Something's Cooking

by Joanne Pence

  Her mouth opened as she swayed toward him. He pulled her against him as his tongue plunged deep. She could feel the heat rising in her body, building a fire more intense than anything she had ever experienced. Where her covered breasts met his bare chest, she felt seared.

  Still holding her wrists, he rained kisses from her throat, to her shoulders, to her breasts. Then he unfastened her skirt and let it drop. He placed his hands under the neckline of her leotard and slid it off her shoulders.

  His eyes met hers, and his look softened. Ever so slowly, he undressed her completely, as if every movement was precious to him. He traced his fingers over her back and her stomach, as if trying to memorize them with his fingertips. He lifted her arms to his shoulders as he caressed her, his hands increasingly probing, increasingly intimate.

  “Wait,” she whispered. She undressed him, then, much as he had done, she traced her fingers over his body and followed her fingers with her tongue. She heard his low moan of pleasure as she reached the center of his desire.

  She felt him throb as he suddenly pulled her up, lifted her into his arms, and then carried her to the bed and gently placed her on it. She tried to etch his face forever in her heart.

  He kissed her eyelids, forcing her eyes shut, and then returned hungrily to her mouth.

  She opened herself to him, and he thrust deeply as if he couldn’t get enough of her, as if he needed enough to last a lifetime. She gave herself to him completely, with no holding back. The wonder was, as much as she gave, he returned in kind.

  28

  Paavo held open the door to the taxi cab. Angie was dressed in her slacks and Paavo’s army jacket once again, her “hooker clothes” left behind in the waste basket in his room. She was ready to leave, but not yet willing.

  She fought the sudden tightness in her throat and the pressure against her eyes as she approached the cab.

  “Wait.” He reached toward her and his fingertips lightly brushed against her cheek. “You be careful.”

  “Sure, I have nothing to worry about, right?” She couldn’t stop the bitter tone in her words. “George is dead, so the newspaper office is safe. You’ll soon arrest Crane, so when I do go back to my apartment, I won’t need Rico or Joey anymore. Everything’s coming up roses….”

  “Just stay at my place until it’s all over and we’re sure we’ve got the right man.”

  She looked into his eyes, her heart filled with regret that they had come to this. “Of course,” she whispered.

  He coiled his fingers into the back of her hair, his arm resting on her shoulder. The blueness of his eyes was clouded, and his voice deep and soft as he spoke. “I’m not arresting Crane yet. We’ve got nothing to hold him on. But I’ll watch him and see who he leads us to. As soon as we have him and I’m sure your apartment is safe, I’ll send a squad car by to take you home.”

  She lowered her eyes a moment and then raised them again to his. “I understand,” she said. She wanted to say more, anything that would convince him he was wrong about the two of them. But she knew no words could penetrate his belief that her feelings for him were ephemeral, simply a result of the current situation. And his feelings for her? He had never spoken words of love; perhaps there were none to be spoken.

  She climbed into the cab. She turned to close the door, but Paavo held it ajar, as he stood watching her.

  “Good-bye, Paavo,” she said, her voice hushed. She waited, the silence hanging between them, and then he shut the door and backed away.

  Later that morning, Angie made the usual calls to her mother and sisters. She didn’t have much to say. Serefina was back in Palm Springs with Salvatore and, as usual, asked about Paavo. Angie said he was fine, working hard. Then she hung up, feeling worse than ever.

  She was restless. Something about Paavo’s plan was wrong, very wrong. Whatever it was had bothered her for days, but it was always just beyond her comprehension.

  She checked her watch. It was early afternoon. Paavo was probably asleep again, knowing he’d have a long night of Crane-watching. Angie, though, was keyed up. She paced around the house, but it didn’t help.

  Finally, she decided to go down to the Bay Area Shopper to find out what was happening there. Paavo had told her to stay in his house, but she hadn’t listened to him before. Why start now? Besides, she hadn’t turned in a column since the one from Bodega Bay and, in fact, didn’t even know if she still had a job.

  As she pushed open the revolving doors at the entrance to the building that housed the Shopper, she realized what it was that had bothered her for so long about the police department’s explanation of what was going on. George was innocent.

  Paavo and all the others were so sure that because George had requested Crane’s recipes from her, and then George was killed, he must have been involved. But they hadn’t known George.

  The police had wrapped up a neat little package and she had gone along with it. After all, George was dead, he couldn’t be hurt by it. But the premise was wrong, and she—and others—could be very hurt by such a mistake. Here, in this building, George’s murderer had lurked that terrible night, and perhaps he—or she—was still here. Angie agreed with the police that the case involved the Shopper and her recipes, so the key had to be in these offices. She would have to find it on her own.

  She rode the elevator to the second floor. A shudder rippled through her as she realized how empty George’s desk would seem, but she straightened her shoulders and held her head high.

  Every eye in the room seemed to be on her as she walked through the double doors to the main office. That was good, she wanted lots of attention. The police were off the track, and the killer felt safe. Maybe if Angie made enough noise, whoever the contact at the Shopper was would get nervous and give Crane a signal. Then Paavo would at least be able to catch Crane in the act of doing something other than parading around the Tenderloin as a transvestite.

  If her plan worked, then whoever was behind this was going to think Angie was on her way to meet her loyal fan Edward G. Crane. George’s killer had to know about Crane and might be nervous at the idea of her meeting him. Paavo would probably notice if someone among the Shopper personnel contacted Crane.

  She plunged into her act, not allowing herself to debate what she was doing. If she did, she’d surely see the flaws in her argument and the danger she could be subjecting herself to. But then, wasn’t she in danger, anyway, if the guilty person wasn’t apprehended?

  “Hello there, Bill,” she said to the startled copy boy, who stood surrounded by a group of coworkers. Her gaze swept over them quickly, and Bill’s ears turned bright red as he croaked out a short hello.

  The group around him included another boy as youthful as Bill, a stooped, white-haired man who stared at her with a vacant expression, and several others. “I’m so excited, Bill,” Angie continued.

  This made Bill stand a little straighter and his friends huddle closer. “Really?” he said.

  “Yes. I’m going to meet my biggest fan, the number one contributor to my column.”

  “That’s really neat.”

  “Isn’t it? His name is Edward Crane.”

  “Oh.”

  “See you later, love,” she said as she breezed off. That would give his friends plenty to talk about.

  There, that wasn’t so hard, she decided, quite sure what had passed was just an exercise. No one in that group could possibly have anything to do with murder, could they?

  “Mrs. Cruz!” she cried, walking up to Jon Preston’s secretary.

  “What a surprise, Angie,” the older woman said. “We’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve got such exciting news!” she practically shouted, catching the attention of the women in the typing pool. She then launched into her plans to meet Crane and was given a thorough dressing down by Mrs. Cruz for being so foolish as to even think about meeting a strange man—especially since George had been murdered by an unknown assailant. The secretary told Angie she should call the police immed
iately. Edward G. Crane’s recipes were clearly those of a perverted mind.

  “What is going on?” Jon Preston peered out his office door. He sounded irritated at the noise level in the outer office. When he saw Angie, his eyes widened and he ran his palm over the blond hair above his ear, as if to assure himself it was still perfectly in place.

  Mrs. Cruz repeated Angie’s story to him, saving Angie from having to go through it again.

  “—and I told her it was sheer madness to go through with this,” she concluded.

  “You should listen to good advice, Miss Amalfi,” Mr. Preston said, fingering his tie. “There are strange goings-on here.” He went back into his office and shut the door.

  One last stop. She went down to the pressmen’s area. Everyone was busy at work since the paper was due out the next day.

  She found Mr. O’Malley, the foreman of the group, a beer-bellied, balding man who was sweating profusely. “Hello, there,” she said loudly, interrupting everyone. The typesetters looked up, then down again, and continued to work. It wasn’t often one of the writers came down there, but they didn’t appear impressed.

  “Yes, ma’am,” O’Malley said, acknowledging her presence as he dabbed his brow with a once-white handkerchief.

  “I just wanted you to know my column will be starting up again.”

  He scowled. “It’s up to the people upstairs to get things down to me on time. I’m not holding up my paper.”

  “I know, I just—”

  “Good, then. They do their job, I do mine.” He turned around.

  “But—” Angie had to shout to make herself heard over the machinery. “But I’m going to meet my best fan.”

  O’Malley turned toward her again, looking at her as if she were crazy. He said nothing.

  “Edward Crane, my biggest fan,” she repeated. “He’s going to give me more recipes.”

  O’Malley remained silent. Then he took a step toward her, his barrel chest puffing as his face tightened. “Lady, I don’t care if you’re going to meet the Pope.”

  She turned and hurried out of there, her face burning. At least I tried, she thought, as she rode the elevator up to the main offices.

  She sat down at a desk with a heavy sigh. They all looked innocent, every one of them, but she knew George was innocent! Nothing made sense. Why would someone kill George and want her dead, too? Sam gave her recipes, but Crane wrote them. Crane must have known about George’s murder and then gone into hiding. Was he the murderer, or another potential victim?

  Her head hurt. Maybe what she needed to do was simply go back to writing her columns and let the detectives do the detecting. But at the same time, her plan hadn’t been a bad one. Someone was behind this mess, and she needed to find out who that was. If she gave it more time, that someone might crack.

  She rolled a sheet of paper into the typewriter—such a quaint machine!—and began to compose what she hoped would be a humorous column about the effect of saffron on sex appeal and red dye number three as an acne deterrent. Words glided from her fingertips, and she felt pleased that all the recent trouble hadn’t squelched her creativity.

  “Oh, you’re still here, Miss Amalfi.” Jon Preston stood just outside the door of his office.

  She looked up. The room was empty; she hadn’t realized how engrossed she had become, nor how late the hour was. Her night in the Tenderloin had her internal clock out of kilter.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it was past quitting time.”

  He walked toward her carefully, as if sidestepping specks of dirt on the carpet. The man was meticulous, with never a thread out of place. “It’s quite all right. I’m surprised to see a young, attractive woman take such an interest in her job these days.”

  Angie leaned back in her chair. “Really? These days I would have thought quite the opposite.”

  He laughed, revealing a perfect set of teeth. “Forgive me, Miss Amalfi, I seem to have struck an antifeminist chord. Purely unintentional, believe me.” He sighed, patting his sideburns before continuing. “George—poor George—told me many times that you were quite exceptional at your work.”

  Now he had Angie’s attention. “How kind!”

  “Oh, yes, he was all heart. Unfortunately, now that he’s gone, there’s no one to do his job.”

  “You haven’t filled it temporarily?”

  “I’m doing both jobs, Miss Amalfi. May I call you Angie?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.” She was taken aback; Mr. Preston was never familiar with his employees.

  “I’d like to ask a favor of you, Angie, if I might?”

  “Why, of course, Mr. Preston.”

  “Would you be my feature editor? Temporarily, of course. You do have a good eye for the offbeat and humorous, even though you’re not a real newspaper type. Actually, you might work out at it quite well. Then the job would be yours permanently, if you were interested.”

  Her jaw fell. “Me?”

  “I would appreciate it greatly. Got to keep things shipshape, you know, and that requires a top-notch first mate. I’m not one to run the day-to-day operation. Not my style. I prefer publishing to editing. What do you say, Angie? For George’s sake?”

  “For George?” Her head was spinning. Feature editor of the Bay Area Shopper. Could she handle it? Damn right she could! She was thrilled.

  “I think your offer is overwhelming, Mr. Preston. Since, as you say, it is just temporary, I would be willing to do the job, just to help you out until you find a permanent replacement for George.”

  “Wonderful! Now, let me take you to dinner to celebrate!” He extended his hand to help her out of her chair.

  She should go to Paavo’s house in case he called. She took Preston’s proffered hand and stood. “I’m sorry, but I—”

  “Really, we must. I have lots of information and materials to give you. The sooner, the better and, frankly, I’m hungry.” He lifted her jacket off the back of her chair and held it for her to slip on. She did so and then glanced at her watch.

  “Won’t it be a little late? I mean, won’t your wife mind your talking business in the evening?”

  “I was divorced last year.” He smoothed the jacket over her shoulders, placed his hand against the small of her back, and guided her out the door. Her uneasiness grew.

  The man was cloyingly well mannered, hovering over her as if ready to fulfill her smallest wish, while producing a constant stream of chatter as they rode down the elevator to the employee parking lot where his oversized Mercedes waited.

  They went to an intimate and understated haute cuisine restaurant, where her casual Oscar de la Renta dress didn’t appear out of place. He ordered dinner after carefully quizzing her about her feelings on each dish. When she looked at him with some exasperation, he said, “Some meals must be memorable, Angie,” which struck her as rather odd.

  The food was probably quite good, but she had no appetite and picked at it with her fork. As excited as she was about her new position, she couldn’t keep her mind off Paavo. She wondered what he was doing, where he was—if he was safe. Had he arrested Crane yet? Was he home? What would he say when she told him she would be an editor?

  Finally, she put down her fork. “I’m very tired, Mr. Preston. I must be terrible company. I really think I should go home. Perhaps we can continue our discussion tomorrow?”

  “Of course I understand. I’m really quite grateful, Angie. The last thing in the world I want is that editor’s job hanging over my head one more day! Believe me, I’ll make it up to you.”

  He called for the check and then whisked her out of the restaurant.

  The night was quite dark. The fog had rolled in early from the ocean, masking the stars and moonlight and blanketing the streets with a fine mist.

  Preston put an arm around her shoulders. Angie found this offensive and stepped away from him. He flashed her a look—no, it couldn’t have been as hostile as it had appeared. The fog surrounding the street lights must have created shadows on his face
that made it look menacing. She shook away the start he had given her.

  The man reeked with charm, money, and good looks. There was no reason she should feel uneasy around him. She gave him a bright smile as she climbed into his car.

  29

  “Why are we stopping here?” Angie asked.

  Preston had pulled into the driveway of a Victorian mansion in Pacific Heights, high atop Jackson Street.

  “This is my home.”

  Angie stiffened. “I’m sorry, Mr. Preston, but—”

  “Relax, Angie. I’ll just take a minute. I want to give you the spare keys to the Shopper offices. Now that you’re my editor, I can get away for a couple of days on my yacht. I plan to start first thing in the morning, as a matter of fact. That is, if you’ll allow me to give you the keys.”

  “Surely, others have keys.”

  “Who’s in charge, Angie? You are.”

  His voice was smooth and reasonable. She felt quite foolish arguing with him.

  His eyes widened. “Oh, dear! You aren’t thinking I intend any untoward behavior, I hope.”

  Embarrassed at those exact thoughts, her face reddened as she shook her head.

  “My dear, I hadn’t thought…I mean, I never condone any fraternizing…I thought you knew. Well, I’d hoped to show off my antiques to someone who could appreciate them, but if you’d like, you can stay here in the car while I run inside. I didn’t mean to discomfort you, Angie.”

  She felt like a first-class ninny. “It’s all right. I’d love to come in.”

  “You trust me, then?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m gratified.” He got out of the car, hurried to her side, and opened the door for her.

  The house looked like a large, brown shingle-home from the outside, but the inside was breathtaking, filled with American antiques of a quality usually found only in museums, bright Oriental carpets, glistening hardwood floors, and primitive American artwork. Everything was perfectly placed and shining, as if on display. Angie stood in the doorway of what Preston called his parlor, hesitant to disturb the quiet ambience.