If Cooks Could Kill

by Joanne Pence

  Helen Melinger was sweeping the sidewalk when Connie approached. “Hey, there!” Helen barked in her usual gruff way. “So, you finally decided to get your butt back to work!”

  “Buzz off!” Connie unlocked the door and slammed it behind her.

  Helen leaned on the broom, gawking at her usually cheerful neighbor.

  “Hello?” Angie said into the telephone as she shut off the Cuisinart. Ground pork, veal, and pork fat were swirling around with eggs, seasonings, and a heavy splash of cognac.

  “Angelina Amalfi? This is Don Evans. I’m Director of Production at Sara Lee, Incorporated.”

  With the phone wedged between her ear and neck, she cut a whole goose liver into tiny one-quarter-inch squares. “As in Sara Lee cakes?”

  “Exactly. We’ve heard wonderful things about your Comical Cakes, and—”

  “I don’t own that business anymore. I’m sorry.” She would have hung up, but her hand was slimy and she reached for a napkin first.

  “Wait!” the voice cried. “It’s not the business, it’s the creativity we’re interested in, and that’s you. We’d like to start up our own line of festive and holiday cakes—some humorous, and all of them whimsical. The sort of thing you, we’ve been told, excel at.”

  She scooped up the foie gras and put it into a sauté pan with minced onions and butter. “What a nice compliment,” she finally managed to say, as she wiped her hands and stirred the mixture.

  “Miss Amalfi.” He was sounding exasperated. “You don’t understand. We were hoping you’d consider joining our team as a consultant as we start up this venture.”

  He was the one who didn’t understand! If the liver cooked much more than a minute it would become rubbery, and her plans to surprise Paavo ruined. “Excuse me, but—”

  “You’ve had experience in what the public is looking for along these lines—very successful experience,” he continued. “Would you be willing to talk to us—”

  “My liver is stiffening! I really must go.” Her head cocked further and further as the phone began to slip. She placed it on the counter, then hurried to remove the liver from the heat and put it into a bowl.

  “Your what? I’m not…anyway, Miss Amalfi, we’d love the opportunity to work with you, and we have an office right in San Francisco—”

  A handful of pistachios went into the Cuisinart and she turned it on High. As she began to sauté the ground meat, the nuts clattered loudly and the blender whirred.

  “Hello? Miss Amalfi? What’s that strange noise? Hello? Hello?”

  The Women’s Facility was an oppressive cement monolith. Max almost felt a pang of pity for Veronica’s having spent three years there. Almost. A sour-faced female guard led him through security to the visitor’s area for the cellblock Ronnie had called home.

  He sat on a stool facing a thick glass wall with phones on both sides. After some ten minutes, a jailer led a young black-haired woman to a chair opposite his.

  “Who’re you?” the woman asked. Her acne-scarred face was hard and the glare she cast made it even fiercer.

  “I’m a friend of Veronica’s,” he said quietly. “I was supposed to meet her, but she isn’t at the hotel.”

  The woman eyed him suspiciously. “You Dennis?” she asked.

  Dennis? The past came at him in a rush. He wobbled dangerously on the stool, his head light and dizzy. After Veronica had been sent to prison, he’d gotten the impression that she’d once had an affair with Dennis, among others. He had no idea, though, that their relationship was at all serious, or that it had continued.

  Dennis had been one of his few clients who’d been kind to him and offered help. He’d thought it was because Dennis had considered him a friend. Now, he wondered if it wasn’t guilt.

  “I’m surprised,” he said finally. “I didn’t think she’d tell anyone my name. She must trust you a lot.”

  The woman shrugged. “Guess so.”

  He tried to look worried. “I waited all day yesterday for her. She was released yesterday, wasn’t she?”

  “Yeah. Lucky bastard. Me, I got four more years here. She told me you’re rich. Can you do something for me? Help me get out?”

  “I’ll see what I can do. But first, I’ve got to find Veronica.”

  “Why don’t you ask her PO?” she said.

  “I did. He didn’t know where she was either.”

  “She said she was going to San Francisco, man. You should try her there. Isn’t that where you live? Maybe she’s at your place, waiting for you.”

  Maybe so, Max thought bitterly. He could imagine her there, with Pagozzi, laughing over what a lovesick fool he’d been. It shouldn’t be too hard to find Pagozzi’s home, to visit her there with the Saturday night special he’d picked up with Connie’s money.

  Damn them both!

  He smiled warmly at the woman. “To think, I came all the way down here to meet her. Did she say she was going to San Francisco right away?”

  “That’s what I thought. Why the hell would she want to stay in this crappy town one minute longer than she had to?”

  Connie’s mood wasn’t any better when she returned to her apartment that evening, especially after Mrs. Rosinsky, her landlady, confronted her on the stairs and demanded to know if she had a man living in her apartment. She should be so lucky.

  Of course, she denied it vehemently, wondering if the landlady had seen Max leave. But that wasn’t the case. Instead, apparently, some strange kind of police officer was looking for a man and thought he lived in Connie’s apartment. He’d contacted her landlady, who had denied it, but now wanted to make sure she was right.

  It was all too weird. On top of everything else, had she given sanctuary to a man wanted by the police? Even if he was, how would they know he’d spent one night there?

  She kicked off her Hush Puppies as she flipped through the mail. Two bills, four advertisements. At least the numbers weren’t reversed.

  Tossing her jacket on a chair, she went to the refrigerator for a Lipton diet lemon tea and to ponder the food situation for tonight’s dinner. It wasn’t pretty.

  The few customers who’d come into the shop that day were picky and didn’t buy anything. Many more days like that, and she’d end up back at the Bank of America as a teller. Standing on her feet for eight hours giving money to other people was not her idea of a good time.

  The hundred-eighty dollars Max had stolen from her was important. Most of it was grocery money. As she sprinkled some food into Goldie Hawn’s bowl, she wondered if she might be reduced to eating fish food before her business turned around.

  Goldie Hawn was lucky she was so small. Any larger, and she might end up battered and fried.

  Connie cooked some instant rice, then sautéed onion and garlic in a frying pan and added about a quarter pound of hamburger, crumbled, a half can of peas, and a little powdered ginger. When it was cooked, she mixed it together with the cooked rice, sprinkled soy sauce over the concoction, and voilà, “Connie’s Fried Rice.” Okay, so it wasn’t anything she’d serve company—and she wouldn’t dare mention it to Angie—but it was easy, filling, and most important, cheap.

  With each bite, irritation at Max Squire grew. How many times is one burnt so badly? She should track him down like a crazed bloodhound, then glom on like a rabid pitbull until he coughed up her money.

  Dennis Pagozzi supposedly knew Max. Old friends, wasn’t that what Max had said they were? Maybe Dennis could tell her how to reach him. If she called Butch, he could give her Dennis’s phone number.

  God, but she hated the thought of phoning a man who’d stood her up! On the other hand, she was desperate, financially speaking.

  She was steeling her nerve to punch in the Wings of an Angel number when the telephone rang. She was sure it was Angie again, wanting to get together “to talk.” Why did people who had everything going well for them think that other people’s problems could be solved by talking? God knows, if it was that easy, she’d talk so much she’d rival Op
rah.

  “Hello.” She all but spat out the word.

  “Is this, uh, Connie?” a man’s deep voice asked.

  “Yes,” she said hesitantly.

  “I’m Dennis Pagozzi. I called to apologize for missing you the other night. I was knocked out cold in a pick-up game. Spent the night in the infirmary.”

  Dennis Pagozzi! He’d actually called her. Was on her telephone. Right now.

  She swallowed hard, thoughts of all the movies and books she’d enjoyed recently in which women had sexy Italian boyfriends swimming in her head. Maybe it was finally her turn.

  It took a moment for her to find her voice. “How awful!” she croaked, then nervously cleared her throat. “Did you get a concussion?”

  “It’s no big deal. I’m okay. I was wondering if we could try again.”

  To hear him say those words was even more of a shock than the call, no matter how nice Angie had claimed he was. Cautiously, she said, “What did you have in mind?”

  “How about dinner tomorrow night? I’ll come by to pick you up. My uncle didn’t like the way you ended up sitting there all alone with no one but a guy who knew me years ago to keep you company. It was pretty cold. I never treat my women that way—not any woman. I feel bad about it.”

  Something about his pat little speech grated. On the other hand, the way he said “my women” with that growling, masculine voice caused her heart to beat a little faster. God, what was with her? “Tell you what,” she said, taking a couple of deep breaths. “I’ll meet you there, but I’ll get there on my own.”

  “Don’t trust me?” he asked, sounding hurt.

  “Why should I?” was her quick retort. Despite his sexy voice, he was a long way from being anyone she wanted to depend on for anything. Of course, she did want information on Max Squire’s whereabouts, and perhaps he could give it to her.

  “Hey, you’re one tough woman.” He chuckled. “I like that.”

  She smiled. “Maybe, if you’re lucky, I’ll feel the same about you someday.”

  “You will, Connie. You can bet on it.”

  After arranging a time, they said good-bye. Connie hung up the phone, but instead of feeling elation at the call, despite Angie’s assurances, something made her uneasy.

  Maybe she was gun shy because of her rotten experience with Max. Or maybe she just wasn’t blind date material.

  Chapter 6

  When Paavo walked into Homicide, he was tired and cross from a grueling morning in court. The defendant’s attorney was good, but with his client obviously guilty, his only chance was to make the police look like the bad guys in the case. It didn’t help Paavo’s mood any to know it was more a show for the jury than anything else.

  The first thing he saw was an ornate silver coffee urn on a desktop near the entrance to the detail, and around it, yellow, green, and gold floral demitasse cups more than half filled with cold coffee. On platters were fancy little sandwiches, no crusts, cut into heart and flower shapes. A number of them, with one bite taken out, lay abandoned on plates besides the cold coffee.

  He looked out over the large, oblong room that held the Homicide detail of the San Francisco Police Department. Homicide was a specialized department, part of the Bureau of Inspections, and housed centrally in the Hall of Justice rather than scattered over the neighborhood stations. Although Homicide was the top level for an officer not interested in supervision or administration to aspire to, right now, those few tough cops on the premises had their heads buried in their paperwork, refusing to meet his eye.

  Elizabeth, Lieutenant Hollins’s secretary, and de facto all-around helpmate for the homicide inspectors, a usually pleasant and chatty woman, in her fifties, with dyed red hair and glasses, stepped into the room, saw him, and froze.

  “What’s this?” he asked as she scurried by, almost as if she didn’t want to be anywhere around him.

  “Don’t ask me.” She picked up the outgoing mail, then hurried from the room.

  Heads bent lower as he headed toward his desk in the back.

  On the desk was an envelope with his name, written in Angie’s neatly rounded script. Eyes peered at him as he opened it.

  I hope you and your staff enjoy this treat—and it makes up for the singer.

  Love, Angie

  His own partner was one of the cowards. Paavo stared at him until he looked up. “What’s wrong with it, Yosh?”

  “Try it.”

  Paavo slowly walked to the coffee urn and poured himself a cup. From the smell alone, his stomach began to sink. He took a sip and nearly gagged. Rebecca Mayfield, the city’s only woman homicide inspector, stood beside him. She was an attractive blonde, intelligent, tall, and with a figure sculpted to near perfection by workouts at a gym. Everyone knew, including Paavo, about her “secret” crush on him. They also thought she was a lot better suited to him than Angie.

  “Strawberry?” he asked.

  “Strawberry-and-vanilla-cream-flavored coffee…as far as we can tell,” she said, her lips pursed.

  “It’s awful.” Paavo’s cup joined everyone else’s on the table.

  “Wait until you taste the sandwiches,” Rebecca warned, unable to suppress a smile.

  “What are they?”

  “The watercress isn’t bad, if you like veggie sandwiches, which these guys don’t. But it was the pâté that really got to them.”

  “Christ,” he muttered.

  “You call it pâté. To me, it’s chopped liver,” Calderon’s voice boomed across the room. Luis Calderon was Homicide’s resident grouch. A Jack Nicholson wannabe, he could have easily played the guy in a Stephen King movie who scared little boys and girls. “Tried to wash it down with that strawberry crap. Thought my damn tongue would shrivel up.”

  Rebecca patted Paavo’s arm. “I’m sure she meant well. It probably sounded very…romantic…to her. It’s excellent pâté, if you like that kind of thing.”

  “I can’t even think of where to send it,” Yosh finally got the nerve to speak up from behind his desk. “If we offered it to the guys in City Jail, it’d probably cause a prison riot.”

  The entire detail laughed.

  Angie walked two steps from her car and stopped, staring down at one of her black Ferragamo pumps with high platform soles. Stan Bonnette, a slim, preppy-looking man in tan Ralph Lauren slacks and a suede Brooks Brothers jacket, stood beside her. She’d convinced him to go to Connie’s shop to buy his mother a birthday gift. “Before we go into Connie’s, Stan, I’ve got to get the heel of this shoe fixed. It feels loose.”

  “How can you tell with those things? I think you need a blacksmith more than a shoe repair.” He laughed at his joke. She didn’t.

  “A shoe repair is right next door to Connie’s. Isn’t that handy? Let’s go inside.”

  Helen Melinger was concentrating on the sole of a man’s shoe when the two entered. “Hi, Helen,” Angie said. “How are you today?”

  “Well, look who’s here. What’s up, Angie? I saw your pal drag herself next door this morning. I guess she’s settling down a little, finally.” Helen’s greeting was good-natured as she swung the hammer down with a resounding clang.

  “I hope. I’d like you to meet a dear friend of mine, Stan Bonnette. Stan, this is Helen Melinger.”

  The two shook hands. Angie waited for “Love in Bloom” to sound. “Stan is my neighbor,” she chirped. “He’s a good friend. Of Paavo’s too.” Heaven forbid Helen get the wrong impression about the two of them.

  “Oh, nice.” Helen scarcely looked up. Her muscled arm swung again. Clang!

  “He works in a bank.” Angie pretended not to see Stan scrunch his face up and cringe with each blow.

  “Is that so?” Helen glanced up at the clock. Two P.M. “Banker’s hours are getting shorter every day, aren’t they?”

  “It’s my day off,” Stan said petulantly. He was sensitive about his work habits, or lack thereof. “Why don’t you show her your shoe, Angie?”

  “Yes, my shoe. Helen is
just a wonder at fixing things, Stan.” She counted off on her fingers. “Shoes, purses, belts, um…”

  “Motorcycles,” Helen added with a wink and a smile. “I have a big Harley that sings like a bird.”

  “Isn’t that exciting, Stan?” Angie asked, still not touching her shoe.

  “Sure. Except that they’re dangerous,” Stan added.

  “Not if you know how to ride them properly,” Helen countered.

  “It’s not how to ride them, it’s the way they’re ridden,” Stan proclaimed. “I hate how bikers head along the line that divides lanes, zipping between cars stuck in traffic. They should stay in one lane or the other, the way cars do. But instead, if you change lanes and you bag some guy on a motorcycle who’s where he shouldn’t be, usually right in your blind spot, it’s the car driver’s fault.”

  Helen put the hammer down and folded her arms. “You need to understand that motorcycles aren’t like cars. They have only two wheels, in case you hadn’t noticed. You’ve got to keep them moving so they don’t fall over or stall.”

  Angie yanked her shoe off. “Here’s—”

  “If they can’t handle traffic like everyone else,” Stan pontificated, “they shouldn’t be allowed in it. A no-motorcycle zone, that’s what this world needs.”

  “My shoe?” Angie waved it around, hopping closer to Helen. Both Helen and Stan ignored her.

  “What kind of a pig-headed attitude is that?” Helen growled. “If everyone rode motorcycles instead of big gas guzzlers, this country would be a lot better place. We could save the environment.”

  Stan threw back his head to bray a phony laugh. “A Sierra Club Harley rider. Now I’ve heard everything. A two-wheeling tree hugger.”

  Helen came around the counter toward him with deadly deliberation.

  “The heel, right here!” Angie pointed vigorously, trying to get her attention.

  “You haven’t heard nothing if you bad mouth Harleys or the Sierra Club, buster.”