Too Many Cooks

by Joanne Pence

  Paavo and Yoshiwara introduced themselves. Greuber returned the greeting but kept glancing at the house and rubbing his arms as if he expected Wielund’s ghost to spring out of it.

  Some people did get spooked by houses in which someone had died—or may have died, as in this case—Paavo thought. Wielund’s place was four small rooms built over a garage and sandwiched, literally wall-to-wall, between two houses that looked exactly the same except for the color. Blue, pink, and yellow—just like babes in blankets. Nothing to feel uneasy about.

  “This is just great, Mr. Greuber,” Yosh said, patting the landlord on the back as they walked toward the house. “Great of you to join us. Cooperation makes all our lives easier.”

  Paavo could hardly wait to see Yosh make an arrest. Hey there, Mr. Murderer, how ya doin’? It’s sure great of you to let me read you your rights.

  “I can’t believe it about Wielund,” Greuber said nervously. “Good tenant. Clean. Nonsmoker.” He put the key in the lock and opened the door. A stairway up to the living area, built over the garage, was directly in front of them, and to the left was a small door that led to the garage.

  “Good tenants are hard to find, I hear,” Yosh said.

  “You better believe it!” Greuber led the way up the stairs. “He always paid his rent on time. Quiet. The neighbors never complained. Wait!”

  He stopped so suddenly they nearly bumped into him. Paavo whipped out his gun, pulled Greuber back and behind him, then inched forward to see what had alarmed the landlord. He didn’t see a thing. “What’s wrong?”

  “It wasn’t like this before,” Greuber whispered.

  “Before?” Paavo asked.

  “I…I checked the house right after word came of Wielund’s death, just to make sure everything was okay. It’s even neater now. As if…as if Wielund came back and cleaned it up.”

  “You’d better go outside, Mr. Greuber.”

  With bulging eyes, Greuber looked from Paavo’s gun to his face, then ran down the stairs and out the door.

  Standing in the square hall at the top of the stairs, Paavo looked around. To his left was a narrow living room beside a narrow kitchen, to his right two small bedrooms, and before him a bathroom.

  “I’ve never heard of dead men coming back to clean house,” Yosh said.

  “Let’s make sure no one’s still hanging around and then get the crime unit out to dust for prints.”

  The front door slammed shut, loudly, making the windows rattle the way a door does when left open and caught by a burst of wind.

  Paavo glanced quickly at Yosh, then took the stairs two at a time. He ran out the front door and onto the sidewalk.

  Greuber was starting his car’s engine. Paavo raced toward him. “Greuber, wait!” he yelled, grabbing the passenger-door handle. Greuber sped backward off the driveway, nearly pulling Paavo’s arm out of the socket. His bad shoulder felt like a hot poker had pierced it. Grimacing, he clutched his arm tight against him, doing all he could to stay on his feet as a fierce, throbbing pain made his stomach turn and the sidewalk seem to sway like a rowboat in a hurricane.

  In the far reaches of his mind, he saw Greuber’s white face watching him; then Greuber jerked the transmission into drive, gunned the engine, and tore down the street.

  “Damn!” Paavo said through clenched teeth, both at his shoulder and at the uneasy feeling that filled him as he watched the car disappear.

  Yosh’s face showed his concern. “You all right?”

  Paavo slowly eased his hand off his arm. “Sure. It’s nothing.” He drew in a breath. “Jammed my finger on the door handle.”

  Something flickered across Yosh’s eyes before he turned from Paavo to glance down the now-empty street. “Some men just spook easy, I guess.”

  “I guess,” Paavo echoed. The two looked meaningfully at each other. If they believed Greuber wasn’t running from some very real, very tangible fear, they were ready to believe in the tooth fairy.

  Paavo stared back at the house, brows locked. “He must have seen or remembered something. I think we better have a long talk with Mr. Greuber real soon.”

  Yosh nodded. “I’ll check out the garage soon as I radio the crime unit.”

  Slowly rotating his shoulder, trying to make it feel somewhat normal again, Paavo went back into the house. He opened doors, closets, and even cupboards as he passed them. Standing by the desk, he used his handkerchief to flip through papers—bills, for the most part, and a few letters from Germany. He spotted an address book and opened it to the first page. Arbuckle’s Seafood…Andy’s Barbershop…Angelina Amalfi. He stared at her name a moment. She’d said Wielund was a friend. Could he have been more, or wanted to be more? But she was only twenty-four, and Wielund was double that. Much too old for her. Wasn’t he?

  “The garage is full of stuff,” Yosh called from downstairs. “I’ll poke around, see if I find anything.”

  Hearing him, Paavo covered the address book with his handkerchief and slipped it into his pocket. He crossed under the archway between the living room and the kitchen. “I just thought of something,” Paavo said.

  “What’s that?”

  “In the missing persons report Dustman filed, he said he didn’t see Karl or any sign of where he’d gone when he came to his house looking for him. Nobody asked Dustman how he got into the house to search.”

  “Guess we’ll ask him.”

  After a short while Yoshiwara called out, “Paavo, you better get down here.”

  When Paavo stepped into the garage he thought he’d entered a sporting goods store: skis, snowshoes, fishing poles and gear, a life raft, and three bowling balls, plus enough tennis rackets and golf clubs to stock a country club. Tin after tin of tennis balls vied with boxes of golf balls for shelf space. Wielund had been more than an enthusiast; this was a tribute to obsessiveness.

  Yoshiwara was kneeling next to a large carton, holding photographs in his hand.

  “Check these out, Paavo,” he said, waving the photos in Paavo’s direction. “Our victim was into indoor sports of a different sort.”

  Paavo looked at the photos—some in color, some in black and white—of women, girls, men, and even animals engaged in activities beyond the imagination of even most Hustler devotees. One woman in particular showed up again and again.

  Paavo shook his head and let the photos drop back into the oversized carton. “The guy was a real sick one.”

  “The photos aren’t all of it.” Yosh pulled reels of film from underneath the photos. “All this was in a box marked GOLF BALLS. Nobody has a box this size full of golf balls. Even manufacturers don’t ship in boxes this big. That’s why I opened it.”

  “This stuff isn’t commercial, either. We’re talking originals.” Paavo stood.

  “Maybe Wielund made more than one kind of cheesecake?”

  “The question is, was he a special customer, a distributor, or a producer?”

  Yoshiwara hoisted himself to his feet. “Messing around with the people that handle this stuff is a good way to get yourself killed.”

  Paavo began to look around the garage. “Let’s see if there are any more surprises here or upstairs. I’ve got a bad feeling about this whole thing.” The memory of Greuber’s white face came to him once more.

  8

  By the time Paavo left the Hall of Justice late that night to go across the street for a quick chiliburger for dinner, it was raining lightly. He turned up his jacket collar. The night ahead loomed long and tedious, to be spent going over the bits and pieces of information he and Yosh had picked up at Wielund’s house, along with the files on Wielund that had been sent over by Immigration.

  It was rare to have a homicide victim who had a file or a history of any kind. Too many of them were kids from small towns who’d come to the big city looking for excitement and found more than they could handle, or old people killed by accident during a mugging for a few dollars of their Social Security, or innocent passersby caught by stray bullets from a gang-
related drive-by shooting.

  The city glistened as lamplights cast their glow on streets washed clean and slick by the winter rain. Winter in San Francisco was mild. The rain actually warmed up the weather a bit and washed away the fog so that the streets were clear. Having rain but no snow was one of the benefits of life in this town. There weren’t many others anymore.

  As Paavo walked toward Charlie’s Kitchen, a favorite spot for cops to get a fast meal, he glanced over at the phone booth that stood near the front door. Karl Wielund’s address book had been burning a hole in his pocket all day, but he had put off thinking about it. Now though, it refused to be put off any longer.

  A man with original photographs in his house like the ones Paavo had seen also knew Angie, phoned her, talked to her…about what?

  Surely it was about his restaurant, or about food, or about one of her restaurant reviews, nothing more. But Angie was an attractive woman, and Karl Wielund, he’d learned, was a man with a lurid interest in women. What if he’d wanted more from Angie than a few favorite recipes?

  His mind flashed to the pictures. No, he couldn’t even imagine such a thing. No one could think of Angie that way. Not Angie, with her bad jokes and puckish smile. She lit up empty corners of his life and filled him with her laughter and generosity. He’d been a quiet, normal homicide detective, dealing every day with murder, cruelty, vengeance, and seediness, before she entered his life and turned it completely upside down. Now he couldn’t think straight. He argued with his friends, talked to himself and…oomph!…walked into parking meters in the dead of night.

  On top of that, he suddenly realized it’d started raining again.

  “Hey, mister.” A ragged, scraggly-bearded man huddling in a doorway with an oilcloth over his head and shoulders held out a pint whiskey bottle toward Paavo. “Looks like you need this more than I do.”

  The guy was probably right, Paavo thought. He handed the man a couple of dollars, squared his shoulders, smoothed his tie, and walked on, as if this little jaunt in the rain were a part of his usual routine.

  The night beacon on Alcatraz that once swept the dark waters of the bay searching for escaping prisoners now acted more as a warning and reminder against wrongdoing for all San Franciscans as it revolved. Not that they paid much attention. The sharp beam of light flashed toward the rain-dappled windows of Angie’s apartment every five seconds. She sat in front of the windows addressing invitations for a baby shower for her fourth sister, Francesca. Frannie and Seth had been married three years, and their first child was due in April. The youngest of the five daughters, Angie was the only one still unmarried, much to her mother’s dismay. Angie hadn’t given marriage much thought until a tall and very single homicide detective entered her life. Now she thought about it far too much, and Paavo, it seemed, didn’t think about it at all.

  But then, she’d only known him three months, and two of those months he’d been recuperating from a bullet she’d caused him to get. Maybe that wasn’t the most propitious start for a long-lasting relationship.

  At least he loved her. So he said. Once.

  There was a loud knock on the door. Paavo? But he’d told her he had to work tonight. Something must be wrong. She hurried to the door, looked through the peephole, and pulled it open.

  “What a surprise,” she said. He looked like a drowned rat.

  “Sorry to bother you.”

  Uh-oh, she thought. The deep, serious sound of his voice told her Inspector Smith, not Paavo, had come to call. “No bother. Come in. Were you working tonight?”

  “Yes. I’ll have to go back.”

  “At this time of night? Let me take your jacket.” It was soaked. His hands felt like ice and she saw his slight wince as he pulled his arm from the sleeve. “What have you been doing, playing in the rain? You’ve got to take better care of yourself. That shoulder isn’t completely healed—”

  “It’s fine.”

  “But it won’t be. It’ll stiffen up in this cold; you’ll catch pneumonia. Then the department won’t have any choice but to wait a very long time for you to solve all its cases. Nine o’clock at night is late enough to work.”

  “Angie—”

  As he turned to talk to her, she tossed a big bath towel over his head and began to dry his hair with it while singing “He’s the Sheik of Araby.”

  “Angie.”

  He tried to stop her, but she was on a mission to get him warm and dry.

  “Angie!” He pulled the towel off. “That’s enough!”

  She backed off. “I was just trying to help.”

  “I’m not a child. I stopped by here for a reason.”

  She folded her arms. “I should have known there was a reason. Not that you wanted to see me.”

  His lips tightened. “Right.” He ran his fingers through his hair to smooth it back down after Angie’s terrycloth assault.

  “So, how was your boys-night-out at Yosh’s?”

  An eternity seemed to pass before he answered. “Fine.”

  Something in his voice made her take a second look at him. “Oh? Who else—”

  “Listen, Angie, I’ve got to talk to you about a case.”

  Her glance went to the gun and shoulder holster he wore. Usually, she could make herself ignore them, but other times, like now, she was forced to remember them and all they meant: a case. She nodded, walked over to the Hepplewhite chair, and sat. “Okay.”

  He sat on the sofa near her. “A while back when I came over you thought it was to investigate Karl Wielund’s death, and I said I didn’t see anything mysterious about it.”

  She nodded, holding her breath.

  “I was wrong.”

  “My God.” He had all her attention now.

  “Today I was given the results of his autopsy. He was poisoned.”

  She felt her face drain of color. “Poisoned! You mean he ate some food that had turned bad?” She shuddered at the thought.

  “No. This was no accident. Someone deliberately poisoned him.”

  “How horrible! He was so happy the last time I saw him, and his restaurant was doing so well.”

  “How long did you know him?” Paavo asked.

  “Eight—nine months, I guess. Chick Marcuccio introduced us. I’d done a review of Karl’s restaurant for the Bay Area Shopper. It was a favorable review—I loved the place—and Karl asked to meet me.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Well…yes.”

  There was a pause. She realized he must have noticed her hesitation. “I found your name and phone number in his address book,” Paavo said.

  “Oh.” Was nothing private with this man? “Well, he did ask me out a couple of times.”

  “Ah. I see.” Silence.

  Although who she had or hadn’t dated certainly wasn’t Paavo’s business, something made her say, “I didn’t go.”

  “Why not?”

  That, even more, wasn’t his business. “I don’t know. I guess I just didn’t much care for him.”

  “Oh?”

  “Something about him struck me wrong. That’s all.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What is this? Am I a suspect because he put my name in his address book?”

  “I just want to know.”

  She wished that at least once she could fully understand what went on in that complicated head of his. “Why? Because he’s your case, or is this something personal?”

  He didn’t answer right away. “I’m trying to understand what kind of man Karl Wielund was, that’s all. Strictly business.”

  “Strictly business, I already told you I didn’t go out with him.”

  “You also told me he asked you out twice. That means you encouraged him enough to call you back.”

  “I what?” She stood up.

  “Did he say what he wanted? What these dates with you were all about?”

  “You’ve got your nerve!”

  “Why are you so mad? I just want to know why he kept calling you.”
>
  “Maybe he loved my body!”

  He stood too. “That’s exactly what worries me.”

  “What?”

  He sat again, drew in a deep breath, and spoke softly. “Did he ever—uh, mention anything to you that might have sounded a bit…indiscreet?”

  Enough was enough. “Good God, Paavo. The bottom line is he just wasn’t my type.”

  “In what way?”

  She clutched her hair. For a cop, he was sure obtuse. “Maybe in that he wasn’t nosy and didn’t grill me for no damn reason whatsoever.”

  “Relax.” He leaned back casually on the sofa, his legs crossed at the ankles.

  She sat with a huff. “I am relaxed. I mean, if I’d known he was going to get killed, I certainly would have dated him. Then I could tell you all about him, all his little peccadilloes. Is that what you want to hear?”

  “Calm down.”

  “I am calm!”

  “Good, that’s all I needed to know.” He glanced at his watch, then stood and reached for his wet jacket. He threw it over his arm instead of putting it on.

  She stood too. “Do you have the overcoat I gave you?”

  “It’s in the car. I didn’t want to get it wet.”

  Did that make sense, she wondered? Did any of this? “What is it you’re trying to learn about Karl?”

  He gave a long, resigned sigh. “I guess I owe you some explanation. I had to find out if you knew anything about a possible connection between Wielund and…something illegal. But I can’t go into any details, all right?”

  She stepped closer. “Did you say illegal?”

  “I don’t know that there’s anything to it. Just a few signs that make me curious, that’s all.”

  “Tell you what, I’ll make a few phone calls. After all, I’m practically in the same business as Karl Wielund—or close to it. We just may be on to something.”

  “No. Absolutely not. And no more of this ‘we’ stuff.”