To Catch a Cook: An Angie Amalfi Mystery

by Joanne Pence

  As she rode up on the elevator, she checked her cell phone and set it to go straight to the message center so that it wouldn’t ring and disturb her meeting. Immediately on reaching her floor, she turned away from the reception area and walked down the hallway, reading nameplates on doors for the person she wanted to speak with. She found the right one and knocked.

  “Excuse me, miss.” The receptionist stepped out of the public office and called to her. “You need to check in first.”

  “But this is the person I want to talk to,” Angie said.

  Just then, a tall, hawklike man opened the door. He looked down at Angie, then at the receptionist. “It’s all right,” he said. “I’ll see her.” He meticulously rubbed a speck of dirt off the doorframe, and then held the door wide for Angie to enter.

  “Thank you so much,” she said. “It’ll only take a minute of your time. I wanted to talk to you about a movie-ticket stub I recently found.”

  Chapter 35

  Paavo thought about Bond’s alibi—a movie-ticket stub with LOVE ST right before the tear.

  One edge of the ticket had a number on it, BHT00243. He knew many theaters used to number the tickets sequentially to account for box office receipts on a daily basis. If he could get hold of the ticket stubs for Love Story Angie had found in Jessica’s wallet, the numbers would indicate if Bond and Cecily had attended on the same day—or possibly together. The ticket could substantiate Cecily’s story, that she had met Bond that night…and that Bond might well have betrayed Mika and caused his death.

  Paavo rubbed his temples, needing to think this through.

  Cecily had been an undercover operative. It made sense that her contacts with her handler—Bond—would be covert. What better place than in a darkened theater? What better place to tell Bond that she, Mika, and the children were going into hiding?

  Mika had been killed at the motel. In the attack it was apparent that the killers were also seeking Cecily—and possibly her children as well. Why else would the killers have unleashed firepower into every possible hiding place in the motel room after already slaying Mika? Only pure, dumb luck had saved Cecily, Jessica, and him.

  After Mika’s death, Cecily must have recontacted Bond. He offered to put her and the children into the Witness Protection Program. Having them under wraps would allow him time to plan his next move. Was it unconscious suspicion of Bond that had kept her from revealing where she and the children were hiding after Mika’s murder?

  Cecily must have been distraught, frightened for herself and her children. But in the days she waited as the WPP machinery moved to create new identities and a new safe place to live, she had time to think. Clearly. Coldly.

  And what she came up with was chilling: Bond the agent; Bond the handler; Bond the betrayer.

  Paavo could imagine just how desperate and alone Cecily must have felt as she pieced together Bond’s pattern of betrayal. Paavo finally understood why she had decided to act as she had, as she realized that neither she or her children dared to be placed under Bond’s control. Worse, she had recognized that if Bond gained possession of her children, he would have a weapon against her to force her to his will—and probably to her death. Cecily also must have feared for her children themselves, particularly Jessica, who was old enough to remember too much.

  Paavo saw how his mother had analyzed her situation. From what he knew, he could all but envision just how she must have planned, and how she had set her plan in motion. First she’d killed the Russians who’d fired the weapons that murdered Mika, and then with both the Russians and the FBI after her, she’d staged her own death, leaving Jessica with an all-important envelope for Aulis with their forged birth certificates and Cecily’s letters. Her task completed, she disappeared.

  But why was all this coming out now?

  And what was the role of the brooch in it?

  Paavo had to talk to Angie and have her read out the numbers on the movie tickets she had. They were the proof he needed to confront Bond.

  He called Angie’s room at the Fairmont on his cell phone. The phone rang until a message service came on. He called her cell phone, and again received no answer.

  He called Connie, and then Angie’s sisters, but none of them had heard from her. His nerve endings crackled. Where could she be? She’d sworn she wasn’t going anywhere.

  Just then, Yosh called. “Has Angie reached you yet?” he asked.

  “No. Did you talk to her?” Paavo asked.

  “About an hour ago. She said she was going out—had a few errands, and that she had a serious question about something of Jessica’s from Aulis’s apartment. I hope you understand what she was talking about, because I sure didn’t.”

  Paavo was beginning to feel a little panicky. “Unfortunately, I do understand.”

  He hung up, and began to drive. If Angie was concerned about something of Jessica’s, she had to be talking about the movie-ticket stubs. He, too, had questions about those stubs.

  It was time to get some answers.

  Up ahead, the building loomed.

  Street parking was all filled, as were nearby parking lots. An empty yellow-painted loading zone took up most of the sidewalk. It was too late for deliveries now. He stopped the car at one end of the zone, locked the doors, and hurried across the street into the building.

  He rode up on the elevator, and immediately on reaching his floor, turned away from the reception area and headed directly toward the office of the person he wanted to speak with. He found the right one and knocked.

  “Excuse me, sir.” A security guard stepped out of the public office and called to him. “The offices are closed for the day.”

  He pulled out his badge. “Inspector Smith. I’d like to speak with Mr. Bond.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I believe he already left.”

  The woman watched the cop park his car in the loading zone. She slowly drove past, then pulled into a bus stop. A man waiting for the bus marched up to protest, but after one look at her cold, deadly eyes, then at the Glock on the passenger seat, he blanched and backed away, his lips sealed.

  Within minutes, the cop raced from the building to his car. She waited until he drove by, and then pulled into traffic and followed a couple of cars behind him.

  “Will you stop fiddling with those dials and drive!” Bond demanded.

  “There’s something wrong with the car,” Angie said, making her voice as high, whining, and ditzy as she could manage. “I told you I can feel it straining.” So far, she’d turned on the windshield wipers, hazard lights, headlights to high beam, seat warmers, and global positioning system. The car had a hands-free cell phone, and if she could keep punching enough buttons to slip in Paavo’s cell phone number and then hit Send, she would. So far, even holding a gun on her, Bond had managed to undo most of what she’d done.

  “Maybe we should stop at a gas station and have a mechanic take a look,” she said.

  “Drive!”

  She did. Where was he taking her? They were going around in circles, and the sky was rapidly growing quite dark. She didn’t like this one bit.

  “Keeping me here is a stupid, ignorant, and foolish thing to do!” she cried. She hit the windshield lever again and the wipers screeched across the dry glass.

  “Enough!” the man ordered, smacking the lever back to Off.

  “You can’t treat me like this!” She was shrill and nearly hysterical. “I’m an innocent person.”

  “Guess what.” His voice turned low, lethal. “I don’t care.”

  She tried pleading. “Let me go and I’ll forget all about this. I promise I won’t press charges.”

  “You’ve got to be joking.”

  “Who do you think you are?” she yelled.

  “I think I’m someone who managed to pull together more wealth than you could imagine. Someone who won’t let a twit like you stand in my way. Your friend Aulis Kokkonen is only alive because the sudden noise from a neighbor apparently made my man’s shot go wide.
Who would have imagined the old fool could hold on this long?” He moved his gun close to her side. “Believe me, no such distractions are here now!”

  He had just pronounced her death sentence. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel, her voice meek as she said, “Oh.”

  Paavo swung into the parking lot at SF General and practically ran through the hospital to Aulis’s room. Angie wasn’t in it.

  He went in search of a nurse and found one at the central station. “I’m trying to find out if my girlfriend, Angie, came by this afternoon to visit Aulis Kokkonen,” he said. “I’m worried about her. She’s about five two, a hundred fifteen or so—she swears she’s one-ten, but I don’t think so. Also, she wears these high, chunky shoes that add three or four inches, easy. She’s pretty—beautiful actually—with short brown hair and big brown eyes, a classy dresser—”

  “Stop.” The nurse smiled. “I know Angie. I haven’t seen her, but I’ve only been on duty since four.”

  “What about Sister Ignatius? Is she here? Maybe she’s seen her.”

  “It’s strange you should ask. Sister Agnes was talking to me about her. I’d assumed they were from the same convent, but they aren’t. She hasn’t been here all day either.”

  “The air outside will be chilly. I do hope you’ll be warm enough in that jacket.” Bond spoke as calmly as if they were headed for a sidewalk café. His voice was more chilling than the weather.

  “I won’t be,” Angie said, now certain he’d simply been stalling for night to fall and the streets to empty. They were far from downtown, driving in a residential area near the ocean. Cheerful lights shone through windows of homes, and she could feel the warmth emanating from them, making her colder and lonelier than ever. “And I’m not a part of this, either. I really, really want to go home.”

  The older man laughed. “Don’t be naïve.”

  For some time she had noticed a car that seemed to be following her. Although it stayed far behind, whenever she turned, so did the black car with tinted glass. She would have liked it to be the police, but they didn’t drive BMWs.

  “Is this about the brooch?” she asked after a while.

  “It’s far beyond the brooch,” he said. “Partridge cared about it, not me. He was a nervous, simpering fool.”

  Angie was confused. “Then why are you doing this?”

  “Why? Because I have to do everything myself, that’s why! Those Russians are inept.”

  “But I thought Partridge was the one behind it all.”

  “Partridge—yes, and Sawyer was the one who brought him in to work with us.”

  She was even more confused. “Are you doing this to help Partridge? If so, you’re too late. It’s been all over the news today that Partridge is dead. Someone killed him!”

  Bond laughed.

  Paavo’s cell phone began to ring. Relief flooded him as he reached into his breast pocket to retrieve it. It had to be Angie. He’d left messages all over for her to call. The number calling wasn’t one he recognized, but who knew where she was?

  “Smith,” he answered.

  “Inspector Smith?” The sound of a man’s voice was disappointing.

  “Yes?”

  “My name is Jim Emory from MBC Motors. I’m calling about Miss Angie Amalfi,” the man said.

  He tensed. “What is it?”

  “She took one of our SUVs out for a test drive about three hours ago, and still hasn’t returned it. You were shown as a reference, Inspector. We’re hoping you can convince her to bring it back soon.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know where she is. I’ve been trying to reach her.”

  “Oh, that’s no problem. She has a GPS and tracking device—that’s a satellite positioning system. She turned it on and hit the emergency button, so we know where she is. Don’t worry—we know it’s not an emergency because she kept driving. Just a new driver trying all the bells and whistles. Happens all the time. Drives our emergency operators crazy, but that’s part of the cost of business—”

  “Where is she?” Paavo asked.

  “I’m really sorry to bother you with something like this, Inspector. I hope you understand. She was driving around most of the evening, but now that she’s stopped, we’d like our car back. Do you know how expensive ML55 AMGs are? They’re beautiful, the fastest SUVs—”

  “Hold it!” Paavo said, then spoke slowly and emphatically. “Tell me where she is.”

  Angie didn’t like it here. To be in a dark, isolated, and spooky place with a madman holding a gun on her was not her idea of a good time.

  “Now, Miss Amalfi,” Bond said. “Let’s begin with you giving me the ticket stubs, then we’ll talk about who else knows about them.”

  From his reaction when she first mentioned the movie tickets, she should have realized her mistake. He wanted to photocopy them, he’d said, and when she told him they were in her tote bag in the car, he went with her to pick them up. Once she unlocked the SUV, he pulled a gun and told her to start driving.

  She didn’t dare tell him no one else knew about the tickets. He’d kill her and that would be that. But she also didn’t want him to set a trap for Paavo.

  “They’re inside.” She pointed at her tote.

  “Find them.”

  Slowly she lifted one item at a time from the bag and placed it on the concrete floor. She had never been in this place before, and hadn’t even known such a spot existed. The area was completely hidden from the roadway, and even that was little traveled. Still, they were in a city filled with people. Surely someone would come by in time, perhaps for a moonlit tryst. Or so she prayed.

  “Hurry up!” he ordered.

  The surf pounded in the distance. He could kill her and drop her body into the water—just like Paavo’s mother. She, too, would be missing, and never found again. Is that what Bond did to Cecily? According to Irene, she’d feared her boss. Angie had assumed she was talking about Sawyer, but she’d been talking about Bond.

  Angie slowed down more than ever. “Everything got dumped onto the floor not long ago. I don’t usually carry so much, but I’ve been living in a hotel and haven’t had time to sort things out.”

  “Just find them!”

  “They’re here someplace, but I can’t see without some light. We need to go someplace with better lighting than the moon. Let’s leave this place. Once I find them, you can take the tickets and go. You go your way, I’ll go mine—”

  “Shut up!” Bond yanked the bag from her, and pulled out a makeup bag, Palm Pilot, checkbook, camcorder, camcorder tapes, notebooks, pens, mechanical pencils, and a handful of small pieces of paper. He stuffed the papers back inside. Gusts of wind hit the area, and he didn’t want to chance the tickets blowing away. “They’ve got to be here.” Bond swore. “How can you collect so much junk? You and your idiot boyfriend are causing me nothing but trouble. He was gullible—just like his mother.”

  “His mother wasn’t gullible.”

  “No? Could have fooled me! Damn, what are all these scraps of paper?”

  “It’s always necessary to have receipts for the IRS—for when I start to make a lot of money with my video restaurant review business. I need writeoffs, you know. You work for the government. You know how it is.”

  “The IRS?” He looked at her as if she’d gone mad. “Who cares about them?”

  “I do!”

  “Lady, you know what they say about death and taxes? Well, guess what—you don’t have to worry about taxes anymore.”

  The woman watched the cop leave the hospital and get into his car. She smiled grimly as she started the engine and followed.

  “They aren’t here!” Bond was furious.

  “They are! You just missed them. Let me look.” She grabbed the papers he’d already gone through, shoved them back into her tote bag, and pulled it toward her.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Bond yanked one handle from her grasp and tugged it back. “You’ve just made it worse. Let go!”

  “Worse?”
She pulled the tote toward herself again. “I don’t think so! Everyone knows about these ticket stubs, and everyone knows I have them, so if anything happens to me, they’ll come looking for you.”

  “And I’ll deny it.” He tugged back, being careful not to let the bag spill. He wouldn’t want the wind to catch the ticket stubs—he wanted them safely in hand so he could burn them.

  “There’s proof out there, and you know it or you wouldn’t care.” Angie spat the words at him. “Who has the proof, Bond? Is it Sawyer? Did he know you killed Mika and Cecily? Is that why he’s been hiding? We found him, you know. I spoke with him.”

  “I don’t believe you!” Bond gave a hard yank and pulled the tote from her hands.

  “Steel-gray eyes, six three, stocky, his hair was probably sandy brown when you two worked together.”

  “Damn you and your mouth! I’ll shoot you right now!”

  Chapter 36

  Paavo found the silver SUV off-road in a remote area of the Presidio. Angie wasn’t in it, and as he scanned the too-quiet landscape, his skin turned icy. Here were fifteen hundred acres of cypress, eucalyptus, and pine forests along the Pacific to the Golden Gate, filled with empty officer housing, barracks, and other structures brought about by the end of over two hundred years of military occupation. Countless possibilities existed to hide a person—or to bury a body.

  His heart dropped. What was she doing here? She couldn’t have come here on her own—someone brought her to this remote place. Who? Why? He feared whoever did it had but one purpose in mind, to kill her. Paavo couldn’t imagine him waiting. He would shoot, then dump her body.

  He remembered the guard saying Bond had left with a young woman who fit Angie’s description. There were hundreds of young women Bond could have left with—no reason to think Angie had gone to see him, was there? She didn’t know Bond…did she? But if she had questions about the movie tickets…and had used logic…