Richie realized that he might have been wrong about who was having beer with Rebecca at her apartment. It’s possible he had jumped to conclusions.
No matter what, he wanted to see her. If they could just spend time together, talk, maybe she’d understand his point of view, maybe accept it, or at least try to find a way to deal with it. He had no idea what that might be. All he knew was that he was miserable.
Finally, he came up with a plan, and as long as she never learned he went to Shay first for help, it should work. He then phoned Rebecca. “Can I see you? I have some evidence I think you might want to look at.”
“Evidence about what? I’m not working any cases,” she said.
“I’m not either. But that hasn’t stopped me from finding something interesting. If you’re at work I don’t think I should come there. Can you leave? I can meet at a nearby restaurant or coffee shop.”
There was a silence, then she said, “I’m home. Come on over.”
Rebecca hadn’t asked Richie to her apartment since their breakup, and now she found herself rushing about to put dirty dishes in the sink—no time for the dishwasher—and to neatly stack papers and mail that had spread all over her coffee table and kitchen counter.
She brushed her hair, leaving it loose about her shoulders, and was changing to a clean top since the one she had on suddenly looked too grubby, when she heard Richie’s distinctive taaap-ta-ta-tap on the door. She knew it well.
Her heart was pounding as she smoothed the top, patted her hair, and opened the door.
They stared at each other a moment before she said, “Please, come inside.”
He strolled into the small space which suddenly felt a whole lot smaller. Richie didn’t just walk, he strolled, like he was in charge wherever he went.
But then he faced her and held out her keys. “I guess you want these back.”
Her hand lifted, but then she dropped it. “No,” she murmured before raising her chin. “It’s okay. I like that someone can get in here in case of emergency.”
He nodded and put the keys back in his pocket, then bent over and picked up Spike who had been hopping all around him, and putting his paws on Richie’s leg as if to say, “I’m here, too!”
“Hey there, big boy,” Richie all but cooed as he held him with one hand and petted him with the other. “Did you miss me? I missed you.”
“I’m sure he missed the treats you used to bring him,” Rebecca said, feeling more than a twinge of envy at Spike and Richie’s easy relationship. She had to admit, even before this latest and final breakup, her own relationship with Richie was often stormy.
“Speaking of treats,” Richie said. He put Spike back on the floor and then reached into his pocket for a small dog biscuit. Spike stood on his back legs, took it from Richie’s hand, and then happily ran off.
“Would you like something to drink?” Rebecca asked. “Beer, coffee, wine?”
“No, thanks,” he said. “I’m fine.”
She sat on the rocking chair facing the sofa. “Have a seat,” she offered, gesturing toward the sofa. “What did you come to show me?”
“Matteo Veltroni’s missing nephew had a unique telephone message system. He used burners to call his contacts—drug deals, I’d imagine. But if anyone needed to reach him, the number he’d give out was that of his step-mother, Viola. She’d take the calls & write the messages. It turns out that she’d taken a few calls for him in the days after he went missing.” He placed the bag on the coffee table and held out some pieces of paper for her. “His burners are in the bag, and these are the last messages Viola took for him.”
Rebecca’s eyes lingered a little too long on his hand holding the papers. A stab of shock hit her at how well she knew the shape of his fingers, his palm, the scars from crazy stunts when he was a kid, and even with a couple of chef’s knives he hadn’t taken proper precautions with.
It’s just a hand, she told herself, and then quickly took the papers he offered. They were from a small notepad. She flipped through them. “Any idea who Snake is?”
“Nope.”
“The other two sound like threats.”
“Could be. Or someone desperate for a fix.”
She looked at the bag of burner phones. “They’re probably all dead by now.”
“Actually, Frankie had five of them plugged in to be charged. They’re the loose ones. The others, in the plastic bag, have been long dead.”
“Wait. Did you call him Frankie?” she asked as an eerie thought struck.
“Well, that’s his name. Why?”
“I want to try something. It’s… it’s a long shot, and I hope it won’t work.” She took out her notepad and found the number Willow had kept trying to phone with no luck. She punched it into her phone.
The apartment remained silent as she waited. And then, one of the burner phones began to ring.
“Where did you find that number?” Richie asked, astonished.
Rebecca bit her bottom lip at what this meant. “Willow Kassel was trying to locate a fellow she really liked.” She took a deep breath before asking, “Is Matteo’s nephew’s last name Parks?”
Richie studied her. “It is. Is Willow’s guy a drug dealer?”
Rebecca nodded, her mouth dry. She had to tell him. “I’m sorry, Richie, but Frank Parks is dead. He was murdered.”
Richie eyes reflected both shock and sadness. “Damn,” he whispered. “I’ve known Frankie since I was a kid. I’ll admit, I was expecting he could be dead, but Jesus, murdered.”
“And now, we know he and Willow died within days of each other,” Rebecca said. “That can’t be a coincidence.”
“It would be a hell of a one,” Richie said. And then he asked the question she’d hoped he wouldn’t. “How did he die?”
She knew better than to try to keep it from him. She told him everything, and could only say the medical examiner “believed” he’d been unconscious.
Richie said nothing when she finished speaking.
“I can’t tell you how much I wish I could get into this case,” she said. “Staying on the outside is maddening. It makes me just want to…” Rebecca stopped. No sense sharing her frustrations about her job with Richie, of all people. And not now, of all times.
“Anyway,” she continued, “I’ll see what I can find out about this. If there’s a connection, what does it mean?” She debated how much to say, but then realized there was no reason not to give him the whole picture. “We currently have two women who were clients of Utopian Connection who are now dead, supposedly suicides. Plus Willow, who was murdered. And now Jared has found three more clients of UC. And Frankie, before he died, told Willow he was worried about a customer, a male, who dated some of the women. It’s all of a piece.”
Richie nodded and stood. She could see how upset this news had made him. “You’re right. But before any of that, I’ll have to tell Matteo and his sister what happened. And, let’s tell them as little as possible about how Frankie died.”
Since Rebecca wasn’t supposed to know anything about Frank Parks, she had suggested Richie go with Matteo to Missing Persons, and press them to check hospitals and the morgue.
Richie did so, and within an hour, he was holding Matteo Veltroni’s arm and leading him into the morgue. He was surprised to see Rebecca waiting for them along with Bill Sutter and one of the medical examiner’s assistants.
But Richie also knew Sutter hated anything to do with the morgue, not only autopsies but also being present when relatives identified bodies. At times the amount of grief witnessed was soul crushing. He suspected Sutter had asked Rebecca to be there so he could escape quickly if need be.
Sutter’s gaze went from Richie to Matteo, and then he nodded at a medical technician standing behind a glass partition with the body. Frankie Parks had been mostly covered with sheeting, and now the sheet was slowly lowered off his face. Frankie looked peaceful and almost as if he were asleep.
Richie gripped Matteo’s arm as the old man stepped closer to the body. He suddenly seemed more frail than the saucy-but-aged Lothario who was so intrigued by Carmela. Richie guessed Frankie Parks had meant more to him than he’d let on.
Richie couldn’t watch, and turned his eyes toward Rebecca. He wished he could go to her and say he was sorry that her job had come between them. But that path would lead nowhere.
He then forced himself to look at the man he had known since childhood. To his surprise, as much as he professed to dislike Frankie, he felt an overwhelming pity that a relatively young man had died in such an ugly, violent way.
Matteo turned toward Rebecca, reached out his hand and clasped hers in both of his while ignoring Sutter. “It’s Frankie, all right. He looks a lot younger, laying there. Such a foolish boy.”
“Thank you for coming to identify him.”
“I didn’t want my sister to have to do it.”
Rebecca nodded. “Of course.”
“I always knew that kid would come to a bad end,” Matteo murmured as Richie led him to the elevator. Rebecca walked with them.
“We don’t know yet why he was killed,” Richie said softly. “He might have been an innocent victim.”
“At a beach, in the middle of the night?” Matteo scoffed. “No. Something fishy, Richie, I tell you. And I’m not making a joke. That Frankie, he was trouble from the time I first saw him.”
“When was that?” Rebecca asked, her voice gentle in respect for the man’s obvious grief, despite his harsh words.
“My sister married his father when Frankie was eleven. He was already a handful. The marriage lasted about ten years, then it ended, like her other two. I guess Viola is a handful herself.” He made a raspy-sounding chuckle. “Anyway, that Frankie, he always kept in contact with her, even after his father passed away. I think she was the closest thing to a mother he ever knew. And he’s the closest she ever had to a child.”
“I’m so sorry,” Rebecca said softly.
The elevator arrived, and the doors opened. Even though Richie hated elevators, he was glad to get on this one and leave the morgue. As he and Veltroni entered it, Rebecca stood back and said goodbye.
Richie met her gaze. He’d found that her steady presence made this horror a bit easier to deal with, so before the door shut between them, he mouthed the words for her to see, “Thank you.”