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

took her a while to get used to—another “everyone does it in San Francisco” sort of crime.
    Earlier that night, after leaving Richie with Bill Sutter, she had gone into the ballroom to deal with the customers. There, she met the club manager, Harrison Sidwell, a tall, thin man with dyed black hair, a mustache, black-framed glasses, and pin-prick brown eyes.
    She talked to the policemen who had taken everyone's name and contact information along with statements that not one of them had seen anything, and she  then let the patrons leave. They hurried from the building, heads high, complaints loud, a few even daring to swear under their breaths at the uniformed officers.
    Rebecca watched them go, then, dead tired, she took a statement from Sidwell covering all he had seen and heard, plus obtained from him the bookkeeper's full name, address and phone number. Perhaps the bookkeeper knew why the dead woman was in his office; no one else knew, and if Richie Amalfi knew, he wasn't saying.
    After that, she returned to Homicide to run a few quick checks on the name Meaghan Blakely. She could find no record of any kind under that name, not even using alternative spellings.
    Finally, she headed home.
    The case troubled her for a number of reasons, not the least being Richie's involvement. But before spending any more time investigating, she needed some sleep.
    If she had been tired before she went to Big Caesar's last night, it was nothing compared to the bone-aching weariness that consumed her now. Her eyes felt as if the entire Sahara had settled in them, and her headache caused shooting pains that rattled her teeth.
    After parking in her usual red zone, she stumbled towards the brown and tan stucco building she called home. She paused, not because of any sound, but the feeling that someone watched her. That someone was near. As she spun around, she unzipped her Galco holster handbag in case she needed to use her Glock. Normally, she carried her weapon in a middle-of-the-back holster, but it jabbed her when she drove. Tonight, she was too tired to put up with the discomfort and removed it. Besides, she was only going home.
    She scanned the street, glowing golden and hazy with early morning mist. Nothing moved. No cars, no people, no pigeons or seagulls, not even a piece of trash buffeted about by the ever-present bay breeze.
    Nothing but nerves and exhaustion, she told herself. She rezipped the gun compartment of her handbag, and took out her keys. Perhaps she had seen too much death this weekend.
    With eyes that scarcely had the strength to stay open, she found the lock in the door beside the garage, slipped in the key and pushed the door open. A hand clamped over her mouth, another around her waist and she felt herself dragged into the breezeway. The attacker didn't lift her—at five foot ten, it would take Shaquille O'Neal to lift her off her feet—and judging from the feel of the body against hers, he was about her height.
    She struggled to break his hold, and as she did, she caught a glimpse of a black onyx and gold cuff link. She recognized it. Fury replaced fear and she stomped down hard on the man's foot.
    “God damn, Rebecca!” Her would-be captor let her go as he hopped on one foot. “I just wanted to make sure you wouldn't scream and wake the neighbors!”
    “Richie!” She couldn't believe it. When she last saw him, Bill Sutter was leading him out to the patrol car for the ride to city jail. “I never scream.”
    “I don't want you to shoot me either.” He grabbed her shoulder bag. “I know this is where you've got your gun.”
    “What are you doing here?” she demanded as they played tug-of-war with her purse. He curled himself around it like a running back bracing to be tackled. “How did your lawyer get you released already?”
    “I've got to talk to you about that.” He looked from side to side, even at the roof, as if expecting a SWAT team to rappel into her garden. “I don't want you to go