Authors: Joanne Pence
“I'd gladly give it to you,” Richie said, “but it's on our computers. Tell you what, we'll erase the files. How's that?”
Even if she stood over them as they erased the files, she knew Shay could find and restore them in the blink of an eye. “Fine. Erase them. I'm going to trust you to do it.”
Richie put up his right hand. “Scout's honor.”
She pursed her lips.
Sure
.
Just then, Shay came back on the line. Richie put him on speaker so Rebecca could hear his answer. “I see someone listed as HS,” Shay said. “It could be him, but the bets are bigger than Sidwell should have been able to afford.”
“How big?” Richie asked.
“Let's see.” Shay gave a quick run-through of month to month activities, and then, the bottom line. “At the time Danny died, this 'HS' was in the hole to him over a hundred-thirty thousand dollars.”
“A hundred-thirty large? Son of a bitch! I always knew there was something sleazy about that guy!” Richie shouted. He looked a bit ashen as he faced Rebecca. “If he was using money I lent him to gamble, you'll be right to arrest me, because I'm going to kill him!”
o0o
Since everything Rebecca had to tie the murders to Sidwell was circumstantial or pure speculation, the next morning she filled in her partner and together they got a warrant to search Harrison Sidwell's apartment as well as his banking, phone, and credit card records.
He went from shock to indignation to a raging anger when the two detectives showed up to investigate. Rebecca came away with a list of his accounts.
His investment information was so complicated, she was afraid she was going to need an accountant to sort it all out for her. She had a better idea. She transferred copies of everything onto her laptop, and then took it home where Richie waited to hear from her.
“You might want to call Shay,” she said as she set up her laptop and opened the files.
Richie looked at them. “Maybe not.”
Rebecca sat beside him and was surprised at how much he understood about Sidwell's bookkeeping and finances. She reminded herself that he was a businessman … of sorts. He never did explain exactly how he earned his money, and now she guessed she could add “loan shark” to his nefarious activities. When she ran checks on him at work—all quite legitimate since he was a suspect—she found a network of companies that were so intertwined they made her head hurt. But nothing jumped out as illegal.
“I don't get it,” Richie said. “Before I gave Sidwell the loan to buy the club last year, my auditors went over its books in minute detail. They came up with it being not only a good investment, but a place with lots of room for growth. It wasn't the 'hot' club of the moment, because what's up one month is passé the next. His idea was quality, to create a club with a solid reputation. But now its profit margin has flatlined. What the hell is going on?”
Rebecca left him alone as he worked through the numbers, providing coffee and sandwiches from a deli a block away. Finally, he sat back and frowned at the screen. “Got it.”
She sat by him again as he pointed out the problem.
“The nightclub is nearly in the red because the salaries he's paying out take every cent. Six months ago, Sidwell hired 'Michael Brown' for sixty-grand a year. Two months later, 'William Jones' came on board, same salary. They had social security numbers, all taxes were taken out of their salaries, and even W-2s were issued, but they were never scheduled on the job.”
“What do you mean?”
“They're fakes,” Richie said. “Sidwell set them up, paid employer taxes on them—that was the reason for their common names, it makes them a lot more time-consuming to check on. Then, he kept their salaries for himself. He could have cleared over a hundred grand a year on those two names.”
Rebecca studied the computer screen as he explained further.
“If we put together Sidwell's actions with Danny Pasternak's file of his customer's wins and losses, we can see that Sidwell started betting about seven months ago. As his gambling debts climbed, he developed one fake name. He was able to pay off Danny fairly quickly, but soon got into the hole again. He was fifty thousand in debt when the second name showed up in his books.”
“How could he come up with fake employees?” Rebecca asked. “Didn't anyone else pay attention to what he was doing?”
“Remember, he had been bookkeeper and manager, and then became the owner. No one questioned him. Danny was never really much of a bookkeeper, and everyone but—I'm sorry to say—you and your partner, knew it.”
She grimaced.
“Sidwell started gambling again,” Richie said. “Did he make up the fake names to cover his gambling, or were both the actions of a desperate man trying to get his hands on more money? Probably, no one will ever know.”
“Wait a minute,” Rebecca said. “Sidwell's first fake employee showed up six months ago. Meaghan Bishop started receiving nearly ten thousand dollars a month about eight months ago. What if Sidwell is one who was paying her? What if he realized he couldn't afford the amount she wanted, that she was bleeding him dry? As a former gambler, an addict perhaps, he might have turned back to gambling for a 'quick fix.' And when that got him into worse trouble, he embezzled from his own business.”
Richie thought a moment, and then nodded. “That's it. Sidwell owed Danny and he owed me, and Meaghan Bishop was blackmailing him. He came up with a way to get rid of all three of us.”
Rebecca high-fived him. “Now, we just have to prove it.”
Rebecca contacted Sutter and gave him the information she had up to this point. He agreed that there was enough to bring Sidwell in for questioning, with an eye to an arrest.
The two met at Big Caesar's but Sidwell wasn't there, nor was he at his apartment.
They asked around, but no one had seen him, or had any idea where he might be. They sent out a BOLO, a “be-on-the-lookout,” for him and his red Miata.
As they left Sidwell's apartment, they agreed to meet at eight p.m. at Big Caesar's. The club would be open by then, and Sidwell should surely be there. In the meantime, Sutter headed to Chinatown for an early dinner, while Rebecca decided to return to Homicide.
She walked to her SUV, unlocked the door and was about to open it when she heard a voice behind her.
“Step away from the car, and don't make any sudden moves!”
She recognized the voice, and in the car's window saw Sidwell's reflection. He stretched one arm out, pointing a gun at her. He was alone. She took a step backwards and in one quick movement, spun to face him, grabbed his extended arm, and elbowed him hard in the stomach. As he gasped and doubled over, she smacked the arm she held against her knee, causing him to cry out in pain and his hand to open, dropping his gun.
She then twisted that same arm behind his back and was about to toss him to the ground and cuff him when she felt massive, gorilla-strong arms go around her body and crush her arms against her sides in a vice-like grip so tight she feared her ribs would crack.
Her assailant lifted her off her feet, swung her away from Sidwell and then threw her to the ground with such force it knocked the breath out of her.
She could scarcely believe the size and strength of the guy. She was struggling to stand, still bent over, when he grabbed the neck and back of her jacket and hurled her into the side of her SUV. She hit it hard and rebounded off, falling backwards onto the ground. Her head struck the asphalt, leaving her dazed.
Sidwell stood over her, gun in hand. “Meet Tommy,” he said, with a slow, lazy smirk devoid of any humor. Gone was the mousey nightclub manager and in his place was a man still nervous, but determined and potentially deadly. “Remove your gun and slide it on the ground towards him.”
Pain slashed through her skull as she slowly sat up and glared at the bruiser who had tossed her about like a rag doll. His enormous body had a bulbous, jellyfish-like appearance with beady eyes so vacant they suggested the intelligence of a slug. Long, brown-tinged teeth showed through a loose-lipped, blubbery smile that was almost lewd as he stared down at her.
She slid the Glock from her back waist holster and did as he ordered. Tommy picked it up and put it in his pocket.
“Walk towards the apartment building,” Sidwell ordered.
She rose to her feet and as she walked, she watched the distance between them, waiting for her chance to do something to free herself. Tommy followed, his beefy thighs rubbing together and forcing his legs so far apart he waddled.
When they reached the building, Sidwell ordered her to follow the narrow path on its left. “Down there,” he said. Cement steps led to what appeared to be a basement.
“No.” She stopped.
“Go, or I'll shoot you here!”
“What difference would it make, here or down there? I'd be dead either way.”
“I don't want to kill you, Inspector,” Sidwell said in an eerily soft tone. “I simply need time to get away. I'm not a murderer, but I've made mistakes in my life, so I'm leaving. Now, go! If you want to live, listen to me!”
She could see no benefit to defying him further. Slowly, she walked down the steps.
He hung back, still not close enough for her to take him. “Open the door and walk to the far side of the room.”
The door was unlocked. She played with thoughts of pulling the door shut behind her and locking it, but the paneling was so thin a bullet would easily penetrate it.
Inside, she saw that heating and ventilating systems for the building filled the bulk of the large space.
“Keep going. Move away from the door,” he ordered. “I will shoot.”
She heard his voice quaver nervously, and knew that was when people with guns were at their most dangerous.
As she crossed the room, she noticed some pipes on a table, and angled closer to them. Sidwell remained by the door. She had no idea if he was a good shot, but given his nervousness, the farther away he was, the more chance he would miss if he fired.
Still, she didn't relish testing his ability.
“Turn around!” he ordered.
She complied. “There's no need to do this, Mr. Sidwell. We can talk. Let me hear what your reasons are for all that has happened. Tell me what caused you so much trouble.”
He scoffed. “Why should I bother?”
“If you had good reasons for whatever you did, you'll be helped. You and your attorney will be able to work something out, a plea deal. Maybe none of this was your fault, and you'll be let off altogether.”
“It wasn't my fault! She was blackmailing me.”
“Meaghan Bishop?” Rebecca asked.
“That's right. Everything was fine until she came back into my life. She met Pasternak—I have no idea when or where, but he's the one who told her about Big Caesar's and when she heard the owner was Harrison Sidwell, she knew that was my real name.”
Rebecca found this confusing. “I take it she wasn't glad about that.”
His face turned ugly. “She saw all that I have now, that I made something of myself. The bitch came on to me big time. I started seeing her again, bought her things. Clothes. I got her a nice place to live. I paid for everything. But she had changed. She did it to get even with me. I tried to break it off, and she threatened that if I didn’t give her money every month, a lot of money, she would ruin me. I did some things in the past, bad things, that she knew about. She could send me to jail for years. I paid up as long as I could, doing everything I could think of to keep money coming in. But the more I tried, the worse everything turned. She ruined me! Everything I had worked for, everything I had, she destroyed!”
“There's your excuse,” Rebecca said.
“I know what you're doing.” He sneered at her. “I'm not stupid. It's not going to work. I'm out of here and no one will stop me.”
“Why was Richie Amalfi involved?”
He stared at her with tired but venomous eyes, as if he had reached the end of his rope, and pondered whether to answer or to quickly end this and kill her. She held her breath. At this point, the pretentious but timid Harrison Sidwell had vanished completely, and in his place she saw the desperate low-life who once called himself Sonny Blakely. Finally, he said, “I heard the bitch and Pasternak talking. She didn't know I had bugged her place; she still never realized how smart I really am. Anyway, Pasternak told her about the loan Richie gave me. They decided that she should romance Richie. The fool thought she could hustle him, and that, when I lost the club, he'd sell it to her and Danny. I could have told her Richie's a lot smarter, and a lot better businessman than to fall for any of that.”
And hopefully a better judge of character, Rebecca thought. But then, she remembered how stunned Richie had been at Sidwell's deceit, and also at the way Meaghan Bishop had played him. Maybe Richie was a more trusting person than he thought he was, especially to those people, like Sidwell, that he considered to be a friend. It wasn't a bad characteristic to have as far as she was concerned. “So what happened?” she asked Sidwell.
“I learned that she planned to meet Richie on Saturday. She'd get him to bring her to the club, let him see that she was friends with his good pal, Danny Pasternak. Then, she was going to do whatever it took to get good and close to him. She could have done it, too. Richie's got a soft side, a good heart. And she knows how to use a guy like that.”
Rebecca suddenly found that she disliked Meaghan Bishop almost as much as Sidwell did. “I thought Danny Pasternak wasn't there Saturday night,” she said.
He gave a cold, hard smile. “He wasn't. I told him we got a tip the police were going to raid the place looking for bookmaking. He split.”
“But he wrote a note to Richie.”
“No. He wrote a note to me some weeks earlier. It didn't have my name on it, just
'I need to see you now. Danny.'
For some reason I kept it. After I did away with Meaghan—and how surprised she was that I had the last laugh!—I put my plan in place. I picked up the shell from the bullet that killed her, and then, while Tommy delivered the note to Richie in a sealed envelope, I removed the gun's silencer and put in a magazine filled with only one bullet. Tommy hurried back to Danny's office where I gave him the gun, gloves, and a ski mask. All he had to do was get Richie to pull the trigger, aiming so that the blank went out the window. That was the diciest part of the whole operation. But Tommy's a strong guy, and the window in that room is big. He did it.”
“But we found no second bullet,” she said.
“That's because I watched from the back of the club while Tommy struggled with Richie so I could see where the bullet hit. I came back in to make sure the bouncers caught Richie and didn't let him go, then while everything was in chaos, I went out, removed the bullet from the wall of the building next door, then gouged and muddied it in a few spots.”
“So that's why I didn't see you until late into the evening.”
He shrugged. “I was a busy guy.”
“Danny figured out that you were behind Meaghan's death, didn't he?” Rebecca said.
“Danny was on borrowed time, and he knew it. He was easy to ice. Richie, however, was a problem. When he escaped from you coppers, I worried how I'd get him, but Danny gave the answer there as well. I simply got word out to Danny's customers that Richie had all the information on their debts and gambling and he was going to make them pay him or he'd go to the Feds with it. Rest assured that one of those guys—Reyes, Huang, somebody—will become nervous and get rid of him eventually. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet. But it will. Now, I'm tired of all this talk! Tommy, get over here!”
“You won't get away with this Sidwell,” Rebecca said. “Turn yourself in, explain that you were a victim, that you were being blackmailed and ruined by a vindictive woman you once loved. That should save you from murder one. But nothing will save you if you kill me. A cop killer gets a lethal injection in California. You don't want that.”
Sidwell shook his head. “Inspector, stop. You have no proof. Without proof, I'm free. Tommy!”
The muscular giant lumbered closer. “Right here, boss.”
“Shoot her.”
Tommy lifted his gun, a cannon-like automatic, from his pocket, but kept it pointed at the ground. “You heard what she said, boss. If we kill a cop, it's gonna be tough to get away.”
Sidwell pointed his gun at Tommy. “Do it.”
“Don't listen to him, Tommy!” Rebecca cried as she stepped backwards, trying to increase the distance between her and the gun, looking for someplace to jump, to hide. “He just wants you to take the blame for everything. You can't trust him. He's gone after his friends, Danny and Richie, and even killed the woman he loved. He'll kill you, too, Tommy. You know it.”
“She's lying,” Sidwell said. “We're in this together, you and me. We trust each other.”
Tommy gazed vacantly at Sidwell, blinked, then nodded. “Okay, boss,” he mumbled as he raised his arm.
A shot went off and Tommy's gun flew into the air. Rebecca spun behind a furnace. Another shot hit Tommy in the knee and he crumbled.
Rebecca glanced towards Sidwell to see him turn and run for shelter. As Tommy crawled towards his gun, she lunged for a pipe, and hit him twice across the head and back, using all the strength she could muster. He fell flat, out cold. She scooped up his gun and dived behind some water heaters, all the while keeping an eye out for Sidwell.
The shots had come from a small window near the basement's ceiling. No one was there now. With Tommy's gun in hand, she crept along the room, trying to find where Sidwell hid.
The door to the basement lay open, and Sidwell was no longer in the room.
Richie appeared in the doorway. “Don't shoot, Rebecca! It's me.”
She lowered the firearm.
He crossed the room to her in two long steps. “What the hell did they do to you?” He pushed her hair back and studied her face. “You're bleeding. Damn them! How do you feel? Let's get you to a hospital.”
She stepped back and gingerly touched her forehead. Blood from a gash had run along her temple and cheek to her jacket. “I'll be okay. Just a little banged up.” Tommy was still out as she cuffed him and retrieved her Glock from his pocket. “Let's get out of here. I may still be able to catch up to Sidwell.”
“No way! You're hurt! Shay's gone after him. If anyone can find him, Shay can. He'll let me know.”
“Shay's here, too?” she said, and then realized he had to have been the sharp shooter who took out Tommy. “How did you find me?”
“Shay was watching Sidwell until you collected enough evidence to arrest him, and after you were followed the other day, and then everything else that was going on, I thought I'd better keep an eye on you. To our surprise, Shay and I both ended up at the same place. Now, I'm taking you home.” He put his arm around her to help her up the stairs.