by Joanne Pence
Angie stopped. "Are you Joe Green? The person who ordered cupcakes?"
"You're alone?"
She didn't like the sound of that and inched backward. "Why?"
He moved closer, his thick glasses grossly magnifying his eyes. "Don't you have help?"
Confused now, she said, "When I need it."
He said nothing, only frowned.
"Here are your cupcakes." She held the box out to him. "That'll be …" She stopped herself. Everything about this situation bothered her. She should have listened to Paavo and insisted customers come to her to pick up their orders, except that she was no longer working at Connie's shop and she definitely didn't want a weirdo like this to know where she lived.
She decided it might help to charge less than they'd agreed to on the phone and then get out of there. "Fifty dollars."
"Fifty dollars for a dozen cupcakes?" His mouth wrinkled in a sneer.
"You wanted them customized with little hammers and screwdrivers on red frosting, which made them three-fifty each, plus twenty dollars for the same-day rush delivery. I'm actually giving you a bargain here."
"I don't think so." He folded his arms.
She balanced the box on her knee as she took out a cupcake and handed it to him. "Look. They're exactly what you wanted."
He looked at the thing in his hand with complete disdain. "You think I want this?" he yelled. "That I would pay you for such blasphemy?"
His words, his anger, everything about the situation frightened her. Still, as she turned and hurried down to the walk, she couldn't stop herself from shouting, "You're crazy!" Something hit the back of her head before she reached the sidewalk. She jumped into her car and locked the doors. Luckily, the man hadn't followed her.
Tentatively, she touched the back of her head. At first she thought she was bleeding, and then she realized the red coloring wasn't blood.
It was frosting.
CHAPTER NINE
Angie was barely awake the next morning when she received an order for two dozen cupcakes from the manager of a Pop Warner football team that had just won a local tournament. The manager didn't want any fancy images, but simply half the cupcakes with blue frosting, and the other half with orange, the team colors. He asked that the cupcakes be delivered.
Angie insisted she would not do a nighttime delivery, or go to any private residence. He suggested a small park in late afternoon—the time and place of the team practice. That, Angie could agree to.
After making and boxing the cupcakes, it was still early, so she decided to pay a visit to her eldest sister.
"Bianca, it's so terrible." Angie reached for one of her sister's butter cookies. "I desperately need your help."
"What's wrong?" Bianca poured them each some coffee before joining her at the kitchen table. She was the most down to earth of Angie's four sisters. With a husband and two children, she was content to raise her family and do a number of things the "old" way that their mother, Serefina, had taught them. But despite that, from time to time, even Serefina grew irritated by Bianca's lack of adventure and her innate caution about everything.
"It's got to be that I'm upset by my business," Angie said before biting into the cookie and chewing woefully. "It's just not as much fun as I'd hoped. Customers can be really awful, especially when trying to customize cupcakes for them."
"Yes, I can imagine." Bianca added sugar to her coffee and stirred it thoughtfully. "Is that what's troubling you?"
"Not exactly." She hadn't realized how hard this would be. "Paavo told me I'm too outspoken."
"Paavo said that? Why?" Bianca placed her hand on Angie's arm. "I thought everything was fine between you two. Better than fine."
"That's not it. He said I need to learn how to be a friend!"
"Are you saying he just wants to be friends? Now that you're married?" Bianca's jaw dropped. "Don't tell me he's—"
"No, no, no! You don't understand!" Angie shook her head.
Bianca folded her arms. "You've got that right."
As Angie ate more cookies, she explained her problem with Connie. "Paavo thought I needed to talk to you."
"He did?" Bianca sat a little straighter in her chair, pleased at the compliment. "I suppose I have had more years of experience in being a friend to people than you have." She stroked the front of her neck as if trying to smooth out some wrinkles.
"So what's your secret?" Angie pleaded.
Bianca thought a moment. "Be nice, and be honest."
"Oh, puh-lease!" Angie snapped. "I don't want platitudes. I want details. You have lots of old friends, right?"
"Well, I would have friends if I wasn't so busy." Bianca sighed and grabbed a cookie for herself. "I have to cook, and wash, and run the house and take care of the kids and listen to family."
"Family—"
"That's what I said. Always family!" She waved the cookie as she spoke. "All of you take so much time, I just don't have any left for myself."
"You don't?" Angie was shocked.
"It's not that I'm complaining. I love my family." She dunked the cookie into her coffee and watched it as she spoke. "And all of you should come first, I guess. But sometimes, sometimes I'd like to be able to see people and do things just for me, you know?"
"Yes, I never dreamed—"
"Why should you? Why should you think about your big sister at all?" Her voice grew more shrill with each word. "My hopes, my dreams, my way of having fun? I've always been here for you, for my husband, for the boys, for our sisters, our cousins, their kids. Sometimes I feel as if all of you just keep taking more and more pieces of me, until there's just nothing left for my own use." As she lifted out her cookie, the part in the coffee had grown so soggy it broke off and sank to the bottom of the cup. She put the remainder on her plate.
Then, to Angie's horror, Bianca began to cry. "Bianca, don't cry! I'm so sorry."
"I know. Everybody's always sorry. What good does that do? When I look at your life, I'm sorry to say the last thing I feel is sympathy. You really have nothing to complain about. But me, on the other hand, I just don't know what to do anymore. I can't make everybody happy all the time."
"No one expects you to!" Angie patted Bianca's hand.
"Yes, everyone does." Bianca tried drying her eyes, but her tears refused to stop. "That's just the problem."
"I didn't mean to upset you." Angie felt so bad about having gone to Bianca with her troubles, she was near tears herself.
"No. You didn't. No one ever does." She tucked the wet tissue in the pocket of her apron. "It's all right. I'm used to it."
Angie didn't know what more to do or say. "Well," she murmured after a long silence. "I should get going."
"One minute, I've just thought of something." Bianca rushed off and in a moment she was back with a thin book in hand. "You should read this. It's old, but it might help."
Angie's face fell as she looked down at a stained, well-worn hardback. It was Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People.
o0o
After leaving Bianca's, still feeling bad, Angie headed off to make the delivery to her latest customer. The park she had to go to was not far from the Ballet Academy.
Although she felt good about the sale, she couldn't help but shudder as she drove by the churchyard where Lorraine Miller had been killed. She tried not to think about it.
She circled the park looking for the football team, but didn't see them, which was strange.
Finally, she parked. She decided the team might be sitting and talking to the coach, or doing some exercises on the lawn, and were hidden from the street by shrubbery. Fortunately, the park was quite small. Taking the two dozen cupcakes with her, she walked a little way into it.
Still, she couldn't find them. She tried calling the number her customer gave her only to discover it was connected to a dry cleaner.
What in the world was going on?
She immediately turned to hurry back to her Mercedes. A man with shaggy white hair an
d wearing a long black overcoat stood watching her, his dark eyes all but boring into her. It might have been because she had passed the old churchyard, or because of her unreasonable cupcake-throwing customer from the night before, but thoughts of the ritual killings sprang into her head.
Self-defense classes had cautioned her not to show fear, although that was a lot easier to do in a gym with an instructor and a bunch of woman than it was out here, alone, in a park.
He stood between her and her car. She was trying to think of where to go, where to run, if he came after her. Slowly, he began to walk in her direction. She froze, clutching her cupcakes, when a young woman stepped out of the shadows.
"You're messing with the wrong chick this time, old man," the woman yelled. Her voice was loud and sharp, and her words spoken fast. "Get the hell out of here if you want to see another birthday."
He scowled, then hurried away from them.
Angie stared at the woman before she remembered her manners. She looked around Angie's age—mid-to-late twenties, at most. She wore little make-up except for dark purple lipstick and black eyeliner. Her short spiky blond hair had a thick purple streak across the top and down one side. Jeans, studded black boots, a pale yellow tee-shirt, and a black biker jacket made up her outfit. It was a popular fashion style that Angie had heard called both "emo," as in emotional, or "Nu Goth" because it was less outlandish and more pastel than the original Goth had been.
"Thank you for your help," Angie murmured. "Who is he?"
The two walked toward Angie's car. "All I know is he's always lurking around this neighborhood. Especially around younger people. There's something about him I don't like at all. When I saw the way he was staring at you, I had to step in." The woman's face was pale, and her breathing seemed labored.
"I appreciate the help. I thought I was being foolishly paranoid," Angie said, studying the woman with increasing concern.
The stranger shut her eyes a moment. "That thinking causes a lot of women, and men, to become victims." She swayed a bit as they reached Angie's car, then she held onto the fender and bent forward at the waist. "Whoa, I'm feeling kind of dizzy."
"What's wrong?" Angie asked, lightly touching her shoulders.
The woman tried to straighten and face Angie again, but dizziness must have overtaken her, because she slumped back against the car once more. "God, I hate this," she murmured, rubbing her stomach.
"Does your stomach hurt?"
"No. It's just..." The woman put her hand to her temple as she stared at the sidewalk. After a short while she drew a deep breath, then looked up at Angie. "It's nothing. It'll pass in a moment."
"Maybe an adrenalin rush?" Angie suggested.
The woman smirked. "Sure. Maybe."
Angie hesitated to suggest what she thought, but then said it. "Maybe you need to eat something. There's a restaurant on the corner. Let me help you."
She shook her head. "No way. I could eat for a month on what they charge for a chicken leg."
"Do you need money?" Angie asked softly.
The woman didn't respond for a long while. "I'm a little short only because I needed a new battery for my car." She waved her thumb at an ancient looking, compact-size Chevrolet of some kind. To Angie, it looked like it needed a lot more than a battery. Like, maybe, a decent burial.
The woman bit her bottom lip. "On the other hand, I can hardly see from Big Macs dancing in front of my eyes. I'm looking for work, but …"
"Here." Angie reached into her purse and pulled out a ten. After all, the woman had helped her.
"I'll pay you back," the stranger said, making sure the money was pushed deep into her pocket.
Angie nodded. She'd heard that one before.
"Really," the woman said. "I was a pastry chef. But there aren't many pastry chef jobs anymore. Too many fast-food places and grocers mass producing sweets. Also, too many good restaurants have priced themselves right out of business. But I'm sure I'll find something soon."
Angie couldn't believe her ears. Had her prayers been answered? "A pastry chef? You're kidding me."
"Honest Kylie Zee doesn't kid. No way."
o0o
He stood in the darkness of the alley and watched the doors to the ugly brown building. The area was desolate; the hour late. Finally, he saw the doors open and people starting to walk out of the workplace into the night, their shift having finally ended. Heather Kim was among them. She waved good-bye to several co-workers who turned toward a parking lot, while she crossed the street heading for the bus stop. As she passed under the street lamp walking in his direction, he saw her face, her beautiful face.
She appeared almost happy, he thought. Well should she be. Tonight she would achieve immortality. Too bad she didn't know it.
He left his hiding place to follow her.
Once, just once, he'd like to be able to tell one of his consorts what awaited her and not have her scream and try to get away. He was used to that reaction now. The first time, it had caught him by surprise, and he'd had to kill her quickly to shut her up.
Now, he knew to expect it.
That was why he carried a syringe filled with thiopental sodium. He used just enough to slow the heartbeat, muscles, and even produce a type of hypnosis that allowed him to walk them to his car and home, and once there, it took only a little more to kill them.
She reached the bus stop and stopped, waiting. The street was empty except for her … and him. In the distance, he saw the approaching bus. He'd have to act quickly.
As he walked toward the bus stop as if to join her wait, he tripped. Arms flailing wildly, he stumbled toward her. Amusement filled her face and she put her hands out to help steady him, even though he was easily twice her size.
Her expression turned to alarm as he grabbed her arm with one hand while with his other, he plunged a needle through her light wool jacket to her skin and emptied the syringe.
"What are you—"
He pulled her close, her head crushed against his broad chest, muffling her cries. In seconds, the thiopental sodium did its work, and she slumped. With her tucked firmly against his side, he led her to his car and placed her in the passenger seat. He gently brushed her long, black hair back off her face. She was so very beautiful, so very exotic. He fastened the seat belt around her, placed a kiss on her forehead, then got into the driver's seat. A quick check all around told him no one was watching, and he drove away.
CHAPTER TEN
"Excuse me, is that Homicide?" A nervous teenager who was studying the doors along a corridor of the Hall of Justice approached Paavo as he reached Room 450 the next morning. The boy had dyed the top of his hair blond, wore a gold ring in one eyebrow, baggy jeans and a tee shirt.
"Yes," Paavo said. "I'm Inspector Smith. Can I help you?"
The boy turned his head from side to side. "I need to talk to someone. I saw the morning news. I...I think I saw..." He swallowed then ran his tongue over his lips. "It's about Heather Kim."
Kim was Calderon and Benson's latest murder victim. The two had been up all night working a new crime scene—another case involving the fiend who stole hearts—and had finally headed for home. Eastwood had put all the homicide detectives onto the case as their top priority, but they'd come up with very little. Unfortunately, the press had picked up the similarity between Heather Kim's murder and that of Lorraine Miller. They'd begun clamoring for an explanation.
The case was weighing on Paavo's mind that morning, along with the conviction that something was troubling Angie. He believed it was something besides having found a woman's murdered body, as traumatic as that had been, but that it was something more personal. Something she wouldn't talk about. She usually bubbled with excitement about her cupcake business, but the last two evenings she would only say the business wasn't nearly as much fun as she had expected it would be.
She also mentioned meeting a pastry chef "just by chance" and that she was considering hiring the woman. He told her not to do anything like that without ru
nning a background check, let alone calling the woman's references.
She agreed that was wise.
Unfortunately, as he'd learned through sad experience, with Angie, agreement didn't always equal compliance.
Paavo shook away the thoughts. "Come inside," he said to the young man. "You can talk to me about it."
He led the boy to his desk. "Can I get you coffee or a Coke?"
The teen shook his head.
"Have a seat." Paavo gestured toward the chair by his desk. Other than the two of them, Homicide was empty. "What's your name?"
The teen clear his throat before he could speak. "Ted Colton."
"Ted, thanks for coming down here to talk to us," Paavo said, trying to make him feel more at ease. He didn't look like the type who would normally give the police the time of day. Paavo quickly took down his address and phone number. "Were you a friend of Heather's?"
"Yeah, kind of. We worked at the same place. She was nice." His eyes widened as the shock of her recent murder hit him again. "That's why …" He stopped, suddenly unsure.
"It's all right," Paavo urged, his voice calm and soothing. "Go on."
The teen was so thin and pale a stiff breeze could blow him away. "I'm worried," he whispered.
"Why?" Paavo would have liked to turn on a tape recorder, or at least take notes, but the kid was already having a hard time talking, and the chance of him freezing up was high.
"After work," the boy said, "it was starting to rain. I have a car and thought I'd offer Heather a ride. I knew she usually took the bus. I drove over to the bus stop, but before I got there, I saw an old man. He walked toward Heather and kind of stumbled, but then, she was holding onto him, and he helped her into his car. I thought she knew him—an old relative or something, but when I heard she was dead …"
"An old man?" Paavo tensed. Tiburon's Officer Bowdin had mentioned an old panhandler hanging around the Tiburon crime scene—Bob or Rob.
"Can you describe him?" Paavo asked.