Too Many Cooks (14 page)

“I'll bet he will.” Small brown eyes behind his glasses leered as his smirk grew broader.

“I'm sure,” Angie continued, “he'll save lots of money not having to buy
Playboy
anymore.”

Whiskbroom Head nearly choked. When he stood up from the stool he'd been perched on, she saw he was tall and lanky. “Why don't you come back here, and we'll see what we can do for you.”

“Well—uh, I was wondering if I could see some samples of your work first.”

“Samples?”

“Sure. I don't know exactly what kind of—uh, pose…”

“The photographer will know how to pose you.”

“But shouldn't I have some say? I want to do a scene on a rug. Maybe a white flokati type. Do you have anything like that?”

He gave her a strange look. “Could be. Where'd you hear about us?”

“From a guy I work with.”

“What's his name?”

“John—uh, Stein…beck…stein. John Beck-stein.”

“Never heard of him.”

“He sometimes calls himself Jack. Now do you know him?”

“Nope.”

“Brown hair, brown eyes, skinny.”

“Nope.”

“He's got a brother. Maybe you know his brother? His name is…Lenny. You know Lenny, don't you?”

He folded his arms. “I don't know any Lenny Beck-stein either.”

“Oh, well, I guess I came to the wrong place. They said you'd probably take the pictures. That it'd probably cost around five or six hundred dollars for the sitting, but I was willing to pay it. Sorry to have bothered you.”

His eyes brightened at the mention of money. He quickly stepped around the counter. “Let's take off your coat and see what we have to work with.”

He began unbuttoning her light-gray, double-
breasted wool coat. She was too shocked to stop him.

“Very nice,” he said as he peeled the coat back from her shoulders, revealing her simple yellow DKNY dress.

She didn't like the way he looked at her one little bit, but before she was able to say anything, he gripped her arm and led her down the hall. When they turned the corner, a large warehouse-like space, alive with activity, opened in front of them.

As they walked through, Angie saw it was a movie studio, a series of cubicles with low walls, making multiple sets. Beds and precious little else were in the cubicles, all arranged for the cameramen to do their work as quickly and efficiently as circumstances allowed. The cubicles were set up so that once a scene had climaxed, so to speak, the camera could swivel around to another cubicle's rising drama.

A woman wearing a short yellow robe stood with a thin pockmarked man, a sheaf of papers in her hand. “Oh, oh, ooooh,” she cried. Her voice was flat and nasal. “Do you think that expressed enough emotion? I don't know how I'm ever going to remember all these lines.”

Angie nearly backed into a partition.

Off to the right, a group of people were standing around a brightly lit cubicle.

“They're filming,” Whiskbroom Head said.

“Filming?”

“Want to see?”

“All right.” He led her through the group to a set illuminating a bed with sheets yellowed with dirt and age. On the bed, two naked women knelt. Seated between them was a man, fully dressed in a tuxedo
and top hat, with a dopey look on his face. The scene, as best as Angie could tell, was that the women were trying to seduce the man, and one woman had to take off his clothes, while the other was supposed to slip ropes on his hands and feet without his knowing it. The ropes got caught up in the man's shirt, so they had to go through the scene again.

“Action!” the director shouted.

As the women writhed, Angie's eyes nearly popped out of her head. The man's shirt came off and the ropes went around his hands. He lay flat on the bed, then had to scoot closer to the head of it for the ropes on his wrists to reach the bedposts, but Angie figured verisimilitude was the last thing on anyone's mind.

One woman unzipped his trousers.

Angie held her breath as the trousers were spread open. She quickly learned that underwear was not a part of the porn movie world. “Cut!” the director yelled.

Angie jumped, her attention now caught by a chubby, greasy-haired man. “Dammit, when they open your pants, man, we're supposed to see the Statue of Liberty, not the Blob, for cryin' out loud!”

The man on the bed yanked the ropes loose and lifted himself up onto his elbows. “Hell, all these hours, being poked and prodded and shoved around by these broads. I'm tired!” He jutted out his lower lip. “I'd like to see you do better.”

The greasy-haired man turned purple. “I'm the director. You're the actor. So act!” He spun around, looking over the crowd. “I need someone who can do something with Don Juan, here. Right now!”

Angie backed out of the cubicle. She didn't know what anyone was going to do about Don Juan's problem,
and she didn't want to know. She'd seen quite enough.

Whiskbroom Head followed. He took one look at her face and chuckled. She knew she looked shocked, but she couldn't help it.

He opened the next door they came to. The set wasn't much bigger than a closet, with a frayed once-gold chaise lounge, stained with she-didn't-want-to-guess what, and adorned with old-fashioned pink and white feather boas hanging from its edges. The walls were draped in black cloth, and two big light stands stood in each corner. On the floor was a flokati rug.

Her legs turned rubbery as she stepped inside.

“Get undressed and lay down on the rug.” Green teeth behind a scraggly mustache grinned at her. “I'll take these shots myself.”

“I…I think I'll think about it a bit longer.” Angie gripped the edges of her coat tight against her, turned, and ran through the hall, down the stairs, and out the door as fast as she could, Whiskbroom Head's laughter ringing in her ears.

Paavo used the phone in
the corner grocery store just down the street from Nona's Nob Hill apartment to check his answering machine. He hadn't wanted to stay there any longer than it took to say thanks for dinner and to get the unpublished article on Karl Wielund.

Angie had left a message saying she had what he wanted. In more ways than one, he thought.

As he'd done many times, he parked his car, walked into the lobby, waved at Mr. Belzer, and took the elevator to Angie's floor. As always, anticipation made his heart thump a little harder as he stood in front of her door. But this time he tried hard to squelch the feeling. He would get the photos and films and leave.

He knocked.

She opened the door. “Hello! Why so late? Were you working?”

The smile he'd missed seeing lit her face, but he
also saw the caution in her eyes. He felt his own wariness, despite the emotions that filled him, so he said nothing but marched sternly into the room.

The living room was dark except for the blue glow from her television. Watching TV wasn't like her; she much preferred to read and listen to music. Moans and heavy breathing caused him to walk over to the TV. He couldn't believe what he saw.

“What's this, the
Playboy
channel?” he asked.

She switched on some lamps. “No. I bought three movies. Research.” She pointed to the stack of videos on the coffee table.

He turned his back on the television set and picked the videos up. “
Behind the Green Door, Deep Throat
, and
Debbie Does Dallas
. Are you kidding me?”

“The man at the video store said they were the classics, the ones to watch.” She grinned. “Hey, if my radio career doesn't work out…”

He shut his eyes and took a deep breath. He knew this had something to do with the Sheila Danning photos she'd gotten her hands on, and he knew she was just joking when she implied anything more, but he was steadying himself for what the truth behind this might be.

He shut off the TV. “All right, Angie. Tell me all about it.”

“You'll never guess what I found out!” She picked up the manila envelope that had been lying on the Chippendale secretary beside her front door and handed it to him.

He looked inside. The missing photos. Thank God! “I couldn't imagine.”

She sat on the sofa, primly folded her hands in her lap, and said with an angelic smile, “These photos are from a studio on Dwight and Telegraph in Berkeley.”

One of his eyebrows lifted. He carefully placed the photos on the coffee table, tugged at the knees of his trousers, and sat beside her. In a strained voice he asked, “How could you possibly know that?”

She couldn't stay put. Excitement radiated from her and she nearly bounced off the sofa as she began to explain. “I know someone who knows someone else who knows someone involved with photos like these. All I had to do was ask. Then I went to the address the friend found out for me. I saw the very rug these pictures were taken on. It's a pornographic film studio. I even watched them shooting a movie.”

He felt as if he'd been shot again. “Good God!”

She giggled. “Really. It was fascinating—but a little weird.”

She had to be joking again, he thought. “Nobody waltzes into a porno studio and gets them to give you a guided tour.”

“I did. I simply told them I wanted some photos taken of me and that I'd pay plenty.”

She wasn't joking. He stood. Every ounce of his control was gone, vanished. As she sat there looking at him with a huge, beatific smile, all he could think of was the horrible risk she'd taken; all he could feel was anger. “Don't you know those people are dangerous?” he bellowed. “Especially if they realize you're just being nosy.”

She leaned back against the sofa. “I realize it. I was even a little scared, at first. But then I saw that it was just a film studio like any other, almost. It didn't bother me at all.”

He paced, still shouting. “What if you couldn't get away? What if they tried to force you to…to…” He couldn't say any of the horrible things that flashed into his mind. He ran his fingers through his hair. She just didn't know, like he did, how ugly it could be.

“Nothing happened,” she said. The excitement gradually left her face, replaced by a guardedness unnatural to her.

It tore him apart, but he couldn't stop himself from going on. “I can't believe you'd be so foolish! What in the hell did you think you were doing?”

She folded her arms. He could see red spots of anger forming on her cheeks. He didn't care. “I was trying to help you. And Chick! He was my friend. If those photos had anything to do with why Karl was killed, and if Karl's death had anything to do with Chick's murder, it's my business as well as yours.”

He pointed his finger at her. “I want you to stay away from this. Whoever's behind it is very likely responsible for at least three murders—Wielund, Chick, and Wielund's landlord. And possibly four, if he also killed Sheila Danning. It's too dangerous for you to go snooping around.”

She jumped to her feet, her nose near his—or as near as possible with a ten-inch difference in height between them. “I'd stay away
if
, Mr. Inspector, you and your police force caught Chick's killer. I don't see that happening, though, do I?”

“I'm warning you, Angie. Keep out of it.” He drew in his breath. “I don't want you getting involved in Chick's
or
Wielund's murders any more.”

“Involved? But I didn't—”

“I don't want you asking the restaurant owners, or Wielund's employees, or Mark Dustman, or Eileen Powell, or anyone else anything about Karl Wielund. The same goes for Chick's friends and employees.”

“What do you mean? Those people are my friends.”

“And everyone knows you've been seeing me. I don't trust a single one of them, I'll tell you that right now. If, by chance, you stumble across the one who's guilty, do you realize the danger you could be in?”

“Nonsense!”

“When you talk about the case, they think your words are coming from me or from some other inside information you might have.”

“So what?”

“It's happened both to Yoshiwara and to me that when we question them, we later discover that they answered with whatever they'd already told you.”

“Already.
Already?
So, that's it! You're mad because I've been ahead of you. I've gotten there first. Well, I guess I must apologize for being so prompt at
your
job!” She turned her back on him and folded her arms again.

“Just keep away.”

“Don't worry. I will. Especially if you're there!”

He picked up the photos and walked toward the door, but as his hand touched the knob, it was hard to turn it. He glanced once more at Angie, still showing her back to him, one foot tapping angrily. His
gaze slowly drifted up her high, high heels, her shapely legs, nicely rounded derrière, and tiny waist. He looked away, taking in the apartment: richly beautiful, it also had warmth and comfort…and Angie.

Hers was a world so different from the one he knew, he wouldn't have believed it real had he not seen it for himself. How cold and lonely his own world seemed in contrast!

She glanced over her shoulder at him, her expression quizzical, as if wondering why he hadn't left yet. As his gaze met hers, he steeled himself against her pull. “Thanks for finding all this out for us. Please, leave the rest of the investigation up to me.”

 

Rebecca looked up as Paavo and Yosh walked into the squad room late the next afternoon. “When's the funeral?”

They stared up at her. “Whose funeral?” Yosh asked.

“I don't know. I figured someone must have died, the way you two look.”

“Gallows humor has no place in Homicide, Inspector.” Barely glancing at her, Paavo walked straight to the desk.

“Neither does any other kind, I see,” Rebecca said. “Don't let me interrupt your fun.”

“Wait, Rebecca,” Paavo called as she strode away from her desk. She stopped. “I have something here you need to see.”

“Oh?” She stepped closer.

Hesitantly, Paavo picked up the envelope lying on
the edge of his desk. Despite himself, he found it hard to hand a woman, homicide detective or not, a pile of pornographic pictures.

“What's your problem, Smith?” She grabbed the bag from him and took the photos out. “Oh, yuck! What are these—oh, my God!” She leaned closer, staring at a photo of a woman sandwiched between two men. “I don't believe it!”

Paavo and Yosh glanced at each other. “What is it?” Paavo asked.

“Where did you find these? This woman looks…she looks like the one killed in Golden Gate Park last fall. Sheila Danning. My first case. Let me show you.” She hurried to her desk and pulled a file out of the bottom drawer. “I should have turned this over to Central Filing by now, but I just couldn't bring myself to give up on the case.”

“So you had it. Never-Take-a-Chance thought he'd misfiled it somewhere. He's been stalling us for days.”

“I don't think he ever had his hands on this file,” Rebecca said as she ruffled through the pages. “Here.”

She dropped an 8×11 photo on Paavo's desk of a shiny-faced, smiling teenager wearing a graduation cap and gown. He picked it up and studied it, then picked up one of the pictures from Wielund's house. Under the heavy makeup, he saw that the face, nose, and lips were basically the same in both photos. But the eyes that sparkled in the graduation picture had grown dull quickly for one so young.

“Her parents sent that picture down to us,” Rebecca added, “saying she hadn't changed much in two years. Boy, were they wrong.”

“Why did she come to San Francisco?” Paavo asked.

“No special reason. Her parents said she thought it was pretty and she wanted to find a job here.”

“Seattle would have been a lot closer to home.” Yosh's voice was weary, tinged with the dismay of seeing, once again, the pointless loss of youth.

“Maybe that's why she chose San Francisco,” Paavo said.

“‘I never could find out what she did before getting the job at La Maison Rouge,” Rebecca said. “No one gave us any hint that she could have even thought of posing for pictures like these, let alone done it. The investigation turned up nothing more telling than a nice, wholesome girl who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Who happened to make porn movies,” Paavo added.

“And who knew Karl Wielund, who's now also dead,” Yosh added.

“And who worked for Albert Dupries, another restaurant owner,” Rebecca added.

“Who just happened to deny knowing the woman in the photos we showed him.” Paavo stood. “I think it's time we went and visited Mr. Dupries again.”

Yosh stood, and so did Rebecca. “It's my case too, remember?” she said.

Paavo and Yosh exchanged glances; then Yosh sat. “I'll leave it up to you two to figure out. I don't mind holding down the fort.”

Rebecca smiled at Paavo. “Are you ready?”

“I guess.” He threw one last piercing glance at Yosh as he followed Rebecca out the door.

 

La Maison Rouge was just opening as Paavo stopped his old, battered Austin Healey in front of it. He was surprised a valet didn't run out to hide it in a back alley. Rebecca was out of the car and waiting on the sidewalk by the time Paavo joined her.

The maître d' gave them an ingratiating smile as they entered. “A table for two, tonight?”

“We won't be dining,” Rebecca said, pulling her badge from her purse. She held it up for him. “We'd like to speak to Albert Dupries.”

The maître d' looked as if they had announced themselves as health inspectors. “I shall see if Monsieur Dupries is available.”

In no time, Paavo and Rebecca were shuttled toward the back of the restaurant to a small office. Dupries sat behind a desk but stood as they entered. Paavo noticed his face paled a bit as he gazed at Rebecca.

“Inspector Smith, what a surprise,” the restaurateur said, holding out his hand. He glanced at Rebecca as if he didn't recognize her. Paavo introduced her and explained that they had some some questions about Sheila Danning's murder.

“I cannot believe I have more information for you after all these months,” Dupries said, looking puzzled.

“We believe you can be quite a help, Mr. Dupries,” Paavo said. “I'm surprised you don't remember Inspector Mayfield.”

Dupries glanced at her. “Should I? I'm so sorry. I meet so many people, you see. I have no memory for
faces.” He drew in a deep breath. “Pardon, mademoiselle. It is inexcusable to have forgotten someone who is so lovely.”

Rebecca stared at him as if he'd just crawled out from under a rock.

“Well, umm.” He waved his arms helplessly, then gestured toward the straight-backed wooden chairs. “Shall we sit down?”

Paavo opened his briefcase and took out the pictures. “There's someone I'd like you to tell us about,” he said.

“Yes?”

“This person.” Paavo placed the graduation picture on the table.

“But of course. This is Sheila Danning.”

“And,” Paavo continued, “this one.”

Dupries glanced at the naked woman in the photo and jerked back in his chair. “I don't understand.”

“Don't you?” Rebecca asked.

Dupries looked closer. “
Mon dieu!
This is Sheila Danning, too?”

“Isn't it?” Rebecca asked.

“Well, I suppose.”

“Are you saying you didn't know she made such photos?”

“I had no idea.”

Paavo jumped in. “Did she always look like the girl in the graduation photo?”

Dupries glanced up at him. “No. She was not so innocent. Especially after her
amour
with Karl Wielund. But then, I didn't pay much attention. She was a cocktail waitress. Unimportant.”