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

by Joanne Pence

  Kenneth only nodded, but his eyes grew troubled, and even angry as Faye spoke. He added, “Karen told me a couple of times that she didn’t want his friends anywhere near the baby. And now, that Yuri guy has our granddaughter. It’s not right. They weren’t even married.”

  “The Sausalito police told us that since he’s shown as the father on Nina’s birth certificate, we can’t interfere, and he has the right to keep her,” Faye said.

  Rebecca nodded. “Unless you can get a ruling that he’s unfit, she is his daughter.”

  “It hurts even more to lose them both,” Faye said, rubbing her hands so hard it hurt to watch her.

  “Did Karen give you the names of any of Yuri’s friends?” Rebecca asked.

  The two shook their heads.

  “Any idea where his friends lived?”

  “I imagine San Francisco,” Faye said, “but I don’t know.”

  For the first time, Richie asked a question. He looked at Kenneth. “What are your thoughts about all this?”

  Kenneth looked surprised to be asked, but then his face began to redden. “I can tell you real easy. I couldn’t stand Yuri. And Karen knew it. I objected to everything about him, and to Karen living with him and having a child without getting married. I told her it was wrong. But all that did was alienate her from me. I went for nearly a year without seeing her. And now …” He couldn’t continue.

  Faye spoke softly. “I continued to visit her. For a while things weren’t working for her and Yuri. He couldn’t get a well-paying job, and she didn’t know what to do or which way to turn. I told her that she and Nina were welcome here. We even talked about her moving to Santa Rosa, that I would take care of Nina while she went to work. But then, things changed. Two weeks ago, she said something had turned up—something special—and if she handled it right, all their problems would be over.”

  “What new job? What did she mean?” Rebecca asked.

  “She wouldn’t say. She was meeting new people, but she refused to tell me anything more.”

  “Were those new people friends with Yuri as well?” Rebecca asked.

  “I doubt it. I had the impression he didn’t know what she was up to either.”

  “Could he have been jealous of them?”

  Faye’s eyes widened at the question’s implications. “I just don’t know.”

  “From the time Yuri entered her life,” Kenneth said, his hands forming tight fists, “I was afraid something would happen to her because of him. I warned her over and over, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  Faye touched his arm in a silent request to calm himself. “I’ll admit I didn’t understand it either,” Faye said. “She was a cop when she met Yuri. You’d think with that training, she would have known better than to associate with a shady character like him.”

  “Shady in what way?” Rebecca asked.

  Faye glanced at Kenneth, then folded her hands on her lap. “We’re certain he had friends in the Russian mafia—and suspect he was a member himself. We aren’t stupid. We read the papers, watch movies. We know about people like him. And she did as well. That was why she quit the force. There was too much deception going on. He once had a student visa, but he dropped out of school. That meant he should have gone back to Russia or Ukraine or wherever, but he didn’t. If I knew all that, Karen surely did. She couldn’t uphold the law while at work, and then go home and ignore the mess Yuri had created all around them. So she quit.”

  All were quiet until Richie said softly, “Sounds like she loved him a lot.”

  “Mrs. Larkin is right,” Rebecca said, facing him with a scowl. “Karen should have known better. There was no reason for her to get involved with Yuri. She should have broken it off as soon as she became suspicious of him, not waiting until after they had a child.”

  “Sometimes,” Richie glared at her, his tone harsh, “people fall for someone that they know is completely wrong for them. And despite all the logic and common sense in the world, there’s not a damn thing they can do about it.”

  She tightened her jaw. “Yes there is. A person can be strong and not let wayward emotions rule her, or his, head. That’s the road to ruin.”

  Richie smirked.

  Okay, Rebecca thought, maybe ‘road to ruin’ was a bit melodramatic, but she meant it. All she had to do was think about how close she was to losing her job with all the craziness going on around her. And as their conversation last night proved, she and Richie were completely incompatible. So, she didn’t want to hear about anyone falling in love with the wrong person.

  She faced the Larkins who, she noticed, had watched the exchange between her and Richie with obvious interest. Time to get back on point. “What can you tell me about Yuri’s jobs and income?”

  Kenneth said they didn’t know much. All they knew was that Karen found work at times waitressing, and other times Yuri found work in San Francisco. But neither had a regular income, so Karen filed for food stamps and benefits. As a single mother, she got them.

  “Do you think Yuri killed her?” Rebecca asked quietly.

  Kenneth squeezed Faye’s hand and answered. “All we know for sure is that they fought about his friends. At one time, she threatened to go to the FBI with information about them. That scared us. We were afraid for her life.”

  “Yuri didn’t want to lose her or his daughter,” Faye said. “But I’m afraid she may have realized she was better off without him, and he couldn’t handle it.” She began to cry. “I was afraid for her when she told us she had threatened to go to the FBI about Yuri and his friends. But then she admitted that she would never have done so. I suspect he believed her, but what about the others? The whole thing worried me terribly, and now …”

  Rebecca felt her cell phone vibrating on and on. The tech department must have finished their work of transferring all her old data and phone number to her new cell phone. All the text messages and voice mail messages that had been sent to her since she reported her last phone stolen were now hitting all at once. She took a quick glance at the phone, expecting nothing special. One particular text jumped out at her.

  Yuri Baranski at 2150 van dyke sf apt 8. Hurry.

  It had been sent three hours earlier. She didn’t recognize the phone number of the sender.

  She met Richie’s eye, then faced Karen’s parents. “I think that’s enough for today. Thank you, both, so very much. I’ll get back to you as soon as I learn something. Karen was my friend, and someone will pay for the sadness and loss they brought to everyone who knew her.”

  They soon said their good-byes and left.

  CHAPTER 18

  Rebecca tried phoning the number connected to the text message about Baranski, but no one answered. She got Bo Benson to check on the owner of the number, only to learn it was a cheap burner phone. “I have no idea who would have sent me that text,” Rebecca said while Richie drove as quickly as he dared back to San Francisco.

  “Which means, as I said,” Richie warned, “the text could be a ruse to trap you again.”

  “But why? If Charkov did send the text, it's to tell me where Yuri's body is. The last thing Charkov wants is for Yuri to be taken alive. Once in custody, he could talk about Charkov's gang and maybe give the FBI all the intel they need."

  "That's true," Richie said, "if Yuri is dead. But what if he's alive? Then, what’s going on? I’d like to call Shay to check to see if the place we’re headed is dangerous.”

  She thought a moment. “Okay. If anything looks suspicious, I’ll call Eastwood to make sure we aren’t stepping on Federal toes. But as far as he knows, the FBI doesn’t know or care anything about Baranski.”

  Richie shook his head and made the call.

  Traffic was heavy and it took nearly an hour and a half before he pulled into a red zone near a run-down apartment building. The Bayshore was one of the few remaining inexpensive areas in San Francisco. Many parts of the city that once housed the poor were now in various stages of “gentrification.” Practically overnight, San Fr
ancisco had turned into a city where eight-dollar cups of flavored imported lattes washed down thirty dollar octopus sandwiches at the same time as the working poor crowded together in small apartments, sometimes sleeping in shifts. As rents rose to an average of thirty-five hundred dollars a month, finding legal loopholes to boot people out of “rent-controlled” buildings had become a major money-maker for lawyers. It was a city with extreme wealth, extreme poverty, and an ever-shrinking middle class.

  “Maybe you should wait in the car for Shay to show up,” she said, getting out of the car.

  But Richie also got out and looked at his phone. “He’s already here. He texted that it seems safe, but he’s still watching.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Okay. I hope he watches your Porsche while he’s at it.”

  “Funny,” he muttered, giving a steely eyed stare at the area around his car.

  The door to the entryway was unlocked. Inside, an overpowering stench of urine hit. Dank, graffiti-laden and trash-covered stairs led to the apartment Rebecca had been told was Baranski’s. She knocked on the door. Richie hovered close behind her.

  When no one answered, she tried again, louder.

  A woman opened the door to the next apartment and looked from Rebecca to Richie a moment, her eyes zeroing in on Richie’s Nikes and platinum Rolex.

  “Are you a friend of the man who lives there?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Rebecca replied without hesitation. “Do you have any idea when he’ll be home?”

  She was an older black woman, her face saggy as if she’d recently lost a lot of weight. “I don’t know what’s going on. His baby cried all morning. I haven’t heard him since last night when he was shouting to high heaven in some strange language. Then the door slammed, and all went quiet until the baby began to cry some hours later. Usually, she doesn’t cry at all.”

  “I don’t hear anything now,” Rebecca said.

  “I think she’s exhausted. She was crying as if her heart was breaking not thirty minutes ago. I suspect the poor little thing is hungry. I told the manager, but he says, ‘Mavis, mind your own business.’ I thought maybe I should call someone, but I didn’t want to make trouble.”

  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 h
ad 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?”