by Joanne Pence
26
Paavo sat in Axel Klaw’s office with Lieutenant Bert Janosky of the Berkeley Police Department. Klaw sat behind an enormous polished mahogany desk, a poster-size black-and-white photo of a woman’s naked torso on the wall behind him. The walls of the office were painted black, and the upholstered furniture was red leather.
“Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Klaw.” Lieutenant Janosky stood. “Since you know nothing about Karl Wielund or Mark Dustman or the other men he killed, I don’t think it’ll be necessary for you to come to the station at this time.”
Klaw beamed as he too stood. “My pleasure. I always cooperate with the police.”
Janosky looked at Paavo, who remained seated. “Shall we go, Inspector Smith?”
“You go ahead. I’d like to talk to Mister Klaw about something.”
“What’s this?” Klaw demanded. “Haven’t I cooperated enough?”
“This isn’t your jurisdiction, Smith,” Janosky warned.
Paavo smiled coldly. “Let’s just say I might be here as a customer.”
Janosky’s mouth dropped open.
“Fine.” Klaw held out his hand to the lieutenant. “Janosky, it’s been a pleasure, as always.”
They shook hands. “Remember, Klaw, keep your nose clean.” As he stepped toward the door, he gave Paavo a last glance. “You too, Smith.”
Paavo just nodded, and in a moment Janosky was gone.
Klaw eased himself back in his chair, his hands clasped behind his head as he regarded Paavo. “You wanted to talk. I’m waiting.”
“I wanted to talk about Alex Clausen.”
Klaw stiffened and smiled mirthlessly. “I don’t.”
“I want to talk about a string of murders Clausen was involved in. Starting with Jessica Smith and ending with Sheila Danning.”
Klaw blinked; then recognition filled his eyes. “Smith. A common name. Most Smiths aren’t even related.”
“But some are.”
Klaw studied Paavo. “So that’s it. The little brother grows up to become a hotshot cop, to right the injustices of the world.”
“That’s it.”
Klaw held his hands out, palms up. “I don’t know anything about anything. I’m clean. You can check.”
“And I’ve got Lacy LaTour, who I’m sure will be quite willing to say otherwise.”
“I don’t think so.”
“She knew Sheila Danning. She knew where Sheila was and what she was doing the night she was murdered. That case is still alive and well—especially now that we know where to look. Somehow, Homicide thought Danning was a sweet young thing from Tacoma, struggling on a cocktail waitress’s salary in the big city. How they ever got that idea, I don’t know. I wonder if her so-called parents even were the real parents. Homicide went up one blind alley and down another with that case three months ago. But we’re back on track now, and that track leads straight to you.”
Klaw removed his hands from the desktop and placed them in his lap. “You’re just bluffing, Smith. You don’t have anything on me, and you won’t get anything.”
“You never know.”
“You don’t know Lacy—or me.”
Something about the look in Klaw’s eyes, the tightening of his jaw, warned Paavo. He pulled out his gun. “Don’t try it, Klaw.”
Klaw’s eyebrows lifted, then a malevolent grin spread over his face. “How’d you know I had it?” Klaw slowly lifted the gun he’d been concealing under his desk. It was pointed at Paavo. “Drop it, Smith.” His tone was icy. “Then leave. You shoot, and my boys will make sure you don’t get out of here alive.”
The door swung open. “Mr. Klaw.” Dwayne from the front counter burst into the room. “These people insist—”
Paavo didn’t turn to see who’d entered. He knew the minute he took his eyes off Klaw he would be a dead man.
“Holy Christ!” The voice sounded like Yoshiwara’s.
Klaw’s eyes met Paavo’s, and he slowly put down his gun on the desk, then pushed it forward, out of easy reach. Cautiously, Paavo placed his own gun on the desk. Then Klaw turned to the people who had burst in, and Paavo, for the first time, glanced their way. Dwayne still held the doorknob, his mouth agape. Yosh had his hand on his holster, and behind him, Angie was trying to look around his bulk.
Klaw smiled at their audience. “We were just showing off our revolvers. No need to look so startled, folks. No danger.”
Paavo stood, placed his gun in his holster, and walked toward the door. “You haven’t seen the last of me, Klaw. I’ll be talking to Lacy as soon as I can.”
“By the way, Mr. Klaw.” Dwayne looked from Paavo to Klaw, then at his watch. “About a half hour ago there was a most unfortunate happening.” He paused to be sure he had everyone’s full attention. “Mrs. LaTour had a heart attack in the hospital. Didn’t even have time to call for help. Seems she just stopped breathing.”
“What?” Yosh gasped. “Impossible.” They had driven over in Angie’s car, not Yosh’s with his police radio.
Angie didn’t take her eyes off Paavo’s closed, set face. She had never seen his eyes so devoid of emotion.
Klaw chuckled. “If Dwayne says so, it must be true.”
Dwayne folded his arms. “It’s true. Believe me.”
Klaw laughed long and hard.
“Enjoy this now, Klaw,” Paavo said in a quiet voice that was more frightening than if he had shouted in fury. “Just remember the old saying about the one who laughs last.” He left, not before seeing the fear behind Klaw’s bravado, but even that gave him no satisfaction.
Angie stayed behind, staring at Klaw, not wanting to believe Lacy was dead. But the longer she stared, the more certain she became that it was true—and that it wasn’t her heart that made her stop breathing. Lacy had chosen to work with this man; she’d died by him as well.
Angie’s frown deepened. “You know what else, Klaw?”
He lifted one eyebrow.
“I plan to be your worst nightmare.”
Klaw threw back his head and laughed harder than ever.
Angie had to run to keep up with Paavo as he marched toward his car. Yosh hurried along behind her. Paavo reached the car and unlocked it.
“Are you okay?” she asked, her hands on the door, as she gasped to catch her breath.
“Who me? I’m just great! How the hell do I look? And what business is it of yours anyway?” he bit out savagely.
She stepped back, stricken.
“Damn it, Angie, when the hell are you going to learn to keep out of police business? You’ve got no right to go running around to places like this, with me or Yosh or anyone else. Is that clear? Can you understand me?”
“Yes, but—”
“But nothing! You don’t belong. Keep the hell away from me and my job!” Paavo got in his car, slammed the door shut, and drove off.
They stared after him until finally Angie went to her own car, Yosh close behind her, his face grave and concerned. She drove without speaking while Yosh prattled on about the case.
Angie wasn’t able to think about it. She was still trying to get over the shock of seeing Paavo and Klaw pointing guns at each other. Ready to shoot. Ready to die. She’d thought her heart would stop. How could Paavo show such careless disregard for his own life? Damn him, why was he that way?
Angie dropped Yosh off at the Hall of Justice. No sense going upstairs. Paavo wouldn’t want to see her now.
She drove back to her apartment.
Alone, seated on the Hepplewhite chair, she sipped hot tea. The “classic” pornographic movies she’d purchased sat atop her VCR. Picking them up, she took them into the kitchen and put them in a brown paper bag.
“Mrs. Calamatti, are you down there?” she called into the garbage chute.
No answer. Even Mrs. Calamatti had abandoned her. “Look out below!” she called and dropped the movies. That was the best place for them. She felt all right throwing them out because Mrs. Calamatti didn’t own a VCR.
But she had. Her radio job was gone, and Paavo had withdrawn even further from her life. At one time, she’d wished he’d give up being a cop. But that was childish, she realized. He’d never give it up, not even for her, and especially not when he was so close to getting the man responsible for his sister’s death.
Paavo had always been there when she needed him, but other than that he was never there for her—never there to simply “be” together. He couldn’t accept what she had to offer, and he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, let them have the togetherness she needed.
Angie leaned forward, holding her head, her elbows on her knees. She hadn’t truly understood, before encountering Axel Klaw, just how ugly Paavo’s world could be. While she recognized the greed that could corrupt a basically good man like Karl Wielund, the mistaken pride that would allow Lacy LaTour to be used by a man like Klaw and then blackmailed, and even the wrongheaded ambition of a man like Mark Dustman, she’d never before encountered, face to face, anyone with the complete lack of morals of the degenerate creature known as Axel Klaw.
And as much as Klaw held his gun emotionlessly on Paavo, so too had Paavo held his gun on Klaw. She covered her eyes, trying not to see the horror of that scene. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get it out of her mind.
Her father wanted her and Paavo to separate. So did her sisters. So did Calderon, and possibly Yoshiwara as well. Maybe all those people did know what was best, what was right. Suddenly, she felt too tired to fight them any longer, too tired to go on caring so much. Paavo had told her once that he loved her. Once, and then never again. She’d lived off that one time for months. Now it was no longer enough.
The Alcatraz beacon shimmered and grew misty through her tears.
27
Paavo had to admit to more than a little trepidation as he knocked on the door of Angie’s apartment. For sure, she’d be angry after the way he’d treated her the day before in Berkeley. Being unable to arrest Axel Klaw put him in no mood to be civil with anyone, and he’d taken his frustration and anger out on her. He’d lost control, badly.
The Berkeley PD put Klaw under twenty-four-hour surveillance and the search warrant for Klaw’s studio was finally approved, but the BPD would handle it. They’d look into Sheila Danning’s murder as well. Hollins ordered Paavo to let them take the lead if they wanted it, since Klaw’s studio was in their jurisdiction. He would. But he’d be looking over their shoulder.
He still wasn’t sure how his gun duel would have played out had he and Klaw not been interrupted. A stupid stunt, yet holding that gun on Klaw had felt good. He almost hated to admit to himself just how good, especially since a part of him suspected that if they hadn’t been stopped, they might easily have killed each other. Hell, they might still.
All the more reason, he thought, to apologize to Angie. That was the only reason he’d come here this evening, to apologize. It was only natural to shower and wear clean clothes, along with the cologne she’d bought him. He couldn’t apologize properly if he looked scruffy. Same with the box of long-stemmed red roses he held. So what that he could have eaten for two weeks on what they cost him. He couldn’t imagine giving her anything less.
Maybe it was stupid to be here. But the guilt he felt had only deepened when Yosh told him why she’d tackled Dustman and how she’d led Yosh to Berkeley. She’d been wonderful. And she deserved to be told. As well as to be told he was fifty kinds of idiot for hurting her—a hardheaded fool who didn’t deserve her.
And to ask her to forgive him.
He knocked again, feeling more foolish with each passing minute he stood there.
A door opened across the hallway. A head peeped out. “She’s not home,” Stan Bonnette said, with immense satisfaction.
“Do you know when she’ll be back?” Paavo asked, much as he hated to ask Stan anything about Angie.
“Maybe never.”
Paavo turned cold. “What do you mean?”
“She packed a couple of suitcases this morning, gave me her key, and said she’d send some movers over to pack up the rest of her things.”
“Where are the movers supposed to deliver her things?”
“She didn’t tell me.”
“What’s the name of the moving company?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about her furniture, her cooking stuff?”
“Listen, Inspector, this isn’t one of your cases. I’m just helping out my neighbor, okay?”
“Fine. Good neighbor Stan. That doesn’t answer the question.”
Stan sighed. “They’ll stay here—I guess until she decides if she wants to come back or not.”
“Did she drive?”
“She didn’t leave me the key to her car. But then, she never did let me drive it.”
“Any message for anyone? For me?”
Stan’s lips curved into a smug smile. “Not a single word.”
Paavo got off the elevator on the third floor, walked to apartment 301, and knocked on the door.
Mrs. Calamatti opened it. “Oh, hello. You’re Angie’s young man, aren’t you? The one who thinks he’s Roosevelt.”
“I thought you might like these flowers, Mrs. Calamatti,” he said.
Her eyes lit up with pleasure, and she opened her arms to receive the box of roses. “Why, thank you. What a lovely surprise!”
“You must promise me, though, never to go into a dumpster again.”
“Never?”
He took out his badge and held it before her. “Never.”
She sighed. “I see. Well, in that case, never.”
“Good. Well, good-bye.” He walked back toward the elevator.
“Oh, young man?”
He stopped and turned.
“Could you take a moment to help me, please? My son and daughter-in-law gave me a VCR nearly two years ago. I put it away in the closet and never hooked it up because I didn’t have anything to watch. But now, could you hook it up for me?”
“Sure,” he said. “I’d be glad to.”
Once home, Paavo fed Hercules and then called the special directory assistance number the force used and found out Sal Amalfi’s unlisted phone number in Hillsborough, a tiny exclusive enclave nestled among some hills on the San Francisco peninsula.
The maid answered his call.
“This is Inspector Paavo Smith,” he said, “San Francisco Police Department. I’m calling to speak to Miss Angelina Amalfi.”
“I’m sorry, but she isn’t here.”
Damn, he’d been sure she’d gone back to her parents’ house. Now what? “Do you know where I can reach her?”
“No, sir. But she’s expected back this evening.”
He nearly jumped for joy. “This evening? Thank you.”
He left the house, got into the car, and put the key in the ignition. Instead of turning the key, though, he folded his arms over the steering wheel, staring straight ahead.
Why was he planning to rush off to Hillsborough? She’d left without telling him, without leaving him any kind of message. After all his backing away, telling her it’d never work between the two of them, and her insisting that it would, he’d finally won. He’d told Aulis he was the one in control, and this proved it.
She was gone. It was over.
“All right, Miss Amalfi. Thank you!”
Back in the house, Paavo walked straight through the living room and into his large, thoroughly empty kitchen.
He opened the refrigerator. Yellowing Miracle Whip and Heinz 57 Ketchup with black gunk growing from the cap down into the bottle were the only things still recognizable. In the freezer was the bag of Italian roast that Angie had bought. She said it’d keep a long time in the freezer, since she knew he wasn’t home much to use it.
He got out the coffee, then the filters, then the Melitta. It
had a glass carafe and a plastic cone. He knew he was supposed to put a coffee filter in the cone, and the coffee in the filter, but then he had no idea how the coffee was supposed to be made. He remembered the old percolators—just put cold water in the pot, put the cone on top, and put the whole thing on the stove to cook. He stacked them up.
No, that didn’t seem right.
With the new automatics, it seemed they just poured cold water in them. Maybe he should pour the cold water into the cone? No, that didn’t seem right either.
He picked up both, twisting and turning them round and round, trying to find some kind of a switch or a dial or an instruction. Somewhere. Anywhere.
Nowhere.
Finally, he shoved everything back in the cupboard, took out a kettle, and boiled water for a cup of instant, just like always.
Angie’s coffee was a lot better.
He sat in the living room. It was absolutely quiet. No Angie to ask him to light the fireplace, to talk to him, to quiz him about his cases or badger him by asking if he’d thought about this or that. Hell, he should be happy she wasn’t here. Now he could have a little peace in his life once again. Forget all about her.
He probably never would forget, though, the first time he ever saw her, a pretty little thing trying to act sophisticated and tough even though her dishwasher had exploded and nearly flooded her apartment, or the first time he found out what it was like to kiss her. He’d never forget her overwhelming family and the love of music she gotten from them—everything from heavy operas to fat men singing songs in incoherent Italian.
He’d never forget the way she could brighten his day with a simple smile or tell crazy stories to make him laugh. She could be whimsical or wild, starry-eyed or madly passionate.
He’d never forget Angie.
Hadn’t his friends encouraged him to find a woman like Rebecca, though? It’d never work out with someone who didn’t understand police work, they’d said. Look at Calderon. Fifteen years with a woman, and then she’d walked out on him.
Fifteen years. He wondered what it’d be like to spend fifteen years with Angie. It wouldn’t be dull, that was for sure. Open, joyful, and trusting; she was everything he wasn’t.
