To Catch a Cook: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (9 page)

“Here it is, Inspector.” Mrs. Florian’s daughter handed Paavo her mother’s planner. He sat in the living room of the modest home.

“It’s more than a calendar,” Jill Florian said. She was attractive, with a small, upturned nose, pouty mouth, and large brown eyes. Her long, black hair hung free and reached nearly to her waist. “My mother used to carry it back and forth to work every day. She would write notes and reminders, and often said if she ever lost it, she may as well shoot herself.” The daughter’s eyes filled with tears. “No wonder she was so agitated when she couldn’t find it.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

The planner was one of those five-by-eight multiringed binder types with lots of tabs that sort your life into a variety of categories—appointments, priorities, projects, finances, and one for addresses and phone numbers. He turned to the calendar section. It was dated 1994. “Is this when she retired?”

“No. She retired in eighty-four. She bought replacements for ten years, but as you can see, there wasn’t much to fill them with.”

He flipped to the address portion. The pages were yellowed with age, and the ink for the top entries on each page had faded into browns and purples, while those near the bottom were darker. The planner looked like it might have been used for a good portion of Mrs. Florian’s career.

The S section was several pages long, with crossouts and additions, asterisks and arrows from names to addresses and annotations. A short way down the first page the name “Sawyer, Eldridge” was shown, with a South San Francisco address and phone number. He copied down the information, then hunted for a more recent entry for the man. There was none.

He thumbed through the pages until he found the C section. Near the top of the page was Cecily Campbell. The whole entry had a diagonal line over it. He wondered if Mrs. Florian did that after Cecily died.

The first address shown was on Ocean Avenue. It had been X’d out and an address on Liberty Street added below it. That must have been where Angie went. He wrote it down.

Cecily’s name had an asterisk beside it. At the bottom of the page was the referral “
^*
C’s friend, Finland expert—Prof. Susan White,” and a San Francisco phone number. He copied them down as well.
C’s friend
…

If Cecily had been a research clerk, and it was her job to contact professors and such, why was only this one noted in the planner? On the other hand, she must have had a lot of contacts, so why was
any
such contact noted?

He looked through other addresses, finding lots of names and companies and experts and cryptic notes. An entire career’s worth of contacts existed here, carefully noted by a secretary with
dreams of becoming one of Mr. Hoover’s special agents.

Paavo took a long detour back to Homicide, all the way to South San Francisco and Eldridge Sawyer’s house.

Except for color, the small, plain house perfectly matched every third one on the block. The elderly owners had bought it from Sawyer nearly thirty years earlier. It hadn’t been an easy purchase, they told him. Sawyer demanded he be paid in cash, and he had refused to allow his Social Security number or driver’s license number to be added to any of the documents. “The guy was unhinged,” the homeowner stated bluntly.

Back in Homicide, Paavo ran more checks on Sawyer, but still came up blank.

Then he did the same with Professor Susan White.

To his surprise, she had a rap sheet. There was nothing recent, but in the late sixties she had managed to get herself arrested on three occasions. Twice in Vietnam War protests, and once outside the Soviet consulate.

The Soviet consulate. A Russian brooch. Two dead Russian men. No—his mind was finding connections that couldn’t possibly exist.

Could they?

Paavo’s shoes echoed in the empty hallway as he searched for room 308C, the office of Professor Susan White. It had been surprisingly easy to find her. When her old phone number didn’t work, he called San Francisco State College, the University of San Francisco, and finally U.C. Berkeley, where she was listed as a tenured professor in the History Department. Her specialty was twentieth-century Soviet and Eastern European history.

She agreed to meet him after her last class ended. The heavy Bay Bridge traffic made him late. He knocked on the frosted glass door.

“Come in.”

A woman in her sixties sat at a large desk, a computer behind her. She wore light makeup and her blond hair pulled up in a loose knot. She had the well-toned look of a woman who pays close attention to her body and her diet.

“Inspector Smith, S.F.P.D.” He held out his hand to her. “Thank you for waiting.”

She removed her reading glasses and studied him with such absorption, it took a moment before she noticed his hand. “Inspector, you weren’t one of my students, were you? You look familiar.”

“I’m afraid not.” He explained that he was trying to find out about someone she may have known long ago, Cecily Campbell.

“Cecily?” Her hazel eyes caught his. “I remember her well. We used to meet all the time at the library at SF State.”

“At the library?”

“Yes. She was a law clerk, and I was a new professor at my first job.”

He was confused. “A law clerk? I thought she worked for the FBI.”

White’s eyebrows rose. “Good God, I don’t think so. She was as opposed to government policies as the rest of us back then. She didn’t work for them.”

“I must be wrong. What can you tell me about her?”

The professor’s intelligent gaze assessed him a moment before she responded. “She was about my age. That’s what started us talking. Most of the professors were ‘old, white guys,’ and the students much younger. I learned she was widowed with a young daughter, new to the area, and I was
divorced. She was fascinated by politics and European history—my specialties.”

“Finland, right?”

She cocked her head. “Yes. Why do you ask?”

“What else can you tell me about her?”

“Probably not much. She was bright and witty, I know that. Over time, after I took the job here in Berkeley, I lost contact with her. I heard she died a few years later.”

“Do you know how she died?” he asked.

“An accident, I assumed.”

“In the Bay Area?”

Large, questioning eyes captured his. “I don’t really know.”

It was a long shot, but he had to ask. “Did you know Aulis Kokkonen?”

She pursed her lips. “The name sounds familiar. I’ll ask again—why?”

“Just trying to tie up some loose ends.”

She leaned back in the chair. “It was a long time ago. I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can remember anything more.”

“It’s important, if you can help—”

“I’m sorry.”

He stood, not even sure why he had come here. What had he expected to learn? He handed her his card. “If you remember anything, call me.”

She read it. “Paavo?” Her head jerked up. The tone of her voice stopped him at the door. An eternity passed as the two regarded each other and slowly the furrows on her brow smoothed. She tapped the card against the desktop a moment, as if unsure how to begin. “You came all the way to Berkeley for a reason. Now, why don’t you sit back down, please, and tell me what this is
really
all about?”

The tautness of her posture, the intensity of her
gaze, made him decide to tell her the truth. He sat and faced her squarely. “I’ve recently learned that Cecily…Cecily was my mother. I’m curious about her. I heard you were her friend.”

“Oh, my,” she whispered. “You don’t know anything about her?”

He shook his head. “What I thought I knew seems to be a far cry from the truth.”

“Yours is possibly the strangest request of my career.” She pressed her fingers to her cheek a moment. “I don’t know how much I can help you, but let me start at the beginning.”

He sat stiffly, scarcely breathing.

“As I mentioned, Cecily shared my interest in the Soviet Union,” Professor White began. “A number of us on campus sympathized with the dissidents there and in the Eastern European satellite nations who wanted to be free. Cecily joined us. She particularly talked about Finland and its sub-rosa dissident movement. I knew some Finnish students, well, former students by the time she met them. It turned out there was a vacancy in the building where two of them lived, and she needed a bigger place, so I brought her along to see the apartment and meet them. She fell in love with both.”

Her expression silently questioned if this was the kind of information he sought. He nodded.

“Where was the building?” he asked.

“In a nice area up near the top of Sanchez. A small street.”

“Liberty?”

“Yes! That’s it. This all took place so long ago….”

“Please continue.”

Her hands folded atop the desk. They were strong, capable hands, without rings. “Aulis Kokkonen—since you mentioned his name, I do
remember him—lived in one of the apartments, but he was older, not caught up in helping the dissidents. The
samizdat
movement was going on at that time. Do you know what that was?”

He shook his head.

“I
am
a professor, so now here comes a lecture—I’ll be quick.” She smiled. “It simply means ‘self-published.’ Essays and newspapers against the government were being illegally copied in Russia so the dissident movement there could grow. To get equipment to make the copies—keep in mind, Inspector, that typewriters, let alone mimeograph machines and small printing presses, were nearly impossible for common people to own in that country—the dissidents looked to sympathizers in the West for help.”

“And the Finns were such sympathizers?” Paavo asked.

“Correct. They believed that only by undermining the Soviet government itself would Finland and Communist bloc countries become free. As history proved, they were right.”

Paavo nodded, absorbing the information. “Who were the Finns?”

“I’m trying to remember their names. There were four of them, thick as thieves. Let’s see. Of the four, one Americanized his name—Sam? Yes, I’m sure that was it—he was quite the live wire. One was quiet, a little guy. One was tall and thin and had thick eyebrows that went straight across his face. He was a little older than my former students—although not as old as Aulis.”

“Joonas Mäki?” Paavo asked, his voice hushed.

“Joonas. That sounds right. Then there was the fourth man.” She gazed at Paavo with a strange smile. “My God, when he and Cecily met—I remember that evening—I think it was love at first
sight. The two had eyes only for each other. Me and Sam and the little guy kept jabbing each other in the ribs, watching the two of them stare at one another, yet scarcely saying a word.” She chuckled. “They never even noticed us.”

“What was this fourth man’s name?”

She pressed her fingers to her brow, her eyes shut, trying to dredge it up. After a while, she dropped her hands in exasperation. “It’ll come to me in time. I know it will.”

“Can you describe him, or tell me what he looked like?”

A touch of sympathy, then resignation, came into her eyes, and she reached for her purse. After rummaging around inside it, she took out a small mirror and handed it to him. “Look.” Her voice was gentle. “Now I know why you’re so familiar to me.”

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your seeing me,” Angie said as she walked into the elegant Pacific Heights home of retired de Young Museum curator Donald Porter. Her jeweler at Tiffany’s, the man who’d suggested she bring her brooch to Gregor Rosinsky, had contacted Porter on her behalf after she told him the brooch was now missing. Porter had a particular interest in Russian artwork.

He led her into a living room crammed with antique furniture and nineteenth-century paintings. She paused in the doorway to catch her breath at the opulence before her.

“May I offer you some sherry?” he asked, crossing the Sarouk carpet to an ornate mahogany liquor cabinet.

“No, thank you.” She sat on a Chippendale armchair and handed him an enlarged sketch of her brooch, annotated with its dimensions. “I wish I were a better artist,” she said. “I added as much detail as I could remember. Gregor Rosinsky was quite surprised to see it and seemed to think it was very valuable.”

“I knew Gregor well,” Porter remarked, studying
the drawing. He stood tall, with a thick head of pure white hair. “It was a great tragedy that he was killed. He did fine work. You said he had this brooch, and it’s now gone?”

“I believe it was the only thing taken in the robbery,” she said.

He, too, sat. “Well, if this is authentic—and if Gregor said it was, I’d imagine he was correct—the thieves made off with something that could easily be valued at upwards of a half million dollars.”

“You’re kidding me!” she cried.

“I never joke about art.”

“How could something so valuable end up in”—how should she put this?—“private hands? I mean, it was a gift to me from someone who had no idea of its value.”

“I must confess, you have me intrigued, as well, about the brooch’s history. I’ll go to my sources to see what I can find out. I will say, if it was in a Russian museum, they’ve been rather thoroughly looted over the past half century, as have many churches and private estates. Smuggling is a huge business in Russia, as it was in the former USSR.”

“I’ve heard a little about some
samizdat
movement,” she added tentatively, recalling Paavo’s words.

“Oh yes, many of the dissidents stole artwork and had it smuggled to the West to get money for their activities. That was quite common.”

“Do you think this could have been smuggled out in that way?”

He gave her a toothy smile. “That’s as good an explanation as any.”

“I remembered!” The woman’s excited voice all but sang over the phone. “This is Professor White.”

Sitting at his desk in Homicide in the morning,
Paavo felt his heart begin to pound, and his hand tightened on the receiver. “Yes?”

“I was watching Leno on TV last night and a commercial came on for Formula One racing. One of the drivers is Mika Häkkinen. That jarred my memory.”

She pronounced the name MEE-kah HAH-ki-nen.

He waited, holding his breath.

“His name was also Mika. Mika Turunen.” Then she said words that Paavo never imagined he would hear. “I remembered something else. I’m almost certain I was told that Cecily married him.”

At San Francisco’s Hall of Records, Paavo resolutely filled out a form to request a search for a marriage certificate. He would see if there was any actual proof to the professor’s story. Cecily’s FBI files made no mention of any marriage. It might have been another of his mother’s stories—like being a law clerk—one that she told people just to look good.

A bored clerk gestured him to the seats in the hallway with an even more bored assurance that he’d be called. While waiting for the marriage records, he decided to fill out another form. Why not be even more of a fool?

After turning in the second request, he sat back down on the wooden chair to wait.

A Mexican woman with three children stood at the table filling out papers while her children tugged at her arm, pulled the hem of her dress, dangled from the table, and ran along the polished tile hallway, then dropped to their knees and butts to see how far they could slide. An old man stood at another table, his hands shaking as he slowly, carefully checked his application.

Three other people sat nearby, expressions of varying tedium on their faces. All three glanced at
the tall, stern-looking detective, then quickly lowered their eyes. Did he look so much the cop? he wondered.

The clerk called one person, after a while another, and then the third. Paavo’s assumptions that they were pretty much on a roll proved wrong when he had a long wait before finally hearing his name.

Prepared to be told simply that no record existed, he was momentarily at a loss when the clerk thrust a sheet with an embossed seal into his hand.

He walked back to his chair before looking at it.

It was a marriage certificate between Cecily Hampton Campbell and Mika Turunen, dated thirty-six years ago. Much to his surprise, he found himself doing a quick mental calculation between his birth date and the date of the marriage. Eleven months. His breathing grew shallow and fast.

As if from far off, he heard his name being called again. He looked up. The clerk was glaring at him as if he’d been saying his name for some time.

In his hand he waved another piece of paper.

Mechanically Paavo retrieved the result of his second request. His ears were ringing, his temples pounding, as he headed straight out of the building and over to the Civic Center plaza in front of City Hall, scarcely looking at anything around him.

He sat on the bench and stared a moment at the pigeons. Earlier, someone must have scattered bread crumbs, because the birds were still bustling and bobbing to find a few morsels here and there. He didn’t think anyone had time for things like feeding birds anymore. When he was a boy, sometimes he’d go to the park with Aulis and toss them tiny bits of dried bread. Other times, Aulis would bring him to the Palace of Fine Arts and he’d feed bread to the ducks.

When did he last take the time to watch ducks or pigeons, let alone feed them?

His hands began to shake from the tight grip he had on the papers he held. The marriage certificate was on top. He moved it aside, exposing the sheet below, and began to read.

Certificate of Live Birth. Full Name of Child: Paavo Hampton Turunen. Maiden Name of Mother: Hampton. Place of Birth: San Francisco, California. Name of Hospital or Institution: Saint Francis Hospital.

His eye skipped down the document, past the address of the hospital, his birth weight, sex, and so on, to the next section, and then stopped.

Father of Child: Mika Turunen, age 26. Occupation: computer programmer.

Mother of Child: Cecily Jean Hampton, age 29. Occupation: housewife.

Pressure built behind his eyes and he quickly folded the papers in half, then in half again so they would fit into his breast pocket. This was what he had spent a lifetime wanting to know. The birth certificate Aulis had given him showed his mother as Mary Smith, his father as “Unknown.”

Paavo Unknown, that was who he had been.

But suddenly he had a name, parents, a history. He stood, his legs strangely rubbery as he started to walk away from the Civic Center, toward the Hall of Justice, toward the life he knew. Yet, even as he walked the familiar streets, his emotions roiled and he couldn’t stop a dark, hollow sense from filling him, a sense that he himself had become a stranger.

Angie paced from the living room through the dining area to the kitchen and back, sure she was wearing a groove through the plank flooring. With each
turn, she checked the time, but the clock scarcely moved.

She didn’t like calling Homicide to ask Paavo where he was, how he was doing, and when he’d be home. His job caused him to work long hours. If he was in pursuit of a murderer, he couldn’t simply drop it because his girlfriend expected him to go home when it got late. She’d vowed not to hassle him about his hours, ever.

That didn’t make it any easier to handle when he didn’t call. He usually did phone her sometime in the afternoon or early evening to check in, make sure everything was okay, give her some idea of his schedule, and to find out about hers.

Tonight he hadn’t done any of that.

After her visit with Donald Porter, she’d gone to the de Young and then to some smaller museums to look at Russian art and curios, trying to develop a sense of its aesthetics—an interesting mixture of Europe and Asia. The museum shops had books that would help, and she’d bought several. She tried concentrating on them, but all she could think about was her brooch and Paavo.

When Paavo told her about his visit with the professor yesterday, she realized she’d made an important mistake in her assessment of what was going on. She had thought of the two Russians,
her
brooch, and then her, Paavo, and Aulis. She should have thought of the two Russian,
Cecily’s
brooch, and the three of them. In the past, there had been a clear connection—and political animosity—between Cecily, the Finns, and the Soviets. Why, though, should that be an issue today? The brooch was the key, but the key to what?

The slowly ticking clock brought her back to the moment. She went to the window and looked out. How strange it was to be in the city and not see a
busy street with an endless stream of cars. The quiet here was unnerving.

She turned again to a book about Fabergé and other Russian artisans and their work.

Only when she heard the front door open did she realize she’d fallen asleep on the sofa. “Paavo,” she murmured, and sat up.

He paused in the darkness of the doorway. “I lost track of time,” he said, his voice subdued. He took off his sport coat and hooked it on the closet doorknob.

She stretched and got to her feet. “It’s all right.” She approached him, placing her hands on his shoulders, then down along his chest, feeling his warmth through the blue and white striped cotton shirt. “I’m making one of your favorite dishes tonight—pasta with prosciutto and sun-dried tomatoes.” As she lifted her face to his, the bleakness of his expression struck her like a physical force and she reared back. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” He kissed her lightly, then headed for the kitchen. “Is there any Scotch in the house?”

“Cousin Richie stocked this place quite well. Soda, too.” She showed him where the liquor was stored, then twisted an ice tray to pop out a couple of cubes for him. “Did you go see Aulis?”

“Yes. He hasn’t changed at all, and his doctor says there’s still hope for a full recovery.” He reached for the glasses. “Would you like a drink, too?”

She shook her head, and he poured himself one before continuing. “A couple of his friends stopped by, guys he used to work with at the bank, and even a nun was there—she said you asked her to pray for him ‘even though he’s Lutheran.’”

Angie shrugged. “Why not?”

His smile didn’t reach his eyes. He sipped his Scotch, and looked even more desolate.

“Tell me what happened today,” she said, watching him intently as they moved into the living room. She sat down on the sofa and expected him to join her.

Instead, he went to his coat and pulled some papers out of the pocket. “The lady professor phoned.” He chuckled derisively. “It’s a good thing she watches commercials—some Finnish race car driver helped her remember the name of my father.”

“Oh, my.” She stood again. He’d been shaken enough by yesterday’s conversation with her. Today, to have been given a name…“Oh, Paavo.”

He handed her the papers. As she read the marriage and birth certificates, the full impact of what this meant to him washed over her and tears filled her eyes. She carefully folded them again. “I’m glad you finally know,” she said huskily.

He finished his Scotch, then opened the French doors and stepped onto the deck. The sky was overcast and drizzly. He sat on a chair, leaning forward, arms on thighs, and stared into the blackness.

She stood in the doorway. There were times, like this, when the past he’d tried to bury came through, and she could see the child who grew up an orphan, whose troubled sister met an early death, and who still had an empty, dark place deep inside him because of it.

Usually so glib, her mind had emptied of words to say. She had never thought she could ache so much for him.

A world of information was at his fingertips at work, and she wondered if he’d made further discoveries today. She was almost afraid to ask, but she had to. Her voice was scarcely above a whisper. “Did you find out what happened to them?”

After a long silence, he spoke. “I couldn’t, Angie.
I thought about it, and typed their names to search the database more than once, but I couldn’t hit the Send command. I wanted to think of them alive, for one night, at least.”

She squeezed her eyes shut a moment, then stepped behind his chair and wrapped her arms around his neck, bending forward to kiss the side of his face, to press her cheek to his. “I know,” she whispered, her throat so thick she had to force the words out. “I know.” He interlaced his fingers with hers, pressing them to his chest. She could have cried aloud, and ranted and raged with fury at the hurt this was causing him. Why had they done it to him—all of them, Aulis, Cecily, Jessica, and maybe even this Mika Turunen? She would blame each one for not telling a small boy who he was, and blame his parents for walking out and leaving him all alone.

“I need to find out what happened to them, Angie. Why did Cecily write to Aulis the way she did? I’ve gone this far. I want the truth.”

“We’ll find out.” She moved around the chair to face him, and crouched at his knee. “Give it time. Give yourself time.”

“I thought I’d put it behind me, and now…” He bowed his head and she reached her arms around his back, just as he clutched her tight. She needed to make this right for him.

Somehow, she would find a way.

The woman shut down her laptop, then stood and paced. Her “security” work served her well now. She was able to find out all about the players—Angelina Amalfi and Paavo Smith in their cute little not-so-well-hidden hideaway. She smirked. Plus a cameo brooch worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

That was a big part of this, certainly, but it wasn’t everything. Not by a long shot.