If Cooks Could Kill Part 22

As the CSI continued their search for blood, hair, clothing fibers, and any other physical evidence, Paavo gave the medics the okay to remove the body from the murder scene. They slowly carried the body bag up the hillside.

A hush fell over the landscape.

The time had come for Paavo and Yosh to take names and talk to people. They had to interview the neighbors, onlookers, and anybody else who might be able to give them a clue as to who had killed this man, who he might be, and if they were very, very lucky, why he'd been targeted to die.

Suddenly, the tune "Here Comes the Bride" began to chime. Paavo stared at Yosh a moment, whose head was swiveling back and forth with the alarm of one searching for inescapable doom, before he realized the sound was coming from his pocket-from the brand new Nokia 8860 cell phone Angie had given him, to be precise. He yanked it out and flipped it open, to the amused curiosity of the crowd.

It was Nona Farraday, wanting to know if Inspector Calderon was with him. He wasn't.

"Would you pa.s.s on a message?" she asked sweetly. "Just tell him, I'll try to be more understanding in the future. All is forgiven. Call me." With that, she hung up.

Paavo stared at the phone. Angie had turned him into a dating service.

Chapter 25.

Connie was awake when Angie returned home, pushing the carpet cleaner ahead of her. Connie opened her mouth to say something about Angie's clothes and makeup, but Angie shook her head. "Don't even ask. You're better off not knowing."

Connie snapped her jaws shut.

Angie took a piece of paper from her baggy skirt and phoned the number on it, listened, then hung up.

"Veronica Maple stayed at Dennis's house. I phoned the number she'd last called from his phone," she explained. "It was a small hotel called the Madison. Since none of her belongings were at Dennis's-and if we can a.s.sume he didn't kill her and burn her things-she might have moved there. If we can get our hands on her stuff, it might have some answers for us."

"How do you propose we do that?" Connie asked with a frown.

Angie pulled a pair of Armani sungla.s.ses out of her purse and handed them to Connie. "Easy."

Connie approached the desk of the Madison Hotel wearing dark gla.s.ses, Angie at her side, the two deep in conversation. "I think I locked my room key in the room," she said, only half facing the desk clerk as Angie blathered. "Can you give me another? Veronica Maple. You know me, don't you?"

"Of course, Miss Maple." He quickly created a new key card.

"You have the room right, I hope?" Her tone was sharp. Angie had convinced her that this was the sort of hotel where patrons expected to be recognized and remembered. So far, she was right.

"Room 15," he said proudly.

"Thank you." She took the card, pretending to be paying far more attention to Angie than him.

The two women hurried to the elevator and rode up, scarcely able to contain giggles and squeals of joy at how easily their plan had worked.

When they reached the room, Angie knocked. They didn't want any ugly surprises. After a moment of silence, Connie unlocked the door.

Cautiously, they entered. The place scarcely appeared inhabited, as if Veronica had dropped off her clothes and left. Opening drawers and closets, they began a meticulous search of the few jeans, the T-shirts, one blouse, and a couple of bras and panties. It wasn't as if the owner were going to come waltzing in and find them there.

"Hey!" Angie was on her knees, peering under a dresser drawer she'd opened. Taped to the bottom was an envelope.

She yanked it free. Inside was a ticket from Bay p.a.w.n Shop and a torn sheet of paper with about twelve numbers on it. "I wonder what these are."

"Whatever, they must be important," Connie answered, still rifling through the closet. "Keep them."

"I sure will." Angie put the envelope in her purse. "What could she have p.a.w.ned. She had nothing, it seems."

Connie reached into a jeans' pocket and pulled out a sc.r.a.p of paper. A phone number was written on it.

"It was a phone number that got us this far," Angie said, picking up the phone and dialing.

After several rings the phone switched over to an answering machine which gave no identifying information.

"A dead end?" Connie asked, then with a chill, glanced around the too-silent room, remembering who it belonged to. "Sorry." She put the jeans down quickly.

"Where there's a will..." Angie replied thoughtfully, ignoring Connie's sudden squeamishness. "Let's go to the bank."

Max watched Angie and Connie enter the Madison Hotel. He was trying to find Veronica's room. He knew her taste. Back in the days before she could afford to stay in posh four-star hotels, she'd favored the small upscale ones, the Madison in particular.

He'd come here on a hunch, and apparently it had paid off. What did they know about Veronica? Why were they at her hotel?

He walked up to the desk clerk, who drew back at his scruffy appearance. "Does Veronica Maple have a room here?"

"I'm sorry, Miss Maple just left."

"Was that her? The blond lady? A short brunette was with her?"

"Yes, sir. Now, if you would be so kind as to leave..."

Max didn't bother to listen, but headed out the door. How much did they know about Veronica? How much were they onto him?

Much to everyone's amazement, especially his employers', Stan Bonnette was in his office at Colonial Bank's headquarters when Angie and Connie arrived. He had the t.i.tle of a.s.sistant director of supply maintenance, an honorary t.i.tle if ever Angie'd heard one, because the guy never did any work. That his father was one of the bank's largest stockholders, however, gave him job security.

Although there was a secretary's desk in front of his office, it wasn't being used. Angie knocked on his door.

"Come in," he called.

She walked in to find him with his feet on the desk, cleaning his fingernails with a letter opener. His desk was almost as spotless as the secretary's. One manila folder was on it. In back of him, his computer was on, the screen showing a game of solitaire. He had lost.

"Angie!" He jumped up. "And Connie. What a surprise. Did you two come to take me for a late lunch?" Suddenly his face fell. "You didn't bring Connie's neighbor, Paula Bunyon, along, did you?"

"Relax, Stan. We're too busy to eat. We need your help."

"No one should ever be too busy to eat," he murmured, disappointed, as he sat back down in his chair and indicated guest chairs for them to sit on. "What can I do for you?"

Angie wiped the dust off the guest chair before she sat, then said, "We've got a phone number. I need you to find out who it belongs to."

He swiveled around to his computer. "You can do this on the Internet, you know."

"Not if it's a private number," she said.

He tried the Internet first, and sure enough, nothing came up. "You want me to go into bank records to find who this is?"

"Right. And, depending on what you find out, we might want credit reports and anything else you can tell us about the person." She glanced at Connie, who gave her a firm nod.

"And after that, how about doing the same for a man named Max Squire?" Connie added with a sly smile.

Angie high-fived her.

"All right," Stan said, "but it'll cost you. Let's say, a home-cooked meal of my choice."

"Agreed."

Angie and Connie nearly fell asleep as they sat slumped in their chairs, waiting. Stan wasn't good at finding his way around the bank's computer system, which was no wonder, considering how little he used it, but he was persistent. He loved Angie's cooking.

Finally, he turned and faced them. They pulled themselves up straight. "The phone number belongs to Sidney Edmund Fernandez. I've written down his address. The bank gives him a zero credit rating. He has no bank or saving accounts, but he does have credit cards that he uses infrequently. He pays them off right away, so I suspect the zero credit rating has something to do with him not exactly being a law-abiding citizen, but I'm not sure."

"Interesting." Angie tried to make sense out of the news.

"What about Max?" Connie asked.

"I have no address for him, zero credit rating here, too. But if you go back three years, he had superior credit. His bank account had over fifty thousand dollars in cash, plus a couple of CDs. He obviously had a lot of stocks, bonds, and real estate. The mortgage on his house was for over six hundred grand, and he never missed a payment. He often put ten thousand on his credit card in one month, and paid it in full the next. Then he filed for bankruptcy and everything disappeared. I show no credit history for him after the bankruptcy."

"Mercy," was Connie's only comment.

"That explains a bit about his att.i.tude, doesn't it?" Angie murmured.

Stan looked from one to the other. "Ready for lunch yet?"

Chapter 26.

The sand dunes murder victim was an ex-con named Julius Rodriguez. He'd been killed by a bullet to the back of the head. Before that he'd been castrated. Rodriguez had done time for dealing drugs and was said to have been the right-hand man of Sidney Fernandez.

Fernandez might have been a player in the Veronica Maple heist, and now his top man was dead. What was the connection?

While pondering this, Paavo noticed a bald man working his way around desks, printing stands, fax machines, and file cabinets, but he was so bland and colorless, Paavo paid no attention until he stopped in front of his desk.

"Paavo Smith? Inspector Paavo Smith?" the man asked.

Paavo stood. "Yes. What can I do for you?"

"The name's Chuck Lexington. I was Veronica Maple's parole officer." With that, he held out his hand to shake Paavo's.

Lexington...he was the first one who'd brought Fernandez's name to Homicide's attention when he'd talked to Calderon about Veronica Maple. The case was going around in circles in more ways than one.

"Have a seat." Paavo indicated the chair by his desk.

"Thanks." Lexington settled in. He took a breath, then let his words flow. "I talked to Calderon but haven't heard anything back from him. I've been trying to find out Maple's whereabouts. I don't know if you heard, but she got out of prison and killed a man."

Paavo looked at him questioningly.

"Me and her, we talked a lot before she left prison," Lexington said. "It was kind of strange. I liked her. Now"-he shook his head-"I want to bring her in myself, if I can. I hate to see her get hurt. I know, she's a killer. Still...have you heard anything about her at all?"

"I do have some questions about Maple," Paavo said. "Let's go to the interrogation room. It's more private, less noisy." He nodded at Yosh, who followed.

The room had a metal table with two chairs. Lexington took one, Paavo the other. Yosh stood near the wire-gla.s.s window at the far wall.

"Why did she come to San Francisco?" Paavo asked.

"I think she had some unfinished business here. Something she needed to take care of. Maybe involving her old boss, Max Squire. The two absolutely hated each other."

"Enough to kill?"

"Him kill her, or her kill him?" Lexington asked. "He came to see her a couple of times in Chowchilla, and the guards said they thought he was going to go through the gla.s.s wall to get at her."

Paavo and Yosh's gazes met. "Anyone else?"

"I told Calderon about Sid Fernandez's gang. The two of them go back a long way. I was worried that she might try to contact him, since he's in the city. She swore she was through with that kind of thing, but after what she did, who knows?"

"So it seems," Paavo said. "Anyone else?"

"No. I don't think so," Lexington said with a sigh. "It's weird, her disappearing without a trace. I thought she might be dead. No such luck. I guess I'll keep looking."

"What about Dennis Pagozzi?"

"How do you know about him?" Lexington asked.

Paavo shrugged. "As I said, we're trying to be helpful."

Lexington gazed suspiciously from one to the other. "When they were young, she was married to Dennis Pagozzi."

Both inspectors froze.

"Holy Moses," Yosh muttered.

"Are you sure?" Paavo asked.

"They were only seventeen, and went down to Mexico. Rosarita Beach. Dennis apparently claimed the marriage wasn't legitimate, but the United States recognizes Mexican marriages. His family got involved and it was annulled. After she realized half the money he'd earned playing football could have been hers, she fought the annulment, saying it was invalid. It didn't work, though."

"How did you find that out?" Paavo asked.

"I told you, we used to talk. I didn't think she was a bad person-just misguided, especially about money. I never imagined she was a killer. Nothing in her background pointed to it." Lexington swore. "If it had, I'd have watched her a lot closer."