Read Something's Cooking Online
Authors: Joanne Pence
Something's Cooking
Joanne Pence
This book is dedicated to Rose and Pancho,
and to the whole, wonderful Italian side of my
own familyâwith much love.
Wine Eggs Mornay. Poached Eggs on Canapés with Cheese Fondue Sauce. Soufflé Aux Blancs D'Oeufs
.
Angelina Amalfi tossed the recipes aside. They'd never do. They were simply too common.
She sat cross-legged on the floor of the den in her Russian Hill penthouse apartment. Stacks of recipes sent to her by readers of her food columnâas well as those she'd clipped over the years from other newspapers, magazines, and fund-raiser cookbooksâlay scattered around her. It was Sunday. She had barely one hour left to fax Monday's column to the newspaper, but even so, she was being choosy. She needed a recipe that was eye-catching and appealing, perhaps with some particularly interesting ingredient.
She ran her fingers through her hair in frustration, then let herself slump, her elbows on her knees and her head in her hands.
How could a sweet, little old man like Sam have failed her this way? He frequently contributed to her column. Her readers loved his unique recipes, as did her editor. And Sam enjoyed seeing his words in print, even if they were only recipes. When he had called that morning and said he had a recipe for her next column, she had offered to meet him at a nearby park to pick it up. Nice though Sam was, she felt uneasy about inviting him to her home. Besides, he dyed his hair black, and something about a man in his late sixties with hair the color of Count Dracula's was just plain weird.
They should have met two hours ago, but he hadn't shown up. She had waited for him for over an hour, enjoying the warm October sun, and then hurried back to her apartment to meet her deadline.
She frowned as she glanced at the unrelenting clock.
Chocolate Meringue. Almond Mocha Torte. Italian Rum Cake
. Yes, these recipes were much more her style than the ones for breakfast foods Sam usually gave her.
There was a knock on the door to her apartment. Now what? she wondered. She didn't have time for interruptions.
The knocking grew louder.
Irritated, she stood up and stuffed her silk blouse back into her slacks as she hurried through the elegant, antique-laden living room. She reached the front door and swung it open.
No one was there.
Puzzled, she stepped onto the plush carpeting of the hallway. The well-polished doors of the elevator were closed, as was the door to the stairwell.
All was quiet.
As she turned back, she saw a small, brown package, about the size of a pound of butter, propped up against the doorframe. She looked around again, puzzled, and then picked it up and walked back inside, kicking the door shut as she searched for the sender's name and address. There was none.
Who would hand-deliver a package to Occupant?
Occupant!
She'd been interrupted, her deadline upon her, for nothing but a lousy sales pitch? These advertising companies were getting pushier every day.
She stomped into the kitchen to toss the package into the trashbag under the sink, then hesitated. Today was Sunday. Would a sales delivery be made on a Sunday?
The package was heavy for its size. Quite heavy. She gave it a little shake.
Nothing seemed to move inside. She raised it to her ear and shook it again. A soft
tick-tick-tick
filled the cold silence of the kitchen.
She shuddered. This was silly. She reached for the string binding the package, but her hand shook. She clenched her hand a moment, then relaxed and tried to touch the string again. She pulled her hand back as if burned.
This was nothing short of foolish, she told her
self. Still, it might be even more foolish to take chances.
The police. She'd ask them what to do. She laid the package on the counter above the dishwasher and tiptoed backward out of the kitchen. Once in the living room, she looked up the special phone number her father had given her from his friend, the police commissioner. She avoided relying on her father's money or influence under normal circumstances, but a mysteriously ticking package was definitely not normal.
“Police,” a youthful sounding voice answered.
“My name is Angelina Amalfi. Commissioner Barcelli told me to use this number if I ever needed special assistance.”
“Yes, ma'am. This is Officer Crossen. What can I do for you?”
“I've got a strange package here.”
“Yes?”
“It's wrapped in brown paper and it ticks.”
“Someone sent the package to you?”
“It was left at my door. It's marked Occupant.”
“Occupant? Are you sure it's not some advertising campaign? A sample from Timex or something?”
That gave her pause. “Are you suggesting I open it and find out?”
“No, ma'am. Please don't do that. I'll send someone out right away. He'll take care of everything. What's your address?”
“1010 Green, apartment 1201. What should I do in the meantime?”
“It's probably nothing dangerous, but to be safe, don't touch it.”
“But it's in my kitchen!”
“That sounds like a good place for it, ma'am.”
She hung up.
She went back to the kitchen and stood in the doorway, looking at the package. Her kitchen was a food columnist's dream. She loved her oversized, fire engine red stove imported from France, her Cuisinart, espresso machine, Belgian waffler, pasta maker, her Magnalite pots and pans, Henckels knives, cast-iron bakeware, microwave, and even her electric wok. These things filled her shelves, walls, and snowy white Corian countertops. Was the ticking louder, or was it her imagination? She should leave the package alone, as the policeman said, but then he didn't seem to think it was a bomb. No one would send a bomb to Occupant, for pity's sake. But if it did go offâ¦.
She hurried across the kitchen, opened the door of her dishwasherâa Maytag, advertised as indestructibleâgingerly placed the package inside, locked the door, and spun the dial to start the water flowing. Whatever the wretched thing was, she'd just defused it, she hoped.
She returned to the living room and sat down, one hand against her chest, breathing deeply to still the rapid pounding of her heart.
A loud blast from the kitchen shook the walls and rattled the windows. Angie clutched the arm of the sofa as a Dali lithograph fell off the wall, shattering its glass facing.
A puff of smoke and plaster dust billowed out of the kitchen doorway. Over the ringing in her ears, Angie heard the hiss of a stream of water.
No need for panic, she told herself.
Reaching for the phone, she fought to keep her hand steady as she punched the number. “Officer Crossen, please.” She couldn't quite control the quiver in her voice.
“Officer Crossen, this is Angelina Amalfi. Don't bother to send a bomb expert. Send a plumber.”
Sunday afternoons during
football season were quiet times in Homicide. On this day, the 49ers were on T.V., the fog over San Francisco Bay had lifted, and the October sun shone bright and warm.
The city was lazy, enjoying the mellow warmth of Indian summer before the chilling winter rains began. The Hall of Justice, a massive, gray, granite structure, cold and intimidating, stood quiet without the chaos that routine police business brought during the week.
The few inspectors on duty spent their time catching up with reports and other paperwork or, more likely, with the Sunday crossword puzzle. They relaxed in the certainty that nobody would get killed until the postgame brawls began.
All except one. San Francisco Police Inspector Paavo Smith rubbed his chin as he looked over
the office. It was too quiet, too peaceful. They had a name for it out here: earthquake weather.
Paavo leaned his long, angular frame back in his chair, propped his feet up on his desk, and skimmed through the stacks of papers in front of him. Ten-plus years on the force had taught him not to expect anything of particular interest in all the official memos. He wasn't disappointed.
Had the vending machines offered anything better than cold coffee, warm Coke, or brittle candy bars with stale nuts, he would have considered battling one for a snackâanything to block out this disturbing sense that something was going to happen.
He glanced over at his partner. As usual for a Sunday afternoon, Matt Kowalski was fast asleep, his head cradled on his arms on the desk top. The fluorescent light twinkled off the bald spot on his crown. Paavo sometimes referred to Kowalski as Sleeping Beauty, all six-foot-five, two hundred fifty pounds of him. Yet he envied this man who was able to sleep with such ease throughout their years on the force as rookies, as beat patrolmen, and now, as partners in Homicide.
Over the years Paavo had come to trust Matt's laid-back competence and professionalism and appreciate the way he never intruded into Paavo's life. He accepted Paavo's silent, intense ways. Paavo was a self-contained man who believed for many years that loneliness was preferable to loss. But Matt's easygoing nature, along with the thoughtfulness and warmth of Matt's wife, Katie,
had worn down Paavo's resistance. A strong friendship had gradually grown between them.
Paavo stood and stretched. If Chief Hollins could see Matt now, he'd keelhaul him without the benefit of a boat. But then, Hollins never showed up on Sundays.
He walked to the window. This part of town was far from the tourist areas. It was bleak and dingy with soot from the freeway that ran too close by. With his back to the others, he rested his forearms against the center rail of the double-hung windows and gazed at the broad street below, feeling wistful at the quiet passage of the warm afternoon.
At two
P.M.
, the telephone rang. Paavo lunged for it as Matt jumped up like a punch-drunk fighter hearing the bell for round ten.
Less than fifteen minutes later, the two of them were standing beside a body. The man had been killed, it appeared, by a single bullet in the chest, then shoved under bushes in the small, hillside park one block below the crest of Russian Hill.
Matt held back the bushes as Paavo made a careful search of the body. The victim carried no identification. He was a thin, white male, in his late sixties or so, with hair the color of black Grecian Formula at the ends and white at the roots. Old, clean, but ill-fitting clothes, the kind bought at thrift shops, made the man look like a harmless pensionerâexcept for one small detail. Using his handkerchief, Paavo plucked a six-inch
switchblade from the victim's jacket pocket and held it up for his partner to see.
Their eyes met. Silence communicated their years of shared experience with sudden, violent death. Old men with switchblades, children with guns, and quiet women with deadly rages were a part of the landscape of destruction so familiar to them.
Paavo laid the knife and handkerchief on the ground, stepped back, and stared at the body. Death brought no serenity to the faces he had gazed upon at murder scenes over the years. Pathetic vulnerability, terror, and fragility were the characteristics he discerned. Old men should die in bed, and Paavo was commissioned to find those who had deprived their victims of that final dignity. Even after more than ten years, he still believed in that duty.
When the deputy coroner took over, Paavo watched a moment, then thrust his hands into his pockets and walked to the uppermost part of the park, where the views were broad and the air didn't hold the stench of death.
He was about to leave the murder scene when a report of an explosion in a nearby luxury apartment came over his radio. He was told to get over there to see what was going on and that the bomb squad would be right behind him.
“Was someone killed?”
“Not clear,” the dispatcher said. “A rookie took the call. Said the woman, who's friends with the Commissioner, was kind of hysterical. He thought she said to send a plumber. Must have
said âcoroner.' Guess the woman wasn't the only hysterical one. The Chief says Homicide needs to take a look.”
As Matt headed downtown to begin working on the identity of the body, Paavo got into his car and drove the short distance to the apartment.
Â
By the time Angie put down the receiver, the pounding on her front door had already begun. Her next-door neighbor, Stan, called out her name, as did Edith, the widow who lived on the floor below. A loud thud shook the door.
“I'm okay!” She sprang from her chair and crossed the room. “Don't break the door down.”
As she opened the door, Stan lunged toward her and grabbed her arms, his brown eyes owlish. “What was that noise? It sounded like a bomb.”
Already the hall was filling up with people trying to see what had happened.
Angie's gaze snapped back to Stan's boyish face. “The kitchen.”
He dropped his hands and rushed into the apartment. Smoke had billowed into the living room and was hovering against the ceiling.
“Oh my God!” Stan cried as he stood in the doorway to the kitchen. “Oh my God!”
Edith and the others from the lower floors could contain their curiosity no longer and rushed inside.
Angie pushed her way past them to see for herself. Despite the explosion, she had not expected the sight before her. Squinting against the
smoke and dust, she saw that the dishwasher door had blown off its hinges and made a hole in the plaster on the far wall. The inside of the dishwasher looked like the inside of a barbecue pit, and water was everywhere. While Edith opened windows, a man from a ninth floor apartment, with whom she'd never even spoken, crawled under the sink and shut off the valve.
Stan pressed his hands against his lips. “Oh, Angie, it's so horrible. I didn't know a dishwasher could do that!” He looked faint.
“Be brave, Stanfield.” She took his arm and pulled him into the living room. “They're really no more dangerous than refrigerators.”
“But if you'd been loading it you could have been⦔ He shivered noticeably.
His unspoken words rocked her with greater force than the blast, and her carefully structured world began to spin. Images of her parents and sisters flashed before her, and how they would have felt ifâ¦
She groped for the back of a mahogany dining chair, trying to block out what he had said, the stricken way he looked. Her fingers clutched the chair and she leaned forward, willing her head to clear.
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 strangerâ¦
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.
The relief that filled her upon hearing he was with the police department vanished when she saw the word
Homicide
on his badge. A little premature, she thought.
“I'm Angelina Amalfi. This is my apartment.” Her voice shook. She took a deep breath.
He glanced around the room. “Was anyone hurt here, Miss Amalfi?”
“Only in spirit.”
“You didn't call for the coroner?”
“The coroner? Of course not.”
He regarded her for a moment, without expression. “Excuse me, please,” he said as he turned toward the crowd. “All right, everyone, show's over. Police. Clear the premises.”
At that moment, a uniformed policeman entered the room, followed by four men in blue jumpsuits. One was carrying a black metal box. Angie folded her arms. The bomb squad, a half-hour too late.
She watched as Inspector Smith's merest glance caused people to scurry away, even Stan. She understood why. He had the harshest glare she'd ever seen, and he used it as a weapon. The bomb squad went into the kitchen. Inspector Smith and the uniformed policeman glanced at each other, then the inspector went into the kitchen and the other stepped outside the apartment.
Angie pulled the chair she had used for support away from the dining table and sat in it, willing her heartbeat to slow down. She was grateful for this moment alone, this moment of silence to get her feelings in order.
Before long, the inspector returned to the living room.
She stood up to face him again, hoping he
would tell her what was going on and that this was all just a big mistake.
He said nothing but studied her with a professional, detached air. His gaze moved over her from head to toe, ticking off her attributesâor flaws, judging from his expression. She suddenly felt self-conscious in her fluffy pink bedroom slippers.
As his gaze rose again, his eyes fixed on her hands. She'd recently had her long nails silk-wrapped and painted a deep mauve. Now she was reminded of the time Sister Mary Ignatius had given her ten demerits for wearing polish in the eighth grade.
Men usually found her attractive, but the way the inspector looked at her, she might as well have been one of Homicide's corpses. She slid her hands into the pockets of her slacks and gave a slight
ahem
. His eyes met hers, but still he said nothing. It was as if he was calculating all he saw here, her included, but the numbers weren't adding up.
Angie couldn't remember the last time she had met anyone so infuriatingly close-mouthed. He clearly wasn't a man to give false assurances, to placate her with softness or warmth. She walked to the window.
“Was it a bomb, Inspector?” She clasped her hands behind her back, her head held high as she gazed out at the bay.
“It looks like it was. We'll know exactly in a day or two.”
She bowed her head. “I see. I had hoped⦔
“Would you tell me what happened?”
She folded her arms and shrugged, looking out the window again. “There's nothing to tell. I received a package marked Occupant and threw it in the dishwasher. I always wash my mail, doesn't everyone? This time, though, it blew up. Must have been one dynamite detergentâ¦.”
He waited until she had finished babbling. “I have a few questions.”
“Sure, so do I. Like what's going on?” she whispered as tears welled up in her. She turned to face him, to implore, but he stood rigid and frowning. At a loss, she looked around her familiar surroundings, trying to get something to make sense to her. She touched her forehead. “Would you like some coffee?” The question struck her as so inappropriate she nearly laughed. I sound like my mother, she thought. Whenever anything went wrong, Serefina Amalfi brought out the coffee. Supposedly, it made the world a little more tolerable. Angie was ready to try anything.
“Coffee?” he asked in surprise.
“As long as my coffee maker wasn't damaged, that is.”
His same impassive stare gripped her a moment. “All right. Thank you.” His reply was polite and controlled, yet his acquiescence gave Angie a welcome chance to do something other than stand around and listen to questions to which she had no answers.
“Please be seated, Inspector Smith,” she said, gesturing toward the small armchair beside her. She squared her shoulders and went to make a
pot of Italian roast. At least I can still do that, she thought. She went into the bathroom to fill the coffee pot with water, since the kitchen water was off, then stood in the corner of the kitchen while it brewed, watching the bomb team collect the fragmented remains of her package. When the coffee was ready, she served them each a cup, and even brought one to the patrolman outside her door.
When she returned to the living room, she saw the tall, intense-looking detective folded into her delicate, yellow, nineteenth-century Hepplewhite armchair. She tried to suppress a smile. Poor man hadn't even complained. The chair squeaked in an ominous way as he turned to take the coffee she offered.
