Cook's Christmas Capers (The Angie Amalfi Mysteries)

by Joanne Pence

  She knew what was coming, however. Some things were wonderful, but others so horrible it would defy these people's imaginations.

  But Tim couldn't know about the future.

  "Why do you say that about disillusionment?" she asked.

  He shrugged, and looked blankly at her. "It's all relative."

  She smiled. "So they say."

  Tim's blank look, however, reminded her of what happened when people were directionless, with nothing useful or important in their lives. It was emptiness, and that was what she saw around her.

  "Man does not live by disco alone," she said.

  "No, he doesn't."

  Tim picked up his sax and played the Etta James favorite, "At Last," as she walked away. He broke off briefly to call out, “Have a nice day!”

  As if!

  o0o

  "You, me and Paavo need to go to Dance A-Go-Go," Angie said to Connie as she sat across her desk in Homicide. "It'll be the best way we can find out about Lorenzo."

  "Lorenzo doesn't have anything to do with this," Connie said. "Everyone in Homicide thinks Nona did it. Although some of that might change if she were a little more cooperative and not so snotty to people trying to help her."

  "If she's innocent and you're the one to prove it, you'll cement your career in Homicide." Angie went on to explain that Lorenzo knew both Alan and Professor Starr, and could easily have cooked up the poisonous concoction that killed them.

  From what Angie had learned about Lorenzo, he was clearly jealous of Alan who was able to stay at the University and hated Starr for having such a difficult class that Lorenzo had to drop out. And Angie took it as her duty to prove his guilt and help secure Nona's freedom.

  Connie shook her head. "That may be true, but it's a far cry from talking about Lorenzo's feelings to accusing him of murder!"

  "That's why we've got to get closer to Lorenzo. The way to do that is through Dance A-Go-Go, where we'll be able to talk to him away from the restaurant. Catch him off guard! The only problem is, I've got nothing to wear, and no money to buy anything halfway decent."

  "At least that's a problem I can help with," Connie said. "Let's go to a thrift shop I know. You'll love their clothes."

  "A thrift shop?" Angie had never shopped in one before…but then, she always had money before.

  "The disco outfits you find there are practically new. Heaven forbid someone be seen wearing the same outfit twice."

  "What if someone recognizes that I'm wearing her dress?" Angie asked.

  "It's not as if these are exclusives. No one will know. Let's go take a look. Beggars can't be choosers."

  Beggars...that's what Angie was, all right. She was glad she had convinced Paavo to pay her for the work she was doing at Nona's. She needed money. What if she couldn't get back to her own life? What if she was stuck here with these strange facsimiles of her friends? What then? She couldn't mooch off them forever. She had to find a way to live. She, who had always tried to find work doing something she loved and being maddeningly unsuccessful at it, now needed to take any job she could find, and do it well enough to keep it, simply to live. Talk about an alternate universe!

  As they drove in Connie’s car to the thrift shop, Angie asked Connie if she had located the three sociology students from Starr's class. Connie found that one of them had died in Vietnam, another had married and was living in Connecticut. Connie had called her, but the woman scarcely remembered being in the class let alone anything about it. The third, Peter Lemon, seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth two years after graduating from the University. No record for him could be found anywhere. Nothing was being posted to his social security record, and no driver's license or anything else could be found.

  Soon after they arrived at the thrift shop, Angie found shimmery white sateen hot pants and a matching, midriff-baring and extra-tight top that scooped low in the front and had long sleeves that flared out from the elbow. She also discovered a pair of white vinyl knee high boots with three-inch high chunky heels in her size. They looked fairly cute with the hot pants, Angie had to admit.

  "I didn’t realize how short hot-pants were, I mean, are," she said tugging at the material as she looked at herself in a mirror. The hot pants and top were nine dollars, the shoes two, which seemed beyond belief.

  Connie grinned. "Finally, you look as if you belong.”

  "That would be more of a miracle than you could possibly imagine," Angie muttered.

  Connie bought what she called a catsuit, a one-piece bodysuit made out of lime green spandex, with a halter top and floor-length pants that flared from the knee. Her outfit wasn’t nearly as revealing as Angie’s, but then Connie was a cop. The only problem was that she had no place at all to hide a gun, should they need one.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Paavo closed down Nona's, A Restaurant early that night so he and Angie would have plenty of time to get ready for their disco date. He used the excuse of not enough customers although, amazingly, they had more than normal.

  An hour later, Angie and Paavo entered Disco A-Go-Go. Angie had left the Volvo at Nona’s, knowing Paavo would be driving. Connie was supposed to go with them, but at the last minute, she told Angie she had to do a little more work at Homicide. Angie decided Connie chickened out at the thought of disco dancing. She also didn't see Lorenzo in the crowd.

  "Dance with me, Paavo," Angie said, as ABBA’s "Mamma Mia" began to play through every loudspeaker.

  "I don't dance," he mumbled glumly.

  "But..." She'd seen him. When they first met, he went undercover to a wedding to keep an eye on her since someone was trying to kill her. When he asked her to dance, she was certain the big, tough detective didn't know how and refused. He turned around and glided her mother across the dance floor, then several of her sisters before she relented. She had been dancing with him ever since. But, she realized, he didn't know that.

  She sighed, and continued to search the crowd for Lorenzo, which the flash of strobe lights and the glitter from the gaudy disco ball made difficult. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea. Maybe they should just leave.

  "Hello." She looked up and saw Lorenzo approach. He wore a light blue suit made of shiny, clingy polyester. It came with a vest, and its trousers flared out from the knee. With it, he had on shiny black platform shoes, and a colorful blue and yellow shirt, open at the neck, with its collar flopping over the jacket.

  "Join us?" she asked.

  He sat.

  "Do you like disco?" Angie asked, pretending she hadn't followed him there or knew anything else about him.

  "Love it. Especially tonight since there's a contest."

  "Did Alan like to come here, too? I've heard you two hung out together outside of work."

  "No, this wasn't his scene."

  "What was his scene?"

  "The only thing he ever thought about was ISMI. After all, he came up with the basis for it in Starr's class. Uh, oh! The contest is starting." Lorenzo stood up and started looking around.

  "Wait! ISMI was Alan's idea? What do you mean?"

  "Uh…nothing. I've got to find a partner. See you!"

  Angie grabbed his arm. "I can dance."

  His eyes went from her head to toe a couple of times. "I'm very good at this," he said.

  She wanted to learn more about Alan and hated to lose Lorenzo to some other dance partner. "I'm a good dancer, too," she said. "I even studied ballet." She had, in fact, from ages six to ten when the ballet teacher told Serefina that even though Angie was small enough to be a ballerina, she wasn't coordinated enough. So much for dreams of being the next Margot Fonteyn.

  She walked out to the dance floor and the band began a vaguely familiar tune, "That’s the Way I Like It.”

  Lorenzo took her hand. "Just follow me," he whispered. "It'll take a while before they start to watch us, as other couples get eliminated. Then, we'll really let them see what we can do, okay?"

  "Sure," she said.

  She remembere
d seeing a contest like this in an old John Travolta movie she had once watched with her mother. To her, John Travolta was a chubby middle-aged man who played tough guy films. She was surprised to see him play a young, thin dancer. Her mother assured her that both Travolta and the film—Saturday Night Fever—she thought it was called, had been very popular when Serefina was a young woman.

  Lorenzo took her hand, and they did some fancy side-by-side steps that she found easy to follow. She had to dance with her sisters when she was a kid. Since she was the youngest, the older girls always took the lead, and she was forced to follow them—and do it well—or they would twist her ear. She learned to be a very good follower.

  She quickly caught on to the disco dance step simply by watching Lorenzo and the other dancers around her and trying to remember the movie.

  He wrapped her arms around her body so that when he pulled on her hand, she uncurled in a fast spin. "Very good!" he said. It had been all she could do to stay on her feet, but now that she knew what to expect she was ready for him.

  She realized, however, that they looked a lot like other couples. And the others were being eliminated like crazy. She knew if Lorenzo saw her as a failure, he would dump her in a minute and then how could she learn more about Alan Trimball?

  As a judge headed their way, looking ready to tap Lorenzo on the shoulder and eliminate them, she remembered Michael Jackson's popular moonwalk. Was that from this period? Was it earlier? Maybe later? She had no idea.

  As the judge approached, she began moonwalking away from Lorenzo, then toward him. Lorenzo looked surprised, then spun to her side and moonwalked with her. “Where did you learn this crazy step?” he asked.

  “Oh…it just came to me, I guess,” she said with a smile.

  The judge's eyebrows rose in surprise, then he smiled, nodded, and continued on his way eliminating other couples.

  They did more side-by-side steps that she remembered seeing in the Saturday Night movie that she knew looked good. Lorenzo was especially impressed with the way she looked when she put one arm straight up as she gyrated. He was both surprised and pleased by her dancing, and she guessed the film either hadn’t made it to “this” place, or was coming in a later year.

  Eventually, few couples remained. Lorenzo was looking desperate.

  "Can you go between my legs?" he asked as she danced near.

  "Can I what?"

  A nearby couple was tapped on the shoulder and eliminated. "Let's go for it!" Lorenzo said, and suddenly grabbed her by the waist, lifted her high over his head, and then in a smooth, steady motion, widened his legs and began to lower her toward the floor.

  "Ohmigod," she thought as the music thumped and the strobe lights made it all the more surreal.

  All she could think of was to not hit the floor as he swung her down so that her legs went between his. Her butt skidded fast along the slick dance floor, the sateen helping her slide. When she realized her face was headed straight toward his crotch, she dropped her back and head. Lorenzo's hands let go of her waist and gripped her wrists as she zipped through his legs and kept going until her arms were outstretched.

  He was bent over nearly double and pulled her back through his legs and then up to a standing position. She scarcely knew what had happened, but she was on her feet, unharmed. The audience roared their approval and applauded.

  Good, she thought. Maybe it was time to end this.

  But he had a different idea as he spun her again. This time, as she stumbled back toward him, he lowered his body like a football player making a tackle so that her stomach hit him in the shoulder. He hooked an arm around her waist and stood, causing her body to rest on his shoulder like a teeter totter—head and arms on one side, legs on the other.

  She lifted her head and legs as he began to spin round and round. The crowd was now clapping and whistling.

  She guessed Lorenzo was so energized by that, he suddenly let go of her waist and she rolled off his shoulder, onto the floor. She was face up and just about to turn over to get away from this maniac when he swooped down and he took hold of one ankle and one wrist and started spinning her around and around.

  As he spun faster and faster, looking like a deranged whirling dervish, centrifugal force lofted her into the air. A high, fearful wail came from her lips, but no one could hear it because the crowd was roaring its pleasure, cheering and stomping its feet. She feared going into orbit, and knew she was going to throw up if he spun her around one moment longer.

  Mercifully, before that happened, Lorenzo became so dizzy he crashed, dropping Angie and causing her to skitter across the dance floor, spinning like a top the whole time, until she smacked into tables and chairs edging the dance floor.

  Pure elegance.

  Paavo reached her side. "Wow, Angie! You're a really good dancer!"

  o0o

  Paavo helped Angie limp to his red VW bug, while Lorenzo went off with his First Place ribbon to enjoy the accolades of a number of women. Angie got into the car, but in a flash, she cried out, pushed against the door he was about to close, and jumped out. She stood on the sidewalk, petrified, and pointed toward the car's interior.

  Nervously, he peeked inside.

  Hanging from the rearview mirror was a little cloth doll. It seemed to be wearing a short skirt and high, white boots. It had brown hair...and a knife sticking out of its neck.

  o0o

  Angie sat in Paavo's living room with a blanket around her shoulders. She began shaking after seeing the hanging doll and hadn't been able to stop.

  He was also scared, and it took a long time before he got up nerve to take the doll off the mirror and throw it in the gutter. He tried to act brave, but she saw him quivering.

  "It's just some kid playing a prank, that's all," Paavo said after a while. "I'm sure it's nothing to worry about."

  "You wouldn't sound half so cavalier if it was you! That doll was me! It was a message! And not a critique of my disco moves. We're getting close to something, and someone knows it!"

  "You can't be sure. For one thing, the doll was in my car and looked like several girls I've dated. It was probably one of them putting it in there as a warning to another. Maybe one of them thought you were my latest squeeze."

  "Latest squeeze?"

  "You know how these women are. You, yourself, didn't look all that pleased to hear about me and Nona and we've never even dated." At her murderous glance, he added, "Not yet, anyway."

  She turned her head, her eyes shut. She didn't want to think about this faux Paavo. She knew Paavo better than any other person in the world. He had never let anyone else get close to him. He did when he was a boy—he was close to Aulis Kokkonen, his guardian, who raised him after his mother abandoned him and his older sister. But as he grew older, and especially after his sister died, he became ever more guarded until Angie entered his life. Only with her did he learn to let himself be anything other than The Great Stoneface that she first met. With her, he learned to love, to laugh, and to let someone see that he could feel and enjoy and hurt.

  Angie loved her taciturn cop, and missed him. This philandering Romeo was nothing like him. She truly was with a stranger.

  "You could stay here tonight, Angie," Paavo said. "No sense you going back to Connie's place. Why disturb her? You're safe here. I'll take care of you. You can even sleep in my bed."

  "And you?" she asked.

  He smirked. "I'll join you if you'd like."

  Angie shook her head. "That won't be necessary.” She sat dejected a long moment, then asked for the umpteenth time, “Do you still have no sense that you know me, Paavo?"

  "By now, I've been around you so much that I want to say that I do, but being honest, I'd have to say no." He tilted his head and studied her, and slowly his cocky brashness seemed to lift and he spoke honestly. "You wouldn't be an easy person to forget. If we had ever met, I would definitely remember you. That's why I don't understand why no one is looking for you already. They should be. You're...you're a beauti
ful, smart, interesting woman. A little flaky, I'll admit, but you have a good heart. And you're nice, which is a bit of a shock after Nona. I was starting to think all beautiful women were like her."

  "I appreciate the words of flattery, although I still wish you remembered me."

  "I'm sorry, Angie."

  "So am I. But I would like to stay here," she admitted. "I'm not comfortable around the new Connie."

  "New?"

  "Forget it. I'm going to bed. Alone. Good-night."

  She didn't tell Paavo, but since Plan A had so dismally failed, it was time for Plan B.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The next morning while Paavo slept, Angie wrote him a note telling where she was going and why, and asked him to give the information to Connie as well. She then left Paavo's house and took a cab to Nona's apartment. There she packed a bag and picked up Nona's car.

  She knew that Connie had to go along with her bosses, and they were fixated on Nona as the most likely killer. Angie disagreed. Something told her that the answer to all this was at the Individual System for Meaning Institute in Mendocino. Nona had been there, Starr was planning to go, and Alan Trimball was fixated on it.

  Since no one else would do it, Angie decided it was up to her to learn why.

  At 2 p.m., she arrived at the ISMI complex, which sat on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific just outside the small town of Mendocino. The entrance looked like a Japanese garden with high walls and a wooden gate. A new session would begin at 4 p.m. that afternoon. Angie managed to get into it using one of Nona's credit card numbers.

  She felt uneasy as she entered, but was welcomed by the perkiest woman she had ever met. Sally had curly hair worn in a Farrah Fawcett cut, a bright lime-colored suit with a short straight mini-skirt and ankle-strap yellow pumps with high heels. Angie was expecting someone who looked like an aging hippie, or possibly one of those bizarre Hari Krishna people, not this activities director type.