To Catch a Cook: An Angie Amalfi Mystery

by Joanne Pence

  Bond stepped toward him as Paavo opened it. “The authority of the FBI—”

  Paavo didn’t bother to glance back as he walked out the door. “I don’t give a damn about your authority.”

  Paavo was still struggling to control his anger when he walked into Angie’s hotel room that same evening. “Paavo, what’s wrong?” she asked, alarmed and also afraid to know.

  “Bond—that FBI agent. Damn him! I’m sure he knows more than he’s telling. If he’d just come clean, this would be so much…” His eyes caught hers. “You’ve got an odd expression. What is it?”

  “Sit down.”

  His face went from anger to stark fear. Suddenly she realized what he must have been thinking. “It’s not Aulis. He’s the same.” She saw his immediate relief. “I know you asked me to stay here, but I just made a quick run to Aulis’s house.” She reached into her tote bag. “I found this.”

  She took out the little bear and held it toward him.

  Paavo stared at it without expression.

  Had she been wrong? She had nearly cried over the stuffed animal and he had no reaction. “He isn’t yours?”

  His hand reached out. The toy seemed dwarfed in it. “He’s mine.” He fiddled with the dangling eye and smoothed the rumpled fur. “I used to sleep with him.”

  She knelt down on the floor near his feet, her hand on his knee as she watched a panoply of emotions flicker across his face.

  “I’m amazed I remember him. I’d forgotten what my own father looked like, but I remember a crummy toy.” He stared hard at it, as if waiting for it to talk to him, to tell him about the past.

  “He’s a very cute little bear,” Angie said. “I know it sounds silly, but a part of me kept hoping you’d be glad to have him back.”

  Long moments passed. “I am glad,” he murmured. “It’s a silly connection, this child’s toy, yet it brings me back.” He struggled with the words. “As if I’ve gone in a full circle.”

  “And then?” she asked.

  He rubbed the bear’s ear. “Found me, all over again.” He lifted agonized eyes to her. “I’m not making sense.” He put the bear down on the table, but Angie noticed that he kept glancing at it, and every so often would fiddle with the ribbon or brush a minuscule speck of lint from it, even if only he could see it.

  “I understand what you mean. And I’m glad,” she said softly.

  He drew in a deep breath. “Aulis didn’t keep any other surprises like this, did he?”

  “Wait until you see what I found in your pocket!” She gave a small laugh to lighten the mood.

  He grinned back, curious. “My pocket?”

  “A set of your clothes was there, along with your sister’s.” She quickly turned away and reached into her tote bag for the Ziploc bag. “One rock and a petrified piece of bubble gum. I wonder which is harder.”

  He took out the rock and rubbed it. She could imagine him doing that as a boy.

  “And look here. Your sister’s wallet. It’s got a great picture of you both, and wait until you see the movie you went to! I have evidence, Inspector.”

  “What’s this?” He took the wallet from her and studied the picture. Sadness tinged his eyes, even as he smiled.

  “Look at the movie tickets,” she said, wanting to give him something to laugh about. “In the money compartment.”

  He opened the section where cash would be kept. “It’s empty.”

  “What? I’m sure they were there,” she cried. “I can’t have lost them! Oh, I’ll bet when my tote bag tipped over at the hospital, they fell out.” She went over to the tote and began pulling things out of it.

  “What do you mean, at the hospital?”

  Her hands stilled. “Well…”

  He waited.

  She left her tote bag and returned to his side. Confession time. “All right. After Aulis’s apartment, I went to the hospital. Don’t worry. I was very careful.”

  His shoulders slumped. “I can’t believe…” He cut himself off. “You’re sure no one followed you?”

  “I’m sure. I can’t tell you what I put the cab driver through.”

  “I can imagine, Angie.” Unexpectedly he asked, “What movie did I go to?”

  “Of all things, the ticket stubs were for Love Story.”

  “Love Story?”

  “A weepy about a woman who dies,” Angie said. “The great emotional wallow of its time. I never saw it.”

  “I’ve heard of it. And all the girls named Jennifer. It’s nothing I’d want to see.”

  She grinned. “I think you already have.”

  Putt-putting along in Paavo’s ancient, minuscule Austin Healey was a far cry from roaring over back roads in her dearly departed Ferrari. Angie had ridden in faster bumper cars. Every so often they had to stop, open the hood, and feed the mice.

  Eventually they reached the beautiful—hah!—town of Gideon. Just looking at the restaurant made her stomach rebel. She had done a considerable amount of talking to convince Paavo that he would never find Sawyer’s compound without her, and she didn’t use the term compound lightly, even though he seemed to live there alone.

  Past Gideon, the road wound higher into the hills, through a heavy pine forest. Angie had to watch carefully for the turnoff, and even at that, she nearly missed it. She felt as if they were looking for the Phantom of the Forest. Someone singing “The Music of the Night” wouldn’t astound her any more than she already was by all this.

  After another mile, a log house became visible through the foliage. They got out of the car and were approaching the house when the cocking of a shotgun shattered the bucolic silence.

  Chapter 32

  Paavo raised one arm over his head, while the other grabbed Angie’s shoulder, stopping her from going another step. He didn’t need to. She was shaking too furiously to move.

  “Take it easy,” Paavo shouted. “I just want to ask some questions about a woman you worked with years ago in the FBI.”

  “You’ve got the wrong man,” the voice hollered from somewhere behind them.

  “Don’t play games, Sawyer. I don’t like it, and you don’t either,” Paavo said. “I just want to talk, then we’ll be on our way and forget we ever spoke to you.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “Let her turn around and you’ll know.” Paavo gestured toward Angie.

  “All right.”

  Angie turned, and despite the weirdness, even despite the danger, she called out, “Hello! You were such a hero the other day, I can’t believe you’d shoot me now.”

  Paavo turned too, but Sawyer remained hidden.

  “Where’s the other guy? The flashy one?” Sawyer asked.

  “He’s my cousin,” Angie said. “He’s back in San Francisco.”

  “Good place for him.” Sawyer moved forward, and for the first time, Angie fully understood why his garb was called camouflage. “Okay, you two, you got more balls than brains coming here like this. What’s it about?”

  “I talk better if I’m not looking down the barrel of a double-gauge shotgun,” Paavo said.

  “And I don’t want to talk to you at all,” Sawyer responded.

  “It’s about Cecily Campbell. I know a little about her. I want to know more. I understand she worked for you.”

  “What of it?”

  Paavo hesitated, then replied, “She was my mother.”

  Sawyer stared at them both a long while, then turned the shotgun so it rested across his chest even as his finger stayed on the trigger. “Let me see some ID.”

  Using two fingers, Paavo eased his badge from his jacket pocket. Sawyer motioned for him to toss it, and he did. Sawyer looked at the name and his eyes darted quickly to Paavo’s face. “I still don’t see why I should tell you a thing,” he said, throwing the badge back to Paavo.

  “You ordered her to take actions that eventually cost her her life. I want to know why,” Paavo said. “The whole story.”

  “Me? You’re wrong. I rarely saw her. I
wasn’t important enough for the likes of her.”

  “You were her boss.”

  “Only on paper.”

  “What do you mean, you weren’t important enough?”

  “I mean she was a conniving, scheming bitch. She slept her way to everything she got, and then it blew up in her face.”

  Angie gasped and watched Paavo’s reaction.

  “Who was she sleeping with?” he asked coldly.

  Sawyer’s mouth twisted. “Tucker Bond is one. He was as ambitious as she was.”

  “Bond acts as if he scarcely remembers her,” Paavo said.

  “Scum rises, Smith. So do con men and liars.”

  “No one else said anything like that about Cecily,” Angie added, unable to keep out of this any longer.

  Sawyer’s heavy legs were in a wide stance, his chin high. “Maybe they didn’t know her well enough. Or maybe it’s not something most people would tell a son. But hell, you two asked. It was all a long time ago. A lot of things happened back then that I didn’t like.”

  “That’s why you left, live up here like this?” Paavo asked.

  “It might be a common story, Smith,” Sawyer said, his tone sneering, “but there was nothing common in what went on there.”

  “The old-boy network in full force?”

  “More than that.”

  Angie watched the strange male dance continue, both men establishing what they were about.

  Paavo turned their discussion to Cecily’s spying on Mika and his murder. “I understand the Russian Mafia was a part of it—and now they’re back, after us.”

  “If that’s so, it can’t be because of what happened thirty years ago,” Sawyer said. “The Russians couldn’t care less. They aren’t that way.”

  “Somebody does, and I agree, the danger is now, but its roots are old. There are too many coincidences to deny it.”

  “What happened back then is nobody’s business but mine. I’ll tell you one thing and one thing only because you should know it. After Cecily saw the Russians kill her husband, she was going to go into the Witness Protection Program. But something scared her. She came to me for a different set of fake documents—different from the ones the Bureau was making for her. She was all broken up—said she was betrayed. Her lover didn’t come through, I guess. She wouldn’t give particulars. I helped her. I’m not even sure why, except that she’d been used and was paying big time for it. No one had ever trained her, taught her the way an agent would have been taught. She was thrown to the wolves and ended up being shredded by them. So I gave her a driver’s license and birth certificates for her and her kids showing the name Smith—Mary, Jessica, and Paavo Smith.”

  Angie felt a chill all the way to her toes.

  “She nailed the bastards that killed her husband,” Sawyer continued. “Did you know that?”

  Paavo stared without speaking a long while. “I had no idea.”

  “Yeah. Two of the smugglers. Then she disappeared—or died. Either way, after offing those Russians, she was dead.”

  I’m a dead woman. Angie remembered the chilling opening words of Cecily’s letter to Aulis.

  “So you don’t know, either, what happened to her?” Paavo asked.

  Sawyer paused, then said, “My guess is, she’s dead.”

  “Killed by the Russians?”

  Sawyer looked evasive. “Who knows?”

  “What scared her about the Witness Protection Program?”

  “Look, Smith, you’re like a bad penny showing up here after all these years. I’ve said all I’m going to. I don’t want to hear from you—or anyone else—again.”

  “You know where to find me, Sawyer,” Paavo said as he motioned to Angie and the two got into his car. “Think about it.”

  As they rode back to the city in Paavo’s Radio Flyer, they tried to put together the pieces they’d learned.

  “I don’t believe Cecily was having an affair with anyone,” Angie said. “I don’t know how much I believe any of Sawyer’s story. Maybe it was a mistake to come here.”

  “It wasn’t. It’s another piece of the puzzle. An important piece. Mika was killed, Cecily retaliated against the Russians, and somehow she ended up with the brooch. She must have pinned it on Jessica—that’s got to be how she ended up with it, and probably why she never wore it again.”

  “Then I brought the brooch back to someone who worked with the Russian mob years ago, and he recognized it,” Angie said.

  “And called Harold Partridge,” Paavo added. “Then the jeweler was killed, and a forger, and our homes ransacked. Partridge is a collector. He surely wanted the brooch, but he wouldn’t have to kill for it. He could easily afford it. What am I missing?”

  “Who owned the brooch thirty years ago?” she asked. “Let’s assume it was brought to this country to be sold to raise money for the dissidents. Your father and his friends did that. Then the Russians killed Mika—believing he betrayed them. And in the course of it, the brooch went to Cecily.”

  “If we assume Partridge owned it or wanted it thirty years ago, the timing of Rosinsky’s call to him and the events that followed make sense.”

  “Sounds like you need to visit Mr. Partridge again soon,” Angie said.

  Paavo agreed.

  Chapter 33

  Donald Porter, the former museum curator, called Angie’s cell phone the next afternoon. He’d found a peculiar story in a Russian newspaper about her brooch. A radical group of dissidents had removed it from the Hermitage, and while it was being smuggled out of the country, the smugglers were caught. They and the dissidents were arrested. The article did not say, however, what had become of the beautiful cameo of the Tsarina. The assumption was that it had been returned to the museum, but since Angie had it, obviously that wasn’t true.

  “That’s an amazing story.” She thanked Porter and hung up.

  After relaying this information to Paavo’s answering machine—he was never around when she called, it seemed—she did something she’d wanted to for some time. She caught a taxi for the trip across town to the Cypress Motel.

  An up-close-and-personal view of the seedy area, however, made her question the wisdom of leaving the cab.

  “Drive around a bit,” she requested. “I’d like to take a look at this part of town.”

  “You get a kick out of slumming, lady?”

  She didn’t bother to answer.

  Cecily and Mika’s apartment was not anywhere near this area. While Angie could understand the family going into hiding after Sam was killed, what had made them come to this part of town?

  The driver circled around several busy streets, knowing how to increase a fare. In the middle of a block stood a barren theater, its lobby boarded, and the outdoor ticket booth a poster board for graffiti and cheap, homemade flyers. “Stop!” she yelled.

  The words Bernal Heights Theater stretched along the top of the now empty marquee. BHT.

  Why would Cecily have brought her children this far from home to a movie? There were plenty of theaters in her area, much nicer ones, too. This area hadn’t deteriorated in the last thirty years. It was always bad.

  “Let’s go back to that motel,” she said, deep in thought. “And I’d like you to wait for me.”

  The cab pulled into the parking lot. Her chest tightened at the sight of the places Paavo had mentioned—Room 8 and the vending area.

  “You looking for a room?” A rumpled, middle-aged man stood in the office doorway. As he observed the quality of her Jil Sander pants suit and Gucci boots, he openly ogled her.

  “Hi.” Her cheerful greeting sounded forced as she introduced herself and handed him a business card. “I’m writing a book on places of some notoriety in San Francisco—exciting spots that people will want to come and visit for a few days.”

  “I’ve never heard of notoriety being a drawing card.” He frowned, as if she could make his business even worse.

  “Oh, but it is. Think of all the people who drove by O.J.’s place on Rockingh
am Way,” she said.

  “But would they want to sleep there?”

  “Trust me.” She followed him into an office furnished in rattan with threadbare cushions in need of fumigation. He stepped behind the counter and swiveled his reservation book toward her. Hope springs eternal, she supposed. “I heard a famous murder happened right here thirty years ago—guns blazing, a Mafia hit, Al Pacino barking orders.”

  “You’re the second person who’s asked about that this week.” He stroked his chin.

  “There you go!” she cried. “Instant fame.” She bent close, lowering her voice conspiratorially. “What can you tell me?”

  “Nothing. I don’t know nothing about it. I’ll try to find out for you, though. Fifty bucks for tonight, special rate. I’ll give you my best room. Tomorrow I might know something.”

  She straightened. “No way.”

  “Yeah, well…” He shrugged as if to say it didn’t hurt to ask.

  “Tell me,” she said. “Do you know people you can ask about what happened years back?”

  “Not really. It was strange, though, this place.” He shut the reservation book and shoved it in the corner. “When I first bought the motel, there were a lot of weird people hanging around it.”

  “Oh? What kind?”

  “You know.” He bent forward, elbows on the countertop.

  “No, I don’t.” She casually leaned a hip against it.

  “Guys with guns.”

  Her knees went weak. “Criminals? Gangs?”

  “No, no. Not that kind. Suits.”

  She could scarcely believe her ears. “Suits? You mean government types? G-men?”

  “Yeah. You know, they all looked like Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. They soon stopped coming after I took over, but for a long time I’d always wondered if this might have been used as one of those, uh, what do you call it…?”

  She braced her palms on the counter. “A safe house?”

  “Yeah! That’s it!”

  Harold Partridge sat in the glow of the lamplight in his big, empty house, a black lacquered Russian jewelry box nestled in his hands. It was just a little thing, with a design on its lid of a colorful, fairy-tale village. For some reason, he loved this symbol of the natural, peasantlike life he’d never had, of a warm, happy home, of love and laughter.