Cooking Most Deadly

by Joanne Pence

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Paavo finally tracked down file C53794 in Oakland. At first, on being told by Criminal Records that the mysterious number found in Wesley Carville’s file wasn’t in San Francisco’s numbering system, he thought he’d hit a dead end. But then he remembered reading that Carville had lived in the East Bay.

  The file was waiting for him when he reached Oakland’s Homicide Department. He sat down in an empty interview room and began to read the reports. Carville’s parole officer was right about one thing—the case was old. But he was dead wrong about something else. It wasn’t about Carville’s fellow prisoners.

  The case had begun twelve years before with a missing person report in Berkeley. A young woman named Heather Rose Fredrickson, a senior at the University of California, had disappeared.

  Hundreds of people were questioned—everyone who had ever known the attractive, friendly coed. Wesley Carville, a graduate student in electrical engineering, was among them. Heather’s friends had said she’d complained of someone following her, showing up wherever she went, but she never told them who he was. Or whether, in fact, she even knew. Wesley Carville never became a suspect in the disappearance.

  Two years after Heather’s disappearance, Carville was found guilty of electrocuting his landlord and sent to prison on second-degree murder. Two years after that, the widow sold the property—a badly run-down one-bedroom house in West Oakland—to some developers, who promptly tore it down. The wrecking crew found a human skeleton bricked into a wall. Dental records proved it to be the remains of Heather Rose Fredrickson.

  No cause of death could be determined, and no evidence was found to prove that Carville had murdered her—except the obvious. The house had stood unoccupied over two years since he’d lived there, and, theoretically, anyone could have hidden Heather’s remains there. But that was just legalistic maneuvering. It was clear from the way the reports were written, the homicide investigators knew who had killed Heather. Since the man was already locked up for murder, they didn’t pursue another trial. But now, he was out.

  Paavo shut the file. The coed had disappeared two years before Carville was imprisoned. If he murdered her, he had lived with a corpse buried in the wall of his house that entire time. Presumably, he’d become intrigued with her, stalked her, then killed her and kept her near him. It was a sick perversion of love.

  A sudden chill gripped Paavo. Carville…an electrical engineering student at U.C. Berkeley. Something in that fact seemed to resonate for him. Something…from long ago.

  Holding the door to the telephone closet open a tiny crack, he watched the white Ferrari pull into the parking space in the garage.

  She got out of the car. His little one. His love. He longed to smother her with roses. She always liked roses.

  He almost snatched her then and there, it was that tempting, that hard to watch her walk away from him once again after he’d waited so long. That painful to watch the elevator doors open and swallow her up inside them.

  But too much could go wrong. Too many people down here. His original plan was a better one. Much better. In fact, brilliant.

  She’d ultimately come to him—if not one way, then the other. He could be patient. After all, the longer the anticipation, the sweeter the fulfillment. Still, his heart pounded and he felt a sheen of perspiration on his forehead.

  He waited until the elevator had time to reach the twelfth floor, then he dialed her number. He was a patient man.

  Angie unlocked her door to the steady ringing of her telephone. This time of night it could be only one of two things—Paavo or a family emergency. She ran to catch it before the answering machine clicked on.

  “Hello?”

  “Angie.”

  It was a man’s voice. Familiar. “Yes?”

  “It’s me. Carter.”

  She nearly hung up. “What are you doing calling me this time of night?”

  “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  “No. What do you want?”

  “I left out a part that belongs in the pager. It’s an important part. The device won’t work without it. I need to give it to you now. Tonight.”

  “No. I don’t need it. My plans have changed. I have the egg here.”

  “There? That’s even better. I’ll come to your place. I charged you a hundred dollars for something that doesn’t work.”

  He was making her nervous. “Forget it, Carter. You can give it to me at Wings. Or give it to Earl. He’ll see that I get it.”

  “But I have to install it. It won’t take long. Five minutes.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m going to bed.”

  There was a pause, and he spoke again. Very, very slowly. “I know where you live.”

  “No, stay away!” She slammed down the phone as hard as she could. Shaking, she stared at it, daring him to phone back. In her mind’s eye she saw a face. But not his face. Not Carter’s. It was the face of the man at the dance. Lee, his name was.

  They were the same man.

  No. She rubbed her forehead. Impossible. And yet…

  A man sitting on the fender of a BMW at the college. A student, watching her…

  He had the same broad-shouldered, muscular build. It had been hard to see his face, though, because of his dark glasses and baseball cap.

  A baseball cap…glasses…

  There was someone else…

  Stop this nonsense, Angie! Stop it! She sat down, her knees suddenly too weak to hold her. Was she going mad, or was there really someone stalking her?

  She had to call Paavo.

  She was reaching for the phone when she noticed the blinking “1” on her answering machine. One message. She pressed Play.

  “Angie. It’s me.” Warm relief eased over her and she felt better, safer, just hearing Paavo’s voice. “I can’t come by. Something came up.” Static crackled over the connection making it difficult to hear his words as he continued speaking. “Another murder. I have”—the static suddenly cleared—“to see you. I can meet you”—static—“at Coit Tower.” The static cleared once more. “I’ll be here all night.”

  Coit Tower? At midnight? Why would he want her to come there, of all places? An image of the tower flashed across her mind. The beautiful shaft of white standing in lonely splendor at the top of Telegraph Hill. Sure, the area teemed with tourists by day and on summer evenings, but on cold, foggy nights like this one? There’d be no one there.

  Why would Paavo want her to meet him at an investigation? He never had before. In fact, he’d tried to keep her away from his work. But he said he had to see her, that he’d be out all night. It didn’t make sense.

  She decided to call Homicide and see if anyone there knew what was going on. If not, maybe a dispatcher could locate Paavo for her.

  She picked up the receiver and put it to her ear. There was no dial tone. She pushed the button several times and listened again. Nothing. A shiver went down her spine. Had Carter done this to her phone? He said he knew where she lived. And he knew electronics…

  Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to get out of her apartment. She should be safe. She had a dead bolt…

  But with Stan in the hospital, she was alone on this floor of the building. Unable to call for help, unable to telephone the police.

  That did it. There was no way she was staying here like a sitting duck, waiting to be scared to death by that man. She wasn’t even going to take the time to change to something nicer than her Armani jeans and Cole Haan loafers, but grabbed her purse, a warm leather jacket, and ran out the door.

  Coit Tower wasn’t very far away. If Paavo wasn’t there, she’d go straight to his house and track him down using his phone. That way, if Carter came to her place, he wouldn’t find her. She’d tell Paavo about him. One meeting with an angry Paavo, and Carter wouldn’t dare to frighten her again. He wouldn’t dare to even think about her again.

  Damn Carter for making her afraid to be alone in her own apartment. She wished she’d listened to Earl.


  Back at the San Francisco Hall of Justice, Paavo decided to go down to the archives himself. The secretaries and file clerks had gone home long ago. But he was curious, and didn’t want to wait until morning.

  First he tracked down the report on Wesley Carville’s arrest for the murder of his landlord ten years ago. Although the small, run-down house Carville rented in was in Oakland, the landlord lived in a mansion in San Francisco’s Sea Cliff area.

  Paavo opened the file and turned to the first incident report. The name of the reporting officer leaped out at him—Matt Kowalski. He knew that ragged scrawl well, almost as well as he knew his own handwriting. He stared at it a moment, then shut the folder. He rubbed his forehead, and then searched for a place to sit. He’d found more than he’d bargained for.

  Matt and he had been rookies together, and then partners for a short while as patrol officers at the Richmond Station, which encompassed the Sea Cliff. Paavo was promoted first, and went to Northern, but Matt was right behind him. Eventually, they both wound up in Homicide and became partners again. More than partners, they were best friends. Last October, Matt had been killed in the line of duty.

  As Paavo carefully read through the pages of the Carville arrest, he remembered a call he and Matt had taken about an accident at a house in Sea Cliff. The caller had said a man had been electrocuted while working on his house’s wiring.

  When he and Matt went out to the house, he noticed that the ground wire had been disconnected. They contacted Homicide. The next day, Paavo received word of his promotion, and in no time, he was at the new station. He hadn’t learned, until now, what had come of the loose ground wire case.

  Paavo put down the file. Fletcher, St. Clair, Matt. Fletcher’s and St. Clair’s women had received roses, and…Angie had received roses from an unnamed student. He felt his blood drumming in his ears, his breath quickening.

  Stan, too, had received roses, but didn’t know who they were from, or why. Apartments 1201 and 1202. Easy to confuse. Stan had told Angie something about a peculiar deliveryman.

  He rubbed his temples. What he was thinking was impossible. Outlandish.

  Hurrying back to his desk, he picked up the phone and called Matt’s widow, Katie.

  He apologized for the late hour. But she’d been a policeman’s wife for eleven years. She understood. “Forget the apologies, honey,” she said in the saucy, brusque manner she had. “What can I do for you?”

  “By any chance did anyone send you roses recently?”

  “Roses? Me?” She laughed, a rich, hearty laugh. Matt used to say he fell so hard for Katie because of her laugh. “I’m not ready to be courted yet, sweetheart. And everyone knows it. Why?”

  “Just wondering if anyone strange has shown up at your door lately. That’s all. It was a long shot on a case I’m working on. I don’t even know why I called. I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

  “It’s no bother.” Her voice turned serious. “But since you mention it, there was someone strange. He gave me the creeps, in fact.”

  “Tell me.”

  “It’s nothing, I’m sure, but he was a Chronicle salesman. He had some sort of two-for-one offer. I told him I wasn’t interested, but he insisted my husband would want the paper. Finally, I got so angry I told him my husband was dead, and I shut the door. He really upset me, though.”

  “What did he look like?”

  “It was hard to tell because of his baseball cap and sunglasses. He had a mustache, dark brown hair, about six feet tall, muscular build. Like someone who worked out.”

  “If you see him again, keep away from him. Call for help. He’s dangerous.”

  “Okay. I got it.”

  “Take care of yourself, Katie.”

  “You, too, Paavo. Love you, honey.”

  He hung up the phone. A Chronicle salesman asking about Matt.

  The salesman that the judge had complained about.

  The single, days-old copy of a Chronicle at Tiffany’s.

  And the copy of the Chronicle Angie left at his house one night.

  “Good Christ,” he whispered.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  No murder investigation going on here, Angie thought as she reached the circular parking area in front of Coit Tower. Just a couple of parked cars, and they stood empty. The thick fog made it hard to see into the bushes beyond the blacktop. Angie drove slowly along the edge of the parking area, trying to peer into the shrubs as she went by.

  Near the road that led away from the tower and back down Telegraph Hill, she saw a tall, broad-shouldered man standing under a lamppost. The lights hit his jacket, a gray tweed—Paavo’s favorite—but his face was in the shadow. She told herself it was Paavo, wanted to believe it was him, yet his stance, the angle of his shoulders, wasn’t quite right. Was it someone else…or was something seriously wrong?

  She rolled down the window. “Paavo?” He gestured for her to follow, then he turned and disappeared into the fog.

  “Paavo!”

  She agonized over what to do. Perhaps it was him, and it was just the fog refracting light from the lamp that made him appear different.

  It had to be him. She’d heard him on the answering machine, telling her to meet him here. And he’d just waved for her to follow.

  The fog seemed thicker, making it more difficult to see. She rolled her car closer to the place where Paavo, or whoever it was, had stood, and tried to see where he’d gone. What exactly was back there in the trees. A thick mist covered her windshield, and the wipers only streaked it. She hesitated, then slowly lowered the window a bit so she could see better.

  Suddenly, an arm reached in and pulled up the button to unlock her door. Startled, she turned, and in the instant it took for her to grasp what had happened, her door was yanked open. She stomped on the gas pedal, but felt the back of her jacket grabbed, felt herself being pulled from the car as it lurched forward. She landed hard on the pavement, and when she opened her mouth to scream, something smashed against the back of her head.

  The world shattered, then went black.

  Paavo hammered out Angie’s phone number. The line was busy.

  He slammed down the receiver and phoned the hospital. Expecting a nurse to answer, he was surprised when Stan picked up the phone.

  “This is Inspector Smith. I didn’t think you’d still be awake.”

  “The damn painkillers are wearing off,” Stan complained. “I ache, but at least my head’s not in a fog anymore.”

  “I’m trying to find Angie. Have you seen her or talked to her tonight?”

  “She came by this afternoon. That was it, though.”

  “Did she say what she had planned for this evening?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Sorry to have disturbed your rest.”

  “Wait, Inspector. Didn’t you ask earlier about some roses?”

  “Yes.”

  “They weren’t connected to the attack on me, were they?” Paavo heard a slight tremor in Stan’s voice.

  “I’m pretty sure they were. Why? Do you remember who sent them?”

  “I thought you sent them.”

  “Me? What are you talking about?”

  “I ran into the deliveryman down in the lobby and—stupidly—I diverted them. My God, man, you’ve got to do something!” Paavo’s hand tightened on the receiver as he listened to the anguish in Stan’s voice. “You see, the flowers weren’t meant for me, Inspector. They were meant for Angie.”

  Angie felt her head being stroked and petted. She kept her eyes shut. Slowly, she began to sort out her perceptions. Her mouth was gagged and she was breathing deeply through her nose, the fear of her air being cut off causing her near panic. Her arms had been pulled back and her hands tied behind her back. And her whole head pounded mercilessly.

  The gag cut cruelly into her flesh, preventing her from screaming. She trembled, terrified.

  “Awake, my love?”

  Carter!

  “I didn’t want to hurt you
,” he whispered, still stroking her hair. “You trusted me. You trusted my love. You should always trust me, Heather, and be true to me.”

  She realized her head lay in his lap, and that she was stretched across a short, upholstered bench of some kind. It smelled of stale tobacco, rotting food, a rancid, musty, dust-filled odor. He ran his thumb over her eyebrow, tracing it, gently at first, then harder and harder, as if he were trying to rub it from her face.

  He was mad! Her heart beat so hard, she was sure her entire body was pulsating from it, but he didn’t seem to notice. She ached to open her eyes, to try to get away from him. But as scared as she was, she was even more afraid of letting him know she was awake.

  Suddenly, his tone changed. “Wake up, bitch! I don’t have all night! I didn’t hit you that—”

  He broke off at the sound of an auto going past them. “Damn. We’ll have to find someplace else. Someplace where we won’t be interrupted. We need to have a long time together, don’t we? It’ll be like it used to be between us, Heather.” He traced his finger over her ear, her jaw, her chin, then wrapped his hand around her neck. “Just like it used to be.”

  Paavo unlocked Angie’s apartment door and went in. He could feel its emptiness surround him.

  He’d phoned her immediately after his talk with Stan. When the line was still busy, he’d called the operator to break into the call, and was told the phone wasn’t busy—it was out of order. He drove over here with his siren blaring, telling himself the whole way that she wasn’t in any danger.

  He’d prayed she’d be here. That when he knocked on her door she’d open it, her big, brown eyes widening in surprise. Then she’d smile and fling herself at him. He loved the way she did that. No one else had ever seemed half so happy to see him.

  But her apartment was empty.

  He saw a box on the coffee table and a strange metal device beside it. The box had the name Everyone’s Fancy on it—Connie Rogers’s shop. It was a Fabergé egg. Why would Angie have it? And the metal devices. What in the world were they?