Cooking Most Deadly Read online

  He was in no hurry. Until he was sure he’d learned everything the dead man could tell him about the way he died and by whom, he’d keep the body right where it was.

  The removal team rolled their eyes at each other at the delay. Paavo saw their gesture and dismissed it. Same for the jewelry store owner, who was pacing back and forth in front of the store, anxious to get in and figure out how much was left of his money and jewels. From what Paavo could see, he didn’t have anything to worry about.

  “Let me go!”

  Paavo whirled around at the sound of a woman’s cry. A young blonde, nicely dressed in a business suit and high heels, struggled with the uniformed officer guarding the crime scene. As Paavo approached her, she stopped struggling. Fear at what she might learn filled her eyes.

  “I’m Inspector Smith,” he said.

  Her tear-stained face would have been pretty were it not etched with worry. “I heard it on the radio,” she said, her voice trembling. “On the traffic report. A shooting at a jeweler’s on Post Street. I called, but it wasn’t Nathan who answered the phone. It was a police officer.” Her icy fingers grasped Paavo’s hands. “He’s going to be all right, isn’t he? Tell me he’ll be all right.”

  “Are you his wife?” Paavo asked.

  She nodded.

  “I’m sorry,” he said gently. “He didn’t make it.”

  “No! You’re wrong!” she screamed, her grip tightening. “Let me see him.”

  “Mrs. Ellis—”

  “He’s all right!” she cried. “Please, God.”

  Paavo gestured at the patrolman beside her. “This is Officer Crossen. He’ll take care of you, Mrs. Ellis.”

  “Nathan!” She sobbed hysterically as Paavo pulled his hands free of hers and backed away. The young patrolman led her slowly toward his police car. He’d take her home and find someone to stay with her.

  Paavo shut his eyes a moment, running his fingers through his hair as her cries echoed in his mind. He faced the body, checking, double-checking, and all the while pondering the man who had been Nathan Ellis and all he’d lost this day.

  Finally, he took a deep breath and scanned the crowd until he found a small, white-haired man. “I understand you’re the owner,” he said.

  “Yes,” the man said, his voice quivering.

  Paavo drew him away from the crowd and gave the coroner’s men the okay to remove the body.

  “Your full name?” he asked.

  “Philip Justin Pierpont.”

  “You’re the one who discovered that Mr. Ellis had been shot?”

  “Yes. I was coming back from the bank, and I heard a loud noise. I thought a car had backfired, but then I saw people running away from the shop, screaming. I hid in a doorway, I’m sorry to say. When it was quiet again, I came here and found Nathan.”

  “You called the police and reported a robbery.”

  “Yes.”

  In the jewelry shop, diamond rings and necklaces on black velvet had sparkled under the lights. Paavo had seen nothing broken into, nothing disturbed. The cash register was still filled with cash. “What made you think it was a robbery?”

  The man’s cheeks turned red, his hands moved spasmodically, as if out of control. “What reason other than robbery could anyone have been here? Why else would anyone shoot Nathan Ellis?”

  At five o’clock, Paavo finally arrived at his desk to enter into his computer the lengthy notes he’d taken at the jewelry store that morning and throughout the day as he’d spoken with friends, relatives, and coworkers of the victim, as well as potential witnesses up and down the block where the jeweler’s was located. It had been a frustrating day. So far, they’d found no witnesses to the crime, and no one had seen anyone go into or come out of the jeweler’s that morning. The robber had to have gone out the back door into an alley, which meant he had cased the place before robbing it.

  It was, in fact, a robbery. A couple of hours after he’d left the store, Philip Pierpont had phoned to tell him that three inexpensive reproductions of Russia’s priceless Fabergé eggs were missing—blown crystal eggs, encrusted with gold, worth no more than a few hundred dollars apiece. The originals were in museums, but here, someone had killed a man over a set of copies. It didn’t make sense.

  Paavo stared grimly at the words he’d placed on his computer screen. The downtown area around Post and Grant Streets was one of San Francisco’s busiest. That no one saw anything was hard to believe. He couldn’t help but suspect he was dealing with the big-city problem of people not wanting to get involved in any problems that didn’t affect them personally. The fact that a twenty-nine-year-old was gunned down senselessly seemed to mean little to anyone except his family and friends.

  Sometimes Paavo wondered why it meant anything to him.

  His phone rang. It was MasterCard’s security division, giving him the home telephone numbers that matched the cards of two customers who were in Carole Anne’s Dress Shoppe, next door to Sans Souci Jewelers, just minutes before the shooting occurred. There was a slight chance one or both of the women had been on the street in front of the jeweler’s when the gunman entered. If so, he had to get to them fast.

  Generally, eyewitnesses to murders didn’t provide much help. Their memories were too easily influenced. The bigger the case, the more they tended to “remember” what was shown on TV the night before. But he wanted to find out why they’d left so quickly. Why they weren’t among the people Yosh had interviewed.

  He dialed the first number. No one answered. He called the second number. No answer there either. Where were they?

  The unanswered telephone calls brought an eerie déjà vu from last night. Up until eleven o’clock he’d kept trying to reach Angie. He’d even checked to see if there’d been any auto accidents involving a Ferrari Testarossa. There hadn’t.

  After eleven, he gave up. He hadn’t left a message, not wanting her to think he’d been checking up on her. She’d probably gone to visit one of her sisters. Maybe a girlfriend. It wasn’t as if the words Stan had spoken about her no longer telling him where she was going or what she was doing had bothered him. He had scarcely thought about them at all except for one or two or ten times.

  When he arrived at work that morning he’d skimmed the accident reports again and felt like a jerk doing it. If he didn’t watch himself, he’d start calling hospital emergency rooms next.

  He had no reason to expect her to tell him every time she went out in the evening. She could go where she pleased, with whomever. After all, they’d never spoken of an exclusive commitment.

  He’d made some assumptions, though. Some big assumptions. Maybe even some foolish ones.

  He forced himself to shove aside thoughts of where she might have gone last night. It was her business, not his. What he needed to do was to type up his notes while his scribbles still made sense. Later, he’d call. Tonight, though, with a fresh murder case to investigate, he wasn’t going anywhere.

  Before long, he became lost in speculation about the case and in deciphering the day’s findings. Looking up from his computer, he glanced at the clock on the wall. Seven-forty. Then at his desk calendar.

  His desk calendar had somehow gotten stuck on Friday. But today was Tuesday…Tuesday night. That seemed to mean something. He’d been too busy the last couple of days to flip the pages. Now he did.

  And discovered he was in big trouble.

  Angie had bought ballet tickets for the two of them for tonight. He rubbed his forehead. He’d never been to the ballet before. Had never wanted to go. Still didn’t.

  But she had been looking forward to it, and he’d promised to join her. He’d even told her that if he didn’t call her beforehand, he’d meet her in front of the Opera House in time for the eight o’clock performance. She was probably already there waiting.

  He glanced down at his clothes. Dark gray jacket and pants, white shirt, navy tie. A day of rooting around a crime scene and hunting down witnesses hadn’t done wonders for them, not to mention h
is way-past-five o’clock shadow, or the fact that he’d forgotten about lunch and hadn’t had time for dinner.

  Yosh walked into the squad room. “Here’s that encyclopedia article you wanted.”

  Paavo took the photocopied pages.

  Peter Carl Fabergé, b. May 30, 1846, d. Sept. 24, 1920, was a Russian goldsmith whose studios achieved fame for the skill exemplified in the objets d’art created by its artisans, who worked in gold, silver, enamel, and precious stones, set in ingenious designs…. Some of the most imaginative pieces were for the Russian courts of Alexander III and Nicholas II, including the famous series of decorated enamel Easter eggs given as presents by the tsars.

  “So, what do you think, Paav? The killer have a hen fetish or something?” Yosh asked, then chuckled.

  Although black humor was a big part of the way homicide inspectors dealt with the ugliness they saw every day, there were times Paavo couldn’t join in. Some cases wheedled their way under even the thickest skins. Usually, they were the ones that involved kids. But today, Debbie Ellis’s grief-chilled hands had made him see Nathan Ellis as a person, not just another statistic added to the city’s murder rate.

  “I got it!” called Inspector Bo Benson from the other side of the quiet room. Calderon’s partner, he was spending most of his time lately trying to crack a gang-related teen party shooting. He walked toward them, a big smile on his face. “The guy was trying to figure out which came first, the chicken or the egg, and the clerk must have—”

  Yosh grabbed Benson’s arm and swung him around. “Coffee time, Bo,” Yosh said, leading Benson away from Paavo’s glare.

  Paavo threw down the pages in disgust. Three modern Fabergé eggs. Why were they taken? Anyone would be lucky to get a fence to give a sawbuck for the lot of them. The kind of people who would be interested in that kind of decoration weren’t the kind who frequented pawnshops or ran with fences.

  And most puzzling, why steal eggs when there were diamonds to grab? Even a junkie desperate for a fix doesn’t grab playthings when faced with diamonds.

  Did Nathan Ellis spook the gunman? Maybe the killer fired in a sudden panic, snatched the nearest thing at hand, and fled.

  Then again, could the gunman have come to kill Ellis and lifted the eggs to confuse everyone? But if so, wouldn’t taking diamonds have been a better ploy?

  Too many possibilities, too many questions only the gunman could answer—when he was caught.

  Paavo glanced at the clock again. Seven-fifty-three. The ballet would last a couple of hours, he’d see Angie home, and hopefully be back here by eleven. He grabbed his jacket, and prayed a taxi would be near.

  Angie stood in front of the Opera House. She should have known Paavo would be late. If she’d been thinking, she’d have left his ticket at the box office. That way she, at least, could have seen the beginning of Romeo and Juliet. She had so looked forward to having him see it with her, though—the beautiful dancing, Prokofiev’s luscious music, and, most of all, the tragic love story—the beauty of love and commitment more important than life itself. And she couldn’t even get her man to the theater on time. Where had she gone wrong?

  With startling clarity, her conversation with Bianca came back to her. Was she to blame for Paavo’s not being here? Was she too unwilling to compromise?

  He was probably busy—and had been too busy all day to call. But he’d expressly told her that if he didn’t call, he’d be here. He’d canceled out on her before, but he’d never stood her up. She didn’t want to even consider him doing such a thing. Where was he?

  If he’d gotten a new case, that meant someone else had been killed, another death in this city that had seen more than its share of violence. Right across Van Ness Avenue from her stood City Hall, its high, round dome lighting up the night sky, majestic and noble. That was appearance, though. Beneath the dome, battles for control of the city were legion, and not too many years before, a member of the Board of Supervisors had murdered the mayor and a fellow supervisor.

  A shiver ran down her back. Maybe it was just some paperwork that was keeping him, and not a new murder at all.

  She glanced up and down the street. Now that the ballet had started, the sidewalk was empty except for two street people who’d wandered over from Civic Center Plaza to ask the supposedly wealthy ballet-goers for handouts.

  She raised the collar of her evening coat against her neck and backed up toward the tall glass doors, wanting to be inside, enjoying the warmth of the building instead of out here.

  A taxi pulled ahead of a line of cars stopped at a red light, cut across two lanes, and screeched to a halt in front of the Opera House. Paavo jumped out and thrust some money at the cab driver. Angie folded her arms, lifted her nose in the air, and gazed past him. A small green car stopped behind the taxi. Something about it momentarily caught her attention.

  Paavo raced up the stairs to her side. “Sorry,” he said.

  “It’s already started,” she replied matter-of-factly.

  “I was afraid of that,” he said guiltily. “Do you want to go in, anyway? Or just forget it this time?”

  “I’d like to go in. But I suppose you’ll hate it, won’t you?”

  “Hate it? I’ve never seen—”

  “That’s why you weren’t here on time.”

  “No, I—”

  “You could have told me. I’m able to compromise.”

  “Angie, what are you talking about?”

  “I had orchestra seats for us, too. I thought you’d enjoy seeing the ballet.”

  “I hope to enjoy it,” he said very quickly.

  She paused. “You do?”

  “Yes. I do.”

  Slowly, her face spread into a smile. “Oh, well, in that case, what are we waiting for?” Ignoring his puzzled expression, she took his arm and allowed him to escort her inside.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  He eased a double set of surgical gloves onto his hands, the latex like an extra layer of skin. He flexed his fingers. No more planning or preparation: it was payoff time.

  After a quick glance over his surroundings—rows of apartment buildings done in postwar stark, boxlike architecture, the only thing making them at all attractive being the view of the city this Twin Peaks location provided—he scanned the name tags on the mailboxes.

  There it was.

  He pushed the buzzer beneath her name. His covered fingertips tingled as his tightly controlled excitement mounted.

  No answer.

  The silent intercom mocked his expectations. She had to be there. After all, he’d followed her all the way from City Hall earlier that evening. She couldn’t have left already. What was the goddamn bitch doing?

  He jabbed at the button.

  More silence. He tasted the sweat that had formed on his upper lip.

  “Yes?” came a hesitant voice from the intercom.

  “Delivery.”

  “This time of night? I’m not expecting anything.”

  “It’s a gift, ma’am. Roses. Nice, long-stemmed roses.” He spoke with steady deliberation, fighting a growing impatience.

  “Roses?”

  “These are beautiful, ma’am. Best bouquet we have. My boss said the tall, gray-haired guy who bought them insisted on delivery tonight. Said it was special or something. I guess it’s all in the card. I’ll read it to you if you’d like.”

  “I’ll read it myself. I’ll buzz you in.” Her pleasure was evident.

  The door’s lock sang with an electric hum as he pushed it open.

  Inside he paused, breathing deeply. The heavy glass door swung shut behind him. He cleared his mind of all thoughts other than those of the woman in Apartment 320. Then he began his ascent up the stairs, calmly and silently.

  When he reached the third floor landing he carefully placed the box of roses on the floor. He didn’t want her to recognize him as the Chronicle salesman from the other day. With practiced efficiency, he removed his glasses and slipped them into the breast pocket of his shirt,
attached a fake brown mustache to his upper lip, and put on the John Deere baseball cap he carried under his jacket. Satisfied with his transformation, he picked up the flowers, walked to Tiffany Rogers’s apartment door, and knocked.

  She opened the door, clutching her thin, clinging robe to her chin. With her other hand, she touched the damp hair curling around her oval face. The closeness of her barely concealed body, full, soft, and reeking of pure, raw sex, both excited and troubled him.

  “I was in the shower when you rang,” she said, taking a half step backward.

  “Ma’am.” He crossed the threshold and touched the brim of his cap.

  “Oh…come in.” Her voice was hesitant. “It is drafty out there, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She was walking toward the purse on her living room table when he shut the door behind him. At the sound of the click she stopped, half turned, and looked at him.

  “I want to tip you,” she said. “I’ll only be a moment.”

  His reply was a thin, awkward smile.

  She rummaged in her purse, then turned around with the two dollars she’d taken from her wallet.

  She gasped in surprise. He had silently followed her into the living room and stood close, too close. “Here,” she said, and thrust the dollar bills in his direction.

  He wanted to put his glasses on, to see her better. Ignoring the extended hand with the money, his eyes explored her. The robe clung and accentuated her soft curves, its V neck all but exposed her pendulous breasts to his gaze. His breath caught, and he could feel beads of perspiration at his temples.

  “Here…the money,” she said, her voice rising. “Give me the flowers.”

  He pushed the flower box toward her with one hand as he snatched the dollar bills with the other. The woman, clutching the box to her body with both arms, moved back, away from him. A puzzled look crossed her face. She stared at him. He could see the distaste in her gaze as she took in his sweat-streaked face, his weak, myopic eyes.