by Joanne Pence
But at this time of night? Nobody would be there. Like the church, it’d be locked up tight. And besides that, he hadn’t even bothered to ask her where it was. Why? Why hadn’t he taken the time for her? What if—No! He couldn’t, wouldn’t, think that.
Gripping the steering wheel hard to rein in his rising panic, he gunned the engine and turned onto Columbus.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“Barricade the door,” Angie shouted.
The three men began pushing anything they could find—a desk, a file cabinet, a chair—in front of the door that led to the basement.
She picked up the phone to call the police. It was dead. She dropped it and backed away. That explained why Carter was taking so long in the basement, why he hadn’t run up the stairs immediately and tried to break in. But he was out there now, that was certain.
She ran to the back of the counter near the cash register and threw herself to the floor, searching for some kind of alarm. A loud thud hit the door, and the barricade moved back an inch or so.
The men threw their weight against the furniture, trying to keep the door from opening farther. But Carter was stronger. Angie knew they were four against one—but her friends were small, older men. And Carter didn’t seem human.
The door inched open. Carter’s fingers reached into the room and gripped the doorframe.
Earl, Butch, and Vinnie backed away, their eyes wide and fearful. Earl grabbed a heavy ashtray, holding it high. Butch clenched his fists like a boxer, and Vinnie found a fake pearl rope necklace that the jeweler hadn’t bothered to lock up for the night. He wrapped it around his fingers like brass knuckles.
Angie was in tears, frantic to find the alarm. She found a button on the floor, near the counter’s edge. She pushed it. Nothing. It didn’t feel as if it was connected to anything. Desperate, she pushed it again and again.
Carter must have cut those wires, too. He knew electronics, he’d said. Yes, he knew them.
He squeezed through the opening. A red, blood-filled bruise the size of an orange lifted from the center of his forehead, small, jagged cuts radiating from it. Strips of flesh dangled from the bloodied mess that once was his hand. His eyes were wild and staring. He took in the three small men, and then Angie. “Hail, the gang’s all here,” he said.
Angie scrambled to her feet and backed away.
“You ran away from me, Heather.” He moved toward her, his voice low and growling. “To other…men. I don’t like that.”
“Get out of here, Carter,” she cried. “The police are coming. They’ll arrest you.”
He pulled a long combat knife from his back pocket. “I don’t think so,” he said.
She cried out and bolted around the counter to her friends. Earl pushed her behind him.
Carter chuckled. “How noble.”
He began to weave forward, making his way closer and closer to them, keeping between them and the door to the basement.
Suddenly, he lunged at Earl with his knife. Earl tried to step aside, out of the way, and at the same time swung the ashtray at Carter’s head. The heavy object struck, but too late. The knife went into Earl’s side and came out bloody.
“Earl! No!” Angie cried, trying to catch her friend as he fell. At the same time, Butch and Vinnie attacked Carter. They barely reached his shoulders. Butch grabbed the arm that held the knife and tried to pry it from Carter’s fingers. Vinnie, reaching up, pummeled his face with the pearl knuckles.
Angie couldn’t get close enough to do anything to Carter, but she saw that the path to the basement door was now clear. She broke for it.
“No!” Carter roared. He threw off Vinnie with ease. Vinnie’s head hit the wall, and he dropped, unconscious. Carter whirled and smashed a fist into Butch’s face. Angie heard the crack of his nose and saw his blood splatter over the room. The little man went down.
Carter lunged toward her. She skidded to a halt, and spun away from the door just as he crashed against it.
A jeweler’s stool had been pushed into a corner. She hurled herself at it and picked it up, holding the seat to her chest, its legs pointed outward.
“Keep away from me!” She screamed. “Keep back!”
“Heather, Heather, Heather.” He shook his head, slowly brandishing the knife, as he stepped nearer. “Put the stool down, Heather.”
She shook her head, perspiration dripping down her face, into her eyes, nearly blinding her.
He paced back and forth. “You’re coming home with me. Again.”
He reached for the stool and she swung it so that a leg hit his mangled hand.
“Bitch!” He grabbed the legs of the stool, tore it from her hands, and tossed it aside.
Gun drawn, Paavo stepped through the shattered glass of what had once been a door. The dining room was dark and empty. He ran through the swinging door to the equally empty kitchen.
In the back, stairs led down to the basement. Angie! His mind shouted. But what if his hunch about this restaurant was wrong? What if the broken glass was just some two-bit robbery—a coincidence—and Angie was still out on the street somewhere with Carville?
Could he chance it? Could he chance her life on no more than a guess? Did he believe in coincidence?
He moved swiftly, silently, fearful that if she was here with Carville, the sound of someone approaching might cause him to kill her.
As he descended the steps, he saw a large hole in the basement wall. A hole to the jeweler’s next door? It all seemed so bizarre. But something, a vague feeling, told him to crawl through it.
That was when he heard a scuffling sound, a voice.
“Bitch!”
His heart nearly stopped. Silently, he hurried up the stairs.
A scream! Angie!
He burst into the room—in time to see Wesley Carville toss a stool out of the way.
Paavo saw the knife, saw Angie back into a corner, saw Carville slowly, menacingly step toward her.
“Drop it, Carville,” he said.
Carville glanced his way, then smirked. “Forget it, Inspector. You can’t stop me. No one can.” He sprang at Angie.
Paavo fired. The force of the bullet caught Carville in mid-leap and knocked him sideways against the wall. The knife clattered to his feet. He slowly sank to the floor. Before he reached it, he was dead.
The room fell silent.
Angie crouched on the ground. Her eyes met Paavo’s, and she tried to stand.
He reached her side in an instant and dropped to his knees. Her face crumbled as she looked at him. Gathering her up in his arms, he held her tight against his chest, rocking her, comforting her. Then he buried his face in her hair and didn’t try to stop the tears that filled his eyes.
CHAPTER FORTY
Vinnie, standing tall in his black suit, greeted Angie and Paavo at the entrance to The Wings Of An Angel. “We saved a table for you an’ the Inspector, Miss Angie.”
The restaurant was filled to capacity. Three more tables had been added, and two couples sat by the entry waiting for the next available place.
Vinnie seated them, then hurried back to his station at the front door and the cash register.
“I can’t believe this,” Angie said, marveling at the crowd.
Earl walked up. “’Ey, Inspector, you made it. Awright!” He handed them each a menu. “Dey jus’ came in today, Miss Angie.”
On heavy, slick white paper, in gold foil lettering were the words: THE WINGS OF AN ANGEL. Below, Butch’s specialties.
Angie jumped from her chair and kissed him on the cheek. “It’s beautiful, Earl. Congratulations to all of you.”
A blush started at the neck of Earl’s white shirt and quickly traveled up his face to his shellacked hair. “T’anks, Miss Angie. You helped a lot, too.”
She laughed as she sat down again. “How’s the spaghetti and meatballs today?”
“Same as ever.”
“All these people obviously think they’re terrific,” she said. “Of course, my article i
n Haute Cuisine praised this restaurant to the hilt, and—I know it’s not very modest of me—but I’d say the recommendation of Angelina Amalfi carries some weight in this town.” Facing Paavo, she beamed. “This is such a find for me.”
“An’ da food’s okay, too,” Earl said. “A lotta dese people say da place smells really good when dey pass by, so dey come in.” He turned to Paavo. “Inspector, me and da boys wanna say t’anks for explainin’ how dat hole in da wall was just ’cause we was tryin’ to fix a leak in a water pipe. We didn’t mean to go all da way t’rough to da jeweler’s store. Honest.”
Paavo fixed a steady gaze on Earl. “The guys at the Hall of Justice understood perfectly. I told them you three promised the next time you had a leak, you’d call a plumber. Right?”
“Sure t’ing, Inspector.”
“Glad to see you’re back on your feet.”
“Yeah. It was jus’ a nick. An’ da swellin’ on Butch’s nose an’ his black eyes is almost back to normal, too. I’ll get your dinner.”
Angie reached for Paavo’s hand. He took hers and gave it a light squeeze. She looked beautiful tonight, with a cream-colored dress that dipped to a V in front and diamond earrings that sparkled with every turn of her head.
He’d taken her to his house that horrible night, and she’d stayed with him the past ten days. She was much better, almost over the nightmares that had awakened her every night for a week afterward.
Each time it happened, he’d held her until she fell asleep again. Held her so that he could pretend to be strong, so that he wouldn’t need to talk about his own nightmare. The one that plagued him over and over; the one in which he was unable to find her no matter what he did, no matter where he looked. The one in which Wesley Carville won.
He looked at her small hand wrapped in his, at her well-cared-for nails. They were a soft, creamy white color tonight, to match her dress, he supposed. He must love her even more than he’d imagined if he even paid attention to her nail polish.
“I was thinking, Paavo, that after Easter dinner tomorrow at my mother’s—oh, I did tell you all my sisters and their families were going to be there, didn’t I?”
He grimaced. “You hadn’t given me that good news yet.”
“Well, anyway”—she drew in her breath—“after that I’m going back to my apartment.”
He shouldn’t have felt surprise. She had a beautiful apartment, a great view, while his place was just a simple cottage. But…on the other hand…so what?
She liked staying with him. He knew she did. She’d told him so often enough. “There’s no need to rush,” he replied.
“I was driven out of it by fear. I can’t accept that any longer.”
He nodded in understanding. “Keep in mind, Miss Amalfi,” he said, “you can always come back.”
“Oh, I’ll keep that in mind all right, Inspector Smith.”
“Good.” He leaned back and smiled at her, his heart full.
“Very good.” She leaned back, her eyes dancing.
“Here you go.” Earl carried a tray with their meal and put their plates before them. “Enjoy.”
“This is it, Paavo,” Angie said excitedly. He picked up his fork. “These are the special meatballs and the wonderful spaghetti sauce I was telling you about. Butch won’t tell me what the secret ingredient is. Whatever it is, though, he should package it. He’d make a fortune.”
She watched expectantly as Paavo took a bite of the spaghetti.
Secret ingredient? he thought. What secret? He cut into the meatball and tasted it, then eyed the meat, then Angie, then the meat again, and nearly laughed aloud. No secret here. Not to him, anyway. To Angie, though, maybe. Yes, he could believe she might be puzzled by it.
“Paavo?”
He put down his fork.
“It’s wonderful. Isn’t it?”
He touched the napkin to his lips.
She gripped the tablecloth. “What’s wrong?”
He looked at the plate of food. “Institutional memory, I’m afraid.”
“Institutional what?” She clasped her hands. “I don’t understand.”
“You see, Angie, it’s all of a piece.”
She twisted her napkin. “You’re talking in riddles,” she cried. She hated it when he talked in riddles.
“Down at the Hall the other day, we were discussing Earl, Vinnie, and Butch. And Yosh, who knows all about old songs, remembered one from back in the thirties, with words something like ‘if we had the wings of an angel, over these prison walls we would fly.’”
She felt her throat tighten. “Prison walls?”
He nodded. “Army vets, like me, and ex-cons have one thing in common. Unforgettable memories of institutional food. I remember. Butch really remembers.”
She didn’t want to hear any more. Visions of another assignment for Haute Cuisine flew away, just like those wings over prison walls. But she couldn’t stop herself from saying, “Tell me, Paavo. What’s the secret ingredient?”
“You really want to know?” he asked.
“I really want to know,” she answered.
“Butch didn’t use a whole lot of it,” he said, as if that was some sort of consolation. “It’s basically just to stretch the meat.”
She groaned aloud. Gourmet restaurants did not stretch the meat. Barely able to speak, she whispered, “Out with it, Inspector.”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” he said. And then, although he spoke in the lowest possible voice, his words seemed to reverberate throughout the entire restaurant. “The secret ingredient, Angie…is Spam.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks and gratitude go to many people for their assistance with this book. To Homicide Inspector Napolean Hendrix, SFPD, for his time and patience; to Kate Moore, Monica Sevy, Barbara Truax, Pam Collins, Tracy Grant; to Joan Grant—who I’m sure is watching over us, smiling and wise as ever; to Berta Flynn, Doris Berdahl, Helen Howard, and Meredythe Crawford; to Luke Murden; to Rose Lopez and Madeline Addiego, who know the right way to cook; to Robert Lopez for his North Beach; to my agent, Sue Yuen, for helping put the pieces together; to my editor, Carolyn Marino, for her encouragement and support in the creation of this series; and most of all, to David Pence, for his help in every way possible.
My apologies for any errors, omission, or license taken with the facts for purposes of the story.
About the Author
JOANNE PENCE was born and raised in San Francisco. A graduate of U.C. Berkeley with a master’s degree in journalism, Joanne has taught school in Japan, written for magazines, and worked for the federal government. She now lives in Idaho with her family, which includes a multitude of pets.
For information about Joanne, her books, and some great recipes, visit Joanne’s website at www.joannepence.com. She would love to hear from you via e-mail at [email protected], or by writing to PO Box 64, Eagle, ID 83616-0064.
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Praise for JOANNE PENCE’s
ANGIE AMALFI MYSTERIES
“First-rate mystery…Angie Amalfi is the queen of culinary sleuths.”
Romantic Times
“If you love books by Diane Mott Davidson or Denise Dietz, you will love this series. It’s as refreshing as lemon sherbet and just as delicious.”
Under the Covers
“Pence’s tongue-in-cheek humor keeps us grinning.”
San Francisco Chronicle
“Joanne Pence provides laughter, love, and cold chills.”
Carolyn Hart
“A winner…Angie is a character unlike any other found in the genre.”
Santa Rosa Press Democrat
“A rollicking good time…murder, mayhem, food, and fashion…Joanne Pence serves it all up.”
Butler County Post
Other Angie Amalfi Mysteries by Joanne Pence
Red Hot Murder
Courting Disaster
Two Cooks A-Kill
ing
If Cooks Could Kill
Bell, Cook, and Candle
To Catch a Cook
A Cook in Time
Cooks Overboard
Cook’s Night Out
Cooking Up Trouble
Too Many Cooks
Something’s Cooking
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
COOKING MOST DEADLY. Copyright © 1996 by Joanne Pence. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Library of Congress data available upon request.
EPub Edition JANUARY 2012 ISBN: 9780062191144
Print Edition ISBN: 9780061043956
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