Two Cooks A-Killing

by Joanne Pence

  A beautiful hand-painted porcelain figurine of the Little Drummer Boy atop a music box held the place of honor in the center of the mantel. Its beauty drew Angie close. She didn’t remember it from the Eagle Crest shows.

  A crystal bowl of delicious-looking miniature chocolate truffles sat on an end table. Angie plopped one in her mouth—and promptly spit it out. Plastic.

  She was sure the Little Drummer Boy must be laughing at her. She had to laugh as well. Props, she thought. They were all props.

  To the left of the foyer, the dining room was bright with an enormous crystal chandelier over a traditional Chippendale mahogany dining room set. A centerpiece of roses, anemones, and dusty millers filled the tabletop. The buffet was a mass of poinsettias and candles, and a garland of pepperberry leaves. She sniffed. All of it was fabric and plastic.

  Adrian Roxbury, the suave, sophisticated, duped-out-of-half-the-winery-and-love-of-his-life brother, often held court in this room, nibbling at insubstantial foods, drinking fine wines, and plotting his revenge on Cliff.

  It was all a bit overwhelming.

  Angie dragged her luggage into the foyer. Now what? Still beyond belief at her good fortune to be here and actually to be part of the Christmas show, she went down the hallway to an enormous wood-paneled family room. Many a tryst, and many a war of words, had taken place there. Her gaze wandered over the honey brown leather furniture, the Kilim rugs, the moosehead over the massive river rock fireplace, and the full bar, where Cliff Roxbury often got sloshed while coming up with a devilish plan.

  Here, too, another grandiose tree, this one filled with colorful rustic hand-made ornaments of wood, glass, and china filled a corner. She could hardly take in all the wreaths, holly, candy, candles, lights, and other knickknacks that covered the room. A bowl full of luscious grapes sat on a table. She reached for one to cleanse her mouth of the plastic taste from the candy, then stopped.

  Fooled again.

  Just beyond the family room was a breakfast room with more decorations. On TV, the kitchen was connected to it, which she assumed was the case here. The door, however was closed.

  Three sets of French doors led to a courtyard enclosed within a four-foot adobe wall, and a bougainvillea-covered archway over a carved gate. It had always been great fun to watch a Roxbury sneak into or out of that gate late at night.

  Yet another Christmas tree stood in the courtyard. Blinking lights had been strung through all the plants and over the adobe wall. Plastic snow covered the tiled floor, gated archway, and even the bougainvillea.

  In the courtyard were three men and one woman, all seeming to be talking at once. The pigtailed woman wasn’t among them.

  Angie joined the group. They were obviously part of the crew, judging from clipboards, tape, and lighting equipment, and their generally bad dispositions.

  They ignored her.

  “Hi. I’m here to help with the show,” she said brightly, interrupting a pudgy, balding fellow who was waving his arms and complaining about lights and cantilevers, whatever they were. In his hand was a blue lava lamp.

  “Oh! I can’t believe it!” Angie squealed, pointing. “That’s the very lamp Leona convinced Cliff that Natalie would love, to make up for his sleeping with Leona, of course. It was so funny when Natalie hit him with it! I’m surprised it’s not broken.”

  All talking ceased as four heads swiveled her way and regarded her as if she’d just dropped in from the Jerry Springer Show. “It is broken,” one man said.

  At the same moment, another fellow ran up to them holding a jeweled hand mirror. Angie’s breathing quickened. It was Natalie’s very own—the one she always used to check her makeup before doing some particularly dastardly deed.

  The mirror was cracked. “Oh, no!” Angie wailed.

  “It’s got to be sabotage,” the man holding it said. The others swore profusely.

  “Well, you folks are busy, so maybe you can tell me if Mr. Waterfield is around?” Angie asked. “I know the family.”

  “Not here, as you can see,” the woman snapped.

  “Just what do you want?” A bushy-haired man with a clipboard and a belt filled with measuring tapes and carpenter tools gave her a harsh glare.

  “I’m trying to find out who’s in charge. I’m here to see about handling the food preparation.”

  “Food preparation? The food is down by the trailers.” The woman sniffed and turned back to the others.

  “I’ll be working on the show. Who should I report to?” Angie asked in a friendly voice, despite the irritation building inside. She supposed she’d have to work with these people.

  “How should I know?” the woman said. She and two men walked in one direction, while the other two men went the opposite way.

  “Merry Christmas to you, too,” Angie muttered, hands on hips. This did not bode well.

  “They don’t talk to anyone who isn’t a star. Or their boss,” a male voice explained.

  She turned to see a young man standing in the doorway. He was movie-star handsome, with black hair and green eyes and a perfectly sculpted face. His tailored green plaid shirt was unbuttoned at the neckline, the sleeves rolled to the elbows displaying a Patek Philippe gold watch on a tanned wrist. Sliding his hands in his pockets, he strolled toward her, his gaze devouring her in a way that told her he liked what he saw.

  “Welcome to Eagle Crest,” he said with a cocky smile. “I’m one of the unfortunates who lives here.”

  Angie gawked. “You’re a Waterfield?” She never imagined anyone with his good looks would be part of the family.

  “Silver.”

  “Junior’s little brother! Somehow, I never got a chance to meet you.”

  His smile dissolved. “Sounds like you do know the family. I thought you were just trying a bit of one-upmanship with the crew. I expect they thought the same.”

  “Perhaps they weren’t completely wrong,” she admitted with a sly grin, “although our parents are old friends. My father is Sal Amalfi. My name’s Angie. I met your brother a couple of times when he dated my sister, Frannie.”

  “Francesca Amalfi. Yes, I remember.” He slowly circled Angie as he spoke. Little puffs of plastic flew into the air and landed on his shoes. “Junior was quite gone over her. Didn’t last long, did it?” He stopped moving, his words more a statement than a question.

  “No, it didn’t.” Angie hesitated to say more. Her sister Frannie wasn’t easy to get along with, but Junior must have been even more difficult, because Frannie broke it off after a couple of dates. In college, Frannie had hung around with the “in” sorority crowd and tried to go out as often as the most popular girls when she could find boys brave, daring, or desperate enough to date her. Young Waterfield was rich, and his family’s house had been on television. Her sorority sisters would have been “so totally” impressed, Angie would have sworn Frannie would continue to date him even if he looked like the Incredible Hulk and had the personality of Hannibal Lecter. Strangely, she didn’t. “Is Junior here as well?” Angie asked.

  “He still lives at home. Like me.”

  She glanced over the enormous house. The back of it was also festooned in Christmas lights. “I’m not surprised.”

  He followed her gaze, then placed his hand on the top rail of a wrought-iron chair, disturbing the fake snow. “This is a hard spot to leave,” he admitted. “Especially since my mother passed away, and Dad spends so much time in Los Angeles. Junior and I are the ones who look after the place. It’s probably the one thing we’re suited to do.” He gave a small smile, but his eyes held bitterness. “So, you’re here to work with this menagerie, are you?”

  She clasped her hands. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  “That’ll change. If you found the crew rude, just wait until the cast shows up. I was a kid when they first swooped down on the house. They aren’t exactly here to win friends. They’d fight and backbite their way to winning a Miss Congeniality award.”

  She wasn’t surprised. “Who�
�s in charge?”

  “Emery Tarleton is the director. I guess he’s as close to running things as anyone. The producers never have shown up. I think they’re a conglomerate of suits, not human at all.”

  “Is Bart Farrell around?” Angie asked, looking from side to side in hopes the actor who played Cliff Roxbury, one of the favorite dream men of her teenage years, would materialize.

  “None of the stars are here yet. Just the set-up crew. The talent will arrive in a couple of days. They’re too big to sit around and wait. Not to mention, they can’t stand each other.”

  “What’s he like?” she asked, unable to hide her interest.

  “Bart Farrell?” He sounded surprised at her question.

  “Of course!”

  “Angie?” called a voice behind her.

  Stunned that anyone was acknowledging her let alone knew her name, she turned to find the perky pigtailed one approaching.

  “I’m Mariah,” the woman said, her voice soft. “Em told me to get you and show you to your room and all that stuff.”

  “’Em’?” Angie asked.

  “Emery Tarleton. The director.”

  “Of course.” Angie smiled. “And a clever throwback to James Bond movies, too.”

  Mariah gaped blankly at her. “Whatever. Follow me.”

  As Angie moved closer to Mariah she saw that the young woman was wearing a wig. She wondered what had happened, if she’d lost her hair because of chemotherapy or some horrible accident.

  Angie glanced over her shoulder to say good-bye to Silver, but he had gone.

  She faced Mariah again. “Have you worked with Mr. Tarleton long?”

  “I worked on other projects with him. Nothing much panned out, so we’re eager to get started with this.”

  “Really? Have you met Bart Farrell or the other stars?”

  “Sure. They’re no big deal. This way.” Mariah led her through the family room and foyer.

  “My bags…” Angie wanted to ask more about Farrell, but she needed some help.

  “Let me get one.” Mariah picked up the little make-up case, then climbed the stairs to the second floor.

  The suitcase wheels did no good on those stairs. Angie slung the carryall back onto her shoulder, the garment bag over her arm, and lifted the Pullman by its grip. She could barely manage to clear the stairs with it, but had to walk sideways, like a crab-turned-stevedore. Someday, somehow, she would learn not to pack so many clothes.

  She was panting and perspiring onto her Oscar de la Renta by the time she reached the landing. To her horror, she saw that Mariah had continued up another flight to the third floor.

  Angie took a big breath and this time tossed the garment bag onto the suitcase and hefted both into her arms. Wordlessly, her knees splayed outward and her legs bowed under the weight, she followed. Nice group here. Friendly. Helpful. Really knew how to make a person feel welcome.

  Mariah walked to the end of the third-floor hallway, unlocked the door, and stepped aside.

  Angie nearly toppled over as she dropped her suitcase and garment bag onto the landing and struggled to find her breath. She set the Pullman back onto its wheels, piled the other bags on top, and steered everything into the bedroom. This part of the house had never been shown on TV. No wonder. Her room was little larger than a closet. A single bed covered one wall, a dresser the wall opposite, and straight ahead was a window overlooking the courtyard and hills beyond. “How tiny,” she exclaimed. The room was dark, depressing, and cold. Unnaturally cold. A chill rippled down her spine.

  Mariah leaned against the doorjamb. “This floor was remodeled to add some bedrooms as the cast grew. Since we aren’t going to have a big cast for the reunion special, nobodies like you and me get to stay in the big house.”

  Thoughts of all the actors Angie had hope to meet clutched her. “They won’t all be here?” she asked, her voice strangled.

  “Nope. Just the big four—Bart Farrell, Rhonda Manning, Kyle O’Rourke, and Gwen Hagen.”

  Angie breathed again. Cliff, Natalie, Adrian, and Leona. They were the ones who mattered most. “Why not the others?” she asked.

  “Nobody’s saying, but salaries for O’Rourke and Hagen probably nearly busted their budget. And Em apparently has a very special idea about the script as well. He swore they were the only ones needed.”

  “Interesting,” Angie murmured, more curious than ever about what the script would reveal.

  Suddenly, she shivered. “Why is it so cold? It feels as if all the air-conditioning in the house is concentrated in this room.”

  “I don’t know,” Mariah answered. “It’s always this way.”

  “It’s much warmer in the hallway.” Angie stepped out. “Whose child was that?” she asked, pointing toward the stairs.

  Mariah joined her. “There’s no child in this house.”

  “But I saw…” What had she seen? It was a child, wasn’t it? Perhaps carrying the luggage up two flights of stairs had been harder on her than she’d thought. “My mistake.”

  “Your key’s on the bureau.” Mariah pointed to the bathroom, third door on the right, as she crossed the hall.

  Chapter 2

  The block-long Hall of Justice dominated that section of San Francisco where the rough, rundown South of Market district butted up against the ugliness of the Central Freeway. A utilitarian gray concrete slab with all the artistry of an old Soviet government building, the Hall did nothing to beautify the area.

  Inside, the Homicide bureau on the fourth floor was even shabbier, with mismatched desks, file cabinets, bookcases and shelves, antique computers, and (some swore) even a rotary dial phone or two. As part of the Bureau of Inspections, the homicide inspector had a jurisdiction which covered the entire city and county, all forty-nine square miles, with its population of two million people by day and about eight hundred thousand at night when the commuters went home. An ever-present number of tourists helped fill the sudden void of humanity on evenings and weekends.

  Despite the hundreds of thousands of additional bodies that routinely descended on the city, it was usually the residents themselves who kept the homicide inspectors, like Paavo Smith, busy.

  He hit the print command on his computer. The report he’d just finished would send the murderer of a young gas station attendant to San Quentin for life. Paavo and his partner, Toshiro Yoshiwara, had been on the case for three weeks. When they found the killer, a druggie out of his mind from methamphetamine, they made sure they did everything by the book, taking no chance the guy would walk. Paavo had talked with the D.A. that morning and confirmed that the case was clean and solid.

  He reached for the phone, then stopped. Normally, he would have called Angie and gone out tonight to celebrate. This case deserved it. His hand dropped to the desk. She was probably already on her way to Napa County.

  Leave it to Angie to end up working on a Christmas show in April! It didn’t make any sense to him. Hollywood and what went on there were as foreign to him as Bangladesh. When he thought about television and movie portrayal of police work, he knew the people involved understood him as little as he understood them.

  Still, to him, Angie and Christmas went hand-in-hand—both full of warmth, hope, and love.

  He only wished Sal Amalfi hadn’t been involved in getting her the job.

  Although Angie hadn’t picked up on it at all, he understood why her father had urged her to spend time living in a rich man’s house, with eligible bachelors close by.

  Sal Amalfi didn’t know his daughter well if he imagined an opulent setting could influence her or affect her heart. At the same time, he didn’t blame Sal for trying. If he were Angie’s father, he wasn’t sure how happy he’d be about her engagement to a poor homicide cop. As that poor cop, he was ecstatic.

  “Can I help you?” Inspector Bo Benson stood at the doorway and spoke to an unseen person. Benson was the fashion plate of Homicide, today in a light gray Armani suit, white shirt, and striped gray silk tie. He once sa
id he was sorry the term African-American had come into popularity because he much preferred the alliteration of being Bo Benson, black and beautiful.

  Women flocked to be near him, no matter how he said it.

  “I’m looking for Paavo Smith,” came the curt reply.

  The woman’s sharp voice cut through Paavo’s elation at watching his twelve-page report spit out of the printer. He glanced up, but couldn’t see who Bo was talking to.

  A moment later, the mystery was solved.

  Stepping around the file cabinet that had hidden her, head held high—or as high as it could be held—and marching steadfastly down an aisle crowded with desks, law books, case histories, and folders, came one of the tiniest women Paavo had ever seen.

  She was at most four feet tall. She wore a full-length dress of pink satin with ruffles on the bodice, and a wide-brimmed straw hat with a row of white daisies circling the crown. Paavo almost rubbed his eyes to make sure he hadn’t fallen asleep. One look at the faces of the other inspectors, and he knew they were seeing the same thing.

  In the past, Angie had whimsically sent a leprechaun and even an Italian tenor bellowing “O Sole Mio” his way. He stood, a smile on his face. He knew Angie was busy, yet she’d taken the time—

  “Paavo Smith?” the woman demanded. She stared up at him, tilting her head nearly all the way back to take in his full six-foot, two-inch height, clasping her hat to her dyed blond hair as she did so. Her face was round as a pancake with large, watery blue eyes, an upturned nose, and lips smeared with ruby red lipstick. She reminded him of Miss Piggy. Her frowning face did not give the impression that she was about to burst into song.

  The sinking feeling that this visit had nothing to do with Angie struck. He tried to ignore his disappointment.

  On the other hand…

  He glanced at his colleagues. Ever since his engagement he’d been the brunt of so many gags he felt he was living a skit out of Saturday Night Live. The others weren’t smiling, either.