Five O'Clock Twist

by Joanne Pence

  “And did it?”

  “Yes. Nice work.”

  “Was that the only inspection you did on it?”

  “I don’t remember any other permit requests on the property. But I can look it up.”

  “No, not necessary,” Richie said. “Not yet, in any case. Well, I guess I’ll get going. It sure is too bad about an old lady, Benedetta Rossi, not being able to sell. I mean, I understand your position completely. In fact, I was thinking about buying her house myself. I’d fix it up with all the correct permits, of course. That would work, wouldn’t it?”

  Kreshmer’s eyes narrowed and he seemed to be sizing Richie up. “I don’t know. It might cost more than it’s worth, unless you want to live there a lot of years.”

  “I see. Well, I appreciate your advice,” Richie said. “I imagine when you see so much money being spent and driving up prices on single family homes in the city, it’s got to be frustrating. I know civil service salaries are small, so let me say, if I go ahead and buy the house, I’d be happy to pay you for your advice on the best way to do the work to get the permits approved.”

  “No need. It’s my job,” Kreshmer said.

  “But you will have saved me a lot—tens of thousands, probably—and I believe in rewarding anyone who helps me.”

  Kreshmer’s cheeks blazed red. “You can stop right there. I know where you’re going. I don’t want your money. I’ll be keeping a close eye on that place. You can leave now.”

  Richie didn’t get it. Back when he was making real estate deals, paying off a lot of the people involved behind the scenes was practically standard operating procedure. He handed Kreshmer his business card. “If you change your mind, call me.”

  o0o

  After Inga Westergaard was identified, Rebecca and Sutter left Homicide. Sutter drove them in his Chevy to Inga’s apartment in a poor part of the Mission district. She had three roommates—Destiny, Grace, and Kaitlyn. Two were home. They were in their early twenties, thin and attractive. They were stunned to learn Inga had been murdered. Not until asked did they realize that she hadn’t come home the past two nights.

  “Where did you think she’d gone?” Rebecca asked.

  “Probably to stay at her newest boyfriend’s place,” Destiny said, and then gave a little giggle.

  “Who is that?” Rebecca asked.

  “I don’t know. She never told me his name.” Destiny turned to Grace. “Do you know who he is?”

  “Nope, but she was always secretive.” Now, both women giggled. Rebecca wondered what that was all about.

  “Would Kaitlyn know?” Rebecca referred to their third roommate.

  “I doubt it. Inga and Kaitlyn didn’t get along. Inga hated that Kaitlyn did a lousy job when it was her turn to clean the kitchen and bathroom. We took turns. Inga was good at it, a real germaphobe. Kaitlyn couldn’t care less.”

  “Inga let her have it,” Grace added with a snicker.

  “Oh, man, I remember one time.” Destiny laughed. “She had quite a mouth when she was unhappy.”

  “God, but it was so funny!” Grace joined in the laughter.

  Rebecca was finding these two almost cruel in their callous disregard for their dead roommate. “When did she start seeing this latest boyfriend?”

  “A month or month and a half ago, I guess,” Destiny said. Grace nodded.

  “Did she often stay out all night?” Rebecca asked.

  “A few times. Not as often as Grace,” Destiny said. Grace socked her arm and, again, they both laughed.

  “Did she ever talk about her job?” Rebecca asked. She glared at Sutter, surprised he was so quiet, but he stared at the brain-dead roommates as if afraid he might catch stupidity germs from them.

  “Not to me,” Grace said and looked at Destiny.

  “Don’t look at me. We scarcely said two words to each other.”

  Rebecca grew increasingly exasperated with twiddle-dee-dum and twiddle-dee-dumber. They stood in the kitchen. Rebecca realized they were in a small, two-bedroom flat. The girls had turned the living and dining rooms into bedrooms so they each had one. “Did she have any other close friends who might know more about her life and her new boyfriend?”

  This time Grace answered. “Nope. Just us.”

  Poor woman. “What about her family?” Rebecca asked.

  “They’re all in Denmark.”

  “I’d like to go into her room, look for information about her boyfriend and family. We’ll have to call the family and tell them what happened. Do you mind?”

  As Rebecca suspected, she could have walked out of there with everything Inga owned for all the attention or concern those two had.

  Sutter helped her search. They found information about Inga’s phone number, but not the actual phone. It was amazing how people’s lives seemed to be lived on their phones these days. Inga’s computer wasn’t password protected, which Rebecca found surprising considering she shared the apartment, but then Rebecca saw that she received few emails that weren’t spam. She did have profiles on Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram, but didn’t post anything much. She occasionally mentioned going somewhere with a male companion. The latest was named “Luke,” but nothing else about him had been stated.

  Sutter also found a number of names and photos from Denmark in a box in the closet. The people in the photos looked a lot like Inga and were probably her parents and other relatives. Rebecca wondered how difficult it was going to be to find someone who spoke Danish to break the news to Inga’s parents. It wasn’t a job she looked forward to handling. Death notifications to next-of-kin were another job Sutter didn’t like doing and palmed off on his “junior” partner.

  Overall, the two of them found nothing in Inga’s life that would give anyone cause to want her dead.

  Finally, since no relatives were available to identify the body, Rebecca decided to bring both women to the morgue to do so. Maybe, she thought, if they came face to face with violent death, they wouldn’t be so disgustingly cavalier about it.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The next afternoon, Richie sat across from his mother at her kitchen table. He brought her a box of Napoleons, cannoli, and éclairs from Victoria Pastry in North Beach. It was her favorite bakery shop, and he knew he was going to have to keep on her good side when he gave her his news.

  She poured large mugs of coffee for them both, and then split a cannoli and a Napoleon, putting half of each on their plates.

  “This is so good, Richie,” she said, taking a big bite of the cannoli. “Now, what’s going on? I know you didn’t bring me all this because you think I’m too skinny and need the calories.”

  Richie nodded. They understood each other well. “I don’t think the building inspector is going to back off. He’s furious that Benedetta threw him out of the house. He’s insulted. But that aside, do you know how Benedetta found the realtor, Audrey Poole?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes these people just show up and ask if you want to sell your house. It happens to me all the time,” Carmela said. She now took a bite of the Napoleon. “Mmm. I’m not sure which I like best.”

  “Is that what happened? Audrey Poole just showed up?”

  “It’s important?” Carmela licked her fingers. “It doesn’t seem important to me.”

  “It is.”

  Carmela rolled her eyes, picked up her phone and used her unsticky pinky finger to punch in Benedetta’s number. Richie put it on speaker so he could hear both ends of the conversation. Carmela didn’t mention the building inspection, but went straight to asking how Audrey Poole entered the picture.

  “I phoned her,” Benedetta said. “I told her I want to sell my house, but it has some problems, and the building inspector said she might be able to help me.”

  “So it was the building inspector who told you about her?” Richie asked.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “He told me he gave you business cards from a lot of real estate agents,” Richie said.

  “What does he k
now? He gave me a lot of business cards, but every one of them was hers. Maleduquat’!” Benedetta’s dislike for the man came through loud and clear.

  “Interesting,” Richie muttered

  Carmela then told her the building inspector seemed to be especially angry because she threw him out. “Non è vero!” Benedetta’s voice quivered with rage. “Not true! He’s a liar, that faccia di katzo!”

  Richie put his hand over his mouth to hide his smirk. Nothing like getting a sweet little Italian lady mad and then hearing her say the object of her ire has a face like male balls. At least it sounded a little less gross in Italian.

  “Benedetta,” he interrupted as she continued to spew one fierce Calabrese epithet after the other—even more than he understood and he thought he pretty much knew them all. “We’re going to have to find some way around this inspector. I’ll work on it. The worst case is that we’ll need to pay for some permits with a minimal amount of remodeling.”

  “Permits, hah!” she yelled. “What’s with all the permits? I thought this was a free country! Now, every time I turn around, somebody has their hand out. Why are you taking his side, that gornudo!”

  Now she called him a cuckold. “I’m sorry—”

  “I never had a problem with my remodel. It meets code. What, you think I’m stupid?”

  “No, but—”

  Benedetta was all but screaming into the phone. “But nothing! You think I want my house to fall down around my ears now? You can go to hell, too! Gita schlamorta gita mort’!” With that, she hung up.

  “What did she just say?” Richie asked.

  Carmela shrugged and reached for an éclair. “I don’t know how to translate it, but the meaning is that you should die spitting blood. She’s upset.”

  “You think?”

  Carmela chewed a big bite of éclair and took a moment to ooh and aah over it before adding, “If Benedetta says the work is up to code, I believe her.”

  Richie didn’t know what to believe, except that he didn’t like having Calabrese curses flung his way. A part of him still believed in the evil eye. “I’ll see what I can find out, Ma.”

  “Good. And take a cannoli with you. I don’t want to get fat.”

  She put one in a zip lock bag and handed it to him as she waved him off. Then she turned and picked up the phone again.

  As he left, he heard her again talking to Benedetta, and apologizing for Richie’s rudeness and lack of understanding.

  o0o

  The day before, shortly after the autopsy, Rebecca had contacted the police in Copenhagen to break the news to Inga Westergaard’s parents. Now, she and a Danish translator supplied by the SFPD were on the phone with them to answer those questions she could, and to glean any information they might have to help her investigation.

  The conversation was draining. It was bad enough doing a death notification in English. Going through an interpreter, she found herself wishing she could add her own words of comfort, but she didn’t know how.

  When the call to Denmark ended, Rebecca needed to get away from her desk to clear her mind. The only inkling of trouble that Kiki and Inga were in any way connected with was the sale of the building that housed the spa. Richie had sworn that the kind of people Audrey Poole dealt with could be dangerous. Rebecca tried to contact Audrey Poole by calling Bay-to-Breakers Realty but the call continued to go to a message machine.

  She eventually tracked down another number for Poole but that one, too, went to messaging. The only address listed for her was the same as the real estate office.

  Sutter had gone there several times, but it was always closed. She was thinking she might drive out just to take a look at a real estate office that never bothered to open, but first she had a stop she thought might be more beneficial.

  She and Sutter went to the home of Winston Young, owner of the building that housed Kiki’s spa. They hoped to get some first-hand information on the status of the sale he wanted to make. The spa took up the entire first floor, and above it, Mr. Young lived with his wife.

  Rebecca and Sutter sat in Young’s small, cramped living room. The couple was in their late sixties and had lived there for the last twenty years, ever since their youngest child married and left home. “We’re investigating Inga Westergaard’s death,” Rebecca said.

  “Oh, yes. Terrible!” Winston Young cried. He was Chinese and of medium height and build. His hair was thinning, but not yet receding. “We’re very sad about the death. And the attack on poor Mrs. Nuñez. Kiki is a nice lady. We hope she is doing better.”

  His wife, Deanna, sat by his side on a bright green loveseat. Rebecca and Sutter sat facing them on a pink sofa. Deanna was shorter than Winston and quite round, with straight gray hair and full, rosy cheeks. Bright eyes looked from the inspectors to her husband, and she smiled constantly, although she didn’t say anything. Rebecca was sure, however, that she understood every word and probably didn’t miss a thing going on around her.

  Rebecca asked a few general questions about them. Winston Young was retired, having sold his trinket shop in Chinatown three years earlier. Finally, Rebecca asked, “Did you hear any noises coming from the spa after hours on Saturday night?”

  “No, nothing,” Winston said.

  Deanna shook her head.

  “Did you ever see Inga Westergaard with a young man, a boyfriend?”

  “Never,” Winston said.

  Sutter jumped in at this point. “We’ve heard you would like to sell this building.”

  Winston looked nervous and rubbed his hands a moment. “It was a hard decision. We never thought about it, but then our neighbor, Herman Ling, said he was selling his property, the building next door, to some people from China. They have a lot of money over there these days, you know. Herman told me how much he’s getting for his place—and it’s a dump. I was shocked. It made me curious how much I could get for mine.” He glanced at his wife and she gave a slight nod. “When we heard, of course we want to sell!”

  “So,” Sutter interrupted, “You’re saying Ms. Nuñez is holding up the sale.”

  “For now, but I believe they can convince her to move in time. Probably, in this city with all the safeguards for renters, it will take a lot of time. Much easier would be to buy her out. I don’t know why they don’t do that.”

  “I think,” Deanna said softly, “they talk to her, but she say it will hurt her business to move now. She getting lots of good customers. She want them to be loyal, and then she will move, and they follow. Now, too soon.”

  Winston chuckled. “Deanna likes to gossip. Don’t listen to her. I don’t know what’s been said. All I know is, I’m ready to sell and move to someplace like Walnut Creek, where our oldest son lives. It’s warmer there, too. I told Kiki she needs to make them increase their offer and then take it.”

  Deanna looked at Winston with a frown.

  “But,” Winston added quickly, “whatever is happening with the sale, I don’t believe it’s the reason that young girl, Kiki’s assistant, was murdered. The people who want to buy are in China … or, so I’ve heard. I can’t believe they would harm Kiki, let alone kill anyone over a piece of property. That would be wrong, and bring very bad fortune to the property. Chinese owners would know that.” He gazed with stern eyes at Sutter and Rebecca. “No Chinese connected with this sale would want to see anyone die in a building they were going to buy.”

  Sutter glanced Rebecca’s way. “Could be,” he murmured.

  She didn’t know much about Chinese ways. There weren’t many Chinese where she grew up in Idaho. Richie grew up near Chinatown and she suspected he could tell her if that was true or not.

  She really had to stop relying on his help.

  She and Sutter thanked the Youngs for their time, and soon left.

  Clearly, the two weren’t seeing eye-to-eye on this. But it gave Rebecca something to work on.

  She tried again to reach Audrey Poole, but received no answer.

  She realized, of course, that s
omeone who had once dated Audrey very likely might have a private phone number, and might even have a home address. She wasn’t thrilled about asking for his help again, but it was her job to look at everything.

  For the sake of her investigation, she would contact Richie.

  Or so she told herself.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “What the hell’s going on, Hinkle? Cops talking to our sellers? Driving by Audrey Poole’s business? Leaving messages for her? How close are they getting?”

  Sean Hinkle’s fingers tightened on his phone. He hated being yelled at. “We’ve got to simply sit tight. They have nothing that will connect with us.”

  “Too many questions are being asked. I heard one of Audrey’s sellers was being pumped about how the whole system works. I don’t like it.”

  “I’m sorry. If you want me to try to stop them from going any further, I’ll do it.”

  “Stop them? Of course I want you to stop them. What are you, some kind of moron?”

  “Yes, sir. I mean, I will stop them, sir.” Sean wanted to hang up, but he didn’t dare.

  “One woman’s dead. That can scare people off. You need to talk to the reporters. The newspapers need to say that the dead woman found at the spa died by accident. She fell asleep while taking a mud bath. And then, I want them to drop the story. You got that?”

  “Yes, but I’m not sure how I’m supposed to know anything about a murder investigation.”

  “I just said it wasn’t a murder. You’re on the mayor’s staff, aren’t you?”

  “Of course, but—”

  “By the time the cops or anyone else is ready to make a statement that it was murder, no one will care or remember. You got that, Hinkle?”

  “I’ve got it.”

  “It needs to end now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Maybe she’s gotten too big.”

  “She?”

  “Audrey Poole.”

  “I don’t think it has anything to do with her,” Sean said, his voice soft and timid. “I’m sure it doesn’t. And I’ll stop the questions from being asked. The story will go away.”