Courting Disaster

by Joanne Pence

  On the way home he’d splurge and take a taxi. Maybe.

  Standing near the bar, laughing and chatting with a couple of women, was the aforementioned Nona Farraday, beautiful as ever. Stan worked his way nearby and ordered Cutty on the rocks. Drink in hand, he turned, caught her eye, and feigned surprise. “Nona,” he said.

  She didn’t respond as she eyed him from his Helmut Lang sports jacket to his handmade Santoni loafers. He owned a few expensive clothes, bought mostly for going to dinners and events with his parents in Beverly Hills. Since his parents didn’t have much to do with him, the clothes were hardly worn.

  Apparently finding him acceptable, Nona gazed archly. “Have we met?”

  “I live across the hall from Angie Amalfi.” He held out his hand. “Stan Bonnette.”

  “Mr. Bonnet.” She shook his hand. “How could I have forgotten?”

  “That’s Bon-nette, accent on the last syllable. It’s French. But you can call me”—he lifted an eyebrow—“Stan the Man.” It was an old line, but one that worked.

  Actually, come to think of it, maybe it didn’t.

  She chose to ignore it. “So what are you doing in this area? Far from home, isn’t it?”

  “I’m meeting a friend nearby for dinner and I’m early. It’s good to see you again, Nona,” he said. “Angie often mentions you.”

  Interested now, she turned her back on her girlfriends. “Does she? Were you very good friends with Angie? Before her engagement, of course.”

  “No. Never. She isn’t my type. A little too busy and neurotic for me.”

  Nona raised her eyebrows at his description. Angie was hardly neurotic, but since Nona was, or so he’d heard, he expected she’d eat up hearing Angie described that way.

  “Not that she didn’t spend months inviting me to dinner, bringing over desserts, and what have you.” He gave a woeful shake of his head. “It was something.”

  “You didn’t like the attention?” Nona asked, head cocked.

  “I liked the food…” He smirked.

  She gloated. “You make her sound pathetic.”

  “No, Angie’s just fine.” He took out a slim solid-gold cigarette case and lighter. The set had been his father’s until Howard Bonnette gave up smoking. “I know there’s no smoking indoors, but if you’d like one we can step outside.”

  “That’s a beautiful case.” She took it from him. He could see her scrutinizing it as if to make sure it wasn’t merely gold-plated.

  “What do you say?”

  She handed it back. “I don’t smoke.”

  He tucked everything back into his jacket pocket. “Me neither.” He glanced at her drink. “Refill?”

  Her enticing blue-gray eyes were large and widely spaced. “Whiskey sour.” Her voice took on a smooth, velvety quality that reverberated in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t answer, so afraid was he that his own voice would come out with a squeak. He placed the order.

  “Why don’t we find a table?” he suggested.

  She headed for one in a corner. A dark, intimate corner.

  He gawked at her, his mouth hanging open. She actually seemed interested!

  As suavely as he could, he followed, although passing the happy hour hot hors d’oeuvres spread was almost his undoing. Angie had frowned at him many times after he’d piled a plate high with free food, and called such behavior “gauche.” That was the last thing he wanted to be around Nona. He ran his fingers through the lock of hair over his brow.

  Her perfume reached him—subtle, with a light floral scent. It made him want to move closer, but he suspected sticking his nose against her neck wouldn’t sit well.

  When they reached the table, he raced to the side she chose and pulled out a chair. She looked surprised but sat. He tried to slide it back in but was too late and she was too heavy. After a shove or two that did no good, he sat in the chair opposite. She looked only slightly annoyed as she slid her own chair closer to the table.

  He quickly discovered that she enjoyed nothing so much as talking about herself, telling him all about her success in the magazine industry. She acted as if Tina Brown routinely sought her advice. He’d half expected her to do the old vaudeville routine of talking while drinking. Still, he could scarcely believe that Nona Farraday was paying any attention to him at all. He wondered what Angie’s reaction would be if he dated Nona. Would she care? Would she be sorry that she’d treated him as no more than a friend? That she’d spurned his attention over all the time they’d known each other?

  Strangely, though, when he thought about asking Nona for a date, it wasn’t Angie who clouded the picture. It was the intriguing, long-haired gypsylike creature he’d seen at the Athina.

  She had a wholesome look to her, an innocence that he found appealing. That was the type of woman who interested him. The more Nona chattered, the more she seemed too modern, too career-oriented and sophisticated. He wanted someone gentle, kind, like…

  Why was he doing this to himself? He had no business thinking of the woman at the restaurant. She was pregnant, probably married or at least living with some guy.

  Yet he couldn’t help but wonder why her big brown eyes had searched his face the way they did, why her mouth had tilted upward in a warm smile. He needed to talk to her. That was all there was to it. His mind had conjured her into some exotic mystery woman, which was ridiculous. If he spoke to her instead of rushing away whenever he laid eyes on her, he’d learn to get over her the way he had all other women who crossed his path. Heck, she probably had BO and cackled when she laughed.

  Tomorrow, he’d go back to the restaurant and—

  “It looks like my friends are leaving,” Nona said, causing Stan to snap out of his reverie. “I promised I’d have dinner with them tonight…” She waited. He made no reply. “I should go now.”

  He jumped to his feet. “I’m so sorry. I don’t mean to keep you.” He helped her up, reminding himself that she was Nona Farraday and she sounded as if she wanted to see him again. “I…I’d like to call you sometime, if that would be all right.”

  She lifted her chin. “I’d like that.” She slid a business card from her handbag and gave it to him. “I’ve got a few days free here and there.”

  “Great,” he murmured. “I’ll call. Soon.”

  As she strutted toward her friends, she glanced back and gave him a coy little wave with her fingertips.

  He’d call soon. Maybe.

  While Rebecca was chasing down leads Paavo had suggested on Sherlock Farnsworth, III, he turned to the situation Sal Amalfi had given him.

  Sal had faxed him Elizabeth Schull’s five-year-old job application and résumé with her background information, full name, and birthdate. Sal said she still lived in the same apartment building, which happened to be one that he owned.

  Paavo asked why the résumé’s information only went back eleven years, and Sal said it was because before that she’d been married and had nothing to show on it. Sal had believed her.

  Paavo began his investigation by looking to see if she had any kind of criminal record. She didn’t, which wasn’t a surprise, since he couldn’t imagine Sal Amalfi not checking on such a thing before making her a manager. He found her driver’s license number, and nothing was of interest there, either. Not even a parking ticket.

  She’d written that she was born in San Francisco. He put in a birth certificate request—and there was nothing.

  The red flag that first struck when he’d looked over her résumé began to wave furiously when he investigated her credit history and Social Security number and found that all that information, as well, began eleven years earlier. It was as if she hadn’t existed before then.

  He went to a database he’d rarely used and keyed in Elizabeth Janice Schull. A few searches led him to an interesting discovery. Eleven years earlier, she had legally changed her name from Janice Eleanor Schullmann.

  Under her birth name, he found a court case listed, a civil suit that was settled before it went
to trial. On several occasions, he’d worked with one of the attorneys involved, so he phoned him.

  “Sure, I remember Janice Schullmann,” Barry Connelly said. “She hoped to take my client to the cleaners—he was her employer and it was a sexual harassment case. The trouble was, the whole case was a pack of lies. When her attorney realized the only witnesses he had were ones she’d convinced she’d been wronged, but who’d never witnessed anything firsthand, and when it also came out that she’d been phoning and sending love letters to my client, he dropped the case. She hasn’t killed anyone, has she?”

  “Not that I know of,” Paavo said, perplexed.

  “Well, since you’re in Homicide and all…” Connelly added. “It wouldn’t surprise me, frankly. She’s delusional, and lives in her own little world. That’s why she’s so believable. I think she truly believes everything she says is going on. It’s scary to talk to her. She makes you want to believe it, too.”

  “Thanks,” Paavo said. “I owe you.”

  “I know.” Connelly chuckled. “That’s fine with me. Oh—for you to owe me even more, get your hands on the records at Langley Porter.”

  With that, he hung up.

  Langley Porter was a mental hospital in the city. Their records were tricky to get at, and usually impossible without a court order.

  Paavo phoned Sal on his private cell phone and told him what he’d found out.

  “So that’s the way it is,” Sal murmured, then spoke more loudly. “Okay, I’ll talk to her. Let me know what else turns up.”

  “You’ll what?”

  “I’ll deal with it.”

  “Wait,” Paavo said, “all I’ve told you points to her being dangerous.”

  “I know.” Sal hung up.

  Paavo stared at the phone uneasily. He didn’t like the sound of that.

  Chapter 6

  When Angie tried to fall asleep, she couldn’t stop her mind from racing. Finally, she sat up and worked crossword puzzles and jumbles until her eyes would no longer stay open.

  The first problem had been her dinner with Paavo. He’d seemed agitated, but wouldn’t explain himself, and no matter how much she hinted at it, he gave no details about his lunch with her father. Finally, she asked him about it straight out.

  He said they’d run into each other and decided to have lunch, to talk, to get to know each other a little better.

  Fine, except that it was pie-in-the-sky, Fantasy-land BS. The idea of Paavo and Sal resolving their differences would have been wonderful, except for one thing. It was impossible.

  Her father didn’t approve of Paavo becoming her husband. End of story, because Salvatore Amalfi was nothing if not stubborn. He wanted his youngest daughter to marry a man who was a mover and shaker, one who had either inherited or earned lots of money. Hadn’t he sent her to Paris’s Sorbonne for a year? To the Cordon Bleu? Hadn’t she lived in Rome? She had education, good taste, looks, talent, was an excellent and knowledgeable cook, and now Salvatore expected her to do something with those qualities. To simply marry a man who moved murderers into prison and caused crooks to quiver and shake wasn’t what Sal had in mind.

  Angie tried hard to make something of herself, to make her parents proud of her and her accomplishments. It hadn’t happened yet, but she wasn’t about to give up. In the meantime, was it really so bad that she had fallen in love with a man of limited wealth?

  The irony was that Paavo Smith was more like Sal Amalfi than any lawyer, investment banker, or CEO Angie had ever met. Both men had started out with nothing and had gotten ahead through their own hard work.

  Salvatore’s mother had died when he was young. After his father remarried, he and his older brothers never felt a part of the family the way his half-brothers and-sisters were. Each of them left home early, set out on their own, and rarely looked back.

  After marrying, he supported his young wife by working in a shoe store.

  Serefina knew how to save money, and soon encouraged Sal to open his own store. Deep in debt, with young daughters, Sal and Serefina worked long hours side by side, seven days a week to make the store profitable. All profit made went back into the business or real estate. A second shoe store was bought, and then an apartment building. Who would have expected San Francisco real estate to flourish the way it did, or that Sal was even better at real-life Monopoly than he was at selling shoes?

  Sal was a self-made, hardworking man—with more than a little help from his wife.

  Angie hoped to be a help to Paavo as well, although given his career she couldn’t work beside him the way her parents had. On the other hand, she had helped him solve a murder or two.

  Like Sal, Paavo had grown up without the support of a large, loving family. He considered himself unloved and unlovable except for the elderly Finnish man, Aulis Kokkonen, who raised him. He’d always assumed his mother had abandoned him after drugs or alcohol got the better of her. Not until recently did he learn who his father was or why his mother left.*

  He’d led a fairly wild life until he went into the Army. It straightened him out and taught him a lot about himself and responsibility. The discipline and order he’d enjoyed in the Army made police work attractive. He liked what the force stood for and what it meant to do the job well. Working hard, taking criminology classes at San Francisco State, and with a talent for analysis, he quickly rose to the position of Homicide inspector.

  Angie could readily see the similarities between Sal and Paavo, even if they couldn’t.

  Both men were driven to succeed in their chosen fields.

  Both didn’t suffer fools.

  Both hid their emotions with a gruff exterior over hearts soft as marshmallows.

  And if need be, each would give his life to save hers.

  She’d rarely met men of such strength, courage, and resilience.

  Now, if only they could get along….

  The second problem was Serefina. Her mother had phoned to ask if she thought it would be best to serve basic sushi or if the more exotic types would be better as appetizers.

  Angie nearly had palpitations. She didn’t want raw fish at her engagement party. What was her Italian mother doing spouting names like unagi, ikura, or ama-ebi sushi anyway? Angie liked Japanese food well enough. After a bottle of warm sake she’d even eat chewy but tasteless raw octopus tentacles. But it was hardly engagement party fare—at least, not her engagement party.

  Purple cakes, yellow chicks, and raw fish.

  The party from hell. And now she only had two weeks left to straighten it out!

  After a restless night’s sleep, the situation appeared no less bleak when she awoke. She phoned Connie Rogers to lament, but her dear friend actually had a customer who seemed interested in buying more than a buck-fifty greeting card. She had no time to talk.

  Angie didn’t think things could get any worse when Nona Farraday phoned. To Angie’s amazement, the conversation was actually interesting.

  Soon afterward, Stan knocked on the door.

  “If you’re sitting around moping about your party,” Stan offered, eying her robe and slippers, “I thought you might want to go to lunch.”

  “I’d like that,” Angie said. “We can talk about what we’ve both been up to.”

  “How about the Athina?” Stan suggested. “I’ve got a yen for Greek food.”

  “Don’t talk to me about yens.” Angie shuddered. The word for Japanese currency brought her back to sushi, which brought her back to her party, which made her depressed. “You surely do like Greek food all of a sudden. It’s one of Nona’s favorite cuisines, by the way.”

  He stared at her, stunned. “She phoned you?”

  Angie just chuckled.

  “Welcome to Athina. I’m the owner, Eugene Leer.” The rotund, gray, jowly fellow Angie had noticed during her prior visit greeted them. He’d obviously remembered her and Stan as well. “I’m glad to see you like my little restaurant.” He led them to a booth near the window.

  “The food’s quit
e good, very authentic.” Angie studied his chubby face and wide forehead and nose. “I must say, the name Leer doesn’t sound Greek.”

  “I’m not, but my cook is. Michael Zeno. You’ll have to meet him. I understand you’re a restaurant reviewer. Miss Amalfi, is it?”

  “That’s right. I’m sorry to say I haven’t written any reviews lately.” She fingered her engagement ring. “I’ve been distracted.”

  “Congratulations.” Leer glanced from her to Stan. “No wonder you aren’t doing reviews.” He handed them menus. “My waiter will be with you in a moment.” With that, he bowed and walked away.

  “I guess he’s disappointed,” Angie said to Stan. “No free publicity.” She stopped talking as the friendly and garrulous Tyler Marsh arrived to take their orders. Fresh-caught bass baked in a tomato, wine, and garlic sauce called spetsiotiko, with egg-lemon soup for Angie and chicken gyros again for Stan. Tyler rolled his eyes.

  “There’s something about that guy I just don’t like,” Stan muttered when he and Angie were alone again.

  He proceeded to tell her about meeting Nona, but the entire time he searched for the mysterious waitress. He knew he wasn’t an artistic man, knew that much of the beauty around him went right over his head unnoticed and unappreciated. And yet, he felt like Michelangelo discovering the face for his Pieta. He couldn’t get enough of looking at her.

  She wasn’t in the dining room. He had no idea if that meant she wasn’t working or if her duties kept her in the kitchen. He tried to concentrate on Nona and to work up some enthusiasm. Nona was not only gorgeous and stylish, but she was clearly interested and available. She wouldn’t have phoned Angie about him if she wasn’t.

  And yet…

  “Sounds like she’s not your type,” Angie said, studying Stan. “It surprises me. I thought you two would be a perfect match.”

  “So did I,” he said, his mind contrasting take-charge Nona with the soft winsome woman he’d seen on the dock. “Once.”