A Cook in Time Read online

  The din in the room grew louder as she picked up her purse and her coat, which had fallen to the floor.

  “Look at the time!” came a shout from the front.

  “The time?” Angie glanced up at the clock to the right of the stage—nine-thirty—then at her watch. She tapped it a couple of times. “My watch says nine-twenty. Has it stopped? My two-thousand-dollar unstoppable Movado has stopped?”

  “Mine did, too,” Malachi said. Suddenly an expression of almost beatific vision came over him. He climbed up on his chair and threw his arms high overhead. In a loud, booming voice, he cried, “They’re here! The aliens! Look at the clock, then at your watches! Time stopped for us. It was an alien abduction—of us!”

  First the auditorium turned absolutely still, then a woman screamed. Another stood up, then fainted. The man with her grabbed her and half dragged her out of the hall.

  “What’s going on?” Angie cried, also standing now.

  Ignoring her, Malachi shouted at the small crowd, his voice booming. “Where is Dr. Mosshad? He needs to explain this to us!”

  A cry rose from the audience as people began to clamor for Mosshad to tell them what had happened, to assure them that everything was all right.

  Time to go home, Angie decided. She was trying to step past Malachi when he got down from the chair and grabbed her arm, holding it tightly. “Let go of me!” she shouted.

  “Holton’s onstage. He’ll tell us what’s happened. You’ll see. Stay and listen to him.”

  The audience grew hushed, expectant. People sat and waited. Finally, Angie too sat back down, Malachi’s hand still on her arm.

  “My friends,” Derrick began, his voice softer than Angie had ever heard it, “something just happened backstage. Something strange and something very extraordinary. There was a light, and a ringing that went on for a long, long while. When it stopped, those of us back there discovered that we all had been given a message—the same message. I can’t say we heard it, because we didn’t hear it with our ears. We heard it some other way, and it became embedded deep in our brains. Those of us backstage confirmed it with each other. I know it’s hard to believe, but friends, I will share with you now the message we were given.”

  Derrick drew in a deep breath and looked out over the hall, his gaze meeting those in the audience one by one.

  “We have been told that Dr. Mosshad has—” He swallowed hard before continuing. “Dr. Mosshad has been abducted by a life force from another world.”

  7

  As Paavo and Yosh rode back to the Hall of Justice after spending over an hour at Lambert’s house, they swung by the top of Mt. Davidson to view the disturbance being reported on the police band.

  One of the city’s many millennium cults had gathered on the hilltop and built a bonfire. Paavo wondered how many years it would be before all the people worrying that the millennium would bring about changes to the planets, visitors from outer space, the Second Coming, Armageddon, or God only knew what else would find something new to worry about. He didn’t know if most cults were in fear or awe of the change in millennium, only that talk of the end of the world was running high. That worried the police. Fear of retribution and punishment was usually the easiest way to maintain order, but when people think the end was near, anything goes. Although some people thought mankind was naturally “good,” years of police work had taught him otherwise.

  Since there was a new moon that night, the cult had decided it meant their friends in outer space could see a welcoming bonfire. The top of Mt. Davidson was one of the few areas in the city that didn’t have nearby buildings. It consisted of a small parklike setting with a large Christian cross that for years had marked the highest spot in the city until the seventies, when the Sutro television and radio tower dwarfed it. Considering the ungodly reputation the city had acquired since that time, the displacement was probably fitting.

  Behind the cross, an enormous bonfire burned, silhouetting it. Paavo had never been a religious man and only went to church now and then to accompany Angie, but the contrast of the pagan bonfire and the cross was startling. The change in millennium was causing many people to search and to question. Even if they didn’t know what they were searching for.

  Paavo remembered the UFO brochure in Lambert’s house. He wondered if Lambert, too, might have been seeking answers to the loneliness of his life. If so, he hadn’t found them.

  The two inspectors saw that the police had the situation under control and the reveling stargazers were being dispersed, so they continued on to the Hall of Justice. In the parking lot, they got out of the city-owned vehicle.

  “I’m calling it a night, pal,” Yosh said, turning toward his Mercury Sable. “Nancy’s been making noises about never seeing me anymore. She’s right. She’s been busy, and I haven’t even had the time to find out what she wants for Christmas. That isn’t good for either one of us. If I get the wrong gift, I’m dead meat. I think leads on this case are pretty dead, anyway. A good night’s sleep isn’t going to kill them any more than they already are.”

  “You may be right,” Paavo said. He looked at the Hall, then thought of the bonfire he’d just left. Some people were out there having fun even in their anxiety, feeling alive, while he was supposed to go up to the fourth floor to deal with death. Maybe Yosh was right. The next day would be soon enough. That night, he had something else to do.

  Visions of Angie came to mind, along with how he’d felt when her loathsome neighbor said she’d gone out with another man. He needed to see her.

  “Going to get some shut-eye yourself, Paav?” Yosh asked.

  “Not hardly.”

  Yosh’s eyebrows rose, then he laughed out loud as Paavo waved good-bye and headed for his car.

  Angie pulled open the door at the first of Paavo’s light taps. He had a key to her apartment—as she did to his house—and he would have used it to let himself in if she were sleeping.

  He fixed his attention wholly on her, waiting for the shift of an eye, a flinch, the slightest nuance that might tell him he should be in any way concerned about her neighbor’s words. Even if Angie had gone out with an old boyfriend, though, it wouldn’t mean anything. He knew her, trusted her. Hell, he’d even told her he loved her, something he’d never told any other woman.

  “Thank God you’re here.” She threw herself into his arms. “It was so exciting, Paavo! I couldn’t believe it. It was so incredible! How did you find out already? Is it already on the news? Oh, of course! The police-band radio.”

  He held her close, shutting his eyes a quick moment in relief at her greeting and in disgust at himself for having allowed the slightest flicker of doubt to enter his mind. “Angie, hold on.” He lifted his head to look into big, brown, smiling eyes. “Find out what?”

  His hands held her waist. She wore a soft, fluffy yellow bathrobe that brushed the floor, and had washed off her makeup, making her look and feel so desirable it was all he could do not to stop her words with kisses. But she clearly was a lot more excited about something other than him just then.

  “You really haven’t heard?” A small furrow formed between her eyebrows.

  “I came here to see you,” he said softly. He couldn’t help but lift one hand to her face to feel the soft, smooth warmth of her skin. As their eyes met, his hand rested a moment on her shoulder, then slid down her back, past her waist to her hips, pulling her closer, pressing her tight against him.

  “Oh well … I …” Her gaze drifted from his blue eyes to the deeply shadowed lower lids, high cheekbones, and angular nose, and rested on his mouth. Her mood shifted, and suddenly the reality of the handsome man in her arms was a lot more interesting than the peculiar events at Tardis Hall. She lifted her arms to his neck. Who cares about some old aliens, she thought. His head lowered to hers, and their lips met. In minutes her robe lay on the floor of the living room while his clothes left a bread-crumb-like trail straight to Angie’s bed.

  In the bedroom, his touch, his kisses, his
caresses sent her spinning higher and higher until she arrived at a spot in outer space far beyond mere UFOs and Martians. He was her universe.

  Afterward, they lay on the bed, arms and legs intertwined. He ran his hand along her spine, enjoying the feel of her body against his.

  “So,” Paavo said, his mouth near her ear, his voice low, “what was this exciting thing you thought I came over here to learn about?”

  She inched even closer, her head on his shoulder and one arm draped across his chest. This was not the best time to tell him about Derrick, her new business, or anything else that might prompt enough questions to break the spell of the moment. Three nights and two murders since she’d last seen him meant she wanted all his attention on her for a while. Since he might find it odd that she would go to a place like Tardis Hall alone, she decided to pretend her girlfriend hadn’t abandoned her.

  “Connie and I wanted to hear a lecture tonight,” she said casually. “But we weren’t able to because the lecturer was abducted by aliens.”

  “Aliens?” He cupped her breast and lightly kissed the furrow on her brow that had intrigued him earlier. “You mean illegal aliens?”

  “I mean little green men.”

  He lifted his head and stared at her. He should have been past being surprised by things Angie said and did. But he wasn’t. “You’re joking.”

  “Well, I’m not saying the roof opened up and Leonard Nimoy grabbed the guy, but someone made an announcement telling us that was what happened.”

  At Paavo’s smirk, she quickly added, “It was probably a publicity stunt.”

  “I’d say so.”

  “You may be right. Let’s forget it.” She nibbled his ear, raising herself as he rolled onto his back. Her hand rubbed his chest, then his stomach.

  “You said you went with Connie?” he asked.

  “Mmm-hmmm,” she murmured, kissing his jaw, his neck, his shoulder as her hand drifted lower.

  “Just the two of you?”

  Her hand stopped. He couldn’t know, could he? Earl wouldn’t have called him and said anything. No, she was just feeling guilty for no reason whatsoever.

  “Just”—her mouth hovered over his—“the two of us.”

  As she kissed him, her hand found its destination and he asked no more questions.

  8

  “Look at this,” Yosh said early the next morning. “Someone’s stuck a Post-it to the autopsy schedule. Who’s Marcella?”

  “I don’t know,” Paavo said, glancing over at the schedule. Merry Christmas from Marcella. Incredible.

  “She must be someone in the coroner’s office,” Yosh said, reaching for the phone. “I’ve got to talk to anyone brain-dead enough to put Christmas cheer on a coroner’s log.”

  He punched in the number. “I’d like to speak to Marcella,” he said. Then, “Oh. Oh, I see. Okay. I’ll call back. Thanks.” He hung up and chuckled. “She’s one of the clerks. Does typing, filing. Called in sick today, though. God, I’ve got to meet her.”

  “She’s probably just a nice kid,” Paavo said. “Leave her alone.”

  “I’ll bet the note was for you, pal. She probably took one look at those baby blues of yours and fell madly in love.”

  “Not hardly,” Paavo said, turning back to his reports. Fending off lovesick females was about as far removed from his reality as … as being liked by Angie’s father.

  The funny part was, he was more used to being disliked by someone like Sal Amalfi than he was to being loved by someone like Angie. Throughout his life, the only one who ever professed to care about him and didn’t die or leave him was his stepfather, Aulis Kokkonen. Everyone else seemed to die or run off first chance they got. Including his father—who had never even acknowledged fathering a child, as far as Paavo knew—and his unwed mother, who had abandoned him when he was four. What a pair.

  No wonder he had no interest in marriage or lasting relationships. What firsthand experience did he have with either of them?

  Maybe that was why he had been so ready to jump to the wrong conclusion about Angie’s faithfulness. He was still kicking himself over the way he had quizzed her about going to the lecture the previous night. She’d said she’d gone with Connie. Stan had said she’d been with an old boyfriend. Which one should he believe? No contest. She had hesitated in her answers to some questions, but that was probably because she’d been shocked at his persistence.

  He should get her something really special for Christmas. Something that would show her how important she was to him. But what?

  Yosh initialed a couple of circulating memos and put them in Paavo’s in tray. “Isn’t that how it was with Angie?”

  “What was that?” Paavo asked, breaking away from his musings.

  “One day Angie was just another case,” Yosh said, “and the next she had a case on you.”

  Paavo scowled. “There was a lot more to it than that. And anyway, Angie’s different.”

  “Ain’t that the truth!” Yosh laughed.

  Inspector Luis Calderon pushed the door open and stomped heavily to his desk. In his forties, he wore his thick black hair heavily pomaded in a pompadour, and sported a closely trimmed mustache.

  “What’s the joke?” he asked, his voice low, his tone grumpy.

  “Nothing,” Paavo snapped, turning back to the autopsy.

  Calderon’s eyebrows shot up.

  “You had to have been there,” Yosh answered. “Say, do you know a clerk named Marcella in the coroner’s office?”

  “What do you care?” Calderon asked warily.

  “Just wondering who she is,” Yosh said.

  “Well, I never heard of her. What do you think, I spend my time checking out all the women in the place?” Calderon tossed a newspaper onto his desk and sank heavily into the seat. “Just because my wife took off doesn’t mean I play around, for cryin’ out loud. Maybe she’ll come back.”

  “To add some sunshine to her life again,” Yosh said.

  “Go to hell.” Calderon pushed aside a stack of papers and logged onto his computer. “One of these days she’ll wise up,” he said, drumming his fingers as the network went through its security checks. “I should have seen it coming, though. She was always out when I tried to call. Out early in the morning, stayed out late at night. Had girlfriends to do this with, and that.” Behind Calderon, Yosh caught Paavo’s eye and pretended to play a violin. “Then some guys starting hanging around,” Calderon continued, more to himself than the others, especially since they’d already heard his story many times. “Not boyfriends. Just guys who were into the same things she was. Things I didn’t care nothing about. Then one day, I walk home and the place is empty.”

  “It’s tough,” Paavo said.

  “You got that damn right. The thing that makes me mad, though, is I never even seen it coming. Not a damn hint. Not a clue. She was always understanding. ‘Oh, you gotta work late? No problem. You got a big, important job to do. Do it. Me and the kids, we’re proud of you.’ Yeah, proud of me right out the door.”

  “She’ll be back,” Yosh said quietly. He had suddenly stopped clowning and picked up another memo. “At least there’s no other guy,” he added.

  “That’s the damned part of it.” Calderon shook his head. “No guy. She just got tired of me. Women!” He poured black coffee from a thermos into a cup coated with the crud from coffee of ages past. “What’s to be tired of?”

  Yosh didn’t respond and the question hung in the air. “Beats me,” Paavo said, casting an eye on his partner. Calderon’s question had been a perfect setup for another one of Yosh’s shots at Calderon’s dour personality, yet something in Yosh’s demeanor had changed as the conversation continued. Now Yosh seemed engrossed in the report on the visits to the people who lived around Sigmund Stern Grove.

  Paavo glanced at his partner, a coldness settling in his stomach. There couldn’t be anything wrong in Yosh’s marriage, could there?

  When Angie awoke that same morning, she was alone. Paavo mu
st have gone home to shower, change into clean clothes, and go back to Homicide. She knew he was working on some sort of horrible case. As she waited for her coffee to brew, she opened that morning’s Chronicle. There, on page five, was the story.

  Lecturer Disappears—Alien Abduction?

  Dr. Frederick Mosshad, astronomer and lecturer with the National Association of Ufological Technology Scientists, was abducted by space aliens, according to a NAUTS spokesman. That message was given to a group of several hundred people waiting to hear Mosshad’s lecture last evening at Tardis Hall.

  Dr. Derrick Holton, spokesperson for NAUTS and a former NASA scientist, said several attendees reported seeing a flash of light and hearing a strange sound fill the auditorium just before the lecturer’s disappearance. Such abductions are common, Holton stated, but usually are not so public.

  The police have not been asked to investigate. “This isn’t a police matter,” Holton said. He added that the faithful will gather again at Tardis Hall in two nights to see if Mosshad returns.

  Angie stared at the article. Former NASA scientist? Why did it say that? But then it also said several hundred people had been there when to reach thirty would have been a stretch. Maybe the reporter had both facts wrong. She tossed the paper aside. If this was a plan for publicity, it had worked very well indeed. She wondered how many more people would show up at Tardis Hall for the next lecture. Perhaps she should hire Derrick to do PR for her Fantasy Dinner business. It certainly needed a shot in the arm.

  She started up her computer to check her e-mail, hoping against hope that someone else had contacted her about a fantasy dinner through her Web site: fantasydinners.com. It would be nice to know there was at least one other person in the world who wanted a fun party. But the You’ve got mail! voice didn’t sound for her that day. Not even a lousy piece of spam. So much for potential clients beating a path to her door, or her computer.

  Just then her telephone rang.