The Da Vinci Cook: An Angie Amalfi Mystery

by Joanne Pence

  A funny comment, Paavo thought, coming from a woman whose hair was blue. He’d rarely gotten such a precise description. She’d do great in a lineup. “What kind of car was she driving?”

  “I couldn’t see the license, I’m afraid, but it was one of those foreign SUVs . . . not a Mercedes . . .”

  Leong’s voice called out, “A BMW, maybe?”

  “Yes! That’s it.” Mrs. Moss smiled at him. “Very good.”

  Leong grinned like a student who’d just aced an exam.

  Paavo ignored him. “Did you phone the police immediately after that?”

  “Not quite. I didn’t want to come across as some nosy old lady who had nothing better to do with her time. But then I got to thinking about the woman leaving the front door open, and Mr. Piccoletti . . . he’s an interesting man.” Her voice softened. “Handsome, too. Of course, he doesn’t exactly come from one of our better families, from what I could tell. In fact, I’m not even sure how he can afford the house he lives in, and maybe that’s why he’s selling it. He owns a restaurant in Rome—a small place called Da Vinci’s—and a cheap furniture store out in the Mission district.”

  “When was the last time you saw Mr. Piccoletti?”

  “A couple of days ago. He’s gone to Italy, as I told the young officer. He does that a lot. For his restaurant, I suppose.”

  “How long has he lived in that house?” Paavo asked.

  Mrs. Moss thought a moment. “About five years, I’d say.”

  When Paavo requested a description of Piccoletti, she smiled as if picturing him. “He’s in his forties, I think. Not quite six feet tall. Getting a little thick around the middle, but he has a full head of thick black hair—”

  “Black?” Paavo stopped her. “Not gray?”

  Mrs. Moss thought a moment. “There is a little gray, yes. Very distinguished, now that you mention it. And he has the most devilish brown eyes and a wicked sense of humor. He loves to flirt.” Her smile widened, as if she were lost in a memory. Then she primly patted her hair and continued. “His clothes are a bit garish, but suit him. He likes jewelry, too, which I usually don’t approve of on a man, but with Marcello, I make an exception.”

  Paavo’s and Leong’s eyes met, acknowledging the similarity to the victim, before Paavo turned again to Audrey Moss. “Would you be willing to come across the street to identify the victim? I should warn you, the scene is bloody.”

  “You think it’s Marcello?” Her eyes were wide and she began to wring her hands. “Oh, no! Oh, my, I’m so sorry to hear it! He was such a nice man. So handsome, too. More Al Pacino than Paul Newman, if you know what I mean. I’d really rather not see him dead. I should call my daughter—ask her what she thinks. And my lawyer—”

  “Don’t worry about it, Mrs. Moss,” Paavo said. “We’ll find someone else.”

  “Thank you.” She was clearly relieved.

  He could get relatives, friends, other neighbors to ID the body. He’d use Mrs. Moss later to help with a different identification—that of the suspect with biscuit-colored hair. If her initials were C.A.S., the case should be a slam dunk.

  Chapter 3

  Angie fretted. Paavo still hadn’t called her back. When investigating a case, he often shut off his personal cell phone and she had to wait for him to check his messages.

  That didn’t mean she was going to sit by the phone and twiddle her thumbs, however. Not when her sister needed help! Cat had called back a couple of times, but between cell phone problems and crazy drivers, the only part of the story Angie clearly understood was that her sister might be chasing a murderer—alone. Cat refused to consider that her client might have killed anyone, but if he was in the house when a murder occurred . . .

  Also, another question plagued Angie. Even if Cat’s client wasn’t a murderer, why would Cat run after him? There was something going on her sister wasn’t telling her. Something, Angie feared, that was potentially dangerous.

  She gunned her Mercedes and bounded down the San Francisco hills, heading south.

  Her poor sister! She couldn’t imagine Caterina, of all people, being involved in anything that required asking her for help. Usually, Cat acted as if she’d rather eat worms than go to anyone for assistance, especially Angie, given the job troubles and the little . . . foibles . . . that seemed to plague her, which Cat looked down on with total dismay.

  But not this time.

  Angie was going to help her sister. Nobody messed with the Amalfi women. Not with any of them.

  Of the five daughters of Salvatore and Serefina Amalfi, Angie was the youngest. Caterina was second born.

  At forty, Cat was exacting, a perfectionist, a whatever-she-touched-turned-to-gold person. She was the glamorous sister who never had an ounce of fat or a hair out of place. She was constantly being massaged or rolfed, belonged to an exclusive health club, and went to spas for baths, oils, mud, facials, manicures, and pedicures, until Angie had no idea how she had time to enjoy the perfection she worked so hard to achieve.

  When they were kids, Caterina had certainly never found time for her squabbling, round-faced, candy-covered little sister. Every so often Cat was delegated to baby-sit, and Angie could still remember the way Cat dug her skinny fingers into Angie’s arm when she wanted her to behave.

  Quite the opposite was the eldest of the sisters, Bianca, who had mothered Angie shamefully. In fact, Angie still often went to Bianca with her troubles, knowing she’d always find a kind and sympathetic ear. The third sister, Maria, was a devout Catholic, and seemed more interested in Christ’s teachings than family—until she met, fell in love with, and married a wild-living jazz trumpeter named Dominic Klee. He gave Maria plenty to pray about.

  And finally, Angie’s fourth sister, Francesca, was only a couple of years older than her, and had always been the I-don’t-give-a-damn tomboy of the family. Angie and Frannie had been close growing up, Angie struggling to keep up when Frannie climbed trees, fished, played baseball with the boys, or clambered over sand and rocks along San Francisco’s beaches. Unfortunately, as Frannie’s marriage to Seth Levine soured, she became increasing jealous of anyone else’s happiness—Angie’s included—and the two drifted further and further apart.

  A loud horn jarred Angie from her reverie, and she stepped on the brake to see what the problem was. Tires screeched behind her and horns honked, but she saw nothing wrong and drove on.

  Families! she thought with a shake of the head.

  The Mustang that had been so raucous a moment earlier zipped around her, nearly taking off her fender, while the driver waggled his finger in an obscene gesture.

  “Same to you!” she yelled from the safety of her locked car, and continued on.

  Still, she admired her sisters, and compared to them, found much about herself to criticize. She was sure she could never be as warm, maternal, or understanding as Bianca, as glamorous and efficient as Caterina, as devout as Maria, or as free-spirited as Frannie.

  God, but she felt boring. But maybe not for long. Having her name associated with Chef Poulon-Leliellul’s would change all that.

  Now, though, she had a job of a very different sort.

  From the rearview mirror she saw more drivers tailgating and waving their fists at her. She looked at the speedometer.

  No wonder they were upset. She was going the speed limit.

  In California, nobody did that if they could help it. With the French manicured fingers of one hand speed-dialing on her cell phone and the other on the steering wheel, she sped up.

  Toshiro Yoshiwara was talking with the CSI team when he saw Paavo, his homicide partner, leave the witness’s house and wend his way through the bevy of reporters already gathering, dismissively telling them, “No comment.” A murder in the tony Sea Cliff was automatically “big news” in this town.

  Yosh followed, wanting to find out what the witness had to say. Instead of going in, Paavo took out his phone. He frowned as he looked at it, then walked around to the side of the house. Off
icer Leong, who couldn’t have been more attached to Paavo if he’d been using Krazy Glue, had the good sense to stay back while Paavo made a call.

  Yosh watched. As the conversation continued, he grew concerned at the expression on his partner’s face.

  While Yosh, a big man, tended toward jolliness and enjoyed laughing and joking at every opportunity, Paavo wasn’t one to show his emotions. The Great Stone Face was the moniker Angie had tagged him with when they’d first met, and around Homicide, it had stuck. His expression wasn’t stony now, it was worried.

  Yosh moved closer.

  “Caterina?” Paavo said. “Your sister?”

  He was talking to Angie, Yosh thought, and wondered if something had happened to her sister. He listened openly now.

  “Angie, where are you?” Paavo asked. And then, to Yosh’s amazement, Paavo actually looked stunned as he said, “You’re where?”

  Chapter 4

  On Highway 101 south, near San Francisco International Airport, the Volvo suddenly exited.

  Cat followed it to a private company’s long-term parking lot. From there, shuttle buses brought passengers to the various terminals. She trailed behind the next shuttle, and could only hope the Volvo’s driver was on it. She still hadn’t gotten a clear look at him. For one thing, he drove much too fast—as if he owned the road, as if his other car could be a red Ferrari convertible, which was the only car she knew Marcello Piccoletti owned. And yet, something about the shape of his shoulders as he drove, his posture and form as he ran to the Volvo, made her sure she’d been following her client.

  It had been all she could do not to lose him.

  When the shuttle stopped at the Alitalia terminal, since there was no open space for her car, she simply double-parked to watch and see who got off. A security guard appeared immediately and rapped hard on her window. He gestured for her to move. She argued it was just for an instant, but he insisted she leave immediately or he’d arrest her and impound her car.

  He wore a gun.

  Seething, she left, parked in a legitimate space, and hurried back to the terminal. By the time she’d gotten there, though, the area around the Alitalia ticket counter was all but empty. She was pondering her next course of action when a familiar voice had her spinning around and gaping.

  “Cat!” Angie ran toward her, a large tote bouncing against her side. “I saw you while I was parking. Where is he?” She looked around the deserted terminal. “Where is everyone?”

  “Why are you here? Where’s Paavo?” Cat asked, doing her own search for the figure of her sister’s fiancé. “Where are the cops?”

  Angie chewed her bottom lip a moment, her brown eyes big and round, which Cat knew meant she was hiding something. “He’s at the crime scene at your client’s house. Things are happening fast.”

  “I need him here to stop Marcello.” Cat studied Angie warily, wondering what she was hiding.

  “I’ve got bad news,” Angie said softly, a comforting hand on Cat’s arm. “Paavo is all but certain Marcello is the victim. Cat, Marcello is dead.”

  Cat brushed her off. “Marcello is not dead! I don’t know who is, but I would certainly recognize my own client.” Irritation mixed with anger as she paced. “The problem is, I can’t be positive I was following Marcello. I only saw him from behind, and he was wearing a hat. It looked like him, but when I tried to reach him earlier today, his furniture store assistant manager told me he was in Rome.” Cat stopped pacing and shook her head, hands on hips. “I found that hard to believe as well. Marcello wouldn’t leave the country without telling me.”

  Angie’s eyebrows rose at that comment. “He wouldn’t? Cat, before we do anything more, you’ve got to slow down and explain all this to me. Why are you following him?

  “Because . . . a crime was committed.” Cat lifted her chin. “I was at his house, and he was running. Following him is called being a good citizen. You’d have done the same thing.”

  I would, Angie thought, but not Cat. Her sister had many positive traits, but risking her neck for civic duty wasn’t one of them.

  When Angie learned from Paavo about the blond woman the neighbor had seen, and the handkerchief with C.A.S.—which could stand for Caterina Amalfi Swenson, and Cat loved to have her things monogrammed—she realized she needed to take a moment to carefully think this over, and then to talk to her sister before telling Paavo where to find her.

  In the eyes of the law, Angie feared, Cat wasn’t a mere witness: she was the number one suspect. Of course, Angie knew Cat hadn’t killed anybody, and Paavo could prove it eventually, but the nagging thought remained that something big had made her sister rush after a man who’d been at a murder scene. She wanted to know what that was.

  Another problem was that Paavo was in a house in the Sea Cliff area, all the way on the northwest corner of the city. The airport was south of the city, on the east side. Even using sirens, it’d be difficult for him to reach the airport in time to stop whomever Cat had followed from boarding a plane. He’d have to call in local police reinforcements or airport security. And what would he say to them? How would he identify the man they needed to stop? He couldn’t very well tell them to stop Marcello Piccoletti from boarding a plane if he thought Marcello was dead.

  And what if Cat was wrong and the man, whoever he was, wasn’t in the Alitalia terminal?

  Angie knew she had to find out more about the situation before she acted. What kind of a fool would Paavo look like if she caused him to send in cops with guns and all they could find were his fiancée and her sister sitting in an empty terminal? And if they realized Cat was a suspect, seeing her at an airport, they’d arrest her for sure!

  The best thing to do would be for her to find out from Cat exactly what was going on, and then for the two to drive to the Hall of Justice, meet Paavo, and talk rationally and calmly, rather than be in the midst of something that resembled a police raid on the airport.

  After she made that decision, her cell phone had rung time and again. She was sure it was Paavo, and it hurt her not to answer his calls, but she had to wait, to find out more. Finally, unable to take the incessant ringing anymore, or the guilt from not answering, she switched the phone off.

  “Angie, are you hiding something?” Cat asked crossly. “You’re usually not this quiet, and I know you’ve talked to Paavo. Where is he?”

  “Before pulling him away from the crime scene, which could mess up his entire case,” Angie said, “I wanted to make sure we were close to finding the man you followed. He is taking Alitalia, right?”

  Cat looked crestfallen. “I’m not positive. An obnoxious security guard wouldn’t let me stay and watch, but after this stop there’s only Air India and Qantas.”

  “In that case, let’s find out if Marcello has a ticket.” Angie hooked her arm in Cat’s and headed toward the Alitalia counter.

  “Airports don’t give out that kind of information,” Cat informed her snootily.

  “We have our ways, “ Angie said with a wink.

  At the counter, Angie told the ticket agent that Cat’s husband, Marcello Piccoletti, was taking an Alitalia flight to Rome but he’d left his Palm handheld at home because Cat forgot to pack it, and wouldn’t the agent please, please, tell them which flight he’d be on and which gate he’d be at so they could have security or someone run the Palm back to him in the boarding area?

  The agent looked surprised by the request, and he was about to refuse when Angie elbowed Cat, hard. Cat pulled out her Palm—she always carried it, as Angie knew—pretended it was her husband’s, and calmly and rationally gave Marcello’s name, address, and telephone number.

  “Let’s see what I can find out,” the agent murmured, to a chorus of thank-yous from the two women.

  “Here he is . . . no, my mistake. This is a Rocco Piccoletti.”

  Angie hardly missed a beat. “That’s him. Rocco Marcello Piccoletti. Go on, please.”

  The agent looked back at the screen. “Let’s see . . . Flight 437,
SFO to Paris, four hour layover, then Flight 89, arriving four p.m. tomorrow, Rome time,” the agent read. “And the flight he’s on . . . just left.”

  “Left?” Angie gripped the counter. “It’s in the air already?”

  “That’s right. Sorry, ladies.”

  The two wandered away.

  “Would Marcello be using the name Rocco?” Angie asked Cat, confused by the different name the agent used.

  “No. Rocco is his younger brother. I haven’t seen him for years. Not since I was a little kid. He and Marcello did look a lot alike, come to think of it.” Cat’s brows scrunched in thought. “I wonder if I was following Rocco, and Marcello really is in Italy like his manager said?”

  “Cat, what is this really about?” Angie’s voice grew firm. “What were you doing at Marcello’s house?”

  Cat seemed momentarily surprised by the question. “Why shouldn’t I have been there? He’s my client.” Her face fell. “Or, was.”

  “What do you mean?” Angie studied her closely. “Did he change his mind about selling the house?”

  “Nothing like that.” Angie waited, and finally Cat drew in her breath and said, “Oh, all right, I’ll tell you about it. But don’t tell anyone else, because it’s all a mistake. Understand?”

  Angie nodded.

  “I went to Moldwell-Ranker this morning, as I always do,” Cat began, “and I was calmly working with a couple of clients to get their pea brains to understand that in their minuscule price range homes did not look like those in magazine spreads, when out of the blue Meredith Woring, the office manager, accused me of stealing a relic that Marcello owns.”

  “You stole something?” Angie was stunned.

  “Of course not!” Cat folded her arms. “For one thing, it looks like a piece of junk. I wouldn’t want it, no matter how valuable it is.”

  “What is it?”

  “I hate to say. It sounds like a joke or pious claptrap.”

  “I won’t laugh,” Angie promised.