Fortune Cookie (Culinary Mystery) Read Online Free PDF Page A

person. “That would be helpful,” she said. “Thank you.”
    He gave her the number and asked her to call him when she got into town on the fifth so they could make plans to clear the apartment. In the meantime Ji would set up a pickup time for the charity. They ended the call—it hadn’t even lasted two minutes—and Sadie went online to make flight reservations before she could change her mind.
    In the back of her mind was the continuing disbelief that this was happening. She was making plans to clean out the apartment where her sister—whom she hadn’t seen in fifteen years—had died. It was almost too much to think about, and while she knew she would have to accept the enormity of the situation eventually, for now she decided to treat this like any other case she’d been involved in. Whatever emotional journey she needed to take because of her connection to Wendy could come later.
    After she confirmed the two tickets from the Denver International Airport to Oakland on the morning of July fifth, Sadie looked at the number for Detective Lopez, reluctant to make the call for a number of reasons. She still needed to make two more batches of cookies, a potato salad, and two peach pies. Plus she needed to buy some fireworks. Not to mention figuring out what to wear tomorrow; she had multiple outfits of the patriotic variety so it could take some time to determine which one was just right this year. Pete was also coming over later to work on some minor repairs around the house that the realtor had suggested. How she wished all she had to do today was cook delicious food and hang out with Pete.
    Afraid of delaying so long that she’d talk herself out of it entirely, she dialed the number, feeling anxious and tense, and then let out a breath of relief when the call went to Detective Lopez’s voice mail. She left a message, explaining who she was and why she was calling, then asked that he call her back at his earliest convenience, which she secretly hoped would be two days from now. She hung up, feeling grateful for the reprieve, and then dove into her work with increased focus. She turned up the radio far louder than she usually would so as to better shield her from her own thoughts.
    Pete showed up around one o’clock with lunch—sandwiches from their favorite deli in town—and his toolbox. Sadie turned down the radio after he had to shout “Hello” to get her attention. After lunch, she returned to her pie making and Pete got going on his honey-do list. He was replacing a hinge on one of the kitchen cabinets when Sadie’s phone rang. Sadie glanced at the area code—San Francisco—before lifting the phone to her ear. She gave Pete a pointed look that kept his attention on her while he tightened the screws.
    “Hello,” she said into the phone. She continued to roll out the pie crust while holding the phone uncomfortably against her shoulder.
    “Hello, this is Detective Lopez with the San Francisco Police Department. I’m calling for Katie Hoffmiller?”
    “Sadie Hoffmiller,” she said, correcting him. “Thank you for calling me back.”
    “Thank you for calling. I’m sorry I haven’t contacted you before now. When Mr. Doang said he was going to write you a letter, I moved you further down my list of people to talk to, but I fully expected to get back to you before this much time had passed.”
    “It’s fine,” Sadie said, hoping that his not having contacted her wasn’t a reflection to the attention that was being given to Wendy’s case.
    “What can I help you with?”
    “Well, my fiancé and I will be coming to San Francisco in a couple of days, and I thought it would be good to let you know I’d be in town and also to see what the status of the case is.”
    “Sure,” Detective Lopez said. There was a gruffness to his voice that didn’t quite match the upbeat nature of his speech, and she wondered if he were a smoker. “The case is active, and we’ve managed to talk to the tenants in her