The Da Vinci Cook: An Angie Amalfi Mystery

by Joanne Pence

  “It’s a chain that, supposedly, was once used to shackle St. Peter. You know—Peter the Apostle. The Big Fisherman. The keeper of the keys. The guardian of the Pearly Gates.”

  “Hah!” Angie blurted. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

  Cat glared at her. “Didn’t I tell you? Anyway, it’s just an old, rusty iron chain. Marcello thinks it’s priceless. It’s priceless, all right, as in ‘without value.’ The man should have ‘Sucker’ tattooed on his forehead. I asked him where he got it, and he wouldn’t say.” Cat put her hands on her hips as she swiveled, her back to Angie, to look over the terminal. “Probably off eBay!”

  “And that’s what you supposedly took?” Angie moved around her sister, to face her again.

  “That’s right.” Cat seemed ready to kill. “And because that means clients can no longer trust me, Meredith tried to fire me!”

  Angie gawked. “I can’t believe you got fired.”

  “I did not get fired!” Cat insisted. The sympathy in her younger sister’s eyes had her grinding her perfectly capped teeth. “She tried to fire me. She can’t. I’ll fight it every inch of the way. I had my own interior design business for years, and only gave it up because, these days, people are making money hand over fist around here in real estate. But something like this could ruin my reputation in both areas. I will not put up with it!”

  “So what did you do?” Angie asked.

  “I tried calling Marcello, of course, but when I couldn’t reach him, I went to his house to see for myself what was going on. I was sure the chain would still be there. Then I found a dead body. And then I saw Marcello—or someone—leaving the house with the chain I supposedly took! I’ve got to confront him—and get it back to prove my innocence.”

  “You went after him to prove you didn’t steal a fake religious relic?”

  “I went after him to preserve my reputation, my good name, my career!”

  Angie still thought there was more to it than that, but before she could say so, Cat wailed, “This day couldn’t get any worse!”

  Actually, Angie thought, it could.

  “There’s a teensy little problem you need to know about,” she said. “One that’s somewhat bigger than a missing relic.”

  “Aha! I knew you were hiding something!” Cat’s eyes bored in on her like spikes. “Out with it. What’s the problem? And how teensy?”

  “There’s a witness,” Angie said. “She heard the gunshot, and then went to the window and saw you leaving the house. The way she put it, it sounded as if you were the killer.”

  Cat’s eyes grew rounder as Angie’s words sunk in. “Me? Somebody thinks I’m a killer?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Angie said.

  “This is a joke!”

  “I wish.”

  Cat gasped, nearly hyperventilating. “Do you think anyone would believe that?”

  “Paavo doesn’t,” Angie tried to calm her sister, but she had to be truthful. “He said she’s quite convincing, though.”

  “Convincing?” Now Cat actually was hyperventilating. Angie tried to lead her to a bench, but Cat pulled away. “How can she possibly be convincing when she’s wrong? Why would anyone believe her?”

  Angie tried to off-handedly toss out, “Maybe because of the satin handkerchief monogrammed with your initials found under the dead man’s body.” She added quickly, “Don’t worry. It’ll all get straightened out, I’m sure.”

  Cat’s voice rose three octaves. “Handkerchief? I don’t know about any handkerchief! What are you talking about?”

  Angie waved her hands soothingly as they received a few curious glances from passersby. “Calm down. It’s nothing. You’ll be fine.”

  “Stop saying that!” Cat screeched, then took a breath and forced herself to sound calm. “Have the police located anyone who saw Marcello or Rocco or whoever it was leave the house just before I did?”

  Angie hesitated. “Not . . . quite . . . yet.”

  “Oh God! Then it’s the word of a witness against me—and I’ve already been accused of stealing from him! I don’t know what to do.”

  “We’ll get this straightened out,” Angie insisted.

  “With Marcello gone? And Rocco? And the chain? It’s not going to be easy. Damn it all! That’s why I called you for help! I wanted the police here!” Cat glared at Angie as if every malfeasance of every police force known to man could be laid at her feet. “They could have stopped him, gotten the chain, and he’d have cleared my name. I’d have been back at my job tomorrow. Now, everything is screwed up!”

  Angie’s brain churned over Cat’s words. Something in the hysterical, angry, frustrated tones lit the proverbial lightbulb. She smiled triumphantly, snapping her fingers. “You’re right. Marcello and Rocco are the keys to clearing your name. And Rocco is on that Alitalia flight . . .”

  Paavo hung up. “I’ve got the CHP looking for their cars,” he said morosely.

  Yosh shook his head. “Let me get this straight. Angie’s sister, Caterina, was here when the shooting took place. She saw someone leave and took off after him. She called 911, reported the murder, and then started in about following some Volvo, but the dispatcher didn’t really understand what she was ranting about, so Caterina got mad and hung up. Then she called Angie, who, for heaven only knows what reason, encouraged her to continue to follow the guy—a possible murderer, no less—out onto the freeway. And then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, Angie hopped in her car and she’s also heading south to help her sister?”

  Paavo looked a little green. “Yep, that about sums it up.”

  Yosh sighed. “I thought so. What do we do now?”

  “Hope the CHP can find them. Angie’s cell phone keeps going straight to messaging. I can’t imagine she turned it off. She must be talking to her sister.”

  Yosh tried not to grin, but was losing the battle. “A black Volvo followed by a white BMW SUV followed by a silver Mercedes—and the last two driven by two women who are probably on their cell phones with each other and all over the road. Shouldn’t be too tough to spot.”

  “One is a murder suspect,” Paavo reminded him.

  “Wrong—two are murder suspects,” Yosh clarified. “If Caterina wasn’t your sister-in-law to be, she’d be our prime suspect.”

  Paavo rubbed a temple. “I think I’m getting a headache.”

  Chapter 5

  “I can’t believe you carry your passport around with you.” Cat looked at Angie as if she’d sprouted two heads.

  “Doesn’t everyone? It’s in my tote with my iPaq, checkbook, extra makeup, and a few other important things. Something told me to grab the tote when I left the house. Anyway, you have yours.” Angie took off her shoes and jacket and set them on the conveyer belt along with her tote bag and purse to go through security. Cat did the same.

  “I have mine,” Cat said, “because I needed it to get tickets and visas for the cruise Charles and I want to take through the Baltic. It’s not something I carry around all the time.”

  The conversation stopped while the agent took away Cat’s manicure scissors, letter opener, metal nail file, a Swiss Army pocketknife tool set, and a screwdriver. Her explanation that she was a realtor was greeted with a bored shrug. He didn’t care why she had these things. It was his job to confiscate them, which he did.

  Tickets in hand, Cat and Angie continued down the long corridor to their gate.

  Earlier, Angie had used her iPaq to log onto the Internet, where she discovered a Lufthansa flight to Rome leaving in an hour. Since its layover in Frankfurt was only fifty minutes, she knew she’d actually arrive in Rome before Rocco did. She could wait in the restricted terminal area and watch as he came off the jetway.

  Once she spotted him, she’d follow him to wherever he was staying. Then she’d phone Paavo, he’d contact the Italian police, they’d arrest Rocco, get back the chain of St. Peter (God willing), extradite Rocco to the U.S., and she could quickly come home—after doing a bit of shopping and eating in Rome
, of course. It had been a few years since she’d lived there, and she loved the city. She had no problem with visiting it again.

  If only Paavo could be with her, life would be perfect. Rome . . . Italy . . . they were made for amore. In fact, Italy might make a very nice site for a honeymoon. She could check that out as well.

  When she enthusiastically told Cat her plan, leaving out the part about finding a honeymoon locale, Cat clearly and emphatically gave her opinion of her sister’s mental condition.

  “What do you want to do?” Angie asked, warming to her plan. “Go back and try to convince the police that the home owner’s brother just happened to be at the scene of the crime and just happened to take the valuable relic you were accused of stealing that very morning? Or let me go to Rome, find Rocco, point out to the police where he is, and let him do the explaining? Without finding him and the chain that will back up your story, what proof do you have for any of this? All the police know is that you were there, and your handkerchief was found under the dead man’s body.”

  “Why did he have my handkerchief?” Cat complained. “I don’t even know who he was!”

  “I’ll handle everything for you.” Angie patted her sister sympathetically. “All you need to do is describe Rocco to me, clothes and all. I’d hate to go all the way to Italy and then follow the wrong person.”

  Cat jerked her arm away. She hated sympathy. “How could you pick one man out of a whole planeload of people? What can I tell you? Look for a guy in a sport jacket who looks Italian? I haven’t seen Rocco since I was about ten years old. I’m not sure I would recognize him myself.” Cat took a few steps, then stopped. When she turned toward Angie, her face was considerably brighter. “If this idea of yours is any good at all, I’ll have to be the one to go.”

  “Not good, Cat.” Angie vehemently shook her head. “The police want to question you. They won’t like it one bit if you leave the country.”

  Cat pondered this, then smiled coyly. “I don’t know that they want to question me. No one’s told me that.”

  “You witnessed a murder!”

  “No, I didn’t! I saw a dead body. That’s completely different.”

  Angie couldn’t believe her ears. “You were seen fleeing the scene of the crime.”

  “I wasn’t fleeing! I was chasing!” Cat tossed her head. “If there’s a problem, Charles can hire a good lawyer or two.”

  “Martha Stewart had a whole team of them,” Angie pointed out. “And look what happened to her!”

  “Rocco must be going to Italy to meet Marcello, and I need Marcello to straighten this all out,” Cat said, thinking out loud.

  “Is that the real reason for your sudden interest in flying halfway around the world?” Angie’s eyes narrowed with suspicion.

  Cat coolly regarded her for a moment. “Of course! I want it done right. Join me, if you’d like.”

  “Thanks for your confidence,” Angie muttered, arms crossed.

  Undaunted, Cat went into logical, controlled mode, ticking off items on her To Do list. “I’ll have to ask Mamma to take care of Kenny for a couple of days, then tell Charles to bring Kenny to Mamma’s house, call Kenny’s school, then all my clients to say I’ll be out of town a couple of days—”

  “If we’re going, we’ve got to go now!” Angie said. “They won’t sell tickets much longer.”

  Cat’s mind whirred. “If we can do that, I should be able to keep my name out of the papers. Charles won’t have to contact his lawyer friends—they all have such big mouths! And no one will ever know anything at all about this. It’s not that big a scandal, after all.”

  “Not at all,” Angie agreed, hoping her sister didn’t notice when she rolled her eyes.

  Paavo banged his head against the steering wheel. Okay, it was childish, but given the provocation, understandable.

  He sat in the airport parking lot. The California Highway Patrol had contacted him when the two cars he’d sent a bulletin on showed up there, then he and Yosh headed that way. It was Angie’s car, all right. He could only assume the BMW was her sister’s. Yosh was talking to the garage attendant to see if he’d noticed the two women and which way they’d gone.

  From the time Paavo had gotten the call from the CHP, he’d tried to reach Angie, to find out which terminal she was in, but he still couldn’t get through.

  Then, just minutes ago, she’d called him.

  “Nobody saw them,” Yosh said as he got into the car, and noticing his partner’s agitation, asked, “What’s wrong?”

  Paavo turned his head to look at him, his expression blank. “They’re going to Rome. The two of them are in flight, as we speak. . . .”

  Disbelief rendered the big guy speechless for nearly a full minute, then he choked out, “Rome . . . as in Italy?”

  Paavo nodded as the ramifications of what they’d done hit him. Angie had told him they were following Rocco Piccoletti, the home owner’s brother, that he’d taken a three p.m. flight to Rome and had the relic Cat had been accused of stealing with him. Angie seemed to think that all she and Cat had to do was to track down this Rocco Piccoletti in Rome, tell Paavo and he’d ring up the Italian police and ask them to send Rocco back to the U.S., where he’d immediately clarify everything, turn over the relic, and leave Caterina free and clear.

  But he knew that wasn’t going to happen. He’d been about to explain to her that there were rafts of laws involving extradition, and that, to begin with, he’d have to get all the higher-ups in the SFPD involved, not to mention the State Department, Justice Department, and the various embassy staffs. What she wanted—without clear proof that Rocco Piccoletti was the murderer—was practically impossible. But he didn’t get any of that out before she had to hang up because their plane was taking off.

  “Get off the plane!” he’d shouted into the phone. “Don’t go!”

  But it was too late. She’d already disconnected.

  Now, Yosh faced Paavo. “Is it possible that Caterina doesn’t know that she’s wanted for questioning in connection with a murder investigation?”

  “She knows,” Paavo said haltingly.

  “Holy shit!” Yosh shook his head with dismay. “That means Caterina’s skipped the country! And since Angie helped, she’s now an accomplice.”

  Paavo banged his head one more time.

  Chapter 6

  Paavo and Yosh returned to the Sea Cliff district and the Piccoletti house. They spent the day canvassing the neighborhood to see if anyone besides Audrey Moss had seen or heard anything, and to find out all they could about Marcello Piccoletti. All they got for their efforts was a ringside seat in a game of see, hear, and touch no evil. None of the neighbors knew anything. Most didn’t even know Piccoletti’s name, let alone a brother or other relatives he might have. The sad part, Paavo thought, was that he believed them. So much for big-city neighborliness.

  The only out-of-the-ordinary information they learned was that several people had noticed a strange black truck a half block from the Piccoletti house. They had no idea what it was doing in that neighborhood.

  One neighbor’s gardener thought he recognized the man sitting in it as being the person who had installed Piccoletti’s security system. He’d waved to say hello, but the man looked at him as if he didn’t know him. The gardener described the truck driver as looking like a bear—overweight, not too tall, young, and with curly brown hair.

  Two women, both au pairs from down the block, near where the truck was parked, noticed a priest walking in the direction of the Piccoletti house, but lost sight of him shortly.

  It wasn’t much to go on—a black truck, a priest, and a bearish looking fellow who resembled a former workman on the property—but it was a start. Piccoletti’s neighbor had speculated that the reason he was selling his house was because he could no longer afford it. That, too, was an angle worth pursuing.

  Cat opened her eyes to a blinding headache. It couldn’t possibly be a hangover. She’d never had one in her life.

&nb
sp; As she settled into her first-class seat, the flight attendant offered drinks, and she took a scotch and soda. The whiskey was warming and calming. So much so that against her better judgment she ordered a second. This was an extraordinary circumstance. She fell asleep halfway through it.

  Even asleep, all that had happened that day plagued her.

  She was certain she had no choice but to go to Rome after Rocco. Angie didn’t know what he looked like, so how could she follow him to take back the chain of St. Peter or to talk to Marcello? Marcello, Cat was sure, knew exactly what his brother was up to. And she had to find out as soon as possible. Especially now that it involved murder.

  That was when her head began to throb, waking her.

  She buzzed for a flight attendant, who handed her a couple of Tylenol and coffee. The caffeine coursed through her veins, clearing the cobwebs and fuzziness.

  Settling back, she shut her eyes again. The plane was quiet as most people tried to sleep. Whether it was the peacefulness, the coffee, or simply having a moment to think, the heavy cloud of confusion and despair that had swirled around her since her boss accused her of stealing Marcello’s relic, worsened by the horrible shock of seeing a dead body, suddenly lifted.

  The day flashed before her with clarity, in Techni-color.

  Her eyes sprang open, and she didn’t think she’d be able to sleep anymore that night. Maybe never again.

  As much as she needed to find Rocco and straighten out everything with Marcello, in the eyes of the police she could well be seen as a fugitive from the law.

  They wouldn’t look at her that way, would they? Anyone could tell she was a good person. But there was that damned witness . . .

  She’d have to get Charles to talk to his lawyer friends after all. If they got involved, however, they could find out about her and Marcello. She couldn’t let that happen.

  What in the world was she going to do? She lay her head back, trying to relax, trying not to let this upset her any more than it already had, then bolted upright.