A Cook in Time

by Joanne Pence

“I started a new business,” she began.

  With a hangdog look, he slowly nodded. “That’ll make a person miserable real fast.”

  “I’ve got to cater a big meal for a strange group of people, and I’ve got to do it in less than a week’s time. I’ve been calling around for caterers, and they all act like I’m crazy. I think I’m going to have to prepare all the food myself.”

  “Oh yeah? How many people you talkin’ about?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’re you gonna serve ’em?”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  “You got a problem awright. Maybe you oughta serve ’em chips an’ dip.”

  “Maybe I should just give up.”

  He leaned forward. “You ain’t no quitter, Miss Angie. An’ if this is so important to you, me an’ the boys’ll help you.”

  She glanced up at him. “You will?”

  “Sure. You gotta remember, we don’ do nothin’ fancy. But we can get people fed.”

  “Thanks, Vinnie. I appreciate it.”

  He sat back, relaxed, his wrinkled face curving into a smile. “Hey, you helped us get this restaurant goin’. We couldn’ a done it without you. It’s payback time, that’s all.”

  “I don’t need any payback. But I’m glad of your offer.”

  “An’ anyway, we gotta keep an eye on you an’ see that you don’ get no more sad or mixed up about stuff than you are.”

  As Angie looked at him in amazement, he got up, pushed in the chair, and went back into the nether regions of the restaurant to do whatever it was he usually did. Which, she suspected, wasn’t much.

  “Damn it to hell,” Yosh bellowed. “We’ve got to get that bastard. I mean now. Right now!” Thick fog swirled around him like smoke from a fire. The little party that stood at the top of Twin Peaks seemed to be the only people left on earth.

  Paavo pulled his jacket tighter to ward off the damp cold. Another mutilation murder, every bit as horrible as the last two, had been committed. The body was that of an African-American male, probably in his mid- to late fifties, although guessing the age of someone who had been exsanguinated wasn’t easy. The skin tended to turn as dry and flaky as that of a ninety-year-old. Like the other two victims, he was naked, bloodless, and his orifices had been cored out. Like the other two, he had a number carved in his chest. This time, the number was 4. Only one thing was different. Wrapped around the victim’s wrist was a piece of cable.

  The man had been left in the middle of Twin Peaks Boulevard. The first patrolmen on the scene had already rung the doorbells of all the nearby homes and asked if the people living there had any idea what had happened. The neighbors stated that the fog had been so heavy on the peaks all night that they couldn’t see the street, let alone anyone lying out there on it. Judging from the abrasions on the body, the victim had most likely been pushed out of a car and left exactly as he landed. It was only, in fact, when another car nearly ran over him, and the driver got out to see what was wrong with the man, that the police were called.

  The driver was being held until the homicide inspectors could talk to him.

  “The body’s in full rigor,” Paavo said, trying without success to wriggle a toe. “He’s probably been dead some twenty-four hours.”

  “Felix Rolfe was freshly killed when we found him five days ago,” Yosh said. “That means there were only four-plus days between the murders this time. We’ve got a real psycho on our hands. He doesn’t seem to get physically tired or emotionally drained from these killings.”

  “And why is there a four carved on his chest? Seven, five, four,” Paavo said.

  “We need a break!” Yosh shouted. “Some prints on this vic, something. The doer’s got to make a mistake. These killings are too bloody for there not to be any evidence!”

  “Maybe three’s the charm.” Paavo scanned the eerie crime scene of another horrible, senseless murder. Through the fog, the holiday decorations on the homes were blurs of red, green, and white. When all was still, he heard in the distance the soft sounds of a Christmas carol:

  Angels we have heard on high,

  Sweetly singing o’er the plain …

  He tried not to listen. The houses nearby held prospective witnesses who had to be interviewed. Again, he and Yosh would follow the routine for identifying yet another mutilated corpse. Again, he’d have to postpone seeing Angie, finding her a Christmas present, and trying to come up with a modicum of holiday spirit. He drew in a deep breath. “Let’s get started.”

  The strains of the carol floated over the city streets.

  It was morning before they were able to leave the crime scene and head back to Homicide. Soon after their return, a call came in from the Park station. “Smith here,” Paavo answered.

  “Sergeant Cooper, Inspector. Some of my men were up on the Peaks with you tonight. A call came in I thought you might want to hear about. A woman looking for her husband. He didn’t come home tonight and she was calling to find out if there’d been any accidents. The husband fits the description of the corpse.”

  “Damn,” Paavo muttered. It was bad enough talking to cold or heartless people such as Bertram Lambert’s sister or Felix Rolfe’s mother about a loved one who had been killed. To talk to a victim’s wife was the worst part of his job. “What’s her name and address? We’ll check it out.”

  Paavo and Yosh went to a walk-up flat on Broderick near Waller. “Mrs. Cole?” Paavo asked when a tall middle-aged woman opened the door.

  She was in her bathrobe and slippers. One look at the men in front of her and she stiffened, her face etched with worry and fright. “That’s me. It’s not about Leon, is it? He’s not hurt, is he?” Her voice held the soft cadence of Louisiana.

  “We’re checking on your call that he’s missing, Mrs. Cole,” Yosh said gently. “I’m Inspector Yoshiwara and this is Inspector Smith.”

  “Inspectors?” she asked, her dark brown eyes growing wider, clearly wondering why her call had attracted such high-level attention.

  “That’s right,” Yosh continued. “Do you have any pictures of your husband? That would help us.”

  That rattled her even more. “A picture,” she said, backing away from the door. “Come in,” she murmured as she went into the living room. A gallery of photographs—young boys, smiling girls, toothless babies, all ages and sizes—lined the mantel over what had once been a fireplace but now had a gas heater in it. Pinecones and branches were interwoven among the pictures. In front of the window was a Christmas tree, and under it lay a number of colorfully wrapped presents.

  “These are my kids and grandkids,” she said proudly. “Our kids are all grown up. It’s just me and Leon at home now.” She picked up a photo of a military man wearing an Air Force uniform. Paavo and Yosh immediately recognized him as the man they had found on the street. “This photo is a few years old—his retirement from the Air Force after twenty-five years of service. He was a captain. He hasn’t changed too much, though. Still a handsome rascal. Does this help?”

  Paavo and Yosh glanced at each other, then asked her to sit down. She would have to, eventually, go down to the morgue with them. But not right now.

  17

  At eight o’clock the next evening, Angie went into her living room, turned on the TV, kicked off her black Ferragamos with the four-inch heels, and flopped onto the sofa, exhausted. The night before, she’d had another troubled sleep. She had been quite sure Paavo would stop by to talk. He always had in the past when things were strained between them. This time, he hadn’t. Even after she went to bed, she kept watching the clock and listening for his knock. When morning came, she’d got up, tired and discouraged.

  She’d gone to her parents’ house to have lunch with her mother, but Serefina zeroed in on her unhappiness and asked too many questions. Angie soon left.

  Now she had just settled down to watch Cooking for Fun and Profit when the buzzer sounded on her door.

  She spun around and faced it with surprise. Paavo ne
ver used the doorbell. He always knocked. So did Stan. She put her shoes back on, went to the peephole, and peered out.

  Then she smoothed her dress and swung open the door. “Derrick! This is a surprise.”

  “Angie.” He stood in the doorway, his eyes shifting and fearful. “I wanted to be sure everything was all right with you. Everyone is so upset about Oliver, I scarcely know what to do.”

  “I can imagine. Please come in.”

  “Thank you. I didn’t want to impose….” He glanced over his shoulder toward the elevator, then hurriedly stepped into her living room and shut the door behind him. He drew in a deep breath as he looked around. “This apartment is even more beautiful than I remember.” He headed toward the windows and peeked behind an open drape. Angie watched him with growing discomfort. “Your father owns a gold mine with this building,” he said. “Top of Russian Hill. Views. He hasn’t given it to you, has he?”

  What is with him? Angie wondered. “I don’t think my four sisters would like it if he did.” She gestured toward the sofa. “Won’t you sit down? How about some brandy, or scotch, perhaps?”

  “Brandy would be great. It’s chilly out. The fog is thick again tonight. The airports are closed. Traffic is scarcely moving.”

  “Yes. I was out earlier.” She poured him a snifter of brandy. He took off his jacket and sat. She sat on the antique yellow Hepplewhite chair.

  “So …” Where could she start that didn’t sound trite? “How are you holding up with all this going on?”

  “It’s hard.” His gaze dropped a moment. “More than anything, I’m numb right now. First Mosshad, now Oliver. Not that Mosshad is dead—heaven forbid! But he’s still missing. I’m afraid something’s happened to him. I’m scared, Angie. I’m not too much of a man to admit it.”

  “Derrick”—she wasn’t quite sure how to bring this up—“tell me the truth. Wasn’t Mosshad’s disappearance a publicity stunt? I mean, none of you sounded in the least bit upset about him.”

  As he held the snifter, he slowly turned it, his thumb running along the side of the glass as he did. “You’re right. It started out as a publicity stunt. We had things rigged to look like an abduction. Some of us felt we needed the publicity. Others, like Kronos—the blond guy with the ponytail—disagreed. He and I argued about it quite a bit. I wish now that I’d listened to him. But NAUTS is a barely viable organization, I’m sorry to say. It seems we aren’t far-out enough. If we had one-hundredth of the money that charlatan Algernon is raking in, we’d be fine. But we don’t.”

  “You called Algernon a charlatan, but you faked the abduction.”

  “It was just a little joke to get some attention. Believe me, it’s not all fake. Some of it is very, very real.”

  “I don’t understand how you did it. I was there. I saw the lights. I lost time. Everyone did.”

  “It was just a trick, Angie. We had the chairs in the audience rigged up to make electromagnetic charges in the armrests. When we hit a switch, the charges were released and the batteries in your watches stopped dead. The big clocks in the hall weren’t affected because they’re all electric. Also, they’re all tied into a master clock. Using the master clock, we moved them ahead ten minutes. The result was simple. People assumed they’d lost ten minutes in real time—a common phenomenon in abductions. By the time they left the hall and saw clocks with the real time, since their own watches had stopped, ten minutes more or less meant nothing.”

  “That’s remarkable,” Angie said, surprised NAUTS would have gone to such trouble to set up the stunt.

  “It really wasn’t difficult at all. We’re scientists and engineers. We have access to all kinds of things not on the retail market, and the know-how to use them. So I announced Mosshad had been abducted. It made the newspapers. A few days later we were going to hold a press conference with Mosshad telling what had happened to him during the time he was with the extraterrestrials. Then we’d say that anyone who wanted more information should go to his lecture the next night.”

  “What a scam!” she cried.

  “It’s mild as most scams go, believe me,” Derrick said with a shrug. “There was just one problem. Mosshad didn’t call me the next day like he was supposed to do. I’ve called many times, but he never answers. No one has seen him. He’s still missing.”

  “Are you sure he isn’t simply hiding somewhere, letting the suspense build?”

  “That’s what I thought at first. When we talked about our press conference and the way to hold one to get maximum coverage, we decided that he needed to reappear before the public forgot the story—a couple of days at max. This isn’t a case of an absentminded professor. Something has happened to him.”

  “Did you go to the police?” Angie asked.

  “And say what? We told a guy to get lost for a few days and he hasn’t come back yet?”

  “Exactly.”

  “How much attention will they give us when they find out we’re all with NAUTS?”

  Angie sighed. “You’ve got a point.”

  “As I said, Angie, I’m scared. We were wrong to pretend he was abducted. I, of all people, should know better than to play around with that. Now, if someone, or something, is after NAUTS, I’m the president of the group!” Embarrassed at his outburst, he turned his head away and began rubbing his temples. His voice, when he spoke, sounded dejected. “I hate the thought of going back to my apartment, of being alone.”

  She knew what he was asking, but there was no way she was about to invite him to stay at her place. “Maybe you could stay with someone from NAUTS?”

  He didn’t reply. Instead, he drained his glass, then stood. “I don’t think so. I’ll figure something out. I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

  “Wait.” She stood as well. “Before you leave, we should call Paavo. Maybe he can suggest something as far as trying to find Mosshad. He can tell us, too, if Oliver’s death was an accident or a suicide. Perhaps you don’t need to be fearful about any of this.”

  “I’ll find out in due course, Angie. For now, I need to decide what to do. It’s not your problem.” As he studied her, his hazel eyes seemed wary and strained in a way that didn’t fit her old friend at all. Then, to her horror, his face started to crumble and she thought he was going to burst into tears. He swallowed hard a few times, looking like an inflatable doll that had just had a pin stuck into it. “It’s so hard.” He gazed at her. “You’re the only person left in this whole world that I trust.”

  “Me? What about your friends?”

  He drew in a deep breath. “What if one of them is behind this? What if one of them has … has hurt Mosshad, or was behind Oliver’s death?”

  “You’re leaping to all sorts of conclusions, Derrick.”

  “What if those conclusions are true?” His voice rose and he seemed near hysteria. “Do I have to be the next one killed before anyone believes me?”

  She sat on the sofa and took his hand, pulling him down beside her. “Tell me the whole truth. Is there some reason you believe you can’t trust your friends, your partners? If I’m going to help you, I need to know.”

  His hand tightened painfully on hers. “Angie, don’t ask. Please. I wouldn’t do anything that might cause you danger.”

  “Does this have to do with the Prometheus Group and NAUTS?” she asked.

  “They hate me, but I swear to you, Angie, I was only trying to do the right thing.”

  “Who hates you?”

  “All of them. A couple of years ago—after we broke up—I went to Area Fifty-one in Nevada, where the founder of the Prometheus Group had worked until he was killed in a laboratory accident.”

  “What’s Area Fifty-one?”

  “It’s a secret base on the Nevada Test Site. Lots of black-budget experiments go on there. The military denies anything special happens in the complex. I know better. While there, I learned about Neumann and his work. I learned that Algernon had perverted it. For that reason, when I couldn’t get Algernon to change, I start
ed NAUTS.”

  “The split was pretty ugly, I take it.”

  “Phil thought he should lead NAUTS because he’d once led a commune and he felt we should be similarly organized. He’s too flaky. No one would listen to him. Mosshad thought he should lead it because he used to know Neumann. He’s too old and too weak-willed. Kronos defected to NAUTS, and it cost him his marriage. Only Elvis came over in an untroubled way. He simply believed in the cause. My cause, and the original Promethean cause, not Algernon’s stupid message.”

  “What was the original cause?”

  “It was to let the world know that aliens do exist, that they landed on Earth at Roswell, and that the government—despite its denials—not only knows they exist but has taken alien DNA and added it to a human embryo. That a man walked among us, a brilliant man, who was in fact part alien.”

  Oh lordy, Angie thought, here we go again. She was almost afraid to ask her next question. “Who was that man?”

  “The founder of the Prometheus Group.” His eyes were wide, almost scary. “Igor Mikhailovich Neumann.”

  “Give me strength!” she cried, unable to take any more of this. “Igor Mikhailovich? You’re saying he was a Russian space alien?”

  “Some Russian defectors and ex-Nazi German scientists worked along with Americans for years after the Roswell crash on this project. Finally, sometime in the fifties, they succeeded. They named him. He went by his initials: I. M. In other words, I. M. Neumann.”

  “Ah, but of course.” She should have known. I am new man. It sounded like the sort of schmaltz Hollywood would come up with.

  “He was brilliant, beyond human comprehension,” Derrick continued. “From the time he was old enough to understand why he was so different from other children, he dedicated his life to learning all he could about science, both biophysics and astrophysics. He wanted to know everything; he wanted to do everything he could about the sad state of denial the world was in.”

  “Denial?”

  “About extraterrestrials. That they exist. He wanted to prove it. Throughout his life he was watched and studied by the government, and as an adult he worked at Area Fifty-one, where he studied the alien technology from the Roswell crash. He was able to do more with it, to make better progress understanding it, than anyone else. He began the Prometheus Group in the early eighties. It grew in leaps and bounds in popularity. Then, about ten years ago, he was killed. His entire laboratory was destroyed in an explosion that burned so hot only cinders remained. Some people in the group prefer to think that he isn’t dead but has returned to the mother ship.”