If Cooks Could Kill (20 page)

He leaned heavily on the machine, hoping that would cause the cleaner to slurp up the mess like milk-shake through a straw. It didn't. He must have pressed down too hard, because the Bissell suddenly shrieked, gasped, and died, refusing even one glug of the gelatinous mess.

Now what? Stan wiped perspiration from his brow, then headed for the kitchen, flinging doors, drawers, and cabinets open and shut as he searched for a cure-all. Panic grew.

Angie was going to kill him.

“Finally!” Relief and triumph filled him. He reached for the aerosol can labeled “Easy-Off—Industrial Strength.”

Exactly what the doctor ordered
, Stan thought, snatching the container from the shelf and holding it close to his heart.

He sped back to the mud and sprayed the entire contents of the can onto the oozing mass. “Gotcha!”

He waited for the brown color to lift up and away, leaving the carpet clean and new again. Easy off, right?

Carpet fibers began to quiver and shake. The mud started to bubble ominously. He watched aghast as Easy-Off plus water plus poly-this and poly-that fabric, and God-only-knows what components in the dirt, caused a chemical reaction. A cloudy vapor rose from the swamp. The stench was unbelievable.

Triumph turned to horror.

He'd created a gas chamber.

Holding his breath, he flung open windows and the front door, praying Angie wouldn't come downstairs and the football player wouldn't turn him into a pigskin. Then he ransacked the kitchen for paper tow
els and anything else he could use to scoop up the toxic dump site.

On his hands and knees, he desperately scooped the molten muck into a light plastic bucket he'd found under the sink.

The center of the rug was gone, and in its place lay a crater. He peered down it. In some spots it was bare all the way to the hardwood floor.

The few surviving carpet threads at the edge of the crater appeared to be writhing.

His hands and knees tingled ominously and he jumped to his feet and looked down at himself. His shoes were pockmarked with fissures, and his slacks were shredded around his knees. He was being eaten alive!

“Stan!”

Angie's cry barely cut through his shocked numbness.

“What did you do here?” she whispered, pulling on his sleeve, and looking toward the den as if praying Pagozzi hadn't heard her cry.

“Thank God you've found me!” he wailed. “Quick, take me to Emergency. I'm rotting!”

“But the carpet—”

“Who cares?” He waved his red, slightly swollen hands. “My pants are disintegrating. My knees are on fire. My shoes are frying off my feet!” He started to cry.

“Okay, okay. But how?”

“I found a spray—Easy Off, it said. I thought that sounded good.”

“That's oven cleaner!”

“So?”

Angie didn't answer. Instead, she stared slack-jawed at the plastic bucket, at the hole that formed at the bot
tom, and the muck that was starting to ooze out and eat its way toward them.

Just then, they heard movement in the den.

Stan grabbed the Bissell, Angie wadded up the sheets, and the two fled in terror.

Paavo arrived at Wings of an Angel before the dinner customers. He marched up to Earl. “I'd like to talk to Butch now. In the kitchen.”

“In da kitchen? Why, sure, Inspector. No problem.” He waved his arm toward the swinging double doors and pushed one open wide. “Go right in, Inspector. It's okay.”

He gave Earl an odd look. Butch was stirring a pot of spaghetti sauce.

“I want to ask you a little more about Veronica Maple,” Paavo said.

Butch flinched. “Who's that?”

“The woman in the photo I brought you.”

“I told you, I don't know nothin' about her.” He set the wooden spoon on the counter.

“Your nephew knows her,” Paavo said.

Earl walked to Butch's side as he washed his hands. “Dennis knows lotsa people.”

“He tried to deny it,” Paavo added.

Butch's entire body began to twitch. “Maybe he forgot.”

Paavo wouldn't let up. “She used to work for Max Squire.”

“The guy helpin' with our books?” Butch's voice squeaked. He looked ready to faint and turned imploringly toward Earl.

“Can you imagine dat?” Earl cried, a suspiciously astonished expression on his face. “I didn't t'ink Max could've had somebody woikin' for him. He acts like woik is poison.”

“And he ain't been around here for days,” Butch added, now that he could breathe again.

“In fact,” Earl said quickly, “we'll tell Dennis. We don't want his friend to come back here no more. How's dat? In fact, why don't you go tell him right now, Butch?”

Butch grabbed his jacket. “Sounds good. You hold down the place. I'll go find Dennis.”

“Wait a minute,” Paavo said. These guys were acting peculiar, even for them.

“I'm sorry, Inspector,” Butch said, fidgeting and studiously avoiding Paavo's eyes. “I got no information for you. Absolutely nothin'.”

 

Paavo climbed up the steep sandy soil to the street above. He was on the dunes edging the Pacific.

When he stepped over the concrete guardrail between the roadway and the oceanside drop, Yosh joined him. Lying at the bottom of the dunes was the body of a man, thin with black hair. They couldn't tell much more at the moment. The body lay hidden under shrubs, sand, and rocks until a combination of buzzards and bad smells aroused the curiosity of some residents.

When the body was found, word had quickly
spread through the nearby neighborhood of middle-class homes, and a crowd formed. A dead body discovered in that part of town was rare, one that had obviously been a murder victim rarer still. The uniformed cops had cordoned off the hill, and now Homicide, CSI, the coroner, and her staff were all over the area.

“God, but I'm getting sick of this,” Yosh said, disgust marring his usually cheerful face as he scanned the area and the crowd. When it was clear the victim wasn't known to any of them, they were able to relax and treat it almost as a TV show come to life, creating a neighborhood block-party atmosphere. “Sometimes it seems they kill them faster than we can catch the perps. It's a losing battle, Paavo.”

“What choice do we have?” Paavo's voice was coldly rational. “We need to try.”

“Maybe it's time for me to quit this job. I think I'd like my next job to be at Disneyland. Someplace where I can work with kids all day long—kids who still believe in joy and fantasy and goodness in life. Wouldn't that be a change? Man, listen to me. I need a beer.”

Paavo nodded. “You and me both. Maybe after we get through with the prelims.”

His partner grumbled grudgingly, but followed him toward the crowd. “That should be about six
A.M
. tomorrow morning, the way these things usually go. What a time for a brew.”

As the CSI continued their search for blood, hair, clothing fibers, and any other physical evidence, Paavo gave the medics the okay to remove the body from the murder scene. They slowly carried the body bag up the hillside.

A hush fell over the landscape.

The time had come for Paavo and Yosh to take
names and talk to people. They had to interview the neighbors, onlookers, and anybody else who might be able to give them a clue as to who had killed this man, who he might be, and if they were very, very lucky, why he'd been targeted to die.

Suddenly, the tune “Here Comes the Bride” began to chime. Paavo stared at Yosh a moment, whose head was swiveling back and forth with the alarm of one searching for inescapable doom, before he realized the sound was coming from his pocket—from the brand new Nokia 8860 cell phone Angie had given him, to be precise. He yanked it out and flipped it open, to the amused curiosity of the crowd.

It was Nona Farraday, wanting to know if Inspector Calderon was with him. He wasn't.

“Would you pass on a message?” she asked sweetly. “Just tell him, I'll try to be more understanding in the future. All is forgiven. Call me.” With that, she hung up.

Paavo stared at the phone. Angie had turned him into a dating service.

Connie was awake when Angie returned home, pushing the carpet cleaner ahead of her. Connie opened her mouth to say something about Angie's clothes and makeup, but Angie shook her head. “Don't even ask. You're better off not knowing.”

Connie snapped her jaws shut.

Angie took a piece of paper from her baggy skirt and phoned the number on it, listened, then hung up.

“Veronica Maple stayed at Dennis's house. I phoned the number she'd last called from his phone,” she explained. “It was a small hotel called the Madison. Since none of her belongings were at Dennis's—and if we can assume he didn't kill her and burn her things—she might have moved there. If we can get our hands on her stuff, it might have some answers for us.”

“How do you propose we do that?” Connie asked with a frown.

Angie pulled a pair of Armani sunglasses out of her purse and handed them to Connie. “Easy.”

 

Connie approached the desk of the Madison Hotel wearing dark glasses, Angie at her side, the two deep
in conversation. “I think I locked my room key in the room,” she said, only half facing the desk clerk as Angie blathered. “Can you give me another? Veronica Maple. You know me, don't you?”

“Of course, Miss Maple.” He quickly created a new key card.

“You have the room right, I hope?” Her tone was sharp. Angie had convinced her that this was the sort of hotel where patrons expected to be recognized and remembered. So far, she was right.

“Room 15,” he said proudly.

“Thank you.” She took the card, pretending to be paying far more attention to Angie than him.

The two women hurried to the elevator and rode up, scarcely able to contain giggles and squeals of joy at how easily their plan had worked.

When they reached the room, Angie knocked. They didn't want any ugly surprises. After a moment of silence, Connie unlocked the door.

Cautiously, they entered. The place scarcely appeared inhabited, as if Veronica had dropped off her clothes and left. Opening drawers and closets, they began a meticulous search of the few jeans, the T-shirts, one blouse, and a couple of bras and panties. It wasn't as if the owner were going to come waltzing in and find them there.

“Hey!” Angie was on her knees, peering under a dresser drawer she'd opened. Taped to the bottom was an envelope.

She yanked it free. Inside was a ticket from Bay Pawn Shop and a torn sheet of paper with about twelve numbers on it. “I wonder what these are.”

“Whatever, they must be important,” Connie answered, still rifling through the closet. “Keep them.”

“I sure will.” Angie put the envelope in her purse.
“What could she have pawned. She had nothing, it seems.”

Connie reached into a jeans' pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper. A phone number was written on it.

“It was a phone number that got us this far,” Angie said, picking up the phone and dialing.

After several rings the phone switched over to an answering machine which gave no identifying information.

“A dead end?” Connie asked, then with a chill, glanced around the too-silent room, remembering who it belonged to. “Sorry.” She put the jeans down quickly.

“Where there's a will…” Angie replied thoughtfully, ignoring Connie's sudden squeamishness. “Let's go to the bank.”

 

Max watched Angie and Connie enter the Madison Hotel. He was trying to find Veronica's room. He knew her taste. Back in the days before she could afford to stay in posh four-star hotels, she'd favored the small upscale ones, the Madison in particular.

He'd come here on a hunch, and apparently it had paid off. What did they know about Veronica? Why were they at her hotel?

He walked up to the desk clerk, who drew back at his scruffy appearance. “Does Veronica Maple have a room here?”

“I'm sorry, Miss Maple just left.”

“Was that her? The blond lady? A short brunette was with her?”

“Yes, sir. Now, if you would be so kind as to leave…”

Max didn't bother to listen, but headed out the door.
How much did they know about Veronica? How much were they onto him?

 

Much to everyone's amazement, especially his employers', Stan Bonnette was in his office at Colonial Bank's headquarters when Angie and Connie arrived. He had the title of assistant director of supply maintenance, an honorary title if ever Angie'd heard one, because the guy never did any work. That his father was one of the bank's largest stockholders, however, gave him job security.

Although there was a secretary's desk in front of his office, it wasn't being used. Angie knocked on his door.

“Come in,” he called.

She walked in to find him with his feet on the desk, cleaning his fingernails with a letter opener. His desk was almost as spotless as the secretary's. One manila folder was on it. In back of him, his computer was on, the screen showing a game of solitaire. He had lost.

“Angie!” He jumped up. “And Connie. What a surprise. Did you two come to take me for a late lunch?” Suddenly his face fell. “You didn't bring Connie's neighbor, Paula Bunyon, along, did you?”

“Relax, Stan. We're too busy to eat. We need your help.”

“No one should ever be too busy to eat,” he murmured, disappointed, as he sat back down in his chair and indicated guest chairs for them to sit on. “What can I do for you?”

Angie wiped the dust off the guest chair before she sat, then said, “We've got a phone number. I need you to find out who it belongs to.”

He swiveled around to his computer. “You can do this on the Internet, you know.”

“Not if it's a private number,” she said.

He tried the Internet first, and sure enough, nothing came up. “You want me to go into bank records to find who this is?”

“Right. And, depending on what you find out, we might want credit reports and anything else you can tell us about the person.” She glanced at Connie, who gave her a firm nod.

“And after that, how about doing the same for a man named Max Squire?” Connie added with a sly smile.

Angie high-fived her.

“All right,” Stan said, “but it'll cost you. Let's say, a home-cooked meal of my choice.”

“Agreed.”

Angie and Connie nearly fell asleep as they sat slumped in their chairs, waiting. Stan wasn't good at finding his way around the bank's computer system, which was no wonder, considering how little he used it, but he was persistent. He loved Angie's cooking.

Finally, he turned and faced them. They pulled themselves up straight. “The phone number belongs to Sidney Edmund Fernandez. I've written down his address. The bank gives him a zero credit rating. He has no bank or saving accounts, but he does have credit cards that he uses infrequently. He pays them off right away, so I suspect the zero credit rating has something to do with him not exactly being a law-abiding citizen, but I'm not sure.”

“Interesting.” Angie tried to make sense out of the news.

“What about Max?” Connie asked.

“I have no address for him, zero credit rating here, too. But if you go back three years, he had superior credit. His bank account had over fifty thousand dol
lars in cash, plus a couple of CDs. He obviously had a lot of stocks, bonds, and real estate. The mortgage on his house was for over six hundred grand, and he never missed a payment. He often put ten thousand on his credit card in one month, and paid it in full the next. Then he filed for bankruptcy and everything disappeared. I show no credit history for him after the bankruptcy.”

“Mercy,” was Connie's only comment.

“That explains a bit about his attitude, doesn't it?” Angie murmured.

Stan looked from one to the other. “Ready for lunch yet?”