Before leaving the area, she went into Sidwell's apartment and searched for anything that might give a hint of where he could be headed. She found nothing. Once more, she phoned Sutter who was already at the hospital waiting to question Tommy after the surgery to remove the bullet in his knee. She asked him to meet her at Big Caesar's. Perhaps more information could be found there.

  As usual, she arrived at the nightclub before Sutter did.

  She decided not to wait for him. The club wasn't open to the public yet, but she knocked and a waitress opened the door.

  “I need to see Sidwell's office.” Rebecca showed her badge and pushed her way inside.

  “I don't think he's here yet. I haven't seen him,” the waitress said.

  “Stay out of the way.” Rebecca marched down the hall, the waitress running along beside her.

  “You can't go in there,” the waitress cried, but stopped in her tracks at the hard, ice-cold stare Rebecca cast her way.

  Rebecca followed procedure by knocking on Sidwell's door and announcing, “Police. Open up.” As expected, no one answered.

  She drew her Glock, and slowly opened the door.

  Sidwell sat slumped in the chair behind his desk, a bullet hole in his temple. She holstered her pistol and ran to him, then tried to find a pulse. She couldn't. The body was already turning cold.

  A gun with a silencer lay on the floor below his right hand.

  A note was on his desk:

  I can't go on without Meaghan. I'm sorry for all I've done.

  Sonny