Four O'Clock Sizzle: An Inspector Rebecca Mayfield Mystery (The Rebecca Mayfield Mysteries Book 4) Read Online Free PDF Page B

afternoon from the diner on the corner. The waitress, Marian Rohe said a homeless man came by asking for coffee and toast, and saying he needed something because he was upset at finding a head in the dumpster in the alley. She asked the cook to take a look. He found the head and called us.”
    “Who took it out of the dumpster?” Rebecca asked.
    “The homeless guy. He hoped he’d find something good in it. But the diner’s cook is the one who, uh, messed up the crime scene.”
    Rebecca nodded. “Do you have the names of those people?”
    “Not the homeless guy. He’s gone. He took off when the waitress, Marian, said she wasn’t giving away food no matter what he found.”
    Sutter chimed in. “I’ll go talk to the waitress and the cook. I’ll make sure we get his fingerprints so we can eliminate them from others on the bag. In fact, I think I’ll do that right now. The crime scene unit should be here any minute.” With that, he practically ran out of the alley. Rebecca couldn’t remember ever seeing him move so fast.
    She surveyed the alley. It was one block long, running parallel to Polk Street, with entrances at both ends. On one side stood the backs of the shops, offices and restaurants that faced Polk, and on the opposite side were the backs of multi-unit residences that faced Larkin Street.
    The first order of business would be to identify the victim. But how? She could go knocking on the many residential doors in the area, but it was hard to imagine something as violent as a beheading taking place in one of the residences, which were uniformly small with paper-thin walls. The businesses, especially after hours, seemed more likely as linking to a murder, but it was strange that no calls had come in, unless the actual scene of the crime was some distance away. But why leave the head here?
    The dumpster was outside the back door of the third building. She knocked, but no one answered.
    She walked around the corner to Polk Street to see what was on the business side of the alley. The third building was a large, well-known restaurant. She had first heard about it from Richie who told her that the restaurant, Kyoto Dreams, served some of the most exotic, most expensive food in the city. And that its chef-owner had a huge reputation.
    She hadn’t paid a lot of attention to the other bachelors in the article about Richie and Diego Bosque. But she was pretty sure one of them owned a Japanese restaurant. 
    She phoned Elizabeth in Homicide.
    As the Medical Examiner’s team took the victim—or what they had of him—to their lab, Rebecca’s phone chimed. A copy of the article and the image she’d asked the secretary to send her had come in.
    Rebecca looked at the photo of Shig Tanaka, one of the bachelors in the infamous article and the owner of Kyoto Dreams. She was all but certain she now knew the identity of the victim.
    o0o
    Rebecca entered another world. A reception area with delicate ikebana plants and intricate scrolls on the walls greeted the visitor of the Kyoto Dreams restaurant, and soft koto music played in the background. Instead of a large dining room with tables shoved close together, shoji-lined walls hid away small tatami rooms where people dined in intimate privacy. 
    A tiny woman in a kimono bowed deeply to Rebecca. “ Irasshaimasu.”
    Rebecca showed her badge and asked to speak to Shigekazu Tanaka.
    “You are the police?” the woman asked in a hushed voice, her eyes wide and frightened.
    “Yes.”
    “One moment, please.” She used her entire hand, palm up, to gesture toward some chairs, then hurried down the hallway as quickly as the narrow skirt of her kimono and her wooden getas would allow. In a short while, she returned.
    “Please, this way. Doozo. ” The woman bobbed up and down, speaking quietly.
    At the end of the hall, the woman lightly knocked on a door, then opened it. “Hanemoto-san, your guest.” She held the door for Rebecca to enter the office, then pulled it shut