A Cook in Time

by Joanne Pence

  “Do you know dat guy, Miss Angie?” Earl asked suspiciously. “Or am I gonna hafta teach him some manners?”

  “He’s the old friend I’m here to meet.” She walked toward Derrick, who stood up as she neared. Earl grabbed a couple of menus and hurried after her.

  “Angelina.” Derrick reached for her outstretched hand. Instead of shaking it, as she’d intended, he pulled her close and kissed her cheek, then smiled at her. He wasn’t tall—under six feet—and had a sinewy build. “Even more beautiful than I remember.”

  “Hello, Derrick,” she replied. The familiar scent of his cologne, Ralph Lauren’s Polo, brought back memories of nightclubs and dances they’d gone to, and the way he’d held her close. He was dressed in the casual style she remembered him favoring: a white oxford shirt, unbuttoned at the top, no tie, a brown tweed sports coat, dark brown slacks, and brown tasseled loafers.

  “Miss Angie,” Earl said at her elbow, “do you wanna sit down?”

  “Oh.” She turned to see him holding the chair out. “Thanks.” Pulling her hands from Derrick’s grasp, she sat.

  Derrick was about to scoot his chair closer to hers when Earl quickly stepped between them, forcing Derrick to stay where he was. “We got some specials today.”

  Angie gawked up at him.

  “We got spaghetti an’ meatballs, polenta an’ sausage, an’ meatball sangwitches.”

  Considering that those were the usual offerings, she gave Earl a cold stare.

  “You’re the culinary expert, Angelina,” Derrick said with enthusiasm. “I defer to your judgment.”

  Earl’s eyebrows shot up high as his head swiveled toward Derrick.

  Angie sat a little taller. “The spaghetti and meatballs for Mr. Holton, Earl, and the polenta for me.”

  “Got it. Wine?”

  “House red is fine.”

  “Anyt’ing else?”

  “That’s it,” she said giving him a nod that clearly said, Get lost.

  Glancing from her to Derrick, he frowned, then said, “I’ll be back.”

  The minute Earl left, Derrick moved closer. “How have you been?”

  “Fine. Quite fine, in fact.” Small talk wasn’t what she was there for. She folded her hands and leaned toward him. “The reason I called was to talk to you about UFOs.” She quickly told him about her business and apologized for asking a serious scientist about such a subject.

  “Your own business!” Derrick beamed at her. “How very impressive! Well, I can tell you a bit about UFOs, Angelina. There’s much to tell, much that’s happening now.” Their eyes met and he stopped talking. Her discomfort grew as his gaze seemed to take in her every feature, her earrings, her dark brown hair (which now sported streaks of light auburn instead of her usual blond highlights—red hair was in these days), and then settled on her lips. “I’m sorry, Angelina.” He placed his hand over her folded ones. “I know I promised not to think about the past, but seeing you again—”

  “’Scuze me,” Earl said gruffly, stepping between them once more despite the fact that the table was round and there was far more room on the opposite side. “’Ere’s your wine. You want I should pour it, Miss Angie?” While Earl spoke, he stared hard at Derrick until he let go of Angie’s hands and leaned back in his chair to wait until Earl finished his task.

  Earl poured them each a glass from a carafe, then, with another deadly glance at Derrick, put the carafe down on the table with a thud and left.

  Derrick bent toward Angie. “I get the feeling he disapproves of me for some reason.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “He’s that way with everyone. So, what can you tell me about UFOs?”

  Before replying, Derrick gave a nervous glance toward the swinging doors to the kitchen where Earl had gone. “It’s funny you should ask, because that’s what I’m going to hear about this evening. The times—with the change in millennium and all—are quite exciting. I want to learn all I can about the most extraordinary age our world has ever known. To think it’s happening right now. Right here—”

  “Sorry.” Earl put their salads in front of them, plus a basket of French bread and butter.

  “Thank you,” Derrick said through clenched teeth.

  “Yeah.” Earl left.

  Derrick looked at her. “Angelina, I don’t want to talk about me. I’m interested in you. You haven’t married, I take it. Are you engaged?”

  “I haven’t married, and I’m not officially engaged, although I’m seeing someone I’m quite serious about.”

  “There’s still some hope for me, then.” He smiled as broadly and easily as ever.

  “I don’t—”

  “Don’t answer! Give me time.” He winked mischievously, his eyes sparkling. Yes, he was definitely still handsome. But still not her type. Was it possible for a man to be too fawning? Too smiley? She wouldn’t have thought so, but what else could she have objected to about him? Paavo didn’t have a fawning bone in his entire six-foot-two-inch body.

  On the other hand, Connie could use someone who would fawn over her. Particularly with Christmas coming, and New Year’s—and New Year’s Eve parties! The more she thought about it, the more she liked the idea.

  Derrick would be good for Connie. Most definitely.

  “Talk to me about UFOs,” she said with a lilt in her voice. Taking a bite of her salad, ostensibly waiting for him to speak, she let her mind spin ways to bring Derrick and Connie together.

  “I promised, didn’t I?” He gave a soft laugh and reached out, clearly planning to take hold of her left hand, since she was holding a salad fork in her right one.

  “I know Miss Angie likes ta eat her salad wit’ her dinner,” Earl said, balancing a tray that was tottering dangerously close to Derrick’s left ear. “So I brung it out ta you fast. I done good, right, Miss Angie?”

  Derrick pulled back his hand and leaned away from Earl’s tray.

  Angie smoothed the napkin over her lap. “You did good, Earl.”

  He placed the food in front of them. “Anyt’ing else?”

  “We’re fine,” Derrick said, a little too forcefully. Earl frowned and walked away.

  “As you were saying about the UFOs,” Angie coaxed.

  “Oh … yes.” Derrick sipped some wine, then took a taste of his spaghetti and meatballs and nodded appreciatively. “The help might not be the best, but this tastes great.”

  Angie just smiled.

  “Anyway,” Derrick began, “ufologists believe that from the beginning of recorded time, man has known he’s not alone in the universe. In fact, they say, there’s good evidence we came here from somewhere else. That’s the real reason there’s no scientific proof that Darwin was right, no missing link to prove that man evolved from other animals. It’s not because God created man, but because man came from another planet!”

  “That’s wild,” she said.

  “Ufologists point to very convincing evidence. They believe humans look to the stars because we’re searching for our home. And that someday, soon, our ancestors will come back to Earth for us. All the ancient prophets talk of it, the most famous being Nostradamus.”

  The origin of mankind and ancient prophecies were not at all what she was expecting to hear. She wanted tales of little green men and flying saucers. “Interesting,” she said weakly. “So tell me … do these aliens look like us? Do they eat the way we do?”

  He frowned, then shrugged as if he didn’t know and didn’t particularly care. “They don’t seem to eat much of anything, I guess. I’ve never heard any talk about them eating. We’ve evolved differently from them. They’re thinner, smaller, with huge black eyes and gray skin. We’re far more interesting-looking—and acting. They’re quite curious about our sexuality, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t.” She had the uneasy sense that although Derrick had begun by stating what ufologists believed, he had slid into his own belief system. Maybe he wouldn’t be as right for Connie as she’d imagined. She had to be mistaken—after all, she
’d dated him, brought him home to meet her family. He was a good and brilliant scientist, not a UFO nut.

  He leaned closer. “The primary reason that EBEs—extraterrestrial biological entities, to be precise—come to Earth and abduct humans is to study our reproductive organs and—”

  “Derrick!” Angie tried to laugh. “Give me a break. The people who go on TV or write books about being abducted are making up stories to get money. It’s all a hoax.”

  “I wouldn’t be too sure of that if I were you,” he said with a knowing glance. “It could well be true. Science now shows that there’s life beyond Mars.”

  “Life beyond Mars? Isn’t that the name of a book by Algernon?”

  Derrick stopped twirling spaghetti onto his fork in midtwirl. “Algernon! You’re joking, right? You can’t be saying that guy’s name seriously!”

  Angie leaned back in her chair, trying to ignore the way the other diners turned and stared at them. Even Earl stuck his head out of the kitchen and frowned.

  Derrick’s voice dropped. He leaned closer. “Algernon doesn’t have any idea what he’s talking about. The man’s a fraud.”

  “A fraud?” Eyes wide, she thought of Triana Crisswell, rich and overly impressionable. Might she be the victim of some con artist? “How do you know?”

  “The people I read and the lectures I go to have proved it. This evening I’m going to hear a speaker who knows all about EBEs.” He began eating again.

  A most interesting thought sprang to mind. She knew Connie wasn’t doing anything that night. She could pick Connie up and take her to the lecture to meet Derrick. A wealthy NASA scientist might be just the thing to bring Connie some Christmas cheer. “Maybe I should go to his talk tonight, too,” she mused. “It might help me with my business.”

  “Great! I’ll take you. You’ll enjoy meeting my friends. We’ll make you forget all about that charlatan Algernon.”

  “Speaking of friends, I’m supposed to meet one—”

  “The one you’re nearly engaged to?” he asked.

  She smiled. “No. A woman. A girlfriend.”

  He smiled back. “In that case, the more the merrier. We meet in Tardis Hall.”

  “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “It’s a converted warehouse at the foot of Brannan. They’ll be destroying it soon—part of the rebuilding of the waterfront area. So we get it free, while it lasts.”

  Earl walked up to them and slapped the bill on the table. “You finished? I guess you gotta get goin’. You gonna see him tonight, Miss Angie?”

  “Not very soon, I’m afraid,” Angie said.

  “Is he woikin’?”

  “As usual.” She wished he were the one with her at that moment.

  Earl looked at his watch. “Maybe he’ll get off woik sooner den you t’ought?”

  “No. He never does,” she said with dejection.

  Derrick picked up the bill and began to look it over.

  Earl snatched it out of Derrick’s hand. “In dat case, why don’ you two guys stay and have some dessert? You two don’ wanna go off alone nowhere, not jus’ da two a you. We got some good pie alla—uh, you know, wit’ ice cream on it. Stay. Kick back. Take your shoes off.”

  Derrick glanced at his watch. “I’m afraid it’s time for us to leave,” he said, lifting the bill from Earl’s fingers.

  “No need. It’s oily.” He grabbed the bill again.

  “Oily?” Derrick glanced from the bill to his fingers.

  “Early,” Angie translated.

  Derrick lunged for the bill.

  Earl swung his arm behind his back and jumped out of the way. “How ’bout some coffee? But no more wine, t’ough.” With his free hand he yanked the carafe off the table and retreated another step. “I don’ wan’ Miss Angie ta lose her good sense. Wha’ little of it she’s got left.”

  “Just the bill, Earl,” Angie said sternly.

  “Da bill. You sure you know wha’ you’re doin’?”

  She nodded.

  “Don’ say I didn’ warn you.”

  “My brother never married,” Janice Hazan said with a slight sniffle into the phone shortly after Paavo broke the news that Bertram Lambert had been found murdered. “He spent most of his first thirty-five years here in Ottumwa. He traveled a little, but kept coming back home to me. Until two years ago. That was when he moved to San Francisco. It was the happiest thing he ever did, or so he said. Every single day since then, I knew it would end up this way. I felt it in my bones. I warned him, over and over. Would he listen to me? Not one bit. But that was Bertram for you.”

  “Where else did he live?” Paavo asked. He switched the phone to his right hand as he checked his wristwatch. It was getting late. He wondered if Angie had returned home yet.

  “Oh, he tried Phoenix, Albuquerque, even Las Vegas. He liked the Southwest, but it didn’t like him. He kept coming home to Iowa.”

  “I see.” Paavo switched the phone back again and wrote down the information.

  “Do you know why he moved to San Francisco?” While he’d gone to see Angie, only to be greeted by her lying weasel of a neighbor, Yosh had contacted the post office for the address that they’d used to forward Lambert’s mail. Paavo and Yosh were about to check it out when Lambert’s sister returned their phone calls.

  “I never understood it. My brother used his inheritance to buy himself a little house,” Hazan said. “Paid way too much for it, if you ask me. He lived alone. The address was fifty-one Seventh Avenue. I understand it was a nice enough place. Not that he ever invited me. Oh well, too late for regrets now, isn’t it?”

  Paavo checked the address the post office had given Yosh with the one Janice Hazan just mentioned. They matched. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hazan, to have to ask you these questions at a time like this,” Paavo said. The woman hardly sounded broken up, though. “As you’re his next of kin, if we could have your permission to enter the home—”

  “Of course,” she said brusquely. “I know you’ll get in there one way or the other, so why not speed things up? Just don’t mess it up too much, that’s all I ask. I guess I’ll have to come see it, since it’ll be mine now. Right?”

  “I imagine so. No one here seems to know of any friends or close acquaintances of your brother’s. Do you know of any?”

  “Bertram wasn’t the sort to make friends. That was why he kept coming back to Ottumwa. He said he went to San Francisco to join the city’s swinging singles scene, but I knew it wouldn’t work for him. He wasn’t the easiest man to like. A bit on the dull side, I’m afraid. And that’s speaking as the sister who loved him. Oh well. What can I say?”

  “We couldn’t find a car registered to him. Do you know if he had one?”

  “I think he sold it a year or two ago. Said there was nowhere to park in the city, so he was better off without it. He said he used a bicycle to get around. Or the bus. Or cabs.”

  Paavo nodded. He was trying to fight the urge to hurry through these routine questions and call Angie again. Whom could she have gone out with? “Can you tell me about his interests? Any special lady friends? Or men friends?”

  “I don’t know any of his friends. Plays and ballet were all he ever mentioned, and them not often. I don’t go for all that froufrou stuff myself. Plain people like us have no business putting on airs. I told him he should come home. He wouldn’t listen, but, as I said, that was Bertram for you.”

  Paavo bit his tongue. “Did he ever mention anyone threatening him? Or that he was worried about anything or anyone?”

  “Never.”

  “The last time you spoke with him, did he seem the same? Different? Anything at all strike you about him?”

  “He was the same as ever. He never had much to say that was worth a row of pins, if you ask me. Not even when we were kids.”

  “Did he ever mention joining any clubs or groups … or cults … of any kind?”

  “Bertram?” Just from her tone of voice, Paavo knew she didn’t think her brother had joined
any cults. “He never mentioned any such thing to me, that’s for sure.”

  “I see.” This line of questioning was getting nowhere. “Your brother was found with goggles that we suspect are old and of military origin. Do you know about them or anything like them?”

  “No.”

  “Was your brother ever in the military, or have an interest in military kinds of things?”

  “Not hardly. He despised everything that had to do with the military or killing. He was the gentlest man I’ve ever known.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Hazan. I’ll call you as soon as we learn anything.” Paavo quickly hung up. Maybe Janice Hazan didn’t know why Bertram Lambert kept traveling, but Paavo had a good suspicion.

  5

  Angie scowled impatiently at the red light as she drove her Testarossa toward Tardis Hall. After leaving Wings of an Angel, she’d gotten into her car, grabbed her cell phone, and made a call. But Connie was tired and wouldn’t budge from her home. Honestly, Angie thought, some people just don’t appreciate the things their friends try to do for them. As soon as the light changed, she zigzagged through the traffic, making up for lost time.

  She was going to the lecture anyway. It wouldn’t hurt to learn something about UFOs for her dinner party. Or to learn more about Derrick for Connie’s sake. Angie had to admit as well to being curious as to why her NASA scientist was suddenly so interested in extraterrestrials. Her tires squealed on the rain-soaked pavement as she pulled into a parking lot.

  Before shutting off the engine, she ran her windshield wipers a couple of times. The rain had stopped, but a heavy mist had quickly settled. Clean windshields didn’t improve the looks of Tardis Hall. Four stories tall, it was boxy and warehouselike, with few windows. Although the entrance was well lit, the rest of the building looked dirty and uninviting.