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

cheeks like melting scoops on an ice cream cone. He wore a heavy tan car coat with bulging pockets that made Rebecca wonder what he carried in them.
    “'Ey, Richie,” Vito said, grinning and pointing at the handcuffs. “I heard you was suspected of shooting somebody, not getting hitched.”
    “Funny. She's a homicide inspector.”
    He eyed her. “Still, nice braccioli .” He smirked, then took a bite out of a half-eaten hero sandwich buried in his thick hand. “You here all night, huh? Leave it to you, paisan .”
    “Man, you don't know how scary that thought is.” Richie didn't even smile, but just shook his head.
    “If you two are talking about what I think you're talking about,” Rebecca said, one hand on her hip, “you're both asking for a fat lip.” Her eyes shot daggers at Richie. Just what was so scary?
    Vito's thick brows rose high. Richie hunched his shoulders, then said, “There's coffee. Help yourselves.”
    “Everybody, stop! ” Fuming, Rebecca spun towards Richie. “Who are these men? What are their full names?”
    “Shay is a nickname,” Richie said. “He likes it more than his own name, Henry Tate. And this is Vito Grazioso. Gentlemen, meet Inspector Rebecca Mayfield.”
    She eyed them. “Are you ex-cons?”
    “What you been tellin' her, Richie?” Vito asked.
    “They aren't,” Richie said. “They walk the straight and narrow. Just like me.”
    “Sure, you do,” she said, then lifted her handcuffed wrist. “You expect me to believe that?”
    Instead of answering, Richie said, “Rebecca, sit down at the table.”
    She studied the men before her. Whoever these men were, whatever was going on, could prove very interesting. Richie surely knew a lot more about the dead woman than he had admitted to. To prove his innocence, he would have to tell Shay and Vito what he knew. She was all ears. This was exactly why she had decided to stick—literally—to Richie. Without a word, she sat, just as Richie asked her to.
    Even he looked surprised.
    Shay found a cup and saucer rather than a mug for his coffee, as well as a sugar bowl and teaspoon. He sat across from them at the small round table, and meticulously added two and a half spoons of sugar. When he stirred, he decorously extended his little finger. He wore no jewelry, as opposed to Vito who wore a pancake-sized watch and a gold pinky ring so thick and heavy it looked like the Mother Lode.
    Rebecca couldn't wrap her head around these three very different men working together.
    While Shay sipped coffee and Vito gobbled his sandwich, licked the mayonnaise off his fingers and wiped them on his sweatpants, Richie filled them in on what happened at Big Caesar's.
    “ Fung gool ,” Vito swore.
    “You're right, but watch your mouth,” Richie said, with a quick glance at Rebecca.
    “ Fung gool?” she repeated. “What's that? It doesn't sound Italian.”
    Richie scowled at her. “Don't say it! It's San Francisco Italian. From Calabrese, Sicilian, who knows? But it's not something you should ever say, all right?”
    She blinked in amazement at his reaction.
    “Sorry, boss,” Vito muttered as he got up, poured coffee into a mug, and then slurped it loudly while returning to the table. “Anyway, you ain't never seen the killer before, right?”
    “Not that I know. He wore a ski mask and he was a big mother—, uh, guy. But he knew his way around, so somebody helped him,” Richie replied. “Somebody we know—somebody who set me up, dammit to hell!”
    “Who woulda known you was goin' to Big Caesar's last night?” Vito asked.
    “Hey, it was Saturday night. Big race at Santa Anita today.” Richie twisted in his chair to glance towards Rebecca's TV, and grimaced. Not only wasn't it a plasma, it wasn't even an LCD, but was big and boxy. “They expected me. Besides, the woman I went with—the one who was killed—wanted to go.”
    “That don't narrow the field none, do it?” Vito said morosely. “But was Danny there?”
    Richie