Too Many Cooks Read Online Free PDF Page B

nearest and dearest. Always works that way.”
    â€œSometimes you can’t find a friend of the corpse. And you can’t find anyone dumb or mean, either.”
    â€œNobody’s that empty.”
    â€œI had one that was. Sheila Danning. I’ll never forget her.”
    â€œWhat case was that?” Paavo asked.
    â€œMe and Never-Take-a-Chance Bill were investigating it while you were in the hospital.”
    â€œI remember that case.” Calderon slid his gun into the holster he wore at his back. “She bought it in Golden Gate Park, right? Strangled, raped, the usual stuff.”
    â€œReal usual,” Paavo sneered.
    â€œWhat was strange was we couldn’t come up with a line on her,” Rebecca said. “No one really seemed to know her. She lived in a studio apartment out on Ingleside and worked as a cocktail waitress at a fancy bar and restaurant called La Maison Rouge. We found her parents in Tacoma, but she’d walked out on them and they hadn’t heard from her in over a year. That was it. We figured she was just an innocent victim. A random thing—she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Still, it bothers me that we couldn’t come up with more.”
    â€œThat must have been your first or second case, right?” Paavo asked, remembering she’d been promoted shortly after he’d been shot.
    Rebecca nodded. “The first.”
    Paavo rubbed his chin. “How old was this Sheila Danning?”
    â€œTwenty.”
    â€œNew in the city, no friends?”
    â€œFairly new.”
    â€œHow long had she worked at La Maison Rouge?”
    â€œAbout three months.”
    Paavo gave her a sharp glance. “Three months and none of them could tell you a thing about her?”
    Rebecca shrugged. “We came up empty.”
    That didn’t make sense. Women with enough looks and personality to be hired as cocktail waitresses were usually outgoing and friendly, unless there was something very strange going on.
    â€œDon’t file it away as unsolved yet.” Paavo said. “Something still might fall into your lap and tie it all together.”
    â€œAnd if it doesn’t,” Calderon said, his arms folded and his legs wide and rigid, “nobody’ll remember for long that you screwed up on your first case. Look at Paavo. He’s screwing his last case.”
    Paavo’s eyes met Calderon’s as he slowly lifted himself from his chair. His voice was brittle as chipped ice, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop. “You want to make something of it, Luis?”
    â€œBack off, Paav.” Rebecca placed her hand against Paavo’s arm. “He thinks he’s being funny. Let’s go across the street for coffee.”
    â€œDon’t waste your time with him, Rebecca,” Calderon said as he put on his jacket and tugged at the cuffs of his shirtsleeves. “He don’t know a good woman when she’s…right in front of him.”
    Â 
    Angie double-checked the address. Eleven-ninety-nine Pacific Street was the upper story of an old San Francisco “flat”—one long narrow apartment, takingup an entire floor and pancaked on top of another apartment of the same size. Both flats sat atop a garage and entryway. The street was located about midway down the southern slope of Russian Hill. That part of the hill didn’t have the view of the uppermost area where Angie lived, but neither was it down near the bottom where the noise, crowds, and tourist traps of Chinatown lay. It was a sunny, pleasant neighborhood of narrow streets and alleyways, two-and three-story flats, corner grocery stores, and two cable car lines that meandered up and down the hills.
    Angie rang the bell to Henry LaTour’s place, and in a moment the door opened by itself. She stuck her head in the doorway. The small square entry led to a long uncarpeted stairway that seemed to go straight up to heaven.