Cook's Christmas Capers (The Angie Amalfi Mysteries)

by Joanne Pence

  They both talked about what a wonderful man he was.

  Angie had yet to meet a dead man who wasn't. It was amazing what saints the dead were. Too bad the living were all such sinners.

  She then leaned on the counter and said in a stage whisper, "Don't spread this, but the police aren't telling the public everything."

  The two women were all ears.

  "One of Starr's students, Alan Trimball, was killed the same day as him. The police think the deaths are connected, perhaps going back to the time Alan was in Starr's class. I'd like to know who else was in that class. Maybe they can tell me something."

  "We can't tell you," the blond clerk said. "There are privacy concerns."

  "Starr is dead," Angie stressed. "He has no right to privacy. It's not as if he can sue you. And all I want to do is see if any of his students has any inkling of who might have killed him. You don't want to obstruct justice, do you?"

  Fortunately, both women were so shaken by the possibility of Starr being murdered, they didn't think about the incongruity of what Angie was saying.

  The brunette pulled a file and handed it to Angie as if it were a hot potato. "This lists Professor Starr's classes and the students in them. It should help you."

  Angie zeroed in on the class that included Alan Trimball and returned the other papers. "Do you have a photocopy machine?" Angie was pretty sure they had photocopiers back then.

  "Right there." Barbara pointed to a behemoth. Angie needed help to work it, and then the machine was achingly slow and loud.

  As she headed to the Student Union where she hoped to find a pay phone, she saw Boalt Hall, the law school, in the distance. Matilda had said Winslow Louie had a “hot-shot Berkeley law degree.” Could that be what she meant?

  Angie stopped at the law school office and asked about Winslow Louie. She found out he was in law school at the same time as Alan Trimball was an undergraduate. She didn't know if that meant anything or not.

  Back at the main administration building, she looked up phone numbers for each student on her list. It was amazing the information freely given back then. She then went to a bank and got rolls of quarters which she took to a payphone.

  Dropping coins into a box and using a rotary dial was an entirely new experience for her. They still had payphones in "her time," but she had never used one.

  The money she was throwing into the phone was being wasted, she realized, as she got one "Starr was a wonderful man" after the other…until the ninth call.

  A student named Cara O'Donnell said, "It's strange that he should have died at the same time as Alan Trimball."

  "Why is that strange?" was Angie's obvious question.

  "Because the two men had become friends."

  "Really? How do you know?"

  "I dated Alan for a while. He was a senior when I was a junior. I really liked him, but things didn't work out. It's always the good ones who get away, although I understand he didn't do so well after he left school. He majored in sociology, and what do you do with a degree like that? He needed to continue to get a Ph.D., or find a job in one of the great liberal education fall backs—a bank, insurance company, or the government. I didn't know where he ended up until I saw his name in the paper. A cook? That was pretty much of a comedown, I'd say."

  Angie ruffled. "There are many well-known cooks. It can be a lucrative, well-respected profession."

  "Oh? Name one."

  It was on the tip of her tongue to name several—Emeril Lagasse, Paul Prudhomme, Wolfgang Puck, even the one who almost hired her, Poulon-Lelieullul—but then she realized that the girl wouldn't know any of them. Finally, desperately, she said, "Julia Child."

  "She writes cookbooks and has a TV show. Alan was hardly in that class. He could sling hash. How he got a job in a decent restaurant, I have no idea. He probably was willing to accept dirt cheap wages and do everything the owner said without question."

  That sounded like Nona Farraday's restaurant to Angie. "Do you remember the names of anyone else who was in the class with Alan?"

  "No, not really, but I met him through a sorority sister, Mary Pomporino, who knew him for years. She's married now. Mary Jacobson. Let me find her phone number for you. Hold on. My address book is in my purse."

  An address book—how quaint, Angie thought. All her friends stored phone numbers in their cell phones.

  As soon as she was given it, Angie called the number for Mary Jacobson. The moment the woman said "Hello," Angie knew she had to see her.

  o0o

  Angie nervously stood at the front entry of the small Sunset district house and rang Mary Jacobson's doorbell.

  In a moment, Mary opened the door, and Angie looked into the eyes of her third oldest sister. "Maria?"

  The woman looked surprised. "Nobody calls me that except family. You must be Miss Amalfi. Won't you come in?"

  As she led Angie into her home, she asked, "Have we met before? You look familiar."

  Angie wasn't sure what to do say. "I don't think so, but I'll admit that when I saw you, something told me your name was Maria. Odd, isn't it? Do you have any sisters or brothers?"

  "I don't. I was an only child."

  Angie's disappointment was keen. "Well, that's not it, then."

  They sat in the living room and Mary offered some coffee and cookies, which Angie took. They were almond horns, covered with powdered sugar, just like the real Maria liked to make. Tears came to Angie's eyes when she bit into a cookie and it brought back memories of her home and family. Shades of Remembrance of Things Past and the petites madeleines scene filled her. She had never understood it as well as she did at this moment.

  "Are you all right?" Mary asked.

  "Yes, fine." Angie put the half eaten cookie on her saucer. "Your cookie tastes just like one my sister makes."

  "It's a family favorite."

  Angie nodded, then got down to business. "I wanted to ask about Alan Trimball. He was recently found murdered. A friend of mine is suspected by the police, but I know she's innocent. I'm trying to find out something about Trimball. The police, frankly, don't give me any confidence."

  "I know what you mean," Mary said. "But I have no idea why anyone would want to harm Alan."

  "One of his sociology professors was also found dead. Aloysius Starr. I understand Alan was a sociology major."

  "What are you implying?" Mary asked.

  "I'm implying exactly what you're thinking. That this might not be a coincidence, and that someone needs to look into what went on—what connected the two men."

  "And you're that person?" Mary was clearly skeptical.

  Angie didn't blame her. "Until someone else comes along. Why not?"

  Mary shook her head. "All I can tell you is that his best friend might know something. Ask Lorenzo McCaffrey."

  "They were best friends in college?"

  "Yes. Quite close. We all had the same major and were in Professor Starr's class together. I remember Alan complaining about all the work and huge projects Starr gave us."

  "But Lorenzo wasn't listed in the class."

  "He dropped out. He couldn't keep up with the assignments. Why? Do you know Lorenzo?"

  "I've met him. I had no idea..." In fact, she remembered Lorenzo specifically telling her he didn't know who Aloysius Starr was. Why did he do that? "Can you tell me anything about Lorenzo and Alan? What kind of relationship did they have?"

  Maria thought a moment. "Well, for a while, the two had big plans about how they were going to get people to live in peace and harmony. Typical Berkeley stuff. Unfortunately, the plans they developed had a deep whiff of communes, which were already losing favor."

  "Communes? Like in the old Soviet Union?"

  "I'm talking hippie communes."

  "Oh?"

  "Good God, where have you been, girl? They're all over the place. Go up to Mendocino if you don't believe me."

  "Oh, those hippie communes." Angie hoped Mary believed her. "Sure. I get you."

  "Hmm. A
nyway, you can see the problem. Most of their ideas were old and tired, and some were completely far out. Nothing came of them, so that was why they took Starr's class. Starr had the reputation for teaching students to stretch their minds, to come up with better, more innovative ideas than they ever could have imagined on their own."

  "Did it work?"

  "For Alan, it should have. He developed an idea in Starr's class that excited him. He never did anything with it, however."

  "Why not?

  She shrugged. "It probably took more money than he could get his hands on."

  "What about Lorenzo?"

  Maria shook her head. "When he dropped Starr's class, he lost his student deferment and was drafted. He was really bitter. I think he blamed Starr. For him, I guess, that was the end of any big ideas."

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Angie stopped in Homicide after talking to Maria—or should she say Mary?—and gave Connie the list of students in Professor Starr's sociology class, telling her exactly how she’d gotten the lists—and why—when Connie questioned her. "Alan Trimball and Lorenzo McCaffrey were both in that class," Angie said, offering information she knew the police didn’t have and probably never would have gotten without her. "I know it has something to do with the murders of Trimball and Professor Starr. It has to."

  "Or it's a coincidence," Connie said.

  "I talked to most of those students and some are suspicious. They say something went on in that class. They don't know what. Some said Trimball and Starr were friends. Others said they could cut the tension between them with a knife. I'm sure someone knows what happened. I've tried to get McCaffrey to talk about it, but so far he just clams up."

  "Okay," Connie said. "What would you like me to do?"

  "I've been able to track down all but three of the students. Janet Gray, Adam Halpernin, and Peter Lemon. If you can find them, maybe they know something. All I can think is, it might be worth a try."

  Connie sighed. "All right. I'll see what I can find out."

  o0o

  Angie dashed over to Nona's, A Restaurant to prepare meals for customers, if any. Also, she looked forward to talking to Paavo. She wanted to fill him in on what she had learned about the people who worked there.

  But Paavo called to say he would be late since he was going to visit Nona that evening. She was feeling lonely.

  Nona was in jail…what did she expect?

  Angie was lonely, too!

  Without Paavo there to distract her, after the last customers were served, Angie turned all her attention on Lorenzo McCaffrey.

  "So Lorenzo," she began. "How did you end up working in the same restaurant as Alan?"

  "A stroke of luck," he said. "I was in a bar, a topless joint, down on Broadway, and in walked Alan with a couple of guys. He started talking about this restaurant where he was a cook, and how the waiters and waitresses were making as much money as he was from tips. He said it had a really classy clientele. I said I should have a job like that, and he told me there was an opening. I think he was daring me to take it. Like, I would think it was below my dignity to be a waiter when I could be laying linoleum in office buildings like I was doing. Besides, the glue gave me a headache every day, and the rolls of linoleum were damned heavy. My back was already starting to give out, so I thought, why not give restaurant work a try?"

  "Smart idea," Angie said.

  Greg Reed, the assistant chef, snorted.

  Lorenzo ignored him. "I thought so. Then I met Nona. We hit it off." He tugged at his jacket to smooth it and stood a bit straighter. "Too bad for her she had a rule that she didn't date 'the hired help,' but it was pretty clear she liked what she saw. She might even have been thinking about changing her rule, you know. But then, she's a woman who's also pretty stuck on herself, if you know what I mean."

  "I know." Angie nodded.

  "I took the job. Alan was right about it. Some nights I make a killing; other nights, not so much. I meet interesting people, though. Some are nice; most I wouldn't give a pot to piss in.”

  "But overall, you enjoy working here?"

  Winslow Louie, the over-educated dishwasher, strolled into the kitchen and stood in the doorway listening to the conversation. He had a pitcher of ice water in one hand, and a damp cloth to wipe down the dining room tables in the other. “Working? Lorenzo?” he said, a sneer on his face. “I do everything for his customers but take their order and serve the main dish!” He put down the pitcher and went to the sink to wash off the cloth.

  Lorenzo fumed as he glared at Winslow, then faced Angie again. "Like I said, it's better than laying linoleum. It's a job. I got other things to think about."

  "Such as?"

  "Such as none of your business.” He glanced at Greg and Winslow, then lifted his chin. “What's this, the Inquisition? You sound like the cops, wondering where I was and what I was doing. Well, I got an alibi for the night Alan was killed—a hundred-person alibi—so you can stop asking questions about it."

  "Calm down, Lorenzo. I'm just trying to get to know you better! You know I'm no cop!"

  "Want to know me better, huh?" He gave her a quick head-to-toe perusal. "Well, there are ways to do that."

  "What do you like to do for fun?" she quickly asked, not liking the way he was smirking.

  His smirk grew broader. "All kinds of stuff."

  Greg snickered loudly as he put left-over carrots in the refrigerator.

  "What are you good at?" Angie asked Lorenzo.

  "I like to party. Want to join me sometime?"

  Winslow rolled his eyes and then stomped back into the dining room, clean cloth in hand.

  At that moment, Paavo walked into the kitchen and greeted everyone, oblivious to the odd tension in the room. He immediately turned his attention to the night's receipts.

  Angie glanced at Lorenzo. "I'd better get back to work."

  Matilda came into the kitchen. She had been covering the cash register and phone. “What’s going on with Winslow?”

  Everyone ignored her.

  Lorenzo looked at the clock. "Yeah, well, I'd like to continue this fascinating conversation with all of you, but my shift is over. I'm out of here."

  Angie wondered if, now that Paavo was here, she shouldn't leave as well to see where Lorenzo was going. She was suspicious of him and wanted to know what the man was up to.

  "Time for Bullitt in reverse," Matilda muttered, arms folded, and eying Lorenzo as if he was God's gift to women. He didn't notice.

  "You said it, babe." He shrugged on his leather jacket.

  "What do you mean?" Angie asked. "What bullet?"

  "The movie," Matilda said. At Angie's confused look, she added, "Steve McQueen. It's a few years old, sure, but everybody knows it."

  "Oh, that Bullitt." She had heard of it slightly.

  "It's got the coolest car chase you've ever seen," Paavo said, approaching the others. "Right there on Fillmore Street. The cars zoom down it so fast, they go sky born! It's far out!"

  "A car chase?" Angie asked. "Sounds lame."

  "Lame?" Paavo and Matilda glanced at each other.

  Angie guessed she chose an expression from the wrong era yet again. Maybe she needed to simply stop trying to come up with slang since everything she said was either too new or too old.

  As she watched Lorenzo walk out the door without a backwards glance, she decided to leave as well. She said quick good-byes and rushed out, ignoring the fish-eye Matilda gave her.

  Lorenzo turned up Fillmore Street. Angie ran down the block to Nona's car and caught up to him, then pulled into a driveway to wait and watch. She did it a couple more times. He didn't strike her as a person who paid any attention to cars going by, and he didn't. She wondered if he didn't have a car. She also understood what they were saying about Bullitt. She suspected mountain goats would refuse to walk these hills.

  Three blocks later, Lorenzo turned into an apartment building. She wondered if he lived there and possibly had retired for the night. She didn't have l
ong to wonder.

  Lorenzo soon came out wearing a light overcoat. He got into an old Chevy sedan.

  She followed him to Mission Street where he parked near a place called Dance A-Go-Go.

  The Mission was an area Angie never went to alone in her own time, and she saw that the area was no better during this time. If anything, worse.

  As Angie headed back to Nona’s apartment, she realized if she wanted to know more about Lorenzo McCaffrey, it looked like she would have to learn to disco.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Even in Nona's comfortable apartment and bed, Angie couldn't fall asleep that night. Instead, she tossed and turned, puzzled and unhappy. What was she doing here? Why was everything so crazy and how, in God's name, was she supposed to find her way home again?

  The next morning, she drove back to Land's End. She had found a dead body there; it should have been the last place she ever wanted to set foot in again. Yet, something about it drew her—possibly because it was the only place where she felt connected to the world she knew. And the feeling, so strong she could taste it, told her that if she could ever return to her own time, it would be from here.

  She heard a saxophone playing, and smiled.

  Her poor, damaged friend Tim. At least he could make beautiful music.

  He was slowly, emotionally playing "Stranger on the Shore." That was how she felt. It made her eyes misty.

  "What's the matter?" Tim asked, putting down his saxophone when the song ended.

  "Don't stop. I enjoy listening. You play beautifully."

  "Thank you. I try to make people happy with my music, but that doesn't happen anymore. They used to be happy, but not now."

  She thought about Dance A-Go-Go. "Maybe you need to play disco. That sounds like happy music."

  "No. That's music to use to hide disillusionment."

  To hear Tim say that surprised her, but she had the feeling he was right. She thought this was supposed to be a happy time, all about sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll…or disco. Yet she sensed a bizarre freneticness to the time, as if people knew they were on the edge of something and were rushing and pushing and running, but they didn't know where to, or what from.