Cooking Most Deadly

by Joanne Pence

  “I went to my parents’ house tonight,” she said softly. “I was going to stay there, wondering if you’d even know or care. Then I felt silly for playing such games and came home.”

  “Never play games with me, Angie.”

  Her breath caught. “I won’t,” she whispered. “I love you, Paavo. Like a match.”

  “A what?”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck, and no further explanations were needed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The morning air was damp and thick with fog. A good day to die.

  He waited until the judge left the house for his morning walk, then tinkered with a radar encoder until his universal remote unit signals meshed with those of the main controller of the garage door opener. Next, he put on a double pair of latex gloves.

  Checking carefully that no one was near, no one could see him, he aimed the remote at the garage door and clicked. The door unlocked. He sprang toward it, stopping it before it lifted more than a couple of feet off the ground. Then he dropped to the ground and rolled under it into the garage.

  Quickly hitting the release, he pulled the door to a closed position again, then lay still and waited for sounds of neighbors or passersby who might have seen or heard him.

  He listened, too, for sounds from the living quarters overhead, trying to hear them over the sound of his own heavy breathing.

  All was quiet. He started to stand.

  “Luke?”

  He froze, his heart hammering at the sound of a woman’s voice. “Luke, is that you?”

  Sharp-eared old bat. There were stairs in the back of the garage leading up to a door to the house—probably to the kitchen. He darted to the bottom of the stairs and crouched down, expecting the wife to open the inside door to investigate further. But there was no sound of footsteps. No sound at all from upstairs.

  She must have decided she was mistaken.

  He crept up the stairs slowly, ready with each step for a loud creak to give him away.

  The stairs were solid. Quiet.

  At the door that led to the house proper, he twisted the knob, praying the door wasn’t locked. His prayer was answered.

  Slowly, he pushed the door open. The kitchen was large, yellow, with two walls of cabinetry and, over the sink, a window box filled with tiny plants in four-inch pots. The room was empty.

  Where had the woman gone?

  He shut the door behind him, holding the knob until the last moment. The latch made a tiny click. He pushed in the button in the center. If the old man came back that way, he’d find the door locked.

  Not that it would matter. He’d be too late to save his wife, anyway.

  She was in the house somewhere. From the kitchen door, he could see a hallway. The way these San Francisco houses were built, he knew it led to a living room and dining room in the front of the house and to the bedrooms in the back. Quietly, he moved toward the door, half-expecting her to appear in the doorway with each step he took.

  A loud whistle sounded. He snapped his head toward the stove. A teakettle.

  Hurling himself behind the kitchen door, his heart racing, he waited. But despite the noise the kettle made, he didn’t hear the woman hurrying down the hall to turn it off.

  She would come eventually, though. He could wait right here for her.

  The loud kettle jangled his nerves. Perspiration formed on his forehead. He tried to remain there, without moving, to wait for her. It’d be so much easier that way. He covered his ears, needing to cut off the kettle’s shrill scream. No! That wouldn’t be safe. He had to listen for her.

  Where was she? Could she be hard of hearing? She had heard noises in the garage, though, had called out her husband’s name. What in the hell could she be doing that was more important than turning off her goddamn teakettle?

  Control. He needed control. He flexed his hands, his fingers. But the noise grew louder, shriller. Steam shot from the spout. It squeezed the air, choking him. He clawed at his throat. If he shut the flame under the kettle, would she notice? Would it alert her?

  Where the hell was the bitch?

  He’d have to find her, kill her, then turn it off himself. That was the only way to stop the noise that was making his head split, making it hard for him to think.

  His hand against the frame of the kitchen door, he darted his head out into the long hallway. She wasn’t there.

  Keeping his back against the wall, he sidled along the hallway toward the living room. The room was empty, as was the dining area between it and the kitchen.

  That meant she had to be in the back of the house, in one of the bedrooms.

  Suddenly, he didn’t mind the loud whistling of the teakettle. It masked his footsteps as he eased his way, once more, down the hall.

  He reached the bedroom without her seeing him and peered inside.

  She stood beside the bed, her back to him, wearing only a slip, hose, and brown, low-heeled shoes. Her clothes had been neatly laid out before her on the bed. She picked up a pink blouse and put it on. He watched, mesmerized, as she proceeded to fasten the many buttons that lined the front of it. Next, she reached for a brown skirt and stepped into it, hiking it up to her waist, then spending a considerable amount of time smoothing the blouse and slip once more. Such a pity, he thought, so much trouble for no reason.

  She buttoned the skirt. As she worked the side zipper, looking down, giving it her full attention, she began to turn in his direction.

  He pounced. She opened her mouth to scream, but his hand covered it, muffling her cries and forcing her back on the bed. He lay atop her, crushing her with his weight. She fought, kicked, tried to get away, to scream, but she was no match for him.

  His blood pounded. His temples throbbed and a fiery redness built against his eyes. The incessant whistle in the background, the squirming of her body beneath him on the bed, heated him. He backed off a bit, closing his eyes as he let her struggle, enjoying the feel of her, remembering what it was like to have a woman writhe beneath him. Helpless. Captive. He opened his eyes.

  But instead of young, beautiful Heather or Angelina, beneath him was this old hag. Disgust raged at her. Filthy slut, tempting him that way, making his body do things he didn’t want it to do with someone ugly like her. He pulled the combat knife from his back pocket. She’d never tempt him again.

  He took the rose from the back pocket of his jeans and placed it on her pillow. It was smashed and dark, and most of the petals had fallen off, but he didn’t think the police would care. They’d get the message.

  He wiped off the knife on the blood-soaked bedspread, then took off his shoes. He didn’t want to track bloody shoe prints onto the carpet—that’d give the police too clear a picture. But he’d never heard of tracking sock prints before. Especially heavy woolen socks.

  In the kitchen, he shut the gas off under the shrieking teapot, then went to the hall closet and took out the judge’s trench coat and felt hat. Putting on his shoes once more, he walked out the front door, down the stairs, and up the street to his car.

  Paavo sat in the living room with Judge St. Clair. The judge was hunched in the center of the sofa, his hands covering his face. His trembling had stopped, but the slump of his shoulders, his bowed head, created about him an immutable sense of defeat and pain.

  “Tell me exactly what you did after you found her,” Paavo said gently.

  The judge lowered his hands. His eyes were red-rimmed, his cheeks blotched from earlier tears. His mouth worked awhile before he could get the words past a tightened throat. “I didn’t even have to touch her. I knew. I knew she was…But I did touch her. Her hand, her face. They were already cold, and her eyes…” He swallowed and waited a moment or two. His hands shook. “I took a bath towel from the linen closet and covered her with it. I know I shouldn’t have, but the way he’d left her…She was always such a proper lady. I couldn’t let her be found that way. I just couldn’t. I’m sorry!”

  Paavo put his hand on St. Clair’s shoulder. �
�It’s all right. Anyone of us would have done the same.”

  The judge nodded, and tried to hold back his tears.

  Paavo left him and went back into the bedroom. Homicide Inspectors Rebecca Mayfield and her partner, Bill Sutter, were the on-call team this week. But one look at the crime scene and Rebecca contacted Paavo. It looked frighteningly similar to the way he and Yosh had described Tiffany Rogers’s murder.

  “Did the judge know anything that might help?” Rebecca asked.

  “It’s hard to tell. He’s in a bad way,” Paavo answered.

  “You’re pretty sure it’s the same guy, though?”

  “It’s got to be. The way he’s stabbed them, the rose on the pillow. Just one difference. This one was even more brutal.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Angie’s third sister, Maria, looked up from the catalogues and files spread out on the floor and scowled. They’d never been close, and that look reminded Angie why.

  Maria was the serious, religious one in the family. Everyone thought she’d become a nun. The family was shocked when she eloped with a saxophone player from Pier 17, a jazz nightclub on the Embarcadero. No one knew Maria even liked jazz.

  Now, she acted as publicist for her husband—and had turned the name Dominic Klee into a household word for jazz buffs. They now owned the Jazz Workshop, where Klee’s Quintet played when they weren’t touring. Maria straightened the catalogues into a stack and then turned her full attention on Angie.

  “Did Papà send you here?” she asked, her eyes narrow. “He can’t believe we’re not starving.”

  “I didn’t even tell him I was coming,” Angie said.

  Maria flicked her waist-length, straight black hair off her shoulders to fall smoothly down her back. With no makeup, rows of silver bracelets, and heavy, dangling silver earrings, she grew more exotic every day.

  “So, what’s this about, Angie?”

  “I’m trying to learn about marriage,” she said. She knew Dominic had to leave Maria and their son at home while he toured, and, in a sense, Paavo was gone a lot, too, because of the long hours he worked. Angie found his schedule, or lack of one, hard to deal with. “I was just wondering if Dominic’s being gone so much bothered you?”

  Maria shrugged. “What can I say? It’s his job. His life. It’s what he loves, and I love him.”

  “But he’s working in nightclubs. There’s drinking, drugs, women throwing themselves at him. I mean, he’s very…um…” Angie wasn’t sure of the word to use around her religious sister.

  “Sexy?” Maria offered.

  “Well, yes.”

  “Don’t I know it.” Maria’s face broke into a smile as she thought about her husband—a smile that Angie realized had nothing religious about it.

  Her sister grew serious. “I trust him, Angie. I have to. For our marriage, it doesn’t matter if he’s home or away. I’ve found the perfect way to deal with it.”

  “Oh, good.” Angie was desperate for answers. “How do you do it?”

  “I pray a lot.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Angie sat at her tiny kitchen table and absentmindedly stirred her morning coffee. The other night, before he left, Paavo had told her he had been working on the well-publicized case of the young typist from City Hall. That was why he and Yosh were putting in such long hours. It was also clear that he was irritated that Nathan Ellis’s murder had been put on the back burner, so to speak.

  She read the Chronicle’s account of Tiffany Rogers’s murder and the investigation. She also reread earlier accounts of the jewelry store killing.

  Tiffany was just a year younger than Angie. She had been born and raised in the city, and had attended parochial schools here. For all Angie knew, their paths had probably crossed. Paavo had mentioned that Tiffany had a sister named Connie. Connie Rogers…that sounded familiar for some reason. But Connie was four years older that Tiffany—three older than Angie. Angie probably didn’t know her, but maybe one of her sisters did.

  No one seemed to have any idea why Tiffany had been killed. What if it had something to do with her family? Something that anyone who knew Connie might figure out? She could easily make a few phone calls. What harm could it do? It might help. And Paavo was so tired lately, working this case, as well as the jewelry store murder.

  She picked up the phone and dialed her sister Frannie’s number. Connie and Frannie were just about the same age.

  “Never heard of her,” Fran said.

  Undaunted, Angie tried her middle sister, Maria. Maria was irritated at such a dumb question. Angie should have known Maria wouldn’t bother to remember anyone who hadn’t gone to morning mass each day before class. Caterina and Bianca were probably too old.

  That left her cousins. She started with Loretta, the one who owned Herobics and kept in contact with lots of people, doing all she could to make them feel guilty about not getting enough exercise. But Loretta didn’t know Connie.

  Then she tried her cousin Gloria, who was married and sang in a church choir. She didn’t know Connie either.

  What about her male cousins? Connie and Tiffany were good-looking women. She knew exactly which cousin to call.

  “Buddy, how ya doing?” she said. Buddy Amalfi lived in South City, the natives’ name for South San Francisco. Years would go by without her seeing or talking to Buddy, but when they made contact again, it was as if they’d talked only yesterday.

  “Hey, Angelina, long time no see.”

  “I’ve been busy. Listen, I’ve got a favor to ask.”

  “Ask away.”

  “I’m trying to find a woman named Connie Rogers. She’s about your age, went to school here in the city.”

  “Connie…Connie…Connie. Sure, I remember her. Come to think of it, I went out with her a couple of times in high school.”

  “I’m trying to find her. Do you know where she is?”

  “God, I haven’t seen her in nine, ten years.”

  “It’s important, Buddy.”

  “Well, let me work on it. I still keep in touch with a lot of the old gang.”

  “Tell them her sister was just killed, that should get them thinking harder.”

  “Her kid sister? Killed? What do you mean killed?”

  “Tiffany was stabbed to death. She was a typist. It’s been all over the papers.”

  “Holy! I’d heard some woman was stabbed. Good Christ! I didn’t pay any attention to the name. Poor Connie. Okay, I’ll get right on it.”

  Angie hung up and looked at the phone with a self-satisfied air. When she took an interest in something, she didn’t fool around.

  “I t’ought we’d be outta here by now,” Earl said as he chipped at the cement wall with a hammer and chisel.

  “We would be if you two bozos didn’ waste all your time talkin’ to the lowlife that comes in here.” Vinnie sat on an upside-down wastebasket and puffed on his cigar as Earl worked. Butch stood at the top of the stairs listening for customers and keeping an eye on his kitchen.

  “I didn’t ask to talk to ’em,” Earl protested. “I don’t even like being a waitpoison.”

  “What’s he talkin’ about, wait poison?” Vinnie looked up at Butch.

  “One of the customers told him waiter and waitress were sexist,” Butch said. “Now he thinks he’s s’posed to be politically correct.”

  Vinnie looked at the ceiling. “Still payin’ me back, ain’t ya, God? Stuck me with these two. I hope you’re havin’ a good laugh.”

  He noticed Earl had stopped working to look at him. “So dig, already,” he ordered.

  “I t’ink we need a jackhammer,” Earl said.

  “God, he’s dumb!” Butch muttered. “How we gonna find a jackhammer?”

  “We could steal one,” Earl reasoned.

  Butch came down the stairs. “Sure. We’ll go down to the corner store and swipe some cigs, a bottle of whiskey, a jackhammer—”

  “Shut up, both of you,” Vinnie said. “I’m thinkin’.”

&
nbsp; “That’s a revelation,” Butch grumbled.

  “Shut up I said!” Vinnie bellowed. “I got it. We’re gonna get a big drill and use it at night when no one else is around.”

  “Except maybe some cops drivin’ by,” Butch sneered.

  “I t’ink we should take toins standin’ watch,” Earl added. “Den, if we see a cop car, we can holler down to toin off da drill.”

  “Holler? Over the sound of a drill?” Vinnie glared at Earl, then turned to Butch. “What’s he got for brains?”

  Butch just shook his head. “I think I hear a customer.”

  “You’re sure?” Paavo asked. He stood in the office of Sans Souci Jewelers and faced the clerk who had been working with Nathan Ellis the day someone paid cash for the tennis bracelet.

  “Yes, sir. That’s all I can tell you.” Meredith Park’s steady gaze met Paavo’s. “Tall, distinguished, Caucasian, and between fifty and fifty-five, I’d say. Prematurely gray. Sort of okay, I guess.”

  “What do you mean, sort of okay?”

  “Let’s say, he wasn’t my type. Too slick—like a politician, maybe. In fact…no. I don’t know.” Meredith shrugged.

  “Would you recognize this man if you saw him again?” Paavo asked.

  “That’s hard to say. There was something vaguely familiar about him, but I’m just not sure.”

  Paavo nodded. Distinguished, gray-haired, middle-aged. Given all he’d learned about Tiffany, the description sounded perfect for one of her boyfriends. The question was, who was he? What was his name? “If you think of anything more, let me know.”

  “I will.”

  Paavo turned to leave.

  “Oh, Inspector. One other thing.”

  “Yes?”

  Meredith Park turned shrewd, intelligent eyes on him. “It’s probably nothing, but a couple days before Nathan was killed something peculiar happened. It’s been on my mind. I didn’t want to bother you because I doubt it means anything, but since you’re here…”