A Cook in Time

by Joanne Pence

  She poked around here and there herself. Considering how big the warehouse was, if Oliver had wandered off very far and either fell asleep or got hurt, it could take a long time to find him. She went to the open stairway. The stairs seemed to go up four floors and down one. The only lights were a few emergency lights around the stairs itself, to prevent accidents. She shuddered. The big building was empty and, according to Triana, would be destroyed soon to make way for redevelopment. The thought of wandering around in it looking for someone gave her a creepy feeling.

  She hurried away from the stairs. Not sure what else to do, she opened a nearby door, turned on the lights, and looked inside.

  It was an empty storeroom. She stepped out again and shut the door. She would ask Derrick if anyone had checked to see if Oliver’s car was gone. If Oliver had a car, that is. When she looked around, she no longer saw Derrick or his friends. She was alone. She couldn’t even hear their footsteps. No wonder, in a building that large.

  She returned to the backstage area where they’d met earlier. She looked high overhead, where great coils of rope controlled the scenery and curtains. She looked into the dark corners, where more ropes and boxes lurked in the shadows.

  It was certainly quiet in there. She wished someone would come back. They wouldn’t have all gone home and left her there, would they? They weren’t pranksters, she hoped. On the other hand, where were they?

  The backstage lights were still on. They were still searching for Oliver, that was all. Nothing to get alarmed about.

  Unless … like Mosshad … they had all been …

  No! No one had been abducted by aliens! Not them, and certainly not Mosshad. Or Oliver. She was appalled that the thought had even crossed her mind. The bizarre beliefs of these people were more infectious than she had imagined.

  Should she search for them? She walked over to the stage curtain and drew it back. The auditorium was a massive, pitch-black cavern.

  She dropped the curtain and turned around. Still no one had returned. No footsteps. No voices.

  To leave that area would be foolhardy. She didn’t know her way around the hall. What if she got lost or hurt, stumbling around out there alone? The men would be back. They wouldn’t leave her. She hoped.

  She wandered around the backstage area, listening for their return.

  Rest room doors, for men and women, were on one side of the area near the dressing rooms. Maybe she should quickly use the facilities while waiting for Derrick.

  She went to the ladies’ room and opened the door. The room was dark, but a light switch was right next to the entry. She flipped it up.

  The light came on, showing an old bathroom with two stalls and a single sink with a mirror over it. The stall doors were slightly ajar, as if someone had pulled them shut, but not all the way.

  A pool of red liquid lay in a puddle in the center of the bathroom floor. As she stepped closer, a smell, acrid but familiar, hit her. She stared at the liquid, a mounting horror stealing over her. A drop fell into the pool.

  A drop of blood. Coming from …

  Afraid, yet at the same time unable to stop herself, she raised her eyes to the ceiling.

  A glass skylight was overhead. Splayed against it, his face pressed hard against the cracked glass as blood oozed from his mouth and nose, his eyes open and unfocused with the look of death, was Oliver Hardy.

  15

  “God, that was awful!” Paavo said, dropping into his desk chair.

  “Hey, pal,” Yosh said. “You look beat. What happened?”

  “Angie has to be out of her mind to like going downtown to shop. I just grabbed a sandwich for dinner and thought I’d run into Nordstrom’s to pick up a Christmas present for her. It was packed, so I went to Macy’s. That was worse.”

  “Just some sweet little lady shoppers,” Yosh said before he broke into a heartfelt rendition of “Silver Bells.”

  “I was pushed, shoved, and stepped on. Even kicked. The only clerks who’d pay attention to me were the ones who wanted to spray me with perfume.” Frowning, Paavo lifted his lapel, sniffed it, then swore as he took off the jacket and hung it on the back of the chair.

  “Where’s your Christmas spirit?” Yosh said with a chuckle.

  “Hah! I’ve got a whole new respect for the Grinch.”

  Yosh got up and poured them both a cup of black coffee from the bureau’s pot. “What did you want to buy?” He put Paavo’s cup on his desk.

  “Thanks.” Paavo took a sip. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so miserable. “Nothing. I still don’t know what to get her.”

  Yosh nodded with great commiseration. “I see your problem.”

  Just then the telephone rang. No one else was in Homicide that night besides the two of them, working on the mutilation murders. Yosh answered the phone, then, hand over the mouthpiece, he glanced at his partner. “Speak of the devil.”

  Paavo had scarcely gotten out a hello when Angie’s words tumbled over the wire, loud and excited. “Paavo, come quick. There’s a dead body. And I found him. I thought they’d send you to investigate, but instead they sent some bossy blonde and some spooky guy who stands on the sidelines and twitches! They’re dreadful! We need you here.”

  He jumped to his feet, gripping the phone tighter. Angie with a dead body? Her words made little sense—except for her description of homicide inspectors Rebecca Mayfield and Bill Never-Take-a-Chance Sutter, that night’s on-call homicide team. “Where are you?”

  “Tardis Hall—foot of Brannan.”

  “I don’t believe it!” He spun around and nearly pulled the cord out of the phone. “You went there again? At this time of night?”

  “I … Connie … well, I came to another lecture.” Her voice was small. “Afterward, Oliver Hardy disappeared. That’s not his real name, but I can’t remember what his real name is. Everyone else went to look for him, except me. I went to the bathroom. And there he was! You need to come find out what’s going on here.”

  “Slow down. You found a body.” He glanced up to see that Yosh was now also standing, a concerned expression on his face. “Did it look like an accident? Or, I should say, was there anything that made you think it might not have been a natural death?”

  “You could say that. He was lying on a skylight. Outside the building, on a skylight. And he’d hit with enough force to crack it.”

  “Damn! Angie, listen to me. You keep away from everyone there but Inspector Mayfield. Understand? Inspector Rebecca Mayfield. She knows what she’s doing.”

  “Seems to me she’s doing a terrible job.”

  “Angie!” He stopped himself, sucking in his breath as he ran his free hand through his hair. In a moment he was a little calmer. “Just do what I say. Stick to Mayfield. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

  He hung up the phone and grabbed his jacket, struggling to shove his arm through the sleeve while he talked to Yosh. “Angie’s with some UFO nuts in a converted warehouse down on Brannan. Near the waterfront. One of them was found flattened on the roof—on a skylight. I’ve got to make sure she’s all right.”

  “She does know how to get in the thick of things, doesn’t she?” Yosh said, putting down his report and twisting the cap onto his pen.

  “No need for you to come along.” Paavo flipped his jacket collar down, checked his gun, and patted his pockets for his ID and keys. “Mayfield and Sutter are already at the scene. These mutilation murders need all your attention. Checking on Angie will be the extent of my involvement.”

  “I’ll believe that when I see it,” Yosh said. Then he chuckled. “Landed on a skylight, you said? Sounds like the guy might have been tossed out of a spaceship.”

  Paavo stopped his old Austin Healey in the tow-away zone, got out, and headed for Tardis Hall. There wasn’t anything for him to feel so frantic about. No reason to think Angie could be in danger—in one of the highest-crime areas of the city, possibly with a murderer in the building or lurking nearby.

  He shoved t
he doors open, flashed his badge at the patrol officer guarding it, and sighed with relief when he saw Angie running toward him, arms waving. Behind her, open doors led to a large auditorium. All the lights were on.

  “Paavo, thank God you’re here!” she cried as she ran into his embrace. “You can’t imagine how dreadful this has been! There was so much blood. And his eyes!”

  He held her tight until her babbling and trembling stopped, then put her at arm’s length to see if she’d been hurt in any way. “Are you all right?” he asked. She nodded, but wore a pinched, fearful look. He wrapped her in his arms again.

  Rebecca Mayfield, the only woman in Homicide, walked up to them. She was tall and graceful, with thick, shoulder-length blond hair. “What took you so long?” she asked Paavo. She wore a dark brown pants suit and now stood with one hand on her hip.

  “You knew I was coming?”

  Mayfield gave Angie a glance, then sniffed. “I had no doubt about it, Inspector, since you know one of our prime suspects.”

  All the blood drained from Angie’s face. She spun toward Mayfield. “Your what?” Her words were strangled.

  “She’s joking, Angie,” Paavo said, shooting Mayfield an icy glare.

  Mayfield folded her arms. “The person who finds the body is always a prime suspect,” she said matter-of-factly. “That’s one of the first lessons in homicide investigation. You know that, Paavo.”

  Before he had a chance to respond, Angie blurted out, “That is the most blatantly foolish—”

  He took her arm and drew her away, furious with Mayfield’s antics. “Let’s go.”

  Mayfield smirked.

  Paavo hurried Angie into the auditorium. The stage lights were lit, the curtains open, and the scenery drops lifted. In the backstage area, several patrol officers stood guard and crime scene tape had been hung. A patrolman directed Paavo to the side room where a group had gathered.

  Instead of taking Angie into the room with the others, he stopped at one of the seats in the auditorium. “Wait here. I want to talk to Mayfield and Sutter to find out what we’re dealing with.”

  She nodded.

  As soon as she was seated, he left her to get a feel for Tardis Hall, for the area not cordoned off by yellow tape. The building was huge. Apart from the part that had been turned into a lecture hall, the rest of it was a warehouse with open space in the center and little storage rooms on the sides. The crime scene technicians had just arrived and were laying out their equipment.

  “Paavo!” The assistant coroner, Evelyn Ramirez, walked up to him. Even at this time of night, every hair was in place, her makeup flawless. “At least tonight I’m able to work indoors, not like the last two cases you called me out on.”

  “This isn’t my case, Doc,” he said. “I just decided to drop in.”

  She drew a deep breath. “It’s not another one, is it?”

  Paavo was surprised to see the tough lady coroner squeamish about the thought of facing another mutilated body. “It isn’t. From what I’ve been told, this one was only splattered all over a skylight in the bathroom,” he added with heavy sarcasm.

  “And me without a ladder.” She shook her head as she followed the patrolman toward the body.

  Paavo watched them go. He really shouldn’t follow, since it wasn’t his case and he knew how furious he got when other inspectors trampled through his crime scene out of curiosity. Not being able to see the crime galled nonetheless. He turned and studied the four men seated in the side room. All of them, whether they knew it or not, were suspects. One by one, each would give Mayfield and Sutter the particulars about who they were, where they lived and worked, and why they were there.

  Four people.

  Paavo walked closer to them. One looked like a thirty-something college professor, lacking only suede patches on the elbows of his corduroy sports jacket. One had long, stringy blond hair pulled back in a ponytail; his clothes looked even dirtier than his hair. Another either had done drugs and free love in his youth or was making up for lost time with his frizzy gray hair, love beads, and sandals. The last could have been a choirboy—white shirt, light gray slacks, and solid blue tie.

  The college professor type stood up and called out to him. “You seem to be a friend of Angelina’s.”

  “Yes,” Paavo said cautiously. Was that line an attempt on a suspect’s part to ingratiate himself, or what?

  The man approached, rubbing his hands nervously. “With the police, are you?”

  Paavo flipped open his badge, watching the man’s every move. “Smith, Homicide.”

  The man read it over. “I’m Derrick Holton, president of the club that put on the lecture tonight,” he said, holding out his hand. Paavo shook it. “Angelina’s a great woman.” Holton spoke quickly, his eyes nervously darting from side to side. “We’re old friends, you know.”

  “Is that so?” Paavo said.

  “Ah yes! Good friends.” Holton smiled again and looked back at Inspector Mayfield, who was talking to the grubby blond fellow. His smile disappeared as quickly as it showed up when he again faced Paavo. “That’s why she came here tonight. To see me.” He was growing breathless. “She’s interested in UFOs, you know.”

  Paavo’s expression grew shuttered. “I didn’t know that.”

  Derrick gave a high-pitched chuckle. “That was why she called me. Because of my background in the field.” He leaned forward. “So, since we’re all friends of Angelina’s, maybe you can get them to cut us some slack, you know? It’s not as if any one of us would hurt Oliver. They’re saying they might keep us here for hours. This … this isn’t a great place to be this late at night. Can you do anything to speed things up? Even though I’m president, I would have left early. It’s not as if I cared to listen to a lecture about the face on Mars! I stayed to keep Angelina company.”

  Paavo took out his notebook, not trusting himself to speak right then, and made an annotation. He put it back into his pocket. “So you know Miss Amalfi pretty well, do you?”

  Holton’s smile broadened even more. He slid his hands in his front pockets and teetered back on his heels. “You could say that. We were close. Nearly got married.”

  Paavo’s jaw grew so tight he could barely pry his lips apart to speak. “Really?”

  “Yes.” Holton nodded, his thoughts turning inward and a secret smile forming on his lips. Paavo resisted the urge to ram his fist in the man’s face. “She was too young, though,” Holton finally announced. “She had things to do. She went off and lived in Paris for a while, traveled. I’ve never been far away, though. I promised to wait for her, and I did. Never really met anyone else quite like Angelina. Now I just need to convince her the time is right for our wedding. Why wait?”

  “Why indeed?”

  “I can always call her old man and enlist his support now that Angelina and I are seeing each other again.”

  A chill raced through Paavo’s veins. “Her father approves of you?” He didn’t need to ask. He was being masochistic—he could tell from Holton’s words what the answer would be. Sal Amalfi had always made it clear he thought a cop wasn’t good enough for his daughter.

  “Her father and I”—Holton pressed two fingers close together—“are just like that.”

  “You live and work in the city, I take it?”

  “I’m on sabbatical right now. Say, can’t we talk tomorrow? Can’t you tell them to release us?”

  “You’re on sabbatical—are you a teacher?”

  Holton frowned impatiently. “Not exactly. An astrophysicist. I was with NASA.” He gave a smile probably meant to look self-deprecating. In fact, it looked anything but. “I guess I should have introduced myself more properly as Dr. Derrick Holton. I have a Ph.D.”

  “Right.” He coughed. “And now that Miss Amalfi’s interested in UFOs, she called you.”

  “That’s right—for her new job.”

  Christ! What else hadn’t she told him? “Her new job?” He struggled to keep his tone light and casual.
r />   Holton smiled and shook his head. “Sorry. I was beating myself up over there when I first saw you and Angelina together. I assumed there might be something between you two. I see I was wrong.” He looked up. “Thank you, Lord. Angelina has a job catering dinner parties for rich clients. It’s fun and she enjoys it. I would have thought she would have told more people about it, but I guess she’s only telling those she’s close to.”

  “Like you?”

  “Yeah. Me. Connie. Earl at the restaurant.”

  “You’ve been to Wings of an Angel?”

  “Sure. It’s one of Angelina’s favorite spots.”

  “So I’ve heard.” Paavo took a long, hard look at the man in front of him. “That’s all very interesting, Mr. Holton.”

  “Yes, I thought you’d agree.”

  “I do. But it doesn’t have anything to do with the reason we’re here tonight, does it?”

  Holton’s eyes widened. “Not directly, but I wanted to explain my character, my friends, my—”

  “Your whereabouts, Dr. Holton? I’m interested in your whereabouts this evening, specifically from the time Oliver Hardy was last seen alive up until Miss Amalfi found his body.”

  Holton stiffened. “Surely you aren’t implying that I …” He didn’t continue.

  Paavo’s voice was cold. “I’m not implying anything, Holton. Inspector Mayfield will be questioning you soon.”

  Holton’s mouth dropped open and he visibly shuddered.

  Paavo turned away and went to Angie.

  She stood up, alarmed at his frown. “Paavo, what’s wrong?”

  “Put your coat on. We’re leaving.”

  Mayfield came running over to him. “Did I hear you say you’re leaving? You can’t take my witness until I say so.”

  “Have you gotten her statement?”

  “A preliminary one, yes,” Rebecca said.