by Joanne Pence
“Did Mosshad have any explanation for Oliver’s kidnapping him?” She sat at the round wooden table. She liked sitting there, especially when the oven was on and the room warm and filled with the cooking smells of roasts or casseroles or pies. It reminded her of when she was a kid, sitting in her mother’s kitchen in the old house, before her father got rich from his shoe stores and they moved to a monster-sized place in Hillsborough. The new house was beautiful, but there were times she missed the small Marina-district home where she and her four sisters shared two bedrooms and the kitchen was the main spot where the family gathered. As busy as her mother was helping her father with his growing business, she always had time to talk to Angie in that kitchen.
The microwave dinged. Paavo grabbed a pot holder. “Mosshad wasn’t able to talk. He was traumatized, and he’s an old man. The doctors expect him to make it, but it’ll take time. We’ll ask him those questions when we’re able, plus a few others. Like why did Oliver do any of this? Also, he was short and heavy with no muscles to speak of—how did he carry the bodies? Did he have help? If so, who? And why would such a cold-blooded killer commit suicide? It just doesn’t fit.”
“Eat,” Angie said. “Worry about it later.”
The beatific look on Paavo’s face when he removed the food from the microwave told her he was every bit as ready to eat a home-cooked meal as she had expected he would be. “I hope he’s the only nut case this millennium change brings my way,” Paavo said as he grabbed a fork, a napkin, and a bottle of Anchor Steam beer. “I thought the end-of-the-world crowd would wreak havoc, not the ufologists. There seems to be some overlap between the two. Would you like a beer, Angie?”
“I’d rather have coffee. I’ll take care of it.” As he sat and ate, she filled his Mr. Coffee with water, then took the French roast from the freezer, where she had convinced him to store it so it would stay fresh. “There’s a small amount of overlap, but not much. In a way, that’s a really unfortunate part of this whole thing. That the UFO crowd is going to get such a slap in the face. The press will have a field day with these murders.”
“That’s a problem?”
“I’ve learned a lot about things in this world that are strange, and are interesting, and that I believe are really taking place. The UFO people aren’t completely mad. The only part I’m not convinced of is that aliens have landed on Earth. Of their existence, though, out there somewhere in the entire universe, well …”
She guessed she’d gone too far, judging from the look on his face.
“Maybe you’ve been associating with these people too long, Angie.”
“You could be right. The fantasy dinner at Tardis Hall is in two nights. After that, I don’t have to see them any longer. I swear, I’ll be glad when it’s over. Triana Crisswell’s fantasy has become my nightmare! Because of all the catered parties going on at workplaces, private organizations, and public events, I can’t even find reliable help to hire. I’m going to have to do everything myself, with the help of some friends.”
“Connie?”
“Plus Earl, Butch, and Vinnie.” She opened the refrigerator to look for milk or half-and-half for the coffee and shuddered. Mustard, mayonnaise, and wilted lettuce were on the top shelf. A few smaller things were pushed far back and probably long forgotten. She had some throwing away to do; several of the leftovers were surely lethal by now.
“Do you think you might have any success getting your friend Derrick and some others from NAUTS there as well?” he asked thoughtfully.
Angie popped her head up from the refrigerator. Something about his tone hit her squarely in the pit of her stomach. “Why would I want to do such a thing to my party?”
“The press, and my boss, think this case has been tied up with a neat little bow. They may be right. I’ve got questions, though, with no answers yet. I’d like to get some. That party might be the way.”
She shut the refrigerator door. “You found the remains of the dead men on Oliver’s property. You found Mosshad there. What more could you possibly need? The case is solved, Paavo.”
His gaze was hooded. “I wish I believed that.”
23
“You two are the luckiest SOBs alive!” Rebecca said as she walked into Homicide the next morning.
“Not luck, woman. It was skill, pure skill. Are we hot, or are we are hot!” Yosh bellowed. “I even brought home a bottle of champagne last night to celebrate.” He glanced at Paavo and lowered his voice. “Turns out Nancy isn’t nearly as crazy about her calligraphy teacher as I thought she was. She just likes calligraphy. Can you beat that?” He laughed.
“So that’s why you’re so jolly this morning,” Paavo said.
“Yessirree. I still got it. Don Juan Yoshiwara—that’s me. Say, I was a little too hasty taking the Christmas on-call duty. Nancy wants me home. If someone else wouldn’t mind taking it …”
“Give it to me,” Paavo said.
“Doesn’t Angie expect you to go with her to her parents’ house?” Concern crossed Yosh’s brow at Paavo’s willingness to take the duty. “What if you get a stiff to check out?”
“Don’t worry about it,” Paavo said. “It’s more important for you to be with Nancy and your kids.”
“I surely appreciate it, pal,” Yosh said. “And I’ll ask around some more. If someone else has no plans, I’ll have him or her handle it for you.”
“No problem.” Paavo turned back to the files he had pulled that morning, old cases that hadn’t been resolved, still open because there was no statute of limitations on murder. Since his current cases were either cleared up or taken as far as they could go, the practice was to take a look at another inspector’s open log. Fresh eyes might see something that had been overlooked by the inspector too close to the case. The trouble was, most of the open ones were Never-Take-a-Chance Sutter’s. The soon-to-be-retired cop tended to let a lot of things slide. Paavo was reading through the cases to see if anything looked worth pursuing.
“Your celebration didn’t seem to do you as much good as Yosh’s. Or didn’t you have one?” Rebecca said, coming over to his desk.
“I’m glad we found Mosshad. And the evidence,” he said, turning a page on the old report.
“You don’t sound very glad,” she said.
“Paavo thinks it was too easy,” Yosh said. “He’s bothered by the killer’s already being dead. Justice denied, and all that.”
“The killer’s dead. How much more justice can you get?” Rebecca asked.
Bo Benson stumbled into the bureau. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead.
Rebecca jumped up. “What’s wrong?”
“Claudette was lying in wait for me on the elevator. She wants me to spend Christmas Day with her. So does Bambi.”
“Bambi?” Yosh asked.
“Probably Monica, too.”
“No comment.” Yosh glanced at Paavo.
“Anybody want to give me Christmas duty?” Bo asked. “No way I can see all three of them in one day. That’s too much even for me.”
“Sold!” Paavo said.
“Let’s go get a cup of coffee, Paavo,” Rebecca said. “I can’t take listening to any more of Benson’s so-called problems. I should have it half so bad. Anyway, you should be feeling good, not bad, today.”
“No thanks,” he said. “I just had a cup.”
She shrugged and sauntered out of the bureau.
Yosh bent forward in his chair. “You still having troubles with Angie, pal?” he asked.
“She’s fine. I found out what was bothering her. She understands she was worrying about something she didn’t need to worry about. It’s okay now.”
“And?” Yosh asked.
Paavo lifted his head from Sutter’s sloppily documented report. “And what?”
“Did you two talk about the stuff that’s still bothering you?”
Paavo jotted a note on a Post-it and stuck it on the report he was reading. “Nothing is bothering me. Nothing at all.”
“Angie, I’m so glad you’re home,” Connie cried as soon as Angie pulled open the door to her apartment. “I was awake half the night. I couldn’t sleep. I have to talk to you, and what I need to say is best said face-to-face.”
“Come in,” Angie said, leading her into the kitchen. “I’m making a Saint Honoré cake to take to my sister Maria’s house. It’s her birthday. The week before Christmas, poor kid. She never gets to celebrate properly.”
Connie’s hair looked as if a cat had walked through it, she wore no makeup, and she had on a pink blouse with a neon yellow skirt. “Can I get you some coffee?” Angie asked, wondering what could be so wrong that Connie would leave the house looking that way. “If you didn’t sleep, you must be awfully tired.”
“That’s true. I have a headache, too. But I’m not here for coffee.” Angie went ahead and poured them each a cup anyway.
“We’ve got to talk. Seriously talk,” Connie said.
“All right.” Angie picked up her pastry sack. She was filling eighteen miniature cream puffs with rum custard, and then she would place them around the top edge of the cake. It was a beautiful sight. “First, let me say I’m sorry about Derrick. You were great with him, but I know he’s too strange to be believed. I should never have gotten you involved in any of this.”
Connie sat at the little table. Her face flushed slightly and a dreamy look filled her eyes. “Derrick is wonderful.”
“He is?”
“Yes. That’s why I’m here.” She hesitated a moment, then the words gushed out. “Angie, I think I’m in love.”
Angie stared at her, her brain trying to make sense out of what she’d just heard. “With Derrick?”
“Of course with Derrick!”
“You’ve only known him a few days.”
“Yesterday, at my house, I gave him split pea soup, then had him lie down on the sofa to relax. Before I knew it, I was lying down beside him. He stayed with me all night and we spent a lot of that time talking. Not all of it, but some. He’s so cerebral, so masterful.”
“Derrick?” The custard overflowed the little cream puff and oozed onto her hand and the counter.
“The thing that I’m concerned about is … Angie, does it bother you that I’m in love with your old boyfriend?”
Angie’s eyebrows nearly reached the top of her forehead. She put down the pastry sack and began to clean up the mess.
“Now, I know you wanted the two of us to meet,” Connie continued. “I appreciate that. But women are strange that way. It happened to me once. I told a girlfriend about my ex-husband. She was unattached and interested, so I introduced them after warning her about all his faults. I never dreamed she’d see anything at all in the big dork. But she liked him! And the two of them dated for about six months. Now, I know I introduced them. I know it was my idea that they meet, but at the same time he was my ex-husband, and the thought of her with him, of her getting to know him in the same way as I had … well, I didn’t like it one bit. It ruined our relationship. I don’t want that to happen to us. Your friendship is important to me. I’ll admit that I’d like to get to know Derrick a whole lot better, but I don’t know what to do about you. So I came here to talk about it.”
“I don’t care if you date Derrick,” Angie cried, tossing the sponge into the sink.
“That’s easy to say, but think about it from deep, deep down, Angie. How would you feel in your gut about us seeing each other?”
Angie dropped into a chair. Trying to decorate a cake while giving advice to the lovelorn was impossible. “As long as you’re not seeing Paavo, I don’t care. That’s from deep down, high up, wherever you want it. I’m not talking to you in platitudes, Connie. If you like Derrick—although I don’t see why, considering that he’s a nervous breakdown about to happen—go for it! You’ve got my blessing.”
Connie squealed, flung herself toward Angie, and planted a big kiss on Angie’s cheek while nearly squeezing her friend to death. “You’re a doll, Ang!” She perched on the edge of her chair. “Now you’ve got to help me. I just don’t know where to start. What can I do to become a part of his life?”
“Listen—are you really sure you want to be? He thinks aliens abducted him. I mean, he really believes aliens abducted him. I’d worry about that if I were you, Connie.”
“What if he’s right?” Connie suggested.
Angie rubbed her ear to make sure her hearing hadn’t gone haywire. “Right? Of course he isn’t right! He had some sort of trauma, I guess. He didn’t believe in them when I dated him, although now that I think about it, he was always a bit fanatical. But it was a measured fanaticism, or at least one grounded in traditional science. I don’t know what happened.”
“It’s simple, to me,” Connie said. At Angie’s questioning look, she continued. “He followed his science until it couldn’t answer all his questions. That was when he started looking for other ways to find answers, and ended up with aliens. My ex was the same, but instead of aliens, he found drugs. I prefer aliens. Maybe we can help Derrick.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Angie, please! What if some other woman came along and straightened him out, and then she ended up with him? I need to try. I want to be the one to make him a normal, healthy, happy man, and then keep him all to myself.”
“You care that much about him?”
“Absolutely. He’s important to me. What can we do to help him?”
Suddenly, Paavo’s suggestion that she get some NAUTS members to go to her fantasy dinner came to mind. Why not kill two birds with one stone and make both Paavo and Connie happy with one selfless gesture?
“Well, from what I’ve seen, both the NAUTS members and the Prometheans would be better off if they were friends again. Someone has to take the first step. I think having Derrick and his close friends show up for Algernon’s book launch—at my fantasy dinner—would be a goodwill gesture. You and I could see that they treat each other respectfully. By the end of the evening, they might even be friends again.”
“You may be right. If he stops feeling so bad about the Prometheus Group, he might stop being so paranoid.”
“Exactly—if we can get him there.”
“Angie, you’re such a good friend,” Connie cried. “Your idea may very well help me with my life!”
Angie just smiled. “Sometimes, I surprise even me.”
Angie handed Paavo’s stepfather, Aulis Kokkonen, a large freshly baked loaf of Finnish Christmas bread. She’d put it in a basket and covered it with towels to keep it warm. A red bow adorned the basket’s handle.
Paavo stood by, beaming, as Aulis’s eyes lit up. Aulis wasn’t really his stepfather, wasn’t really related to him in any way, except that he’d taken in Paavo when he was only four, after his mother abandoned him and his older sister. Aulis was just a neighbor, but he had kept the two children in his apartment while waiting for their mother to return. When it became evident she wasn’t going to, he kept them because he’d grown to love them, and they loved him in return.
When Paavo’s sister died, Aulis was all he had left.
As Aulis folded back the towels, the scent of the rye bread flavored with molasses, currants, and anise filled his small apartment. “It smells just the way my mother’s bread did. She used to make little loaves of it and gave almost all of it away, to the unhappiness of me and my brother and sister.” He smiled as he remembered those times. His hair was white now, his skin crisscrossed with age, but his eyes were sharp and clear. “Thank you, Angie, for something so special.”
“If it tastes half as good as your mother’s, I’ll be happy,” she said.
“Let’s find out.” Aulis led them to the table. “Sit down, both of you. I’ve made some coffee already.” He put a cube of butter on the table and poured the coffee.
“We called this bread joululimppu,” he said. “It’s been such a long time since I thought of that word, I can scarcely believe it.” He put the bread on a cutting board and sliced a few pieces,
giving the first one to Paavo. “It’s still warm.”
“As soon as Angie took it out of the oven, we made a mad dash across town,” Paavo said. “We thought it’d be especially good this way.”
It was. Slathered with butter, the bread was moist, rich, and delicious.
“Paavo tells me you usually spend Christmas Day with some close friends,” Angie said. “But if you’d like, we’d love to have you come to my parents’ house with Paavo and me.”
“Thank you, but no,” Aulis said. “My friends are family to me. It would be wrong not to be with them.”
“You don’t mind that I’ll be stealing Paavo that day?” she asked, strangely guilty that she and Paavo couldn’t be in two places at once.
Aulis glanced at Paavo a moment, then back to Angie. “He’ll be where he belongs.”
Relief filled her. “Thank you,” she said softly.
Just before it was time to leave, Angie went off to the bathroom to freshen up. Paavo stared after her and shook his head.
“What’s the matter?” Aulis asked.
“I’m going crazy trying to figure out what to do about Christmas, Pa. I don’t know what to get her—or what I can afford to get her. I don’t want to give her anything cheap, but even when I look at expensive things, there’s nothing she wants—she’s got everything! I don’t know what to do.”
Aulis chuckled. “No, no, no, my boy! You’re going about this all wrong. You’re lucky there’s no special thing she wants or needs. This way, she won’t be disappointed if you guess wrong. Whatever you give her, make it come from your heart. Something you like. Something you want to see her wear, perhaps. Whatever you choose, she’ll like because it comes from you.”
“You think so?” Paavo asked.
“I’ve had a few lady friends in my day.” Aulis nodded knowingly. “Trust me on this.”
24
“Paavo, you need to listen to your partner about this. Yosh is right,” Ray Faldo said the next morning. He and Paavo sat at a high worktable in the crime laboratory. The criminologist gathered the papers Paavo had printed off the Internet and fastened them together with a butterfly clip. “Take these materials and burn them.”