Eight O'Clock Split

  EIGHT O’CLOCK SPLIT

  AN INSPECTOR REBECCA MAYFIELD MYSTERY

  JOANNE PENCE

  QUAIL HILL PUBLISHING

  CONTENTS

  free short story

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Plus …

  About the Author

  It’s New Year’s Eve & Inspector Rebecca Mayfield is on the case …

  Be sure to look for your FREE Bonus short story at the end of Eight O’Clock Split.

  1

  MacKenzie Lamb forced her smile to remain in place as boredom swept over her. Another date. Another disappointment.

  She’d been assured by a barrage of emails and ads that San Francisco’s Utopian Connection wasn’t just another dating site like the popular Match or eHarmony. It was promoted as having the most sophisticated means of connecting people based on a transcendental survey of each client’s personality and background—whatever that meant.

  MacKenzie had written that she was fun-loving, had a strong sense of humor, was in her mid-thirties, and had been one of the city’s top realtors for over ten years. Her photo showed that she was trim and decent looking. What she didn’t write was that she had recently dyed her hair to a light blonde color and even added pricey extensions hoping a more modern look might help her find her “one and only.” So far, it hadn’t. Still, she had expected, between her new photo and her resumé, she’d be matched with a date with similar qualities.

  How such a sophisticated system could have matched her to the blob across the table was a mystery. When she first saw him, she was elated by his curly, dark blond hair, big blue eyes, and disgustingly long eyelashes (she even envied them), but when he opened his mouth and spoke, it was all she could do not to yawn in his face.

  At least he seemed like a genuinely nice guy, which was a step up from her last date. That fellow had seemed interesting until he vanished from sight and she had to pick up the check for his three single malt Scotch whiskeys as well as her glass of chardonnay.

  MacKenzie finished her wine. The smile vanished from her face as she placed the empty glass on the table. “This has been great.” She stood, put on her heavy coat, and picked up her handbag. “I’m afraid I’ve got to go.”

  He also rose. “But we were going to a movie. I already bought the tickets.”

  “Yes. Sorry about that. I have a sudden migraine. Anyway, nice meeting you.” From now on, she thought, she’d never again accept an online date for anything more than a drink or a cup of coffee. The last thing she wanted was to be stuck for hours with someone she didn’t care about.

  “Can I call you again?” His eyebrows were slightly raised, a hopeful expression in his eyes.

  With a polite smile, she said, “Nope. Goodnight.” And then she hurried from the cocktail lounge.

  She’d purposely chosen a meeting place near her home, and now walked down Noriega Street to 32nd Avenue. Fog blanketed the area, dimming the street lamps. She held her coat tight against her as her steps quickened.

  She was glad she lived in this part of the city. The Sunset district was safe. Even walking alone at night didn’t worry her. Most of the houses were well lit, meaning a lot of people were near, familiar people who watched out for each other. But as she continued down the quiet street, some subconscious warning caused her to speed up even more.

  No reason for such sudden skittishness, she told herself. But she didn’t slow down.

  Finally, she reached her home, a small place with a garage on the ground floor, and the living room, kitchen, and two bedrooms above it.

  A sense of relief rushed over her as she stepped inside, locked the front door, and hurried up the stairs. I’m being foolish, she told herself.

  She got ready for bed, happy to remove her torturous spandex underwear for a flannel nightgown, and picked up the latest book she was reading. She’d recently discovered historical romances from the 1970s and ’80s and was loving them. Yes, they were supposedly dreadfully “sexist” by today’s standards, but the men were big, strong, and drool-worthy, and the seemingly prudish women were oh-so-willing. Why couldn’t she meet twenty-first century men like that? She’d gone through Kathleen Woodiwiss and Rosemary Rogers, and was now working her way through Bertrice Small’s books. A pleasant read before falling asleep might help her get over tonight’s dating letdown.

  Maybe, somewhere, as happened to the women in those books, true love would find her.

  About an hour later, when her eyes had grown too heavy to read another page, she shut the lamp on the nightstand and rolled over to sleep.

  She had almost drifted off when she heard a creaking noise, almost like a footstep on a loose floorboard. It sounded close. She sat up and saw a faint white light in the hallway.

  How in the world? Then she realized she must have left the light on in the kitchen.

  She swung her legs from the bed and was about to stand when she heard what distinctly sounded like a refrigerator door shutting.

  She froze. What? Who?

  No one had her house key. No one she knew would simply walk in and make themselves comfortable.

  This was crazy. She had to be imagining things. The sound must have come from outside—a car door being shut, perhaps. She had forgotten to turn off the kitchen light and in her half-asleep state, her mind was playing tricks. That’s all. Still, her heart pounded.

  Stop being so silly! Any fears were merely the consequence of walking home alone at night after watching too much news about crime in the city. And dangerous activities were happening in the book she’d been reading.

  Determined to shut the kitchen light and quickly jump back into her warm, cozy bed and go to sleep, she marched across the bedroom and down the hall. She had just stepped into the kitchen when a hand slapped hard over her mouth, cutting off her cries as her head was knocked violently back into a man’s body. At the same time, an arm circled her waist, holding her tight against him.

  In her ear, she heard a deep rumble which grew into a low, yet victorious, laugh.

  2

  At precisely eight o’clock on Monday morning, Inspector Rebecca Mayfield stepped off the elevator on the fourth floor of San Francisco’s Hall of Justice. After a hiatus of six weeks on paid administrative leave, she was finally returning to her job in Homicide.

  In the course of her last case, she had uncovered a money laundering scheme that had involved several top people in City Hall as well as the police commissioner. Her boss, Lieutenant James Philip Eastwood, had placed her on leave while an internal investigation took place. He wanted to assure she remained safe while everyone involved in the plan was being identified.

  The investigation was now concluded, and Rebecca had been cleared to return to duty.

  Since she believed the people who had targeted her had either resigned, were fired, or were now dead, she was glad to return to work. At least, that was what sh
e told herself. And that was also what she had told Richie Amalfi as she moved out of his house after a major argument.

  Their relationship, as bizarre, wonderful, and troubled as it was, had ended. She’d tried breaking it off more than once in the past, but kept going back to him. No more. This time, a line had been crossed. There was no going back.

  So instead of feeling glad to return to work, she felt numb as she squared her shoulders and stepped into Homicide’s reception area. There, the administrative aide, Elizabeth Havlin, jumped up and greeted her warmly. Elizabeth, in her fifties, divorced, with red hair and large, brown-framed glasses, then followed her into the large, open room that was the homicide bureau.

  Rebecca was stunned to find the other five homicide detectives already there. Helium-filled balloons flew over her desk, and on it was a vase with yellow and white flowers.

  “Oh, my!” The coldness that had shrouded her ever since she’d walked out on Richie eased ever so slightly, and she couldn’t help but smile at “the boys” as she called the five inspectors she worked with, Paavo Smith, his partner Toshiro “Yosh” Yoshiwara, Luis Calderon, his partner Bo Benson, and her own partner, Bill Sutter.

  “Welcome back!” they shouted as they grinned awkwardly while standing behind a chocolate-on-chocolate cake with the words, “Welcome Back, Rebecca.” It choked her up, much as she tried her best not to be in any way emotional at work.

  “You didn’t have to do all this,” she murmured when she found her voice again.

  “Any excuse for cake,” Yosh said with a chuckle. He was usually friendly and jovial, as well as being tall and stocky. “Must have had a sumo wrestler in the family,” was his explanation for his size.

  “But isn’t it too early for cake?” she asked with a broad smile, because she knew the answer.

  The response was a resounding “No,” which broke the ice. A cake knife, forks, and paper plates magically appeared as, amid teasing comments about her long “vacation,” Rebecca cut slices for the inspectors and Elizabeth.

  Lt. Eastwood stepped out of his office just long enough for a quick greeting, then hurried away without another word. She wasn’t surprised. She had tried to get along with him, but she knew she and Eastwood would never be trading Christmas cards.

  No sooner had she sat at her desk than her partner, Bill Sutter, took the chair beside it. “Now that you’re back,” he said, “I’m hoping we can get some decent casework.” The gray-haired Sutter was in his fifties and had a thin and wiry build. “Never thought I’d want real homicide work, but I do. Since I’ve been partnerless, Eastwood’s given me nothing but cases that needed a sign-off, not an investigation. Things like older people with medical conditions found dead, accidental drug overdoses, a few suicides. They’re the worst. Why so many people, often young, are so willing to kill themselves is anybody’s guess.”

  “It’s pretty sad,” Rebecca agreed.

  “That’s not why I’m in this job,” Sutter said. “Let me arrest a murderer who thinks he got away with his crime. That’s what makes the blood flow in this body.”

  “I know the feeling,” Rebecca said as she looked at the internal memoranda on her desk. The last thing she wanted was to sit here at her desk and have time to think. “Unfortunately, when Eastwood called to tell me I was no longer on administrative leave, he said I’d have to spend a few days on desk duty, so you’ll be on your own a while longer. I asked him why. His answer was ‘I think it would be best,’ which was no explanation at all as far as I’m concerned.”

  Speak of the devil, Rebecca thought, as Eastwood approached the two of them. To call James Philip Eastwood pompous was an understatement. At age 49, his hair had prematurely grayed to a thick silver swath that he gelled into place with waves and a small pomp above his forehead. “A call just came in,” he said to Sutter and handed him a piece of paper with an address. “Homeless. Found dead on the street.”

  “Rebecca’s back,” Sutter said, his tone pleading. “Why not let us both take it and ease her back into real investigations?”

  “No. She has other things to do.”

  “Don’t we all,” Sutter grumped as he took the paper and stomped back to his desk.

  “What things?” Rebecca asked.

  “After you catch up on all the new policies you’ve missed,” he nodded toward the pile of memos, “I had Elizabeth pull the folders ready to be shipped to storage. I just need you to look at each folder to make sure everything is filed down, in order, and has signs of the bare minimum of an investigation having been done.” Eastwood pointed at a mail cart in the corner of the bureau stacked with folders.

  Rebecca couldn’t believe his words. That was the sort of work usually given to interns to help them learn homicide procedures and forms. “You’re joking, right?”

  Eastwood’s lips tightened. “We haven’t cleaned up our cases for a while. Having you on desk duty is the perfect opportunity to do it.”

  At lunchtime that same day, Richie Amalfi sat at his favorite restaurant, The Leaning Tower Taverna, in the city’s North Beach district. He was there to meet the two men he always turned to when he needed help with his various business dealings. The two were also his best friends.

  They met for lunch so often, they had a system worked out. Richie arrived first. He liked to enjoy his food, so he would order and start eating before his friends arrived, since one rarely ate restaurant food and the other would gobble down his meal in about two minutes flat.

  That day, Vito Grazioso was the second to arrive. Richie’s plate was still almost full since he’d scarcely picked at what was normally his favorite dish: spaghetti carbonara. With it, he’d ordered a glass of chianti, the wine his mother served with her home-cooked meals. Even that tasted like vinegar in his mouth.

  Vito was several years older than Richie’s forty years, and an inch or so shorter than Richie’s five-eleven. Both had black hair, but Richie’s was mostly thick and wavy, except for one small thinning area at the crown which he hated and tried to hide, and Vito’s receded badly in front. Plus, while Richie was fit and trim, Vito was built like a beer barrel, with flabby jowls that seemed to melt around a thick neck. He perpetually wore a heavy brown car coat with pockets filled to overflowing. The only thing Richie ever saw him take out of those pockets was snack food. At times, Richie wondered what else was in them.

  Vito brushed light rain water from his jacket’s shoulders and arms and sat. Right behind him was Henry Ian Tate III, called Shay by those who knew him well. Shay was quite different from the two men already seated in the booth. He was tall, at 6’3”, slim yet muscular. His hair was blond and slightly wavy, his face stern, and his eyes an icy blue with a hint of lavender at the edges of the iris. Strangely, it was that small bit of unusual eye color that led to the greatest discovery, and the greatest upheaval, to his well-regulated life: the fact that he had a daughter—a discovery he’d made only a few months earlier.

  Shay removed his green silk ascot and his heather-colored sports coat, gave the coat a shake to remove some of the dampness, put it on a hook, and sat beside Vito.

  The waitress came over. Shay ordered a draft beer, while Vito ordered a small salad with dressing on the side, and ice water.

  Richie and Shay gawked at him, unable to believe their ears. Vito was a beer and meatball sandwich kind of guy.

  “What the hell?” Richie couldn’t hold back.

  Vito looked miserable. “It’s Flo. She’s been bugging me about losing weight. I tried to tell her it’s all muscle, but she’s not buying it.”

  “She’ll get over it,” Shay said. “You need to eat to keep up strength.”

  “I don’t know.” Vito swallowed hard, and for a moment, Richie feared his old friend was going to burst into tears.

  The waitress interrupted with Vito’s water and Shay’s beer, giving Vito a chance to control his emotions.

  “What’s wrong?” Richie asked when she left the table.

  “I’m just not sure, but… I
think Flo’s found someone else.” His cheeks reddened, and he dropped his gaze as he added, “She’s not interested in… in me anymore.”

  “Not Flo,” Shay insisted. “She’s crazy about you. All your years of marriage, five kids. She’s fine.”

  “I thought that, but in my favorite book”—Richie and Shay suddenly exchanged glances. They knew what was coming. Vito had read only one book in his life, Dante’s The Divine Comedy. Richie still didn’t know what possessed Vito, with all the books in the world to choose from, to read that one. His friend confessed it had taken him over a year to go from Inferno (Hell) to Paradiso (Heaven) with Purgatorio in between. But when he finished, Vito declared it had to be the best book ever written. He’d read it cover-to-cover at least twice since, and referred to it constantly, the way some people did the Bible. As a result, when times got tough, he always turned to Dante for wisdom or comfort. Richie and Shay could only hope he wouldn’t ramble on too long about it.

  “In the part called Inferno,” Vito continued, “Dante wrote, ‘There is no greater grief than to recall a time of happiness while plunged in misery.’”

  Vito said nothing for a moment, letting the words of the scholar he loved hang in the air. Richie, too, remained quiet as the truth of the words reverberated in his own mind, along with thoughts of the woman he still loved, despite her walking out on him. And it hurt. A lot.