A Cook in Time

by Joanne Pence

  All of a sudden, she wasn’t nearly so curious about Derrick anymore. She wished Connie were with her. But this was no time to get nervous. Bobbing her head this way and that to make sure no muggers or worse were lurking outside the car, she made one last check of her makeup in the rearview mirror, unlocked her car door, and got out.

  At the entrance to the hall, four young people waited to buy tickets. They were casually dressed to the point of sloppiness, with pale faces and a flabby appearance.

  “You did come!” Derrick hurried toward her. “I stepped outside for a moment and here you are! Where’s your friend?”

  “She couldn’t make it,” Angie said.

  He cast a sly look her way as he took her arm and led her toward the hall. “I would gladly have escorted you here,” he said.

  “You think I was lying about my friend?”

  “I’m not saying that. I’m sure you have many friends. One of them might even have been interested in coming with you.”

  She stopped in her tracks. “I’m seeing someone.”

  “So you’ve said. A special boyfriend.” He gave her a sidelong glance. His arm tightened on hers, drawing her closer. “Isn’t at least some little part of you glad to see me again, Angelina? Aren’t you the least bit curious about what I’ve been up to?”

  Angie would have set him straight except that a man sitting at a small folding table caught her attention. Brochures were stacked on it, plus a sign that read:

  NEW MEMBERS! FREE DRAWINGS!

  $100 TO THE LUCKY WINNER! JOIN TODAY!

  The man at the table stood as they neared. He had a round belly, thinning black hair, and a tiny, Hitler-style mustache. He thrust a brochure toward them. The title puzzled her. Roswell: The True Story. What was Roswell?

  She was about to reach for it when Derrick turned, directing her away from the man and toward the ticket taker. Announcing she was his guest, he whisked her into a stark entry hall. The walls were a grimy yellow color and streaked with fingerprints. The gray linoleum floor was worn and dirty. Facing her was a wall of unfinished plywood with double doors in the middle. She assumed they led to the auditorium.

  Hanging by the doors was a poster of a man who looked like the reincarnation of a frizzy-haired Albert Einstein. Across the top of the poster, written with a red felt-tip marker, were the words DR. FREDERICK MOSSHAD—HERE TONIGHT!

  “What was that brochure being handed out?” Angie asked, thinking of the stack of flyers outside the hall. “I’ve never heard of Ross-well.”

  “Rahz-well. It’s a fascinating story. I’ll get you one of those brochures later, since you’re interested. I’ve got a lot of them. Or we can have dinner again and I’ll tell you all about it.” He smiled and waited for her response.

  “I don’t think—”

  “You and your girlfriend?”

  “Well …” She really didn’t want to dine with him again, but she did want Connie to meet him … and she’d love to hear his UFO stories.

  He looked like a cat after swallowing a bird. “I knew you’d agree. Please excuse me a moment,” he said. “I’ve been given the honor of introducing tonight’s speaker, and I need to check on things backstage. I’m glad you’re here. Tonight’s show will be an especially interesting one. Ah! Here’s my friend Kronos. He’ll watch out for you.”

  A blond, ponytailed man wearing a faded plaid shirt and loose, dirty jeans turned at Holton’s words. He wore thick wire-rimmed glasses. Angie shook his hand as Derrick introduced them.

  “Kronos takes care of lights, sound, and tapes if we need any,” Derrick said, backing up. “Will you watch Angelina for me?” he asked Kronos. “I’ve got to check on Mosshad.”

  “Of course, Sir Derrick. ’Twill be an honor most joyous.”

  Angie chuckled and expected Derrick to laugh or somehow react to Kronos’s bizarre way of speaking. Derrick didn’t bat an eyelash and disappeared into the crowd. Kronos gave Angie a big smile. His teeth were as gnarled as his speech. She gave serious thought to chasing down Derrick.

  “So you share Sir Derrick’s interest in things skyward, m’lady?” he asked.

  What was with this guy? Angie looked around to see if people were laughing at them. Maybe Kronos pulled this as a joke on newcomers. “Not exactly,” she said. “This is my first time here.”

  “Ah! ’Tis well chosen that you come this eve. A fine presentation we will hear. The learned Dr. Mosshad will speak of what the astronauts on Mir really saw”—his voice dropped to a whisper and he pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose—“and the classified material they have been so ignobly forced to keep secret.”

  “They’ve kept secrets?” She thought the whole purpose of space flights and stations was to collect data, not to hide it.

  “Of course they’ve kept secrets, m’lady! All the astronauts have. Did you not know that?” He gaped at her as if she were the odd one of the two. “The hair on your head would stand on end if you heard of what they have seen.”

  Once more, she found herself wondering if Kronos was serious or if this was all one big practical joke.

  “It is one of my favorite matters for discourse. Someday the government will be forced to give up its secrets. Then ’twill be as all the demons of hell loosed upon the land. Do you not agree?”

  “Could be.” She couldn’t argue with what she couldn’t understand. Where the hell was Derrick?

  His eyes shifted from side to side. “That means you are smarter than most here, m’lady. Therefore, you must beware. They think they know the answers, but they know not!”

  “Well … forsooth!” she said. Wait until she got her hands on Derrick for leaving her with someone clearly certifiable. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go find the ladies’ room.”

  His jaw tightened. “I beg your indulgence as well. Sir Derrick forgot, as is his wont, that I must go set up the projector. Dr. Mosshad will require it.”

  Kronos pushed his glasses high on his nose again and marched off.

  “It was nice meeting you,” she murmured. Real nice. About as nice as having a tetanus shot.

  She shuddered and turned away.

  “Hello, lovely lady.” A gaunt man wearing a black beret, a black turtleneck, and black slacks gave her a jaunty nod.

  Angie stepped back. “Hello.” The man’s steel gray hair was so long and thick it looked like a helmet, bizarre thick eyebrows nearly covered his eyes, and a thin gray mouth peeked out from a bushy beard and mustache. Was the entire hall filled with nothing but oddballs?

  “Is this your first time at a NAUTS event?” he asked.

  “Naughts? As in zeros?” Angie asked.

  He chuckled. “Not exactly. More like astro-NAUTS. It stands for the National Association of Ufological Technology Scientists. A mouthful, I admit.”

  “I hadn’t realized this was anyone’s event. I thought it was simply a lecture.”

  “It is, but NAUTS is sponsoring it.” He clasped his hands, much like a teacher about to give a presentation. Or, considering how gaunt, bushy-bearded, and black-clad he was, a preacher of some back-to-basics-and-not-much-food religious group. “They’re a fairly new group—a splinter group—seeking the truth.”

  “A splinter of what?” Angie asked.

  “It was quite distasteful,” the stranger said, dropping his voice and moving closer. “NAUTS is an offshoot of the Prometheus Group, made up of those members who considered themselves to have a scientific bent and didn’t approve of the paranormal inclinations of the Prometheans. The two fought and eventually broke apart.”

  “Really?” It was odd that Derrick hadn’t mentioned anything to her about NAUTS or the Prometheans. “I’ve heard of the Prometheus Group and Algernon,” she said, thinking fast. If there was bad blood between the two groups, that explained why Derrick had grown so heated when he called Algernon a fraud.

  “Algernon … yes.” A strange half smile touched the gaunt man’s lips. “Have you met Algernon?”

  “No
t yet. I hope to someday soon.”

  He nodded. “Well, Algernon leads one sect and tonight’s speaker, Dr. Mosshad, leads the other.”

  “Sect? You make it sound like a religion.”

  He smiled. “It is rather. Sort of like the Protestants and the Catholics. Variations on the same theme. Perhaps because so many people refuse to believe in God, they now search for other things to believe in. My name is Malachi, by the way,” the gaunt man said.

  “I’m Angie.” Her nerves grew edgy. She didn’t know if it was because Derrick had abandoned her, or because of this man’s strange conversation. She turned her head and spotted a vaguely familiar man wearing black sunglasses and a black suit. He couldn’t be the same man she’d seen outside Connie’s shop the day before, could he? He stood alone, his back to the wall, his head turned in her direction, as if he was watching her. The same way he’d done the previous day.

  That did it. “Excuse me,” she said softly. “I’m not up to a lecture tonight.”

  “You can’t leave,” Malachi said with a nod toward the auditorium doors, now opening. “The show’s about to begin.”

  Bertram Lambert had lived in a modest house just off Lake Street in the city’s inner Richmond district, a neighborhood of single-family homes and two-story flats surrounding shop-lined Clement and Geary Streets. The house was brownstone with sparkling white trim and white grille-covered windows. An overhang at the entry protected Paavo and Yosh from the rain as they stood in the darkness. Across the street, some of the houses had colorfully lit Christmas trees visible through the front windows and cheerfully twinkling lights strung along the roofline. Here, the street lamp’s glow barely reached Lambert’s door.

  Paavo knocked, as both a courtesy and a caution. Sometimes people the police thought were living alone were not. And sometimes those closest to the victim were the least happy to have homicide inspectors come to call.

  No one answered.

  The lock was a deadbolt. Yosh held a penlight on it as Paavo used a curved tension hook and a sawtooth comb. A couple of minutes later, the lock clicked open.

  After putting on latex gloves, Paavo swung the door wide.

  “Will you look at this place?” Yosh exclaimed as he stepped into a large, sparsely furnished room. White rugs lay on glistening golden oak hardwood, and bright, abstract oils hung on stark white walls. Yosh stopped and peered down reflexively at his loafers, then up at Paavo. Paavo shrugged. Lambert wouldn’t care about dirt in his house anymore.

  The old house had had the guts torn out of it, Paavo thought, then winced at the involuntary memory of Lambert’s death that came with the thought. The remodeling had removed the walls separating the dining room, kitchen, and living room. A teak dining table, a white and black marble counter, and a Japanese shoji marked the different living areas.

  Paavo gave the house a once-over, glancing into the bedroom, with a king-size bed, the bathroom, and two closets. The house had all the homeyness and personal warmth of a spread in Architectural Digest. Not a washcloth, not even a newspaper, was out of place.

  “I’ll take the kitchen,” Yosh said. “I want to see what this guy used to eat. What in the world could he find that wasn’t messy? I’ll bet you he’s got hand-painted, exotic plates and glasses in the kitchen. Not anything anyone uses. Maybe fancy European pots and pans, too. Just like someone we know, right, pal?”

  “I’ll start in the bedroom,” Paavo said, ignoring what he knew to be a jab at Angie’s money and possessions. Joking about Angie’s money was a favorite Homicide pastime these days. He didn’t find it funny.

  He continued on with his inspection. He wasn’t looking for anything specific, just something that felt out of place, offbeat, or somehow significant to the mystery of Bertram Lambert’s death. He began with the bureau, pulling out drawers one by one, going through socks and underwear. Most drawers were empty. The walk-in closet had one suit, two sports coats, slacks, shirts, sweaters, shoes, and ties, all arranged by style, then color. In the back was a clothes hamper. He opened it. A shirt, boxers, T-shirt, and one pair of socks, all folded, lay in the bottom. Who in the world folded dirty clothes? This guy was beyond anal.

  Empty suitcases were stacked on a shelf, along with a shoe box of photos. He flipped quickly through them. They were all old. One in particular, though, caught his eye. A young, unsmiling Bertram stared at the camera while his older sister gripped his hand and frowned, as if she was already displeased with him. He put the shoe box up on the shelf once more.

  He had saved the desk for last. It was Scandinavian teak, with only a single drawer below the desktop. Lambert obviously wasn’t one to fill his home with clutter. Slowly and methodically Paavo went through Lambert’s personal papers, address books, day planners, and the few scraps of loose paper he could find.

  He found the names of very few people, men or women, who might have been friends. It seemed that, whatever Lambert’s hopes had been in coming to San Francisco, they hadn’t been met.

  6

  Angie searched a bit for Derrick before entering the auditorium to hear the lecture, but she still couldn’t find him. Malachi continued to hover nearby. She would have left, except that Derrick’s telling her the lecture would be especially interesting and Kronos’s telling her she’d hear what the astronauts really saw from the Mir space station had made her curious. She knew curiosity—or nosiness, as her mother, Serefina, called it—was a fault, but sometimes she couldn’t help herself. Anyway, staying an hour or so more wouldn’t matter in the least.

  When she took a seat in the auditorium, Malachi pointed at the empty chair beside her. “May I?”

  “Of course.” She glanced at the clock to the right of the stage. Nine o’clock already? She checked her watch. Yes, the time was right. So much for getting home early to spend the evening with Paavo—if he showed up. She turned to Malachi. “May I ask you,” she said, having decided the man knew his subject, “if you have ever heard what aliens eat?”

  He stared at her blankly for a moment, then his lips curled into a smile and he stroked his chin. “That’s a matter of considerable speculation,” he replied gravely, “but no definitive answers.”

  It figures, Angie thought.

  “What little we know, we’ve discovered by hypnotizing victims of alien abductions. Some people are abducted over and over, and in time, despite their fear, they develop an understanding of what’s being done to them.”

  Alien abductions? “What is being done to them?” she asked.

  “In most cases the abductees—both men and women—are stripped naked, strapped onto a table, and then long needles and probes are stuck into their bodies—eyes, nose, brains, and especially in the, er, groin area.”

  “It’s amazing,” Angie replied. Amazing that anyone would believe that if there were aliens roaming around the galaxy, they had nothing better to do than to study human sexuality. The idea gave voyeurism a whole new dimension.

  Derrick had talked about the sexual angle, too, which made her wonder about him. Was this stuff just erudite porn for the wigged-out? Derrick used to be so normal.

  That reminded her. She turned in her seat, searching again for him. Where was he? The small audience of about twenty people, a few college-age, many middle-aged or older, was growing restless. She checked her watch. Nine-fifteen. The eight-thirty starting time for the lecture must have been MST—Martian Standard Time. It certainly had nothing to do with the Pacific Time the rest of the West Coast used.

  She realized Malachi was still talking to her. “… and the government won’t admit to any of this because they want to keep it hidden from their enemies.”

  Angie began to hope desperately that Dr. Mosshad would be a lot more interesting than old Malachi was.

  “Of course, it’s a conspiracy of our government,” he continued, “that whenever anyone discovers proof that aliens exist, the proof is immediately spirited away to Area Fifty-one—Dreamland—in the Nevada desert.”

  Angie could u
nderstand the Dreamland name. His long-winded discourse was making her sleepy. He didn’t have anything useful to say about what aliens ate, either.

  Where was Derrick? When would the show begin? She wanted to go home. She stretched, half rising from her seat, straining to look at the sides of the stage for Derrick to tell him she was leaving.

  A blinding white light flashed onto the stage, covering the lectern and microphone, before it pulsated out over the audience. At the same time, a painfully high-pitched squeal blared into the room from all sides. Angie cried out as she squeezed her eyes shut, her hands pressed hard against her ears. The light and sound seemed to go on and on, growing more unbearable with each passing second.

  Paavo picked up the wastebasket by the side of the desk and overturned it onto the bed. A PG&E bill. A phone bill. A flyer that said Roswell: The True Story. Opening it, he saw it was about an alien spaceship that was supposed to have landed in New Mexico in the summer of 1947. No wonder Lambert had thrown it away. A Macy’s bill showing he’d bought a $150 pair of shoes. Paavo dropped everything back into the trash except the phone bill. It would show whom Lambert had phoned out of town. The information might be useful. He put the phone bill into a small plastic bag to become part of his file.

  He scrutinized the room once more. Unless Lambert’s murder was strictly a random act, the reason he was killed had to be found through a careful study of his life—his job, his home, his hobbies. The answer was very likely somewhere in this meticulously tidy home, and Paavo intended to find it.

  As suddenly as it began, the bright light vanished and the room became quiet as death.

  Angie lifted her head. “What was that?” She turned to Malachi, gripping his arm. He sat rigidly facing the stage.

  A buzz of voices began spreading throughout the hall.

  “I must think,” he said.

  I must leave, she thought.