Three O'Clock Séance: An Inspector Rebecca Mayfield Mystery (The Rebecca Mayfield Mysteries Book 3) (4 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

Richie was at Big Caesar’s nightclub talking to the bartender when one of his bouncers came up to him. Lenny Deeds was huge, with short blond hair and a neck about the size of Richie’s waist. Richie had given the fellow a task to do that day, well before the club opened.

“I’m back, boss,” Lenny said.

“Let’s go to my office.”

Once there, Richie shut the office door and offered Lenny a healthy shot of whiskey. Lenny downed it in one gulp.

“What do you have?”

Lenny handed over his digital camera with a telephoto lens. Richie began to go through the photos of everyone coming and going from Sandor Geller’s offices on Octavia Street. In the few photos provided, he recognized no one until, in a photo taken late in the day, he saw a person he knew very well.

“Inspector Mayfield?”

“Yeah, boss. I knew you’d be interested in seeing that.”

Richie was glad to know she took his suspicions seriously, and was investigating the guy in person.

He continued through a couple more photos. When he reached the last one, his eyebrows rose. It was a photo of Mayfield and Geller leaving the office together. “What’s this all about?” he grumbled.

“She left the office with him about quarter to six. I figured nobody else would be going to see him if he wasn’t even there, so I followed them. They walked to a cocktail bar a couple blocks away.”

That was the last thing Richie was expecting. “You sure?”

“Yeah. I was getting thirsty, so I went in, too. She had a Mai Tai, and he had straight shots.”

“When did they leave?”

“About seven.”

So they were at a bar about an hour, Richie thought. Rebecca was probably quizzing the guy—maybe because she thought she’d get more out of him after he’d had a couple of drinks. “Okay, good. Thanks.” He started towards the door to send Lenny back to his regular job since the club was about to open.

“Then they went over to a French restaurant,” Lenny added squeamishly.

Richie froze mid-way across the office. “They
what?
”

“It’s a small, pricey place, you know, and they sat near a window, so I was able to watch pretty easy. They was just getting the soup when I decided I better get over here for my job. It’s one of those places where the food comes slow, you know, and a different kind of wine is brought out with each dish.”

Richie ran a hand along the back of his head. “Christ, almighty.”

“Yeah, I know,” Lenny said, his mouth downturned. “There’s really places like that. Kind of wasteful if you ask me, but—”

“I know there are.” Richie realized his voice sounded a bit harsh and Lenny was only trying to help. “Anyway, how were they acting? Did it seem like they were talking business or what?”

Lenny gave him a strange look as he rubbed his chin. “I’m not sure, boss. I mean, I know she used to come here to see you and all.”

“She never came here to see me,” Richie assured him. “It was always about business.”

“Oh.” Lenny nodded. “Well, in that case, they were looking pretty damn chummy.”

Richie poured himself a straight shot, this one even larger than Lenny’s had been. “Tell you what. You go back over there and watch them. Let me know when they leave, and where they go. Or, I should say, where Inspector Mayfield goes. It’s important.”

“Sure, boss. But what about the club’s front door?”

“I’ll cover it myself if necessary,” Richie raged. “Now, go!”

He slugged down the whiskey and when he looked up again, Lenny was gone.

o0o

Rebecca found Sandy to be a surprisingly interesting man. In the cocktail lounge, he told her a lot about himself—how he realized he had a gift as a child and all that he went through to build a reputation for himself.

He had met a number of famous psychics and demonologists, including the Warrens, and told Rebecca about them as people. She found it so fascinating that she was glad to continue the conversation over dinner.

Sandy suggested L’Auberge, which she knew to be pricey. “Dressed like this?” she asked, looking at both their jeans.

“They know me,” he said.

She nodded.

The restaurant was small and dimly lit with a dark, rustic decor. They were seated at a candle-lit table by the window. She took a look at the French menu, no prices on hers, and decided to let him order for them both.

After their wine was served, Rebecca asked one of the primary questions she’d always had about séances: “For many years now, magicians have shown how easy it is to replicate feats performed at séances, so, why believe in them?”

Sandy steepled his fingers and smiled confidently. “Yes, it’s true. Many mediums are fakes, but we must consider this: to use science, a study and subject devoted entirely to the material and physical realm to prove that something “extra-sensory” and non-physical exists, is ridiculous on its face.

These days, he explained, improved technology provided a number of techniques to measure and test psychic phenomena. But interestingly, teams of researchers and institutes have been unable to prove that psychic phenomena does
not
exist. Once they threw out those cases where fraud was found, and studied only what remained, while no case had yet been conclusively proven to be authentic, at the same time, no fraud was proven either.

“You’re saying it’s a standstill,” Rebecca said.

“I’m saying it’s impossible to scientifically prove the supernatural exists, which is why it’s ‘supernatural.’ Also, mediums these days don’t use those old magic tricks of the past. They’re nice theater, but that’s it.”

“So what do you use?” she asked.

“Mostly channeling. The key is to naturally communicate with the spiritual world. In fact, I’d love to show you what I’m talking about. There’s a house in Half Moon Bay where the spirit haunting it is very strong and even has a physical presence that many people have seen. I’m meeting a photographer there tomorrow to take a number of photos for a television special. I’ve had contact with the ghost that lives in the house several times. I haven’t actually seen her, but I know she’s been near. I’m sure, even a skeptic like you will feel her presence.”

“Her?”

“Yes. The wife.” Just then the waiter showed up with their first course, leek soup. “I need to be there about six tomorrow evening. We want some photos with the sun setting over the Pacific, and the ghost appears most often in the evening hours. Please say you’ll come with me. I’ll tell you all about it when we’re there. It’ll be an experience you’ll never forget, I promise.”

Scenes from old movies she used to thrill over, like
The Haunting of Hill House
and
The Turn of the Screw,
filled her head. “I’m in,” she said. “No doubt about it.”

o0o

Richie’s evening was pure hell. He kept expecting Lenny to get back to the nightclub any minute with news that Inspector Mayfield was home, tucked in bed,
alone.
But Lenny didn’t.

Richie rarely touched alcohol when at work, and often nursed one drink the entire evening—a gin and tonic without the gin.
But as more time passed, the more his imagination went into overdrive and he kept going back to his office for another shot.

Not that he cared that she was out with a stinking rich, world-famous jerk who was wining and dining her, trying to lure her to who-knows-where, to do who-knows-what. Richie didn’t care about that at all. It wasn’t as if he and Rebecca would ever work as a couple. Not with the kind of guy he was, and the kind of woman she was. Oil and water had nothing on them.

His only concern was that she might be out with a psychotic killer. And he was the one who put her onto the smarmy SOB.

Midnight had come and gone before Lenny returned, his feet aching. He’d had to abandon his look-out vehicle because after the dinner, Mayfield and Geller went walking. They kept stopping in art galleries all around Union Square, and ended up at a bistro where they drank Irish coffees before finally getting into a cab.

“A cab?” Richie asked, his fingers curling into fists. He had half a mind to send Lenny through a nearby window, but he knew better than to shoot the messenger. “Where did they go?”

“I don’t know, boss. No more cabs come along. By the time I got one, they was gone. I had the driver take me back to my car.”

As Richie fumed, Lenny swore he never saw two people who could walk and talk so damn much. “They got my corns acting up,” he said, kicking off his shoes and reaching for a two-holed stocking foot to rub.

“You. Lost. Her.” Richie’s head was ready to explode.

Lenny looked scared. “I did my best, boss. Really. I tried! I went to the spot where the Inspector left her SUV, and it was gone. So either it got stole, or they took the cab back there and maybe she got in her car and went home. Or maybe followed him to his place. I don’t know.”

Soon after that, Richie’s friend Vito showed up at the club. Richie suspected someone had called him to come and drive Richie home. None of his employees were willing to try to tell him what he could and couldn’t do—such as, he couldn’t drive his car after getting shit-faced thinking about Rebecca Mayfield hanging out with a charismatic, handsome, and probably deviant, psycho psychic.

Vito, however, could do it. Vito Grasioso, one of Richie’s closest friends, was brawny and square-shaped, except for his head which was smaller at the top than along his jaw, where rolls of fat had sunk. He had receding black hair, hang-dog eyes, and always wore a tan car coat with bulging pockets. No one, including Richie, was sure what he carried in them.

Richie tried arguing with Vito, but quickly realized he was in no shape to do anything but obey his friend’s advice to accept a ride home. And to try to forget about Rebecca Mayfield.

CHAPTER SIX

At Homicide the next morning, Rebecca picked up a folder on one of her cases, but all she could think about was Sandy Geller. Sure, he might be a crook, but he was also a fount of information. The subject, real or not, had her hooked, and she wasn’t too sure that was a good thing.

“Morning,” Lieutenant James Philip Eastwood, chief of the Homicide bureau, said as he passed her desk, jarring her out of her reverie. He was impeccable, as always, his shirt starched to a seemingly uncomfortable level, and his thick silver-colored hair formed into a small pomp above his forehead.

“Good morning, sir,” she said, then hunched low over the open folder.

Only seven hours to go before she left work to meet Sandy. She couldn’t deny excitement at seeing a haunted house with a psychic medium.

She had just begun to grow interested in the case folder in front of her when Homicide’s secretary, Elizabeth, called to tell her she had a visitor in the front office.

That was odd, Rebecca thought, as she headed that way.

Standing in the office was a tall blond fellow, probably in his mid-thirties. The cut of his hair, his suit, and his stance told Rebecca one thing: FBI.

“I’m Inspector Mayfield,” she said.

“Brandon Seymour, FBI.” He showed his badge and they shook hands. “Can we talk in private?”

“What’s this about?” she asked.

“I don’t want to meet in an interview room,” he said. “I think you’d prefer more privacy.”

He obviously knew that mirrors in interview rooms were one-way glass, and that conversations could be piped into other rooms, but his comment still baffled her. “I might want privacy?”

He didn’t answer.

“This way.” She led him to a small unused conference room. He sat on one side of the long table, Rebecca on the other. “Now, what’s going on?”

“Do you know this woman?” he showed her a photo of the red-haired woman she saw at Richie’s car the other night after Geller’s theater performance.

“No.”

“Have you ever seen her before?”

“The hair makes her look like someone I may have seen.”

“Where?”

“I’m not sure.”

He had the typical flat expressionless style of FBI agents. She wondered if it was beaten into them at Quantico. Crack a smile and get bamboo slivers shoved under your fingernails.

“The only reason you noticed her was that she was waiting by Richard Amalfi’s car when he was with you.”

“Oh, really? Does the FBI do mind reading now?”

“You saw Amalfi signal her to leave.”

“What the hell is going on?” she demanded.

“Her name is Claire Baxter. She’s an art dealer, and lately she’s been selling gold jewelry that came from Nimrud.”

“From where?”

“Nimrud,” he repeated louder, as if that would help. “It was a city in northern Iraq some twenty-eight hundred years ago. After it was excavated by archeologists, the artwork and materials found there were sent to museums around the world. Gold jewelry from tombs of some queens of Assyria were stored in Baghdad, and when the museum there was looted after the fall of Iraq in 2003, it was feared lost. But then, in 2006, over six hundred pieces of gold jewelry, precious stones and ornaments were found in a vault in the central bank. We’ve now learned that a number of those artifacts have since fallen into the hands of the Islamic State, ISIS, as museums have been looted by them and others throughout the region. According to briefings I’ve had from antiquities experts, the plunder and sale of ancient artifacts from Syria and Iraq has become big business and has helped create a seven billion dollar black market.”

“Seven billion? That’s incredible.”

“But true. We’ve now received word that someone is trying to sell eight of the gold pieces. Claire Baxter is that seller.”

“How do you know that she’s selling this ‘Nimrud’ gold?” Rebecca asked. “Or that the pieces are even legitimate? I’ve heard a lot of fakes are also flooding the market.”

“We’ve got proof the pieces aren’t fakes. The irony is, it’s Europeans and Americans who are buying this stuff, sending our money to fund terrorists.”

“I see,” she said with a grimace.

He nodded in agreement. “Fortunately, we have some people, known collectors, who care more about preserving the artwork than in increasing their own collections. One of them, a wealthy Iraqi who lives in San Francisco, saw two Nimrud bracelets and a necklace. He alerted Interpol, and they contacted our field office in San Francisco. I’ve been watching Baxter. She’s keeping low. Too low. In fact, the only person I’ve seen her spend any time with is Amalfi. He’s also hard to get close to. But then I saw you with him. When I tracked you down, I learned you’re probably the last person we’d ever have to worry about being involved in anything like antiquities smuggling. So I’m hoping you can help us.”

“I don’t see how,” she said. “And I can’t believe Richie’s involved in anything like that.”

“‘Richie,’ is it?”

“That’s what he uses.”

Seymour allowed his mouth to wrinkle ever so slightly. “From what I’ve heard, ‘Dick’ would be more accurate.”

She said nothing.

He cleared his throat. “We want you to find out everything
Richie
knows about all this
.
”

“That’s a waste of time,” she said firmly. “He’s not interested in art—illegal or otherwise.”
Or was he? Claire Baxter was an attractive woman …

“You sound pretty sure of that,” Seymour said.

She shook off her prior thought. “I know him and some of his family.”

“Are you in a relationship with him?” Seymour looked a bit surprised even as he asked.

She pursed her lips. “God, no. Nothing like that. I’m not sure you’d even call us friends.”

Seymour nodded. “Acquaintances. That makes more sense. That’s what I assumed looking at your profiles.”

“And?” she asked.

“We want to know what Claire Baxter and Amalfi are up to. And we think you’re the best person to find out for us.”

She had asked Richie time and again what he did to make money before taking over Big Caesar’s nightclub, but he never told her. Her voice went as flat as Seymour’s. “Is there any proof Richie is involved in something illegal?”

“We haven’t come up with anything like that—not yet, anyway.” She felt relief until he added, “But with guys like him, sooner or later, they make a mistake. Then, we’ll be ready to step in.”

She felt sick in the pit of her stomach. Had he really managed to fool her so completely?

Seymour gave her a strange look. “As far as we can tell, he’s never crossed over the line in his dealings with people like Claire Baxter. But I’m sure you know he made his first million long before he took over the nightclub.”

First
million?
“Right,” she said. “He’s talked about making money in real estate.”

Seymour gave her a cold stare. “Maybe so, but the real money comes from his other line of work. He’s a fixer.”