Something's Cooking

by Joanne Pence

  “There.” Paavo popped open the can, half filled their glasses, and tore open the cookie wrapper. He faced Angie, and the easy smile he wore vanished. In its place was an odd expression.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I…sorry.” He took a sip of his beer.

  “It’s okay.”

  “I’d better change so we can get out of here.”

  “But it’s really very nice right here,” she said. “I don’t mind staying.”

  “I promised you dinner.”

  “I’ll cook. I love to cook.”

  “No—”

  “My cooking’s that bad, huh?” She tried to smile but couldn’t help feeling hurt. She dropped her gaze from his and stared instead at the bubbles in her beer glass, absentmindedly petting Hercules. He purred in appreciation, and she glanced down at him. “Well, at least somebody likes my company.”

  “Angelina.” Paavo sighed as he settled his long body back against the sofa, his head cocked as he regarded her. “What to do with you?”

  Her gaze went first to his eyes, then to his prominent cheekbones, his straight, winged brows, his mouth, which she had come to find so expressive and sensuous, the funny little bend to his nose, and then his lithe, powerful body.

  His question was far too tempting. It made her think of things she’d like him to do with her, and she with him. His nearness made her breath quicken and her pulse throb. There was no way she could answer his question.

  “You’re sorry I came?” she finally asked in a hushed voice.

  He dropped a hand to grip his knee. “The problem’s the opposite.”

  For a moment she couldn’t believe what she’d heard. She placed her hand in his and twined their fingers together. Neither spoke. She studied her small, fair hand with long, currently lilac nails, against his large, rough one. She liked the feel of him. She liked everything she had learned about him that day.

  “What’s wrong, Paavo?”

  He rubbed his free hand over his eyes and nose, and held it against his mouth for a moment. “This is crazy.”

  “What is?”

  “This. You. I enjoyed today and yesterday far too much.”

  “Is that a crime, Inspector?”

  He glanced at her, then looked away. “One of the first things you learn as a rookie is to watch out for damsels in distress.”

  “Oh?”

  “They cloud your judgment, making it more dangerous for both of you.” His eyes met hers. “For both, do you understand?”

  She nodded, knowing, but hating, the truth of what he was saying. She pulled her hand away. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  He cupped her chin. She didn’t breathe as he lightly ran his thumb over her lips, a poor substitute for the kiss she wanted. But he held back. The look he gave her deepened and softened, as if he were memorizing her features. Then he dropped his hand and stood up with a shake of his head. “Let’s get out of here before my good intentions go by the wayside.”

  At that, he stood quickly and left the room.

  It was moments before her breathing returned to normal. Never before had she known a man whose mere touch had such an effect on her.

  She tried to distract herself by looking through his magazines and books. She was surprised at his taste in literature—Mann, Proust, Conrad, as well as murder mysteries and science fiction. The most surprising thing was that the former looked every bit as well worn as the latter.

  She heard the shower running as she looked at the books. His words, though, kept sounding in her ears. It was the nicest rejection she had ever received.

  A short while later, he came back into the room wearing a black turtleneck sweater and light gray linen slacks, and carrying a darker gray sports jacket. His hair was shining and soft looking.

  “Ready,” he announced.

  “Very nice,” she said with frankness.

  His eyebrows rose a moment. “Thank you.” He stepped toward her. “Ready?”

  “Yes.”

  As he reached for the knob to the front door, the phone rang. Paavo opened the door.

  “Shouldn’t you answer?” Angie asked.

  “The answering machine will click on soon. Maybe we ought to just get out of here. If it’s the force, they can use my beeper, anyway.”

  “Well, whatever.” She hated the insistent ringing.

  He hesitated, looking at the phone, and then hooked his jacket onto the back of a chair and moved toward the phone.

  Suddenly she wanted to tell him to stop, to forget the call, to let them have their evening together. But it was too late. The answering machine had turned on.

  “Paavo,” the gruff voice of Hollins boomed over the recorder, “call the station. Ask for me or Calderon.”

  Paavo grabbed the receiver. “Wait, I’m here. What’s up?”

  Angie felt her stomach knot. Maybe everything would be all right, maybe she just had a twinge of nerves, not anything like a premonition at all.

  Her heart pounded as she watched him listening to his boss. Something was wrong, she realized almost immediately. He held the phone, first with one hand, then he lifted the other to grasp the mouthpiece. There was an imperceptible stiffening to his stance, and though she was only twenty feet away from him, he suddenly seemed an ocean away as the coldness surged across the room.

  “Yes…yes, I’m still here….” His voice was harsh, strained, filled with a bitter anger that made her cringe inside. “Did you tell Katie?…God….” His gaze lifted to Angie, but although he was staring directly at her, he didn’t seem to see her. Then the veil dropped from his eyes, and as his gaze focused on hers, she was shaken by the pain and sorrow she saw. Her throat tightened. She stood, wanting to go to him, to do whatever she could to help, but hesitated, still feeling the force of the wall he’d built around himself. He turned his back to her. His voice was devoid of emotion.

  “Where was he?…I see…. Okay, I’m coming down…. No, I’ll be there anyway…. I don’t care…. All right, all right.” He quietly set the receiver back down.

  She waited.

  Slowly, he walked to the chair and picked up his jacket. “A change in plans. I’ve got to go to the station.” His voice was flat. He looked at the far wall and stopped speaking.

  “Paavo?” she said gently, walking to his side and lightly touching his back.

  He grunted and walked into his bedroom. She waited a while, and then, when he didn’t return, followed him to the doorway. Her stomach knotted. He stood on the far side of the room with his back to her, wearing his shoulder holster, his shoulders slumped, his arms at his sides. He seemed to be looking at a wall covered with pictures and scrolls, commendations from the force and the city.

  She walked across a bedroom that was as warm and cozy as the rest of the house, with Colonial pine furniture and a Paavo-sized bed covered with an old quilted comforter. Tenderly, she placed a hand on his arm. “What is it?”

  “There.” He pointed at a photo of a boyishlooking, blond-haired policeman with his arm around Paavo’s shoulders. They each were wearing blue patrolman’s uniforms with brass buttons and shiny badges. Both looked very young, very happy, and very innocent.

  “That’s my partner, Matt. Eleven years ago we were both rookies. Hired about a month apart. Him first, then me. He liked to say I was the ‘junior’ partner.” He stopped. The room vibrated with the pounding of his heartbeat, the shallow, ragged breathing in his chest. He turned toward her, his eyes now gray, the color of a rainstorm. He searched her face, as if wishing she could tell him it wasn’t true, but she couldn’t help him, she couldn’t stop his pain. “Matt was killed today.”

  Her grip tightened on his arm. One part of her expected to hear something like this, ever since she had seen his reaction to the telephone call, but another part refused to believe it. Refused to believe in this kind of violence, in this kind of death. Despite all the movies and T.V. shows about the police, despite what Crossen had told her yesterday about shoot-outs, she could
not accept that such things really happened.

  Her heart ached for Paavo, for the agony she had seen in his eyes, the pain in his voice, and the emptiness he was withdrawing into now. She looked again at the photograph on the wall of the young man with his arm around Paavo, the man so happy and so full of life.

  Her eyes locked with his. “I’m sorry,” was all she could say, and she knew it wasn’t nearly enough.

  “Well.” He wrapped the keys in his fist and turned away from the picture, breaking her hold on him. “That’s the chance we take. We know it can happen any time. We live with it. Every day. Part of the job.”

  He was shutting himself off, repressing the devastation the news had caused within him. It made his words cut through her all the more. Tears stung her eyes. He was trying so hard to not feel, to lock in his grief, but she had learned enough about him this day—his veneer had cracked just enough—that she knew he was bleeding inside.

  “If he was your friend,” she said, her throat tight, “I know he was a good cop.”

  Paavo walked to the door of the bedroom and placed one hand on the jamb. He leaned into his arm, as if barely able to support himself, then looked back at Matt’s photo. “He was one of the best, Angie.”

  He shut the bedroom light and walked into the living room. Angie followed him, feeling helpless and inadequate, wanting to do something but not knowing what.

  “I’ll take you home,” he said, putting on his jacket. “Sorry about dinner.”

  “No.” She stepped toward him, wanting to wrap her arms around him and hold him, but because of his reserve, she didn’t dare. Instead she said only, “Take me with you.”

  His eyes flickered, and then he shook his head. “I’ve got to go to the hospital, see what I can learn there and at the station. I’ll find who did this, whatever it takes. I’ll find who…” His breath came short and fast. “Sometime I’ll have to stop at the house. See Katie. That’ll be the hardest.”

  “Don’t go alone, Paavo. Let me go with you. Let me just…just be there.” Her eyes caught his and she felt as if she were sinking, helplessly, into their blue depths.

  He pulled his gaze away. “No,” he said brusquely, sounding colder and harder than she had ever heard him sound before.

  He drove her home in silence, walked her to her apartment, made sure Joey was there, and left.

  Angie stood in the doorway and watched him until the elevator doors had shut between them. He was stubborn, trying so hard to hide the tremendous capacity for love and pain she had witnessed behind a cold exterior. She didn’t ask him to call later, but she had held her door open as a way to convey to him that if he needed her, she’d be there. She only hoped he had understood. Mister Inspector.

  She touched her face and felt her cheeks wet with tears.

  Before long, she retired for the night, but sleep wouldn’t come. As she tossed about for what seemed like hours, all she could think about was Paavo—not Crane or Waffles or bombs or anything else, just Paavo and his friend, Matt, until at last, she fell into a restless slumber.

  Hours later, she awoke to the sound of hushed voices in the living room. The bedroom door opened. In the silhouette defined by the light cast by the T.V., she recognized her detective in the doorway.

  He shut the door and crossed the darkened room to her dressing table, stopped a moment, then turned to leave.

  “Paavo.” She sat up, barely able to make out his figure in the moonlit room.

  “Angie, I…” His voice was hoarse and exhausted. “I didn’t mean to wake you.” He took a half step toward her, then stopped and withdrew his foot as if he were about to trespass. “I saw so much ugliness tonight.” His voice dropped to almost a whisper. “Then I saw something that reminded me of you. I wanted to bring it to you…to apologize for involving you….”

  He stopped and rubbed his face wearily. “Now I feel like a first-class fool.”

  “Come here,” she said, reaching out her arms toward him. He crossed the room and she clasped his hands, pulling him down to sit on the edge of her bed. “You’re anything but a fool, Inspector.”

  He sat stiffly, unwilling to respond to her or even to acknowledge her touch. Then he turned his face away and drew back. “Go to sleep now.”

  “Paavo, wait.” She grasped his arm, and he looked at her again. As he did, her arms circled his shoulders. “Don’t go.”

  She pressed her cheek to his, holding him, knowing instinctively that despite his abrupt manner, his coming here meant that he realized, on some level, that he needed her.

  He put his hands on her waist as if to push her away, but then they stilled, almost caressingly, against her cool, satiny nightgown. Then his hands clenched, crushing the material within his strong fists.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have come. I don’t even know why I did.” He pulled back. Even in the darkness, she could see the agony etched in his face, the torment in his eyes. “Your world is so different from mine,” he said. “Here there’s light, there’s still hope…”

  “You’re in my world now. Try not to think about the other.”

  “If you saw the other…” He shook his head, his eyes shut, as if trying to forget, but the more he tried, the more he seemed to remember.

  “I went there.” His jaw was clenched, as if the words were being dragged from him. “To the street where it happened. I had to see.” He stopped, and the pounding of his heart reverberated through her own body.

  She lightly stroked his brow, his cheeks, then lay her hands against his ears as she spoke. “It’s all right, Paavo. It’s all right to hurt.”

  He shook his head. “God, Angie!” It was a cry for her from deep within his soul. Wordlessly, she wrapped him in her arms. She held him tightly, fiercely, achingly, as if through sheer physical closeness she could absorb some of the pain and loss he felt.

  His arms tightened like a vice, crushing her against him until it almost hurt. “Christ, Angie, I’m a cop. I’m supposed to be used to these things.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut and twined her fingers in his hair, trying to gather him even closer. “You’re a man, too. A very caring man, I think.”

  He buried his face against her neck, and when he spoke his voice was choked. “Matt was shot in the back, Angie. He was my friend, my best friend, and he died alone on the streets.”

  She felt the hot tears fall against her shoulder before she felt him shake with silent sobs, before his whole body wrenched with grief.

  His pain seared through her. Her heart ached for him, for Matt, and tears rolled from her eyes too. She lay back on the bed, pulling him down with her, then wrapped her arms firmly around him, her grip strong as he wept for his partner, his friend. Eventually, his agony seemed to ease, and as the first glimmer of dawn lit the sky, exhaustion overcame him, and he slept.

  She didn’t remember falling asleep. She didn’t remember hearing him leave. All she knew was that when she opened her eyes, the room was bright with sunlight, and she was alone.

  For a moment, she wondered if she had dreamed the whole thing. Then her gaze caught the dresser, and Paavo’s words came back to her, overwhelming her. What an extraordinary man, she thought, as tears filled her eyes, that in the midst of his own grief, he would think of such a thing.

  There, lying on the dresser, was a single red rose.

  15

  “Miss Angelina,” Rico said, stepping into the den. “You have a telephone call from a Mr. Crane.”

  “Crane!” Angie hurried to the phone.

  “Brussels sprouts and chocolate sauce? Miss Amalfi, where are my recipes?” It sounded like the man was on the verge of tears.

  “I’m sorry, I—”

  “You’re sorry! You don’t know what this means!” he whined.

  “Let me explain.”

  “Please. You’re so good to me. I just—sardines over eggs, oh, Miss Amalfi!”

  “I’m sorry! Listen, someone stole your recipes.”

  �
�What?” His high-pitched voice nearly broke her eardrums.

  “My apartment was burglarized, and someone took them.”

  “Took them. I see. Well, thank you.”

  “Wait!” She had to talk to him, to figure out a way for Paavo to meet him and question him about Sam. “You can give me more recipes.”

  “No. I really don’t think I should come by—”

  “I’ll come to your place.”

  “Here?”

  “I need those recipes. My readers love them, you know. They’re important for my job.”

  “Well, I do have copies of what was stolen…”

  “That’s great. I’ll meet you in a couple of hours. Where are you?”

  “Just you?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m at 501 Third Street, Room eight. Come now. I’ll be waiting.”

  The phone went dead.

  “Oh my God!” Angie rubbed her forehead.

  “You all right, Miss?” Rico asked.

  She looked up at him. “Yes.” She reached for the phone to call Paavo, and then hesitated and drew back her hand.

  All morning she had hoped he would contact her, but he hadn’t. Had she been too pushy last night? Did he regret letting her get so close, letting her see his grief? These questions palgued her. She didn’t know where he was and she certainly didn’t know if he’d want to speak to her.

  Now, though, she had no choice but to contact him.

  She telephoned the station. As usual, he wasn’t there, but he was working, and the police sergeant said he’d reach him right away.

  She waited anxiously, wondering if she had done the right thing. It was almost a half hour later when the phone rang.

  “It’s me,” he said, his voice heavy with weariness.

  “Hi. How are you today?” She tried to sound cheerful.

  “I’m…fine. Yourself?” His manner was stilted, almost irritated.

  “I’m fine. But I wanted to know about you. I care about you, you know.”

  She heard his sudden intake of breath, then a pause as he slowly exhaled. “Look, Angie,” he said, his voice flat and expressionless. “That’s real nice, but I’m busy.”