To Catch a Cook: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (3 page)

Paavo strode briskly down Post Street, past porn shops and massage parlors, past doorways filled with wide-eyed Vietnamese children. In daylight, kids could be seen in the area, darting about, playing, or huddling in clusters and watching the goings-on. Once the sun went down, they disappeared, and San Francisco’s version of the zombie class took over those streets—hookers, pimps, and addicts, plus a few lost tourists who didn’t realize that edging close to the theater district lay this corner of despair.

Double-parked cop cars, their dome lights revolving, signaled which building the body had been found in. As a homicide inspector, Paavo worked to find out why people’s lives were suddenly taken from them, even if that life had been lived in a hellhole like this.

A sheet from the afternoon
Examiner
blew toward him and stuck against his leg. He was careful to step over puddles of urine that stained the sidewalk next to buildings. The city had spent big bucks putting in fancy French-built portable toilets on sidewalks in tourist parts of the city—big enough for wheelchair access. Unfortunately, that meant they
were big enough for other uses, too, like quick sex and drug deals. There were no Porta Pottis in this part of town.

A rank smell pervaded the building’s entrance. Pale green paint covered the walls, a color that must have been given away by the barrel to tenements and jails. Lurid graffiti was scrawled over the paint.

“Two floors up, Inspector,” the uniform at the door told him. “Elevator’s not working.”

They never were in places like this, Paavo thought, which was probably for the best because few owners of such buildings would pay for their proper maintenance anyway. Riding one could cause more chills, thrills, and spills than found at Disneyland.

At the top of the stairs more enlightening graffiti about the sexual habits of various residents filled a long, dark hallway. The debris and dirt on the floor crunched as he walked down the linoleum hall. With his partner on vacation this week, he wasn’t supposed to be going to death scenes, but handling paperwork and court dates, and investigating cases he already had. This week’s on-call team, Benson and Calderon, were mired down in a double homicide that involved a doctor and his wife who had been big-time contributors to the city’s mayor. Rebecca Mayfield and her partner, Bill Never-Take-A-Chance Sutter, were the backup team, but they had already gone out on a homicide investigation when this third call came in. Paavo should have looked to see if the moon was full last night. If so, it would have explained a lot.

A patrol officer guarded the crime scene. Paavo signed the logbook, ducked under the yellow police tape, and stepped inside.

Before him was a typical tenement apartment—the walls a dingy yellow, the single window so
filthy little sunlight came through. A torn shade covered the top half. The main room held an old sofa, coffee table, chair, and TV, and a kitchenette in one corner. Next to it was the bedroom, and beyond it, the bathroom. Drawers had been pulled from chests and upended. He was growing sick of that sight.

Despite the drawers, he noticed that, unlike most of these tenement apartments, the floor and furniture weren’t covered with empty food containers and other garbage.

A little girl sat on a tattered sofa. She had long brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her bangs were thick, and cut straight across, a millimeter above blue eyeglass frames. The frames were the defining feature on her face, which was pale and plain. Her hands were folded on her lap, and brown eyes stared at him through the thick glasses.

“Hello,” he said.

“Hello.” Her voice was firm and no tears showed on her face. With her was a patrol officer Paavo knew, George McNally.

“This is Jane Platt, Inspector,” McNally said. “She was the one who called nine-one-one when she found her grandfather.” McNally pointed toward the open door. “Jacob Platt is in the bedroom.”

Paavo was surprised at the news that the calm-looking little girl had found the body. He’d seen adults fall apart over such discoveries. He didn’t remark on it, but gazed at her and nodded his approval. Her eyes held his a moment, then lowered.

After a quick perusal of the living room, he carefully entered the bedroom. “Did you or anyone else touch anything, McNally?” he asked.

“Didn’t need to,” McNally said.

McNally certainly had no need to question the
fact of the man’s death. The floor was covered with blood, and in the middle of it, Jacob Platt lay, shot point-blank in the forehead. The entry hole was small, with powder burns surrounding it. The way Platt had fallen made it possible to see that the entire back of his skull had been blown off. Paavo couldn’t help but think about the young girl finding this.

The bedroom held a twin bed, a small, rickety dresser, the contents of it spilled onto the floor, and two enormous tables, standing side by side. Two high-intensity lamps stood on one table, plus some strange equipment. He recognized the soldering iron, wire cutters, fine-nosed implements, Bunsen burner, and microscope. The RS Mizar tester was a mystery, as was something called a Ceres Secure Moissanite Tester. Things started to make a little sense with the Raytech-Shaw faceter, the Diamond Jem cabbing machine, a centrifugal magnetic finisher, and finally, a magnetic polisher. Jewelry-making equipment.

No jewelry, metals, or gems were found, and he wondered if Platt had been killed for them. Judging from the equipment, Platt could have had a lucrative business—and judging from its location, it was probably illegal, or at best questionable.

Officer McNally talked with the girl while Paavo continued to sketch and survey the scene. He had no sooner finished when the CSU arrived. He went over to the young girl and sat down beside her. She wore jeans and a gray zippered sweatshirt over a red T-shirt. “How are you doing, Jane?” he asked.

“I’m all right.” Her voice was soft, and she looked more shy than tearful. Wide-eyed, she watched the crime scene investigators enter the apartment.

“How old are you?”

She lifted blue-eyeglass-framed eyes to his. “Nine.”

He flashed onto his nightmare. Even staying with Angie in that beautiful hotel—an indulgence he would have to give up as he seemed to have exaggerated the danger she was in—the nightmare haunted his sleep.

In the dream, his sister was the age of this girl. Nine. Why had he dreamed of her being only age nine? She’d been
nineteen
when she died, not nine. He tried to dismiss the memory. “Do you live here?”

“Yes.”

“Just the two of you?”

She nodded.

“When you came home, was there anyone in the apartment besides your grandfather?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I called hello, and when he didn’t answer I looked for him.” She shuddered. “Then I phoned nine-one-one.”

Jane’s eyes grew even rounder when Assistant Coroner Evelyn Ramirez walked into the apartment carrying a medical bag. She waved at Paavo, but one look at the young girl’s face, and instead of making her usual ghoulish comments, she went straight into the bedroom. Two med technicians followed. Paavo noticed that the child’s breathing had grown heavy. She was a good actress, but apparently not nearly as unmoved by her grisly find as she pretended to be.

He placed his hand on her narrow shoulder. “Where can we reach your mother or father?”

“They aren’t here,” she said.

They aren’t here
. That was how Jessica used to answer whenever kids at school or teachers or others would ask about their mother or father. Older, and tough, and protective of her little brother, Jessie would never say, “They’ve gone away,” or “They abandoned us,” or what he knew she really wanted to reply to the busybodies who questioned them, to
shake her fist and cry out, “We don’t know who the hell our fathers are, and we don’t give a goddamn about our mothers anymore, so what’s it to you, asshole?” Instead, she’d politely reply, “They aren’t here.”

“Do you have any relatives or friends to stay with?”

“I have an aunt,” she said in her matter-of-fact manner.

“I called her already, Inspector,” McNally said. “She’s on her way.”

“Okay, good.” Paavo’s gaze swept over the apartment. There was a limit to how long a kid could sit in a room permeated with the smell of her grandfather’s death, and this little girl had gone way past that point. “Want to go outside to wait for your aunt?”

“Yes.” Her face filled with gratitude and she stood. On the floor was her book bag. She picked it up and hitched it to her shoulders.

As they left the apartment, his gaze caught the equipment-laden table in the bedroom. “Do you know what your grandfather did in there?”

“He made jewelry.” She reached under her collar and pulled out a pendant on a gold chain.

Paavo stared in disbelief. The necklace was beautiful. It looked like something Angie might have owned—a large ruby with a small diamond on each side.

“It’s just a fake,” the girl said. “It has a flaw in it. That’s why Grandpa gave it to me to play with.”

“I really don’t think this is going to work, Angie,” Connie whispered, crouching behind a row of industrial-size garbage cans.

Angie, also stooping low, said, “Once, just once, I’d like to hear a bit of encouragement from you.”

“Maybe I’d feel more encouraging if my knees weren’t getting so stiff I’m afraid they might never straighten,” Connie whined. “I don’t relish spending my life looking like Groucho Marx.”

Earlier that evening, when Paavo called to say he’d be working late, the idea for the perfect addition to her video restaurant review popped into Angie’s head. She decided to act.

Now, both dressed in black jeans, black turtleneck sweaters, and black boots, she and Connie huddled in the alley behind the Pisces restaurant where they’d eaten the day before.

Angie checked and doubled-checked her new palm-sized video camcorder. “Just relax,” she said to her fidgeting friend. “I’m trying to figure this out. I think that window looks in on the kitchen, but it’s too high off the ground for me to see into. I’m going to have to get up on something.”

“Forget it. Let’s go home.”

Ignoring her suggestion, Angie tugged Connie along in a half crouch, half crawl. “We need to move one of these big garbage cans to a spot under the window.”

They found a can that was fairly empty, though reeking nonetheless. Each took a handle and carried it where Angie indicated.

“That can isn’t very steady.” Connie nudged it and watched it rock.

“You worry more than Little Red Riding Hood facing the wolf!” Angie tried to hoist herself up onto the flat, round lid, but couldn’t do it. The top reached to her armpit. “I need a boost.”

“This is dangerous, Angie,” Connie grumbled, bending over and clasping her hands so Angie could use them as a step.

“It’s fine.”

Angie stepped as Connie held firm and lifted.
With a wobbly clatter Angie was atop the garbage can on her knees, and turned to look at Connie. “Connie?”

“Down here.” She sat on the ground rubbing her hands.

“Are you okay?”

“Only if you call being used as a ladder and tumbling on your butt okay.”

“You’re okay.” Angie stood up on the groaning lid to look in the restaurant’s window.

“What do you see?” Connie asked, rising to her feet.

“This is so cool! I’m looking into the kitchen!” Her plan was working.

“Fantastic!”

“Unfortunately, there’s a rack in front of this window. It’s loaded with pans and blocks most of the view. I’m going to have to go to the next window to the left. That one should work better.”

“Come down, then,” Connie urged.

“Look, this can wasn’t very heavy. Why don’t you just drag another one over here? Then I’ll just step from this can to the next one.”

“We’re on a hill, Angie. The cans are too unsteady for that.”

“They’re huge and half-full of garbage. They aren’t going anywhere.”

“Since when have I become Connie-the-garbage-woman?”

There were times, Angie knew, when silence was golden.

Connie wrestled another can into place. Angie gingerly stepped onto it. “Much better.” She raised her camera. “Testing. One, two—oops!” She ducked down.

“What is it?” Instinctively Connie ducked, too. Her fierce whisper floated up to Angie.

“Someone’s coming. Shush!”

Angie slowly raised herself up to peer over the windowsill. The heavyset chef she’d seen earlier stood with his back to the window, chopping chicken. She had to get this on film. She put the camera up to her face, hoping against hope it was working.

The man’s backside filled the lens. It was not a pretty sight.

“What are you doing?” Connie tugged faintly at her ankle. “Come down before someone sees you!”

“Quiet,” Angie whispered back. “I need another can over there.” She pointed to her left.

“Angie, I don’t think—”

“Hurry, Connie! This is a great shot!”

She waited until she heard Connie say, “Okay.” Keeping her eye on the camera, she lifted a foot through the air, then toed the garbage can that Connie had put into place.

“The can has a little problem…” Connie warned.

Angie squared her foot on the new can.

“The lid doesn’t fit very well.”

As she shifted her weight, the garbage can cover gave way. The part she was standing on plunged downward while the other half soared straight up. Angie dropped like a stone. Connie ducked as the lid became airborne, whizzing by like a B-movie UFO to land with a ringing clatter on the street.

When Connie looked up again, Angie was gone. She clutched the lip of the can and looked down at Angie sitting in the soupy muck. “Get out of there! Someone might have heard you screech as you dropped.”

“This is so disgusting!” Angie stood. She wanted to wipe her hands, but she had nowhere to wipe them. Finally she gave up, grabbed the lip of the can, and tried to hoist herself up. The gunk she was
standing in and the sides of the can were so greasy she felt like she was trying to climb straight up an oil slick. “I need some help.”

“Ah, I know what to do.” Connie circled the garbage can to the uphill side. “Lean against the downhill side of the can.”