by Joanne Pence
“Thanks loads.”
“Angie, too.” He studied her. “Say, I see you aren’t wearing earrings. Klaw didn’t take your jewelry by any chance, did he?”
“He did.” Angie covered her earlobes. She hated going around with the holes showing; it was so tacky. “They were diamonds. A necklace, too.”
“We found them on Klaw. I’ll see that they’re returned.”
“Good.” Paavo glanced at her with a nod, then back at Yosh. “What else is going on?”
“The coroner says it’s the damnedest thing he’s ever seen,” Yosh said.
“What is?”
“The explosion. The Dumpster. He said he can’t understand how the explosion caused the lid to fly sideways and all the way over to where Klaw was standing. He said if it had flown anywhere at all, it should have flown backward.”
Paavo glanced at the dead man and frowned. “Divine justice?”
“Works for me,” Yosh said.
“Whatever caused it,” Angie said, giving Paavo’s hand a squeeze, “I’m glad it happened.” Despite being bruised and battered, he looked at peace for the first time in weeks.
“I’ll go see if Sergeant Meade needs any more help.” Yosh scanned the area as he spoke. “We found Warren inside and arrested him. Also found Snake Belly’s body. If you see the reverend, let me know. No one has any idea where he is.”
“Sure,” Paavo said.
Yosh wandered away.
“How could the reverend have gotten away so fast?” Angie asked. “I thought he was lying on the ground right after the bomb blast. Wasn’t he?”
“I thought so, too,” Paavo said. “But when I looked up, he had gone. There was something on the ground. I guess he dropped it.”
He reached into his coat pocket, the coat she had around her shoulders. From it he pulled the very old angel she had seen in Hodge’s office. The one given to him by the holy man in Galilee.
Reverently, she took the angel. Memories of some of the talks in Hodge’s office came back to her, especially his advice about her future with Paavo, about patience and believing in oneself—advice she hoped to follow. As she held the ancient carving in her hand, its paint worn and rubbed away in part, she remembered the strange wink he’d given her—the wink after Paavo had put aside his need for revenge and helped them instead. By doing that, Paavo had been spared an encounter with Klaw.
Yet Klaw was dead.
The lid had flown off the Dumpster sideways.
Could the reverend…? Naw.
Hodge was just a con man. Wasn’t he?
“We’ll find Hodge,” Paavo said, “and get back the goods and money he took from the mission.”
She looked up at him and realized that if he and Klaw had fought, even if Paavo had won, his life would have been changed forever. And if he’d lost…The thought made her blood cold. “Klaw took the reverend’s key to a locker at the airport,” she said softly. “I’m sure Reverend Hodge put everything there for no reason other than to keep it safe. I imagine the other volunteers would tell you that as well.”
His gaze captured hers and held it a long moment. “Is that how all of you feel about the reverend?”
“He helped everyone, Paavo. And carrying the bomb toward the Dumpster…that was very brave.”
“It was.”
“He was a help to many of us,” she said softly.
“True. He inspired you to come up with a terrific angelina,” Paavo said. “I heard people talking about it. You’ll be able to get your business up and running in no time.”
She shook her head. “Forget it.”
“What?”
“This is the second time in a week I’ve been covered with chocolate. I never want to see the wretched stuff again as long as I live.”
“You’ve changed your mind about becoming a chocolatier?”
“Fat-free is the new craze. Maybe I need to think along those lines.” She looked at her ruined clothes, the chocolate and mud all over her. “It couldn’t be any worse to deal with.”
Paavo lifted a glob of chocolate off his sleeve and shook it off his fingers onto the ground. “That’s for sure.”
She smiled. “Look at us. The chocolate couple.”
“It gives a whole new meaning to the line ‘You are what you eat,’” he said.
She laughed. “We could be escapees from an Easter basket…or maybe a wedding cake.”
Silence.
She chuckled at his sudden awkwardness.
He cleared his throat. “Time to get that ankle some attention,” he said, taking her shoe from her lap and helping her up. She wrapped her arm around him, taking care not to hurt his ribs, just as he tried to give her enough support to walk. “Let’s go home, Cinderella.”
She held Hodge’s angel out to him. “I want you to take this, Paavo. It’s very old and very special. Keep it as a reminder of Reverend Hodge, of whoever or whatever he was, and of the divine justice that helped end this horrible episode in your life. He’ll always be dear to me for that.”
As he took the angel his eye caught the bottom of the carving and the words that were written there. He looked at the glow in her eyes, the wonder on her face, and quickly put the angel in his pocket.
“If that’s what you believe, Angie, then nothing else matters.”
She lifted her chin and smiled up at him. “I do.”
Supporting each other, they hobbled toward his car. As they went, his lips curved ever so slightly upward with secret knowledge of the words on the underside of the angel. A secret he’d never reveal.
MADE IN TAIWAN.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My sincere thanks for technical assistance to Sgt. Michael J. Seligsohn of the San Francisco Community College District Police Department, gaming expert witness John Campbell, and attorney Frank Snyder; to Kate Moore for information on chocolate making; and to Ed Moose for one of North Beach’s finest restaurants.
My apologies for any errors, omissions, or license taken with the facts for purposes of the story.
About the Author
JOANNE PENCE was born and raised in San Francisco. A graduate of U.C. Berkeley with a master’s degree in journalism, Joanne has taught school in Japan, written for magazines, and worked for the federal government. She now lives in Idaho with her family, which includes a multitude of pets.
For information about Joanne, her books, and some great recipes, visit Joanne’s website at www.joannepence.com. She would love to hear from you via e-mail at [email protected], or by writing to PO Box 64, Eagle, ID 83616-0064.
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Praise for JOANNE PENCE’s
ANGIE AMALFI MYSTERIES
“Joanne Pence provides laughter, love,
and cold chills.”
Carolyn Hart
“If you love books by Diane Mott Davidson
or Denise Dietz, you will love this series.
It’s as refreshing as lemon sherbet
and just as delicious.”
Under the Covers
“A rollicking good time…
murder, mayhem, food, and fashion…
Joanne Pence serves it all up.”
Butler County Post
“A winner…
Angie is a character unlike any
other found in the genre.”
Santa Rosa Press Democrat
“[A] great series…
[Pence] titillates the senses,
provides a satisfying read.”
Crescent Blues Reviews
“Joanne Pence just gets
better and better.”
Mystery News
Other Angie Amalfi Mysteries by Joanne Pence
Red Hot Murder
Courting Disaster
Two Cooks A-Killing
If Cooks Could Kill
Bell, Cook, and Candle
To Catch a Cook
A Cook in Time
; Cooks Overboard
Cooking Most Deadly
Cooking Up Trouble
Too Many Cooks
Something’s Cooking
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
COOK’S NIGHT OUT. Copyright © 1997 by Joanne Pence. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition JANUARY 2012 ISBN: 9780062191175
Print Edition ISBN: 9780061043963
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