The Da Vinci Cook

by Joanne Pence

  “I can understand that,” Angie said sincerely. With a shiver of regret, his casual mention of his mother made her remember something else—the man still didn’t know about her death. Did he have no contact at all with people in San Francisco?

  This wasn’t the time, and she wasn’t the person, to tell him.

  Marcello’s face tightened. He downed his coffee and put their cups in the dishwasher. “I have to admit, I thought my mother was right—that I was wasting my life. The thing I didn’t realize when I was young is that it really isn’t a waste to be doing something you love, even if that something will never make you rich or famous. Now I know better. Now that it’s too late.”

  His words tore at her. With genuine sympathy, she said, “It’s not too late, Marcello. This is your restaurant. You just need to find out what happened in San Francisco. Find your brother, the chain of St. Peter, and who was killed in your home. Get that behind you and you’ll be fine.”

  He said nothing and shook his head, a faraway look in his eyes.

  “We can solve this thing together,” she pressed. “You’ve got to trust us—Cat and I. Tell us everything, starting with where Rocco is.”

  He stood so abruptly the chair he’d sat on fell onto its back, hitting the floor with a loud thwack. Angie jumped to her feet. He picked up the chair and slid both of their chairs back into the dining room. “Look, I’m sorry Cat’s involved,” he said as he walked to the back door and opened it. “I know you both want to help, but you can’t. Stay here, and wait until it’s over.”

  His glance lingered over the kitchen before he walked out the door.

  Chapter 24

  With Frannie in the passenger seat beside him, and Maria and Bianca in back, Paavo zipped almost silently through the narrow, hilly streets of San Francisco behind the wheel of Frannie’s hybrid Prius. It was the strangest car he’d ever driven.

  The “key” slid into a slot in the dashboard, and you pushed a power button to make it go, sort of like powering up a computer. When he stepped on the gas—no, the accelerator—the car began to move in electric mode, which meant it was all but completely silent. A stealth car. It was eerie. And, in keeping with its environmentally friendly reason for being, it had a large Energy Monitor console that he kept looking at to see if he was wasting gas as he drove.

  As he crossed the Golden Gate Bridge, and then north on 101 to Tiburon, the sisters plied him with questions about the missing chain, Cat being fired from Moldwell-Ranker, and the dead man in Marcello Piccoletti’s kitchen.

  “Watch out for the bottle!” Bianca cried, but too late.

  Paavo drove over it and heard the crunch of glass. “I’m sorry, Frannie. I was looking at the display that tells me how much gas I’m using. If the tire’s punctured, I’ll replace it for you.”

  “No problem,” she groused. “The car’s already got dings and scratches from me running into things looking at that damned console. There should be a law against it. Seth was right when he said I was too anal about wasting natural resources to get this car.” Her voice reeked with bitterness. “After him being wrong about everything else, who knew?”

  No one commented.

  They reached Cat’s house. Frannie picked up the morning newspaper, Bianca checked the mailbox, and Maria prayed. As Paavo unlocked the door, Bianca asked, “How do you turn off the alarm?”

  “It’s not on,” he said. “It wasn’t last night either.”

  Her eyebrows lifted in surprise.

  Paavo pushed the door open and let the women in with an admonition not to touch anything.

  As soon as he moved aside, however, they dashed inside like kids at the opening of an amusement park. Maria headed upstairs, Bianca turned into the living room, and Frannie raced off toward the kitchen.

  “Paavo, you’d better come here!” Frannie called. “I thought you said the house hadn’t been broken into?”

  “It hadn’t.” He headed her way. Hearing Frannie’s call, Maria joined him. Bianca, in pure “once bitten, twice shy” mode, hung back. Way back.

  A paned-glass door led from the kitchen to the side utility yard, a fenced-off area with garbage cans and gardening supplies. One square of glass had been knocked out. From the opening, a person could reach in and unlock the door. Paavo had specifically checked all locks the night before. The door had been fine.

  “Someone broke in,” Frannie said, stating the obvious, then frowned at Paavo. “I thought you said the Tiburon police were watching the house?”

  Paavo stepped out to the yard. The door was well hidden from the street and neighbors. The sisters looked the situation over.

  “Who would have broken in?” Bianca asked. Not having heard screams of anguish, she had joined them.

  “This makes no sense,” Maria said. “If whoever did it is the same person that took Charles hostage, why not just use his key?”

  “We have no proof Charles is a hostage,” Frannie argued. “I still think he’s scared and hiding somewhere.”

  Paavo pivoted and headed for the family room. The three sisters, goggle-eyed and frightened, followed like ducklings behind their mother. The lamp table that had held keys was now empty.

  The four headed out to the garage. Charles’s Lexus looked untouched. Paavo checked inside. There had been a cell phone attached to a recharger cord inside. It was gone as well.

  All of them searched the house in case the Tiburon police had moved the keys and cell phone for some reason. Neither were found. Although it was impossible for him to know for sure, as far as Paavo could remember, nothing else seemed to be missing. The sisters affirmed it.

  “Why the hell would someone have broken into the house just to get keys and a cell phone?” Frannie demanded. “That’s stupid!”

  “I don’t understand it either,” Bianca agreed.

  “I can think of a reason,” Maria said. “What if whoever took Charles wants to talk to Cat, to find out something from her? I suspect it’s about the chain of St. Peter. They can’t reach her in Italy and expect Cat will phone Charles on his cell phone. When she does, they’ll answer her call. I think it proves Charles is a hostage.”

  Paavo stared a moment at Maria. Her explanation was bizarre and convoluted—and possible. She was more like Angie than he’d thought.

  “What is Charles’s cell phone number?” he asked.

  No one knew.

  While Angie’s sisters waited like sentries for the Tiburon police to arrive, Paavo did more investigating on his own. The first place he checked was a his and hers home office.

  It did look as if Charles had been kidnapped. But why? Did someone think Cat knew something about all this and had made Charles privy? And did she?

  He booted up the two computers. Neither of the Swensons bothered with password security.

  He logged on to Cat’s e-mail files first, and scanned through the sent and received messages. Almost all were about buying and selling real estate, although some referred to her old interior design business. There was hardly a personal message, joke, or even spam in the bunch. The woman was all work.

  After increasingly quick scans of incredibly boring home sale information, Paavo shut down Cat’s computer and went to Charles’s.

  There was nothing on it except some spam e-mail and a couple of get-togethers for golf. His history file showed that he spent all his time on financial centers—Quicken, Smith-Barney, UBS, Wells Fargo Bank—as well as an erotic literature download site. He’d never heard of Ellora’s Cave before this.

  He soon left Charles’s computer and began to rummage through his desk drawers. A notebook neatly listed all of Charles’s computer passwords along with the sites involved. Very helpful. Since they had a fax-photocopier, Paavo made himself a copy and stuck it in his pocket, along with a list of Charles’s and Cat’s cell phone, home, and business telephone numbers.

  In the bedroom, he did another search, not for anything in particular, but for something they didn’t want anyone else to see. If people like
these two had a “secret something,” they invariably hid it in the bedroom. Maybe it was some innate nesting instinct, but he never found anything important in a living room, for example, or even a den. It was always in a bedroom.

  He was about to conclude they didn’t have anything to hide when he opened a small top drawer. Inside, among other things, were monogrammed handkerchiefs—including a perfect match for the one found under the dead man’s body.

  He stared, but his attention was drawn away by a Tiburon police car pulling into the driveway. Before he went down to meet them, he picked up the telephone in the bedroom. Holding the sheet with the Swensons’ various phone numbers on it, he called Charles’s cell phone.

  “Hello?” a man answered.

  “Charles?” Paavo said.

  “Who’s this?” the man asked.

  “Is this Charles?” Paavo repeated, although it didn’t sound like him at all.

  Abruptly, the phone went dead.

  Someone had Charles’s cell phone, and presumably Charles as well. His attention snapped back to the drawer where he’d found the matching sets of satin handkerchiefs, all with the C.A.S. initials embroidered in the corner. A drawer filled with men’s socks, linens, and boxes of cuff links. Men’s accessories.

  The drawer belonged to Charles Arthur Swenson.

  The handkerchief at the Piccoletti house had belonged to Charles, not to his wife.

  Chapter 25

  Angie was in the bedroom above Da Vinci’s, replaying in her mind her conversation with Marcello. Something about it bothered her.

  Then Cat burst into the room. Her face was pale and haggard, her eyes frightened. “While I was out, I spotted a pay phone at a farmacia and decided to call Mamma.” She was gulping air, trying to remain calm and scarcely succeeding. “Charles is missing!”

  “Charles?” Angie stood, frightened.

  “Paavo, Bianca, Maria, and Francesca went to check on him. Our house was broken into.” Tears threatened. “What am I going to do? Why would anyone go after Charles?” She dropped onto the bed, elbows on knees, hands covering her face.

  Angie found the news scary for two reasons: Charles being gone, and Paavo going anywhere with her three sisters. She sat down on the bed and put her arm over Cat’s shoulders. “Paavo will find him.”

  “Charles couldn’t have gotten into trouble on his own,” Cat wailed. “It has to be because of me. I need to talk to Marcello.”

  “Let’s call Paavo,” Angie soothed. “We’ll find out what he knows. Maybe Mamma got something wrong.”

  “Nobody gets things that wrong. Not even Mamma.”

  They hurried downstairs to Bruno’s office to use the restaurant’s phone. Paavo was still at Cat’s house and gave Angie the details not only of Charles’s disappearance, but also told her that someone had broken in to pick up Charles’s cell phone. He asked to speak to Cat.

  Without prompting, Cat recited a list of her husband’s friends and associates, and information about Charles’s daily routine. She was trying hard to keep her composure. Angie felt helpless and angry.

  When Angie took back the phone, Paavo asked if she’d been getting the messages he’d left at her hotel. She explained that she and Cat were staying in a “beautiful room”—sometimes it was necessary to lie—above Da Vinci’s restaurant.

  “You’re staying where?” Paavo shouted.

  Angie admitted that she rather liked Piccoletti.

  She could practically hear Paavo’s teeth grind at that. “My contact at TSA can’t locate Marcello’s flight to Rome,” he told her, his voice stern. “I’ve got some suspicion about that, but no proof yet. Stay away from Marcello. Come home.”

  “Marcello isn’t a worry,” Angie insisted. “It’s Rocco, and so far, no one can tell us where he is. Cat trusts Marcello.”

  “I don’t,” Paavo retorted firmly. “You don’t know where Rocco is, Marcello popped up in Rome out of thin air, and now Charles is gone. What more do you need to tell you you’re in over your head?”

  “It’s no safer in San Francisco,” she said, using her own form of logic.

  “You don’t know that.” He spoke with the icy, deadly tone Angie detested. There was no talking to him when he got that way.

  “Inspector Smith, you don’t know it either!” She hung up.

  “Ouch!” Cat winced. “That didn’t go well, did it?”

  Dejected, Angie gazed at the phone. “I don’t know what to do, Cat. What if he’s right?”

  “You can go running back home if you want, but I’m not going anywhere before I talk to Marcello and see if he has any idea what’s going on with Charles.” Cat flipped through Bruno’s Rolodex. “Where is that cell phone number we think is his?”

  “Speaking of cell phones . . . ” Angie thought back to her conversation with Paavo. “Why didn’t you call Charles on his?”

  “Why bother? Charles only carries it around in his car in case of emergency. He never turns it on. Why?”

  “Paavo said a stranger answered it.”

  Cat thought a moment, then picked up the office phone. “I’ll call his cell phone right now and see what’s going on.”

  “Wait!” Angie grabbed it from her.

  A telephone tug of war resulted.

  “Let’s think about this.” Angie yanked so hard that Cat, afraid of breaking a nail, let go. Angie put the receiver back on the hook. “What if Charles was taken hostage because someone wants to talk to you?”

  Cat paled. “You’re thinking that if I call, whoever took him gets to make threats—to give me a timeline that I have to meet.”

  “You can’t let them do that to you,” Angie insisted.

  “Of course not.” Cat rubbed her aching forehead. “If that’s what’s going on, any call could put Charles in even more danger.”

  Angie gripped her sister’s arm. “As long as they can’t threaten you with hurting him, they’ll keep him alive until they can!”

  A strangled sound came from deep in Cat’s throat. “There’s another possibility.” She spun away from Angie. Her hand formed a fist that she pressed hard to her lips.

  “What?” Angie asked, alarmed.

  She could all but see the wheels in Cat’s brain spinning. Cat dropped her hand and squared her shoulders. “Nothing,” she said. “Forget it. What you said makes sense.”

  “But?” Angie urged, even as she realized that Cat was hiding something. She remembered her earlier suspicions, before they ever reached Rome. Just what was her sister hiding?

  Cat turned her back to Angie. “If someone has taken Charles, what could they want other than the St. Peter’s chain? Someone thinks I stole it. Charles’s captors must be expecting that I can give it to them for his release.”

  Angie felt a little sick. “But since you don’t have it . . . ”

  Cat faced her. Her lips quivered and tears filled her eyes. “Charles could be killed! I’ve got to get that chain back, Angie. Where the hell is it?” She choked back a sob.

  Angie could feel Cat’s pain and fear. “We need to find out more about the chain, and I know just the place to begin.”

  Paavo snapped his cell phone shut and stuffed it in his pocket. After his conversation with Angie, his tongue had teeth marks from biting it.

  How involved in all this was Charles? His handkerchief was found in the house with a dead body and missing relic. That relic again . . . the fake priest . . . all coming together.

  Cat ended up at Marcello’s house only because her manager, Meredith Woring, said Marcello had phoned in a complaint about her stealing it. Yet, Marcello was supposedly in Italy at the time.

  He needed to talk to Meredith Woring. He’d wanted to earlier, but the Amalfi sisters kept getting in the way. Just like now.

  He drove the sisters in Frannie’s Prius back to the Hall of Justice parking lot. He left them and got into his Corvette with a “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

  Praying they wouldn’t follow, he drove to the Moldwell-Ranker office
. One look told him the real estate market was every bit as lucrative as he’d been led to believe. The good news was that even his tiny bungalow out in the Richmond district was now worth a small fortune. The bad news was that to buy “up,” as they called it, he’d have to spend an even bigger fortune—one not supported by his salary. So he’d remained where he was. When he and Angie married, he expected to sell his place. That way he’d have some money to add to the down payment on whatever mansion she picked out, and wouldn’t feel he was living completely off her father’s money.

  At the receptionist’s desk, he asked to see Ms. Woring. She wasn’t in the office, but he was asked to wait a moment, then the receptionist disappeared into an office.

  An Ichabod Crane look-alike with thinning gray hair approached, the receptionist trailing behind him. “You’re looking for Ms. Woring, I understand,” he said, holding out a slim hand. “I’m Jerome Ranker, the head man here.” Then he chuckled. “At least when Ms. Woring isn’t around. Perhaps I can help you? Are you interested in buying or selling a home?”

  Ignoring the question, Paavo asked, “Will Ms. Woring be back soon?”

  “Not today, I’m afraid.” Ranker raised his chin. “But I’m all yours. Do you have a particular neighborhood in mind?”

  “I’d like to talk about Caterina Swenson.” Paavo showed Ranker his badge.

  Ranker’s smile vanished and he cast a cold eye toward the receptionist, who scurried back to her desk. “Why don’t you come into my office?”

  The office was luxurious, a peaceful oasis with rose mahogany furnishings. Ranker invited Paavo to sit on a brown leather sofa next to a coffee table. He took the opposite end. Within minutes the receptionist appeared with a tray of coffee, tea, and dainty cookies. She served both men before leaving.

  Upon Paavo’s query about Cat’s last day at work, Ranker sat back in his chair, steepled his fingers, and searched his memory. “Marcello Piccoletti apparently called Ms. Woring and accused Mrs. Swenson of stealing from him. After taking the call, Ms. Woring came to me, quite concerned. She told me that as he spoke, she’d pulled out his file and asked personal information—SSN, date of birth, and such—to verify his identity since she didn’t know him personally. Unless Mrs. Swenson has a very clever enemy who phoned and pretended to be her client just to get her fired—and has personal information about that client—it was Mr. Piccoletti who made the complaint.”