by Joanne Pence
Soon after, Lt. Eastwood, Homicide's boss, breezed into the office long enough to say, "Welcome back," and then scurried off to another of the many meetings that seemed to take up most of his day.
Alone in the bureau, Paavo walked to the window. He had finished his "in-box." Nothing of particular interest was in it, nothing that captured his imagination the way the Anna Gomez case did. The sky was gray that day, and he stared out at the lights of the freeway snaking south and east, leading cars out of the bowels of a city where death could occur so quickly, and so brutally.
As he regarded the world beyond the windows, he had the strange feeling of something peculiar going on, as if the city was no longer the gold-toned, sunny place it had once been, but had become something darker, uglier.
A chill rippled along his back, one of those that Angie described as someone walking over your grave.
He couldn't help but think that he and Angie needed to find some way to live life to the fullest, every day, and to start now. Time, he knew, was a ruthless master.
CHAPTER TWO
When Connie arrived, she and Angie hugged like friends who hadn't seen each other for two months rather than two weeks. Connie was a few years older than Angie, divorced but "looking." She had short, fluffy blond hair, and was perpetually trying to lose the ten extra pounds she carried.
The two sat at the kitchen counter, coffee in front of them, and had barely begun to talk about Angie's honeymoon when the oven timer dinged that the scones were ready.
As they ate, Angie filled Connie in on her last two weeks since the wedding.
"It all sounds like such fun," Connie said wistfully. "A great husband, a beautiful house—you've got it made, Angie. I really should be green with jealousy. No wonder you've been too busy to see me since you've been back."
Guilt hit Angie. And worry. Things were going well for her at the moment, more than well. But, as her superstitious Italian mother always warned, that was the time you had to be at your most vigilant and ready for anything. Comeuppance was a bitch.
"So tell me," Angie said, hoping to change the subject, "what have you been up to?"
"Nothing." Connie sounded completely dejected. "My life is the pits. I haven't had a date in months, and I can barely remember the last time a date got interesting, if you know what I mean. Even my business is worse than ever. Sometimes, I wonder why I bother. If I didn't open the store at all today, it would scarcely matter to my bottom line."
Connie owned a gift shop, Everyone's Fancy. Angie knew it didn't bring in a lot of money—most of its sales were from greeting cards, in fact. But she had never seen Connie so down about it. As far as her lack of dates, that was a perpetual Connie problem—mainly because she was both too choosy and too afraid of being hurt again. And Angie always believed the latter was the cause of the former.
"I didn't realize …" Angie began. "But what about Max? At my wedding, you two looked pretty chummy."
"At weddings, everyone gets to feeling a little romantically inclined. He's a nice guy, but …" Connie shrugged. "Anyway, how can I think about men when my business is going down the drain?"
"What do you think would help? A change in the type of merchandise you carry, perhaps?"
"I don't know," Connie said. "I keep trying, but it's really hard to compete with online shopping. And now, e-cards are so popular, even my business staple is drying up." She had finished her scone, but cut a corner off a second one and ate it. "I'll figure out something. Just starting the day with good coffee and a delicious scone helps. These are so much better than those in bakeries. Much moister."
"It's a favorite recipe," Angie said, cutting herself a piece of the same scone. "It's funny, but you mentioned me being busy, and to tell the truth, I'm not. Now I've taken care of the important things that kept me busy, such as convincing Paavo we wanted to get married, figuring out where we would live, the wedding, the honeymoon, and remodeling this kitchen, I'm not sure what to do with myself. All I've got left is dealing with a room full of wedding gifts I have no use for. I suppose I can donate them, but that seems wrong, somehow."
"You have that much stuff?"
"I'm afraid so. I can re-gift to every new bride in the city for the next year, I'm sure. Want to see? Maybe there's something you can use."
"Sure. Let's take a look."
Angie led her up the stairs to the spare bedroom.
"Oh, my," Connie murmured as she gawked at all the boxes. "Shouldn't you take things out of the boxes so you can see what it all is?"
"I've got it sorted. Kitchen, bedroom, bath."
Connie went to the kitchen items and began opening boxes. After the third box of CorningWare , she said, "I see what you mean."
"Yep."
Connie picked up one of the smaller boxes and pulled out a pair of dainty English bone china cups and saucers. "These are beautiful."
"They are, aren't they?" Angie said. "I was given a number of gorgeous tea cups, saucers, cake plates, and so on. But I'm not sure what to do with them. I just don't see Paavo drinking tea from them, his pinky finger high in the air."
"He's definitely a mug man," Connie said with a nod.
"That's right," Angie agreed, as she opened another box with an elaborate china tea pot. "It's a shame I don't use things like this. So pretty."
"I can see them in a lovely tea room," Connie said, admiringly. "I love tea. All kinds."
"Me, too. Especially with scones," Angie said.
"Your delicious scones, you mean," Connie said with a grin.
With that, an idea struck. Angie glanced at Connie. One look and she knew the same idea had hit Connie as well.
o0o
Paavo walked into an empty house. It looked exactly the way it had when he left that morning except for some scones, including one half eaten, and two used coffee cups and plates in the sink. He wondered where Angie had gone.
He had left work early in hopes of helping her with dinner. The more he thought about it, the more convinced he'd become that she would be spending time cooking up some fancy meal for them that night, the kind of dinner he'd learned to love after spending so much time around her and her family. She'd already put ten pounds on him—he had been a bit too thin when they'd first met—and it was all he could do to make sure he didn't put on any more weight. Although, at times, he couldn't help but think that Angie's food was worth it.
He was about to phone her cell when he heard the garage door being raised and then the roar of her Mercedes engine as she pulled in.
He opened the door that led from the garage to the kitchen.
"I can't believe you're already home," Angie said as she pulled a bag of groceries from the back seat. "I was sure you'd be calling at about nine tonight with apologies for being late."
"If you want me to leave …" he said.
"Funny." She gave him a quick kiss as he took the groceries from her and carried them into the kitchen.
"What did you buy? Rocks?" he asked. "This is heavy."
She followed. "I'm so sorry I wasn't here when you arrived! But I stopped and bought some steak and fresh vegetables, along with a few other things I needed. I'll put dinner on right now."
"Stop." He grabbed her. "Relax. Dinner can wait."
"But I feel bad. I should have been—"
He kissed her properly this time. "You're here now. Let's sit a minute. I want your company more than I want dinner."
She smiled with relief. "Good. I'll admit, my day became surprisingly busy."
Paavo got himself a beer and poured some chardonnay into a glass for Angie as she unpacked the groceries. He was surprised to see a couple of sacks of flour as well as cream, butter, cranberries, chocolate chips, cinnamon chips, raisins, and raw sugar.
"What's all that?" he asked. "Are you opening a bakery?"
"You guessed!" she cried.
"What?"
"Well, almost. Wait until you hear what Connie and I came up with."
He was glad her back was to him as sh
e put the steak and vegetables into the refrigerator. That way, she didn't see him grimace.
"So, you saw Connie today? How is she? Worried that she's lost her partner in crime now that you're a serious married woman?" he asked as he carried their drinks into the living room.
"No way. She knows that'll never happen. Anyway, as we talked, we came up with the most wonderful idea. I mean, simultaneously. It was like a sign." She took a sip of wine.
He drank some beer. "A sign. I can't imagine," he said, trying to sound enthusiastic. Angie's ideas were bad enough. Mixed with Connie's, they could be disastrous.
Angie smiled, waited, and then made her big announcement. "We're opening a tea room."
"A tea room?" Thoughts of all the ways that could go wrong flew at him so fast, he was momentarily speechless.
"Isn't it exciting?" Angie asked, adding, "Connie's business isn't working all that well. The shop is filled with kitsch that nobody wants. Luckily, if we push it all to one side, she has room for a few tables and chairs. She can sell tea, and with them scones, crumpets, and such that I'll bake. And we'll split the sale of the baked goods fifty-fifty. It'll be lovely. Plus, our wedding gifts are filled with pretty cups and saucers and tea pots for her to use."
"Sounds like you two worked it all out."
"We have. It'll be so much fun." She gave him a hug. "And best of all, it'll give me something to do when you go off to work."
"Really? I thought you had plenty to do," he said.
Her face fell. "I used to."
He didn't like the way that sounded. "It could be interesting," he said, which certainly was true.
"I'm going to love it. And the best part is, it'll help Connie out so she won't lose her business. I've got so many ideas about the best way she can run her shop …"
Paavo decided the best thing to do at this point was to drink his beer, nod in agreement, and hope for a good dinner.
CHAPTER THREE
Angie wasn't at all pleased with Connie. They'd been working at the tea room for three weeks, but problems kept turning up.
The first week, they realized that Connie needed to buy a glass counter to display the pastries that would be sold. She found one second-hand, but it was still quite pricey. She and Angie also scoured Salvation Army and Goodwill stores to buy tables and chairs. To make them look inviting, however, Connie had to buy frilly chair cushions, pretty tablecloths, matching napkins, napkin rings, and untarnished flatware. Tea rooms, after all, didn't use paper cups and plastic utensils.
All that was bad enough, but the biggest setback came in the second week when Angie and Connie opened the tea room for business and immediately discovered that, despite its name, many of the customers wanted fancy coffees such as lattes, cappuccinos, and so on, rather than tea. Connie had to rush out and rent a large, professional-grade espresso machine to handle the requests, as well as pounds of rich, dark coffee beans.
All in all, Connie's hope to save money had put her in the hole to the tune of several thousand dollars, and that was by doing everything as cheaply as she could.
The next issue was that Connie wasn't about to open her shop very early in the morning to serve the business people who wanted a wake-up cup of coffee and a pastry. As an afternoon tea room, many customers wanted something sweet such as cookies, brownies, or cupcakes rather than early morning Danishes and scones. So much for Angie's ideas about starting the day off with tea and a scone.
But, on the bright side, Angie's cupcakes quickly grew in popularity as people realized they were superior to most they could buy. The cake was made from scratch in a variety of flavors rather than a packaged mix, and instead of the sugary icing used on so many fancy cupcakes, Angie used real butter, cream, and pure cane sugar to make her dark chocolate, buttercream, or cream cheese flavored frostings.
On the tea room's fourth day, Angie brought in cupcakes decorated with fondant icing that looked like a cat, a dog, or a book. Each little decoration was stuck into the top of a cupcake with a long toothpick. The fondant was made of sugar, water, corn syrup, and food coloring.
Those cupcakes, although more expensive, sold faster than the unadorned ones.
By the following week, people were coming into the shop specifically to buy several of Angie's decorated cupcakes. One day, Angie was talking to a customer who wanted cupcakes to bring to work because her boss, the chairman of the board, was retiring. She told Angie they had gotten him a gavel with his name engraved because he always "gaveled" the meetings to order. Angie said she could easily make little gavels out of fondant to decorate some cupcakes, and that she could have them ready the next day. The customer ordered two dozen, and paid extra for Angie to deliver them to her place of business.
Before long, Angie put up a sign saying she'd "customize" the cupcakes, if desired. And it worked. The cupcakes were especially popular for kids' parties when the children were involved in softball, soccer, and even scouting.
By week three, Angie wasn't only delivering pastries to Connie each day, but she was also taking special cupcake orders to her own customers. She spent more time baking and delivering her "customized cupcakes" than working at the tea room.
Connie was bringing in extra money from the tea room, but after paying Angie a greatly discounted price for the pastries baked specifically for the tea room, and needing to pay off the bills caused from buying furniture and renting the espresso machine, she realized she wouldn't see a profit until sometime in 2024.
Angie suggested that Connie help with the customized cupcakes, thinking it would be a way for Connie to make some extra money. Connie declined, insisting she was no baker.
But then, Angie received a large order for five dozen cupcakes, each with miniature ballet shoes as a topper. She convinced Connie she couldn't manage it alone. She needed help making them, and also help carrying the cupcakes into the Bay Area Ballet Academy on the evening of the party.
The Academy was one of the top dance schools in the country for children. When one of its students won a major dance competition, the director, Lorraine Miller, decided to go all out for a party for the girl's classmates as well as their parents.
With this, Connie agreed to help, although her cupcake decorating skills were all but non-existent. Then, to deliver the cupcakes, Angie and Connie decided to take two cars so they could both head for home as soon as the delivery was completed. They loaded the cupcakes into Angie's car. She used specially made boxes with slots to hold one dozen tall cupcakes—and hers were quite tall. As a result, they were a bit awkward to carry.
When Angie arrived, she parked as close to the Academy as she could manage despite it being a "no parking" zone. She didn't care—she wasn't parking, she was unloading supplies. Or would be unloading supplies, if Connie ever showed up to help her carry the cupcakes inside.
As time to deliver the cupcakes came and went, and Connie wasn't right behind her as she'd expected her to be, Angie grew more and more irritated.
o0o
As he walked along the empty sidewalk, he saw a car parking. A woman got out of it. She looked momentarily confused about where she was going, but then, to his surprise, she suddenly turned and began hurrying down the street in his direction.
He felt flustered, and didn't quite know what to do. He bowed his head and slowly continued along the sidewalk, pretending he was paying no attention to her whatsoever … until they passed each other and he glanced her way.
Their eyes met.
When she smiled at him, he all but gasped aloud at her beauty.
His heart pounded and his knees shook so badly he could barely manage to continue to walk away from her.
More than anything, he wanted to turn back to her, speak to her.
"Is she the one?" he asked himself.
He had to find out who she was, where she lived, as one thought burned in his brain: Is she my queen?
CHAPTER FOUR
Angie had walked to the corner to look for Connie, but quickly realized the ballet acade
my wasn't located in a safe area. It was fine in daylight, when workmen filled the warehouses and nearby industrial buildings. But this party was a nighttime affair so that the parents could also attend. At night, the large buildings seemed eerily empty.
Where, Angie wondered, was Connie?
On the opposite side of the street stood an empty church and churchyard. Where stained glass windows should be, boards were now placed. Something about it felt creepy.
That's it, she told herself. She was sick of waiting for Connie. She picked up two of the five boxes, each filled with a dozen cupcakes, and carried them toward the ballet studio. If she had to make two or even three trips, so be it.
When she got there, she learned the director hadn't arrived as yet. But her assistant knew all about the cupcakes and gladly took them, along with some of Angie's newly printed brochures, "Custom Cupcakes by Angie," to give to the parents. Angie was sure she would be getting calls from a number of parents as they looked for something special for their little ballerinas' birthday and other parties.
The associate also helped carry in the last of the cupcake boxes.
As Angie headed back to her car she noticed the statue of St. Michael the Archangel at the top of the old church. It was as if he were looking down at her and frowning. Angie's steps hurried. She wished she could laugh at the nerves that made her skin prickle, but her superstitious Italian mother had raised her on stories filled with strange night creatures in closets, in basements, and in old churchyards—not to mention the evil eye. As much as her very-American practical self didn't want to believe in bogeymen, deep down, she couldn't quite shake the thought that they just might get you if you didn't watch out.
She forced her mind away from such scary ideas and focused on more important things like getting home to cook a nice dinner for Paavo. He'd been trying to make it home at a decent hour, but lately, whenever he got home early, she was still at the tea room, and when she broke away and made it home early enough to cook something special, a case came up and he had to stay at work.