Something's Cooking

by Joanne Pence

  At that moment, a uniformed policeman entered the room, followed by four men in blue jumpsuits. One was carrying a black metal box. Angie folded her arms. The bomb squad, a half-hour too late.

  She watched as Inspector Smith’s merest glance caused people to scurry away, even Stan. She understood why. He had the harshest glare she’d ever seen, and he used it as a weapon. The bomb squad went into the kitchen. Inspector Smith and the uniformed policeman glanced at each other, then the inspector went into the kitchen and the other stepped outside the apartment.

  Angie pulled the chair she had used for support away from the dining table and sat in it, willing her heartbeat to slow down. She was grateful for this moment alone, this moment of silence to get her feelings in order.

  Before long, the inspector returned to the living room.

  She stood up to face him again, hoping he would tell her what was going on and that this was all just a big mistake.

  He said nothing but studied her with a professional, detached air. His gaze moved over her from head to toe, ticking off her attributes—or flaws, judging from his expression. She suddenly felt self-conscious in her fluffy pink bedroom slippers.

  As his gaze rose again, his eyes fixed on her hands. She’d recently had her long nails silk-wrapped and painted a deep mauve. Now she was reminded of the time Sister Mary Ignatius had given her ten demerits for wearing polish in the eighth grade.

  Men usually found her attractive, but the way the inspector looked at her, she might as well have been one of Homicide’s corpses. She slid her hands into the pockets of her slacks and gave a slight ahem. His eyes met hers, but still he said nothing. It was as if he was calculating all he saw here, her included, but the numbers weren’t adding up.

  Angie couldn’t remember the last time she had met anyone so infuriatingly close-mouthed. He clearly wasn’t a man to give false assurances, to placate her with softness or warmth. She walked to the window.

  “Was it a bomb, Inspector?” She clasped her hands behind her back, her head held high as she gazed out at the bay.

  “It looks like it was. We’ll know exactly in a day or two.”

  She bowed her head. “I see. I had hoped…”

  “Would you tell me what happened?”

  She folded her arms and shrugged, looking out the window again. “There’s nothing to tell. I received a package marked Occupant and threw it in the dishwasher. I always wash my mail, doesn’t everyone? This time, though, it blew up. Must have been one dynamite detergent….”

  He waited until she had finished babbling. “I have a few questions.”

  “Sure, so do I. Like what’s going on?” she whispered as tears welled up in her. She turned to face him, to implore, but he stood rigid and frowning. At a loss, she looked around her familiar surroundings, trying to get something to make sense to her. She touched her forehead. “Would you like some coffee?” The question struck her as so inappropriate she nearly laughed. I sound like my mother, she thought. Whenever anything went wrong, Serefina Amalfi brought out the coffee. Supposedly, it made the world a little more tolerable. Angie was ready to try anything.

  “Coffee?” he asked in surprise.

  “As long as my coffee maker wasn’t damaged, that is.”

  His same impassive stare gripped her a moment. “All right. Thank you.” His reply was polite and controlled, yet his acquiescence gave Angie a welcome chance to do something other than stand around and listen to questions to which she had no answers.

  “Please be seated, Inspector Smith,” she said, gesturing toward the small armchair beside her. She squared her shoulders and went to make a pot of Italian roast. At least I can still do that, she thought. She went into the bathroom to fill the coffee pot with water, since the kitchen water was off, then stood in the corner of the kitchen while it brewed, watching the bomb team collect the fragmented remains of her package. When the coffee was ready, she served them each a cup, and even brought one to the patrolman outside her door.

  When she returned to the living room, she saw the tall, intense-looking detective folded into her delicate, yellow, nineteenth-century Hepplewhite armchair. She tried to suppress a smile. Poor man hadn’t even complained. The chair squeaked in an ominous way as he turned to take the coffee she offered.

  “Thanks,” he said with a grateful look. It was the first glimmer of humanity she had seen from the Great Stoneface.

  She sat on the sofa, her hands clasped, and waited.

  He took a sip, then glanced at her as he pulled out his notebook and a pen. His hands weren’t particularly large, but she saw power and strength in them. “Good coffee,” he said. “Full name?”

  “Angelina Rosaria Maria Amalfi.”

  He seemed to take forever to write it down. She smiled, wondering how badly he’d mangled the spelling. “Age?” he asked.

  “Twenty-four.”

  “Marital status?”

  “Single.”

  “Engaged?”

  “No.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “Which one?”

  He glanced up. “Anyone special?”

  She shook her head. “Not at the moment.” A slight smile played on her lips as she glanced at the dusty mess around her. “My luck’s been bad in a lot of areas lately.”

  His eyebrows rose ever so slightly. “Do you live here alone?”

  “Of course.”

  He pierced her with a harsh blue gaze.

  “Occupation?”

  “I do free-lance writing for magazines now and then, I’m working on a history of late-Victorian San Francisco, and I have a newspaper column.”

  “You’re a columnist?”

  “Yes. The Bay Area Shopper. It’s an advertiser, published three times a week. I write a kind of offbeat food column called ‘Eggs and Egg-onomics.’” She smiled. “The name was my idea. Readers send me recipes. The column has a very loyal following.”

  His gaze deliberately traveled over the spacious apartment with its lavish furnishings, paintings, sculptures, and million-dollar view that stretched all the way from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Bay Bridge. Her back stiffened at the skeptical expression on his face. “This is a pretty expensive apartment,” he mused, as if to himself.

  “Perhaps.”

  He swallowed more coffee and then remarked, “I didn’t know magazine articles and food columns paid so well.”

  “They don’t.”

  He leaned back in the chair and stretched his long legs in front of him. “Someone, I assume, helps you out here, so to speak.”

  She couldn’t believe his audacity. Her temper flared, but she managed to keep her voice low. “I am not a…a ‘kept woman,’ Inspector Smith. I don’t see that it matters where I get the money for my apartment.”

  He gave her a sidelong glance and hooked his thumbs in the side pockets of his slacks. “Maybe where you get the money has something to do with what happened here today.”

  He looked so cocksure of himself, she would have liked nothing better than to give the chair a little shove and watch him land on the smuggest part of all. “I pay my own rent. To my father.”

  He pulled himself up straight. “Your father owns this building?”

  She lifted her chin. “He also owns several shoe stores.”

  One dark brow arched. “I see.” His voice was quiet, pensive.

  She shrugged. “He helps keep a roof over my head and shoes on my feet. I take care of the in-between.”

  He glanced over her “in-between,” but not so quickly that she didn’t feel the force of his perusal. Then he directed his gaze at hers again.

  Her mouth felt dry. “I have investments.”

  While appearing to ponder her words, he finished his coffee and then stood and began to pace. “Now, Miss Amalfi, would you explain to me how you came to have this bomb in your dishwasher?”

  She leaned forward and rubbed her forehead, again overwhelmed by the unreality of what had happened. She wanted to scream, but instead she
relayed the story in detail. She explained that she had put the package in the dishwasher because the appliance was made of heavy metal, was well sealed, and she thought the water would destroy whatever was ticking. In fact, she told him, she considered it pretty clever to have put the package in there.

  “Miss Amalfi, are you aware of any enemies or people who dislike you for any reason whatsoever?”

  Faces of people she knew whirled through her mind. She had dozens of acquaintances but few close friends. Her college friends were scattered all over the world, her best girlfriends from high school were married now and had little in common with her, and boyfriends drifted into and out of her life without much impact. For confidences, she turned to her family, especially her oldest sister, Bianca. She knew a lot of people from work and through her parents, and she attended most big social functions in the city, but who, out of everyone, could have reason to hate her? “There’s no one,” she finally said.

  “Are there any connections you might have reason to worry about? Enemies of close friends, or of your family, perhaps?”

  Feeling suddenly tired and frustrated, she leaned forward. She slid her fingers against her scalp, rubbing her head, as if by mere concentration she could make this nonsense go away. She felt the inspector’s gaze upon her and raised her eyes to meet his. “It’s impossible, Inspector.”

  His voice was soft when he said, “I see the impossible every day.” He walked to the window and looked out toward San Francisco Bay and Alcatraz.

  Perplexed, she allowed her gaze to follow him. Something about his words, his tone, set off an unnerving resonance within her. What was it about his simple words that made her, for the first time this afternoon, fear seriously that there might be a plan at work here, that she might have actually been targeted by someone? The last thing she wanted was to believe him.

  He’s wrong, she thought. He’s insensitive, indifferent, and hateful. She studied his profile as he stood by the window. His brow was wrinkled with concentration, his lips pursed tight, and the corners of his eyes were lined with the weariness of a man who’d seen too much suffering and sorrow.

  She looked away a moment. The bomb blast must have made her truly loopy to imagine any compassion in those glacial eyes.

  He turned to face her. “Okay, Miss Amalfi.” He tossed his notebook on the coffee table in front of her, then smacked his pen on top of it. “Write down the names of your family and your employer while I go check on my men. Then we’ll get out of here for now.”

  She reached for the notebook, then pulled back her hand. “I’m sorry, but this is a waste of time. The more I think about it, the more I know a terrible mistake was made. There’s no one after me or my family. The package must have been delivered to the wrong address.”

  He stood directly in front of her, forcing her to tilt her head back to keep eye contact. “People who send bombs don’t make mistakes like that,” he said. “That kind of thinking could be dangerous. Someone doesn’t like you, Miss Amalfi. It would be best to keep that in mind.”

  She felt a rush of fear, and then doubt. “You’re just trying to scare me.”

  “If that’s what it takes to keep you alive, yes.”

  “Maybe it was a random attack by some kind of terrorist group.”

  “Going all over San Francisco leaving little packages in doorways?”

  She hated his sarcastic tone. “Exactly. A sort of Welcome Wagon in reverse.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Are you afraid to give me the names of your family?”

  She glared right back at him. It was plenty clear, she thought, that Paavo Smith was used to intimidating people by his stern looks and height as well as his profession.

  “I can’t remember the last time I was afraid of anything, Inspector Smith. For you to investigate all those names would be a waste of time.”

  “Look, Miss Amalfi,” he said, his voice a low growl, “if someone’s out there who’s interested in blowing people up, it’s my job to find him. And I never waste my time on anything. So write those names down. After I check everything out, I’ll think about whether it’s a waste. Not before.”

  He walked out of the room.

  Cold, arrogant S.O.B., she thought. Who does he think he is, Dirty Harry?

  3

  Early the next morning, Paavo eyed the thick report waiting for him on his desk. Matt must have been up all night pulling information out of the computer. Paavo took a gulp of coffee then began to go through the printouts.

  The murder victim was Samuel Jerome Kinsley, a.k.a. Sammy Blade, so called because of his penchant for carving people just enough to get them to cooperate with his employers. The rap sheet on him was a foot long: burglaries, bookmaking, and plenty of assault charges. Still, Sammy was strictly small time, not the sort of guy who attracted bullets.

  By the time Paavo finished looking at the early returns on Sammy Blade, Officer Rebecca Mayfield dropped another file under his nose. She was tall and had fluffy, shoulder-length blond hair and the kind of well-toned and well-developed body that resulted only from months of workouts at a gym.

  “What’s this, Rebecca?” Paavo stared at the title, then held up the few pages as if they were contaminated. “A bomb-squad report?”

  “It’s all about your exploding dishwasher,” Rebecca said, struggling to keep her voice serious.

  “Real funny.”

  She leaned against the low bookcase beside his desk. “So, what’s she like?”

  “Who?”

  “The Amalfi woman.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I guess you don’t read the society pages,” she said with a grin.

  “Sure I do. Every word.”

  “In that case, you know all about the Amalfis. You know they’ve got money, prestige, and lots of friends in City Hall, among other places. Chief Hollins wants to be sure the attack on the youngest Amalfi daughter gets top-notch attention. That is, your attention.”

  She’s joking, Paavo thought. Why were the women around him turning into comedians all of a sudden? “My job’s Homicide, remember?”

  “Sorry, Paavo. You were on the scene, you got her statement. Hollins doesn’t want someone else to start over. He says it’d look bad to the Amalfis.”

  “I don’t believe this.”

  Rebecca placed her hand heavily on his shoulder. “Listen, if you get the feeling she’s twisting you around her well-manicured pinky—the way it’s said she does with men—you let me know. I’ll set her straight, hear?”

  He looked from the hand on his shoulder to her eyes. “There’s no need, Rebecca.”

  “But I’ve heard—”

  “I’ll handle it.”

  She pulled her hand back and folded her arms. “Fine, then. You’re such an expert on women, I’m sure the rest of the men should just sit back and take notes!”

  He picked up the bomb-squad report, put it on the top of his stack of papers, and turned to page one.

  “Just wait!” She turned and stomped down the corridor.

  Trying to ignore her, he gave his full attention to the report. The bomb, he read, was a simple one, fast and easy to assemble, cheap to buy if you knew the right people, but powerful enough to kill a person standing nearby—like a person opening the box that contained it. At the very least, the bomb would maim and probably blind.

  He rubbed his chin as he remembered the big, wide-set brown eyes of the Amalfi woman. They had looked like they could melt stone if she set her mind to it. She was little—“petite” he guessed was the right term for her slim, trim figure. Her short, feathery brown hair had some of those glittery “highlights” women seemed to like to put in their hair. Still, he had to admit she was an attractive woman, although his preference leaned toward tall, buxom, and blond—women like Rebecca Mayfield, in fact. But he’d never mix business and pleasure. Business was important and long lasting, while pleasure tended to be illusory and fleeting.

  He glanced back at the report. By all rights, Angelin
a Amalfi should have opened the package, and it would have blown up in her face. Why didn’t she? The women he knew would have torn the wrapping off as soon as they got their hands on it. Maybe that’s what comes of being a rich girl and having so much. You don’t care about little surprises, little gifts, in life. What’s a freebie in the mail to a woman like her?

  Angelina Amalfi was obviously pampered, arrogant, and mouthy. Women were supposed to be the salt of the earth, not Stardust. Her tongue was too sharp, her chin too proud, and she wore the damnedest silly pink bedroom slippers he’d ever seen.

  A homicide inspector has no business handling a case like this, he decided, suddenly irritated. Maybe that was why he’d treated her the way he had. He felt bad about it, he had to admit. He’d always been easy on victims, tried to comfort and reassure them even while his mind was already analyzing motivation, suspects, even signs of guilt. And she clearly was a victim. She could have made things a lot simpler, by just answering his questions, listening to his advice, and locking her doors. But instead she had kept up this dangerous insistence that the bomb was a mistake, as if such ugliness couldn’t possibly enter the charmed, unsullied life she led.

  It had, though, and now it was his job to do something about it. He had no business letting her behavior get to him. He forced his concentration back to the report.

  In addition to being rigged to go off when opened, the bomb had a timer on it. Why? To be sure it went off while Angelina Amalfi was in the apartment alone?

  Whoever delivered it must have been someone who knew her habits. Or, someone who had been just plain lucky to catch her alone.

  No, Paavo thought as he considered how powerful the bomb was. Angelina Amalfi was the one who was lucky. She might not be so lucky next time.

  Angie clutched the sides of her head. It felt ready to explode, throbbing mercilessly every time the plumber banged on the kitchen pipes. She stared at the words reflected on the screen of her computer, trying to concentrate, but they seemed to jump and grow blurry.

  That damn newspaper article about the bomb blast had caused this trouble. Her phone had rung off the hook all morning. All four of her older sisters had come by to see her, but none of them had brought their husbands or kids. She figured they were afraid more mad bombers might be lurking around her apartment. Her sisters’ visits were “duty,” but they must have thought it foolhardy to expose their families to danger.