Cooking Most Deadly

by Joanne Pence

  “She lives right here, in Apartment 12…1202,” he said.

  “Twelve-oh-two,” the man repeated, his head still downturned as if bowing to Stan. “Thanks. I’ll take them up.”

  “I’m going up there,” Stan said. “I live across the hall, so I don’t mind saving you a trip. Anyway, she’s never home in the afternoon.”

  “Oh…she’s not? Okay, then. Thanks, pal.” The man shoved the flowers at Stan and hurried away.

  By the time the elevator let Stan off on the twelfth floor, he was feeling a little guilty about what he’d done. Just a little.

  Paavo knocked on Angie’s door. He had left work promptly at 4:30, almost unheard of for him, driven across town to shower and change, and made it to Angie’s place before their six o’clock date. The last thing he wanted was to be late.

  Last night, he’d phoned and phoned, not giving up until he reached her instead of her answering machine. She didn’t tell him where she’d been, which wasn’t like her at all. It made him feel strange. Suspicious. Where had she gone? With whom? But to show that he trusted her, he didn’t ask.

  Instead, he made a date with her for this evening, and he planned to keep it. Particularly if she was going to star in her own TV show. He wondered if he’d be able to compete with the type of men she’d meet. Or if she was already growing tired of him, and that’s why she’d been out so much lately and not saying where.

  That something about the two of them was troubling her was clear. Since she’d been so secretive recently, he couldn’t help but suspect she’d met someone new or was, at minimum, having second thoughts about their relationship.

  When he heard the doorknob turn, his pulse quickened. She opened the door.

  She wore a lace-trimmed, ivory-colored silk top and matching wide-legged pajama pants. The outfit was soft, expensive, and feminine—just like Angie. She smiled, and in a moment he held her in his arms and kissed her. He gave the door a shove with his foot and listened for the click of the latch, not even wanting to turn away for the time it took to shut the door properly.

  “I missed you,” he said, all his earlier doubts foolishly vanishing in the glow of her smile. “But I don’t want to wrinkle your pretty new outfit.”

  “Wrinkle it,” she ordered.

  His grin, he suspected, was too wide, too lopsided, and too out-and-out dopey, but that was how she made him feel. How easily she could get him to smile, even laugh, still surprised him. Before meeting her, he’d almost forgotten how.

  “Where are we going to dinner?” he asked, still holding her.

  “Chez Angelina.”

  “What?”

  “We’re eating right here.”

  “Here? I didn’t want you to work. I wanted to take you out.”

  “You expect me to give up a chance to keep you all to myself? No way!”

  His eyes crinkled into a mischievous glint as he took off his sport jacket and loosened his tie. “All right, Miss Amalfi,” he said. “If you want me to yourself that much, then you’ve got me.” He dropped his jacket on a chair and stepped toward her.

  She placed her hands against his shoulders, backing up. “Wait! When did you last eat?”

  He kept walking forward and she kept backing up until she backed into her Chippendale desk. He leaned forward and kissed her. “Who cares?” he murmured.

  Who indeed, she thought, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. She was right, suggesting they stay here this evening. His kisses were dizzying, soon driving all thought from her mind. Her arms tightened around him, and she pressed her body against his as their kisses deepened. He even made her ears ring…and ring…and…

  “Oh! The timer.” She pulled away.

  “What timer?” he asked.

  Adjusting her clothes she headed toward the kitchen. “Dinner.”

  “Now?”

  “This meal,” she said, keeping her voice low and sultry, “will be a seduction in itself.” Then she winked.

  Big blue eyes widened with pleased curiosity.

  She laughed. “Come on, big man. You can help.”

  He followed her into the kitchen and checked pots, pans, and bowls as she proudly announced a dinner of filets mignon, lobster tails, asparagus tips, saffron rice, Caesar salad, red and white wine, and sourdough bread. For dessert, one Italian rum tart for Paavo. She’d given up dessert for Lent, after all. The only thing left to do was to fire up the heavy skillet and put the two thick filets mignon in the bed of melted garlic butter.

  A shave-and-a-haircut beat sounded at the door.

  “Watch the filets,” she said to Paavo, who was slicing the sourdough. “I’ll take care of this.”

  She hurried across the living room and peeked through the peephole before opening the door. “I’m busy.”

  “And hello to you, too,” Stan said cheerfully, slipping past her into the apartment. “Where were you all afternoon?”

  “I don’t have time to talk, Stan. Go home.” She stayed at the door.

  “But I brought some dessert for us.” He tossed her a paper bag. “Also, I wanted to tell you about my day today. There was even a strange deliveryman.” He crossed the living room and sank into her sofa.

  “That sounds fascinating,” she said drily. Leaving the door open she looked inside the bag. “One cookie?”

  “But it’s a Mrs. Fields. Very rich. We can split it. How about some coffee? Dinner smells great, by the way. I can tell you about the delivery while we eat.”

  “Angie, you’d better check these steaks,” Paavo said, stepping into the dining area from the kitchen. He stopped short, his eyes narrowing as he gave Angie’s neighbor a quick once-over. “Well, well, look who’s here.”

  Stan jumped to his feet. “Oh, I didn’t know you had company, Angie. And here I thought you’d want some intellectual conversation. Oh, well, some other time.” He snatched back the paper bag with the cookie. “By the way,” he said, dropping his voice seductively, “thanks a lot for last night.” He lifted an eyebrow at Paavo as he sauntered from the room. Angie shut the door behind him.

  “You were with Bonnette last night?” Paavo asked, his eyes glacial.

  “It was nothing.” Angie tried to push him back into the kitchen.

  “Bonnette seemed to find it special.”

  “Pay no attention to him.”

  “You haven’t said where you two went.”

  “No.” How could she tell him she’d gone with Stan to take a cold, calculated look at the singles scene. She found it wanting. Badly. “We went to the Sound Works.”

  “A dance club?”

  She nodded.

  “I see.”

  “No, I don’t think you do. Stan said we should go out to celebrate my upcoming audition. I agreed.”

  His gaze was hard. “That’s right. I was busy last night, wasn’t I?”

  “I waited, but—”

  “It’s okay, Angie,” he said quietly. “I understand.”

  “Stop saying you understand! Stan’s a friend.”

  “Right. And the Sound Works is the kind of place to go to with a friend. Lots of single people go there—to dance, meet each other. Why shouldn’t you go as well?”

  Could all that sarcasm be masking a twinge of jealousy? She wondered if he’d ever experienced such a thing before?

  “I knew you’d understand,” she said, hugging him. “Let’s go eat.”

  The man looked positively baffled as he followed her to the table. Once the food was on, though, they quickly put aside Stan and his cheap innuendo.

  “You’re a genius,” he said, dipping his last bite of lobster into the warm, clarified butter.

  “I know.” She took a piece of her lobster with her fingers, slathered it in butter, and lifted it to his lips.

  He ate, then caught her hand and licked the butter from her fingertips one by one. She shut her eyes, reveling in the slow, lazy sensuousness of his tongue against her fingertips. When he finished with her pinky, she reached for another piece. />
  “Uh, uh,” he murmured, taking her hand and drawing her from her chair to his lap. “You taste much better than lobster.” He pretended to take a bite out of her chin, her jaw, her neck. His hand slid down her waist to her hips. Where he touched, she sizzled.

  “I miss you so much when we’re not together,” she whispered. “The days seem so empty.”

  “And the nights,” he murmured, carefully pulling her top free from the waistband of her slacks.

  She loved him, but her head spun. She felt confused. A little scared. Never one to keep things inside, she had to tell him how she felt.

  She drew back. “I have to talk to you, Paavo,” she said seriously. “I know we agreed that our relationship needed time to grow, to mature, and to see how things might work out between us, but…”

  His hands stilled. Eyes wide, he stared at her.

  Could he be reading her mind? she wondered. Could he be looking so stricken just because she thought it might be time for them to discuss marriage?

  Suddenly, the phone rang. They both nearly jumped out of their skins at the shrill sound.

  It rang again. “You’d better answer it, Angie. It might be important.”

  “I’m sure it’s not. Let the answering machine—”

  He stood, lifting her out of his lap and helping her stand. “I told Homicide they could reach me here tonight, if anything came up.”

  “All right, all right. I’ll get it.” She kissed him. “You stay right there.”

  He started to follow her to the phone.

  “Freeze, Inspector!”

  He threw up his hands and, as she picked up the phone, he sat back down.

  “Yes?” she said curtly.

  “Hey, there, Angie. How ya doin’?”

  She groaned inwardly. She knew that jubilant voice. Paavo’s homicide partner.

  “Actually, I’m kind of busy.”

  “Say, is the Big P.S. there?”

  She winced. P.S.—an afterthought. That’s what she’d be once Paavo took this phone call. “He’s here,” she said with a sigh. “Hold on.”

  She handed Paavo the phone. “It’s your partner.”

  He put the phone to his ear. “Yosh, what’s up?”

  He listened for a couple of minutes, then frowned. “What was her name?”

  Angie caught the “was.” God, no, she thought. Another homicide. She prayed she was wrong.

  “City Hall? Is that why the chief’s worried?”

  Was someone killed at City Hall? she wondered. She rubbed the chill from her arms.

  “Got it,” he said, then placed the phone back in its cradle. As he turned, the expression on his face told her Yosh’s call was more than just informational.

  “You don’t have to leave, do you?” she asked.

  “I’m on call this week.”

  “My God, Paavo, there are other homicide inspectors in this city! We were supposed to have this time together.”

  “I’m sorry, Angie. This isn’t the way I wanted our evening to end.”

  She looked at the unhappy, yet determined look in his pale blue eyes. When he turned them on her that way, she couldn’t argue with him. “I’m sorry, too, Paavo. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. It’s not your fault.”

  He put his hands on her waist, pulling her close. “Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe that talk…about our relationship needing time…maybe we need more time before we have it.”

  He was right, she realized. They weren’t ready to talk yet. She nodded, burying her face against his shoulder.

  He held her a long while, his hands stroking her back, massaging it, as if he could rub away her troubling thoughts, the havoc Yosh’s call had brought to their evening.

  “If it’s not too late,” he said softly, “may I come back for dessert?”

  She tilted her head back and looked at him, her hands on his shoulders. “Come back, Inspector, no matter what time it is. Dessert will be waiting.”

  He gave her a kiss that nearly broke her heart, and she didn’t know why.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Paavo and Yosh arrived outside the homicide victim’s Twin Peaks apartment building at just about the same time. This normally quiet neighborhood had a number of onlookers attracted by the appearance of a police car. A uniformed officer waited for them and led them through the spectators, into the building, and then upstairs to the third floor, where a group of tenants had gathered in the hallway.

  Another officer stood outside the door of the deceased’s apartment, guarding the crime scene.

  “Looks like she’s been dead a few days,” Officer McPherson said, his complexion a decided gray as he described going into the apartment with the landlady and finding the woman. “According to the landlady, the victim’s name is Tiffany Rogers. She was about twenty-three, single, and white.”

  A middle-aged woman wearing a floral blouse over turquoise slacks, her short, black hair streaked with gray, approached them. “I’m Harriet Donovan, the manager of this building.”

  Paavo and Yosh introduced themselves. “Are you the one who found the victim?” Paavo asked.

  “Yes, I did.” Her voice shook nervously. “I immediately called the police. I didn’t touch anything, I don’t think…”

  “How did you get into the apartment?”

  “I knocked, but the door was locked.” She worried her bottom lip as if unsure about making the next statement. “I have a key. I…I think I’m within my rights to use it, I mean—”

  “It’s all right, Miss Donovan,” Yosh said soothingly. “You certainly had to check on her.”

  “Yes.” She raked her hair behind one ear. “That’s what I thought, too.”

  “What caused you to look for her in there?” Paavo asked.

  “I was asked by her sister, Connie. Apparently, yesterday Tiffany didn’t show up at work at City Hall and didn’t call in sick. When she didn’t show up again today, and didn’t answer her telephone, her boss became concerned and phoned the sister. The two of them aren’t very close, I understand, but Connie called me to see if Tiffany was sick and had unplugged her phone or something.”

  “Does her sister live nearby?”

  “Yes, over in the Sunset.”

  “Have you told her about this?”

  “No.” She put her hand to her throat and took a step backwards. “I’m sorry. I guess I should have, but…”

  “That’s all right, Miss Donovan,” Yosh said. “We’ll take care of it. You’ve been a big help to us already, we want you to know. And I suspect we’re going to need your help a lot more before this is over, so you stay right nearby, okay?”

  She nodded quickly, her eyes wide.

  “I knew we could count on you,” Yosh said.

  He and Paavo stood before the victim’s apartment door. Paavo gave a light push and the door swung open easily. Rogers’s body lay in the center of the living room, the once-white carpet beneath her nearly black and thick with blood. Her face was almost white, her eyes and mouth open, the eyeballs clouded, and her lips dry and leathery. The odor was stomach-churning—the iron scent of blood and the acrid, sour smell of body fluids bubbling out of her mouth.

  They stepped closer, easing along the perimeter of the room, where it was least likely they might disturb any evidence. A robe covered the victim’s arms and shoulders, but the front lay open. Long-stemmed red roses, wilted and dead, had been haphazardly tossed around her body, the blood beneath them looking as if it had flowed from their own death throes.

  The stab wounds were deep and long. The sheer number and placement over the breasts and pubic area looked like the work of a sexual psychopath. Paavo turned away in disgust.

  San Francisco had been spared one of those for some time—since the Zodiac murders in the late sixties and early seventies, and later, the Trailside killer. Both had chosen their victims at random. Both had preyed on young, single women.

  He could only hope this wasn’t another. They were the most difficult to catch—a
nd the ones who, if not caught quickly, were the most likely to kill again.

  His gaze met Yosh’s. Each of them knew what was uppermost in the other’s thoughts.

  The photographer arrived, and soon after, the crime scene investigators. Taking one look at the blood, they dressed themselves in clear plastic booties, overalls, and gloves, then began the ritual of recording the scene. Paavo and Yosh stood back from the body, careful not to contaminate any evidence. They hadn’t approached it, and wouldn’t, until after the CSI unit finished its job.

  Apparently, when the landlady phoned the police to report the murder, she had mentioned that the victim worked at City Hall. That had been enough for Hollins to take an immediate interest in the case. The City Hall involvement could go nowhere, or go straight to the mayor himself. Hollins wasn’t taking any chances. Neither were Paavo or Yosh.

  While the crime scene unit worked, the inspectors went through the apartment building, talking to Rogers’s neighbors. Most of the tenants were single, living alone or with roommates, worked all day, and had busy evenings. Most hadn’t seen Tiffany for days, and hadn’t expected to since she wasn’t a homebody at all. Everyone knew she had an “important” boyfriend whom she’d go off to meet somewhere two or three times a week. She never brought him to her place. They all figured he must be married.

  The inspectors also asked if anyone had heard any strange sounds or noticed anything out of the ordinary around the apartment building over the last three or four days. No one had.

  “Here’s the sister’s name and phone number,” Miss Donovan said, handing Paavo a slip of paper. “She’s waiting to hear from me.”

  The name Connie was written in a tight, precise hand.

  Paavo went to the manager’s apartment on the first floor and dialed the number.

  As gently as possible, he broke the news. He asked her to come to the apartment building. Not only did he need to talk to her, but—after the body was removed—she could readily determine if anything had been taken or was drastically out of place in the apartment.

  He doubted it, though. Looking at Tiffany’s mutilated body, he knew robbery wasn’t the motive here.