If Cooks Could Kill (27 page)

From the kitchen to the deck of a cruise ship, Joanne Pence's mysteries are always a delight. Starring career-challenged Angie Amalfi and her handsome homicide-detective boyfriend Paavo Smith, Joanne Pence serves up a mystery feast complete with humor, a dead body or two, and delicious recipes.

Enjoy the pages that follow, which give a glimpse into Angie's and Paavo's world.

A while passed before she looked up again. When she did, she saw a dark-haired man standing in the doorway to her apartment, surveying the scene. Tall and broad shouldered, his stance was aloof and forceful as he made a cold assessment of all that he saw.

If you're going to gawk, she thought, come in with the rest of the busybodies.

He looked directly at her, and her grip tightened on the chair. His expression was hard, his pale blue eyes icy. He was a stranger, of that she was certain. His wasn't the type of face or demeanor she'd easily forget. And someone, it seemed, had just sent her a bomb. Who? Why? What if this stranger…

As he approached with bold strides, her nerves tightened. Since she was without her high heels, the top of her head barely reached his chin.

The man appeared to be in his mid-thirties. His face was fairly thin, with high cheekbones and a pronounced, aquiline nose with a jog in the middle that made it look as if it had been broken at least once.
Thick, dark brown hair spanned his high forehead, and his penetrating, deep-set eyes and dark eyebrows gave him a cold, no-nonsense appearance. His gaze didn't leave hers, and yet he seemed aware of everything around them.

“Your apartment?” he asked.

“The tour's that way.” She did her best to give a nonchalant wave of her thumb toward the kitchen.

She froze as he reached into his breast pocket. “Police.” He pulled out a billfold and dropped open one flap to reveal his identification: Inspector Paavo Smith, Homicide.

Angie glanced up from the monitor. She'd been debating whether or not to try to take the next call, if and when one came in, when her attention was caught by the caller's strange voice. It was oddly muffled. Angie couldn't tell if the caller was a man or a woman.

“I didn't catch your name,” Henry said.

“Pat.”

Angie's eyebrows rose. A neuter-sounding Pat? What was this, a
Saturday Night Live
routine?

“Well, Pat, what can I do for you?”

“I was concerned about the restaurant killer in your city.”

Henry's eye caught Angie's. “Thank you. I'm sure the police will capture the person responsible in no time.”

“I'm glad you think so, because—you're next.”

Henry jumped up and slapped the disconnect button. “And now,” he said, his voice quivering, “a word from our sponsor.”

She placed her hand over his large strong one, scarcely able to believe that they were here, in this strange yet lovely room, alone. “But I am real, Paavo.”

“Are you?” He bent to kiss her lightly, his eyes intent, his hand moving from her chin to the back of her head to intertwine with the curls of her hair. The mystical aura of the room, the patter of the rain, the solitude of the setting stole over him and made him think of things he didn't want to ponder—things like being together with Angie forever, like never being alone again. He tried to mentally break the spell. He needed time—cold, logical time. “There's no way a woman like you should be in my life,” he said finally. “Sometimes I think you can't be any more real than the Sempler ghosts. That I'll close my eyes and you'll disappear. Or that I'm just imagining you.”

“Inspector,” she said, returning his kiss with one that seared, “there's no way you could imagine me.”

Cold logic melted in the midst of her fire, and all his careful resolve went with it. His heart filled, and the solemnity of his expression broke. “I know,” he said softly, “and that's the best part.”

As his lips met hers a bolt of lightning lit their room for just a moment. Then a scream filled the darkness.

“You've got to keep City Hall out of this case. As far as the press knows, she was a typist. Nothing more. Mumble when you say where she worked.” Lieutenant Hollins got up from behind his desk, walked around to the front of it, and leaned against the edge. Paavo and Yosh sat facing him. They'd just completed briefing him on the Tiffany Rogers investigation. Hollins made it a point not to get involved in his men's investigations unless political heat was turned on. In this case, the heat was on high.

“Her friends and coworkers are at City Hall, and there's a good chance the guy she's been seeing is there as well,” Paavo said.

“It's our only lead, Chief,” Yosh added. “So far, the CSI unit can't even find a suspicious fingerprint to lift. The crime scene is clean as a whistle. She always met her boyfriend away from her apartment. We aren't sure where yet. We've got a few leads we're still checking.”

“So you've got nothing except for a dead woman lying in her own blood on the floor of her own living room!” Hollins added.

“We have to follow wherever the leads take us,” Paavo said.

“I'm not saying not to, all I'm saying is keep the press away.” Hollins paced back and forth in front of his desk. “The mayor and the Board of Supervisors want this murderer caught right now. This isn't the kind of publicity they want for themselves or the city. I mean, if someone who works for them isn't safe, who is?”

“Aw heck, Paavo.” Yosh turned to his partner. “The supervisors said they want us to catch this murderer fast. Here I'd planned to take my sweet time with this case.”

Paavo couldn't help but grin.

“Cut the comedy, Yoshiwara.” Hollins stuck an unlit cigar in his mouth and chewed. “This case is number one for you both, got it?”

Angelina Amalfi flung open the window over the kitchen sink. After two days of cooking with chocolate, the mouthwatering, luscious, inviting smell of it made her sick.

That was the price one must pay, she supposed, to become a famous chocolatier.

She found an old fan in the closet, put it on the kitchen table, and turned the dial to high. The comforting aroma of home cooking wafting out from a kitchen was one thing, but the smell of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory was quite another.

She'd been trying out intricate, elegant recipes for chocolate candies, searching for the perfect confection on which to build a business to call her own. Her kitchen was filled with truffles, nut bouchées, exotic fudges, and butter creams.

So far, she'd divulged her business plans only to Paavo, the man for whom she had plans of a very different nature. She was going to have to let someone
else know soon, though, or she wouldn't have any room left in the kitchen to cook. She didn't want to start eating the calorie-oozing, waistline-expanding chocolates out of sheer enjoyment—her taste tests were another thing altogether and totally justifiable, she reasoned—and throwing the chocolates away had to be sinful.

Paavo became aware, in a semi-asleep state, that the storm was much worse than anyone had expected it would be. The best thing to do was to try to sleep through it, to ignore the roar of the sea, the banging of rain against the windows, the almost human cry of the wind through the ship.

He reached out to Angie. She wasn't there. She must have gotten up to use the bathroom. Maybe her getting up was what had awakened him. He rolled over to go back to sleep.

When he awoke again, the sun was peeking over the horizon. He turned over to check on Angie, but she still wasn't beside him. Was she up already? That wasn't like her. He remembered a terrible storm last night. He sat up, suddenly wide awake. Where was Angie?

He got out of bed and hurried to the sitting area. Empty. The bathroom door was open. Empty.

The wall bed was down. What was that supposed to mean? Had she tried sleeping on it? Had she grown so out of sorts with him that she didn't want to sleep with him anymore? Things had seemed okay between them last night. He remembered her talking…she was talking about writing a cookbook again…and he remembered getting more and more sleepy…he must have…oh, hell.

The nude body was that of a male Caucasian, early forties or so, about 5'10", 160 pounds. The skin was an opaque white. Lips, nose, and ears had been removed, and the entire area from approximately the pubis to the sigmoid colon had been cored out, leaving a clean, bloodless cavity. No postmortem lividity appeared on the part of the body pressed against the ground. The whole thing had a tidy, almost surreal appearance. No blood spattered the area. No blood was anywhere; apparently, not even in the victim. A gutted, empty shell.

The man's hair was neatly razor-cut; his hands were free of calluses or stains, the skin soft, the nails manicured; his toenails were short and square-cut, and his feet without bunions or other effects of ill-fitting shoes. In short, all signs of a comfortable life. Until now.

The bedroom had also been torn apart and the mattress slashed. This was far, far more frightening than what had happened to her own apartment. There was anger here, perhaps hatred.

“What is going on?” she cried. “Why would anyone destroy your things?”

“It looks like a search, followed by frustration.”

As she wandered through the little house, she realized he was right. It wasn't random destruction as she had first thought, but where the search to her apartment had appeared slow and meticulous, here it was hurried and frenzied.

“Hercules!” he called. “Herc? Come on, boy, are you all right?”

Angie's breath caught. His cat…He loved that cat.

“Do you see him?” she asked, standing in the bedroom doorway.

“No. They better not have hurt my cat,” he muttered, his jaw clenched. They looked under the bed, in the closets, and throughout the backyard.

She was afraid—and for Hercules, more afraid that they'd find the cat than that they wouldn't. If he had run and was hiding, scared, he should return home eventually, but if he was nearby, and unable to come when called…

They couldn't find him.

Finally, back in the living room, Paavo bleakly took in the damage, the ugliness before him. “Who's doing this, Angie, and why?