To Catch a Cook: An Angie Amalfi Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page A

Wow!”
    “Connie, really!”
    The waiter approached the table. Flustered, Angie started her camcorder rolling again, grateful for the interruption. She had no idea why Connie was talking to her this way. So what that she had wondered about some of it herself…
    That was unfair. Whenever she asked, Paavo told her about his childhood. Maybe not all the particulars, but then, he didn’t know much about them.
    Still, Connie’s questions bothered her.
    The waiter smiled as he served Connie grilled Washington State salmon on spinach cream sauce, and scowled fiercely at Angie and the camcorder as he shoved a plate of steamed lobster medallions with saffron, tomatoes, basil, and thyme broth infront of her. Angie smoldered. He was probably afraid the camcorder would pick up some dandruff on his shoulders.
    As soon as he left, Connie leaned closer to Angie and in a hushed voice said, “I’ll confess that I never did give much credence to that story that Aulis simply took in Paavo and his older sister. I mean, being neighborly is one thing, but how many people raise their neighbor’s kids? It just isn’t done.”
    Connie’s continuous harping moved beyond annoying. “Will you stop, already?”
    “Angie, you’re my friend—my best friend—and I think it’s about time you learn exactly what’s going on here,” Connie insisted. “I mean, you’re counting on him for your future, but you’ve got too many unanswered questions for you to do such a thing. It’s foolish, Angie, and you’re not a foolish person.”
    “I’m ready to stick a fork in my ear!”
    “Damn it, woman, you are a certifiable wack job where Paavo Smith is concerned!” Connie cried.
    Angie began to sputter, practically speechless for a moment. “Did you just call me a wack job?”
    Connie put her palms on the table. “A short pier away from going over the edge!”
    The two glared at each other.
    Suddenly Angie grinned. “About to fall into the drink, eh?”
    Connie chuckled. “Deep-sea-fishing time.”
    Angie laughed, then shook her head helplessly. “I wonder where I can find a diver’s suit.”
     
    To Angie’s amazement, Paavo was there when she returned to the hotel room. The day’s court session at which he was to testify had been canceled, the CSU still hadn’t found time to go to his place, and no new murders happened. He left work early to be with her.
    The other inspectors must have gawked at him as if he’d sprouted wings.
    They ordered room service for dinner. Dessert was memorable…and it wasn’t even on the menu.

Chapter 5
    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 theywere 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