Too Many Cooks by Joanne Pence Page B

nothing more. But Angie was an attractive woman, and Karl Wielund, he’d learned, was a man with a lurid interest in women. What if he’d wanted more from Angie than a few favorite recipes?
    His mind flashed to the pictures. No, he couldn’t even imagine such a thing. No one could think of Angie that way. Not Angie, with her bad jokes and puckish smile. She lit up empty corners of his life and filled him with her laughter and generosity. He’d been a quiet, normal homicide detective, dealing every day with murder, cruelty, vengeance, and seediness, before she entered his life and turned it completely upside down. Now he couldn’t think straight. He argued with his friends, talked to himself and…oomph!…walked into parking meters in the dead of night.
    On top of that, he suddenly realized it’d started raining again.
    â€œHey, mister.” A ragged, scraggly-bearded man huddling in a doorway with an oilcloth over his head and shoulders held out a pint whiskey bottle toward Paavo. “Looks like you need this more than I do.”
    The guy was probably right, Paavo thought. He handed the man a couple of dollars, squared his shoulders, smoothed his tie, and walked on, as if this little jaunt in the rain were a part of his usual routine.
    Â 
    The night beacon on Alcatraz that once swept the dark waters of the bay searching for escaping prisoners now acted more as a warning and reminder against wrongdoing for all San Franciscans as it revolved. Not that they paid much attention. The sharp beam of light flashed toward the rain-dappled windows of Angie’s apartment every five seconds. She sat in front of the windows addressing invitations for a baby shower for her fourth sister, Francesca. Frannie and Seth had been married three years, and their first child was due in April. The youngest of the five daughters, Angie was the only one still unmarried, much to her mother’s dismay. Angie hadn’t given marriage much thought until a tall and very single homicide detective entered her life. Now she thought about it far too much, and Paavo, it seemed, didn’t think about it at all.
    But then, she’d only known him three months, and two of those months he’d been recuperating from a bullet she’d caused him to get. Maybe that wasn’t the most propitious start for a long-lasting relationship.
    At least he loved her. So he said. Once.
    There was a loud knock on the door. Paavo? Buthe’d told her he had to work tonight. Something must be wrong. She hurried to the door, looked through the peephole, and pulled it open.
    â€œWhat a surprise,” she said. He looked like a drowned rat.
    â€œSorry to bother you.”
    Uh-oh, she thought. The deep, serious sound of his voice told her Inspector Smith, not Paavo, had come to call. “No bother. Come in. Were you working tonight?”
    â€œYes. I’ll have to go back.”
    â€œAt this time of night? Let me take your jacket.” It was soaked. His hands felt like ice and she saw his slight wince as he pulled his arm from the sleeve. “What have you been doing, playing in the rain? You’ve got to take better care of yourself. That shoulder isn’t completely healed—”
    â€œIt’s fine.”
    â€œBut it won’t be. It’ll stiffen up in this cold; you’ll catch pneumonia. Then the department won’t have any choice but to wait a very long time for you to solve all its cases. Nine o’clock at night is late enough to work.”
    â€œAngie—”
    As he turned to talk to her, she tossed a big bath towel over his head and began to dry his hair with it while singing “He’s the Sheik of Araby.”
    â€œAngie.”
    He tried to stop her, but she was on a mission to get him warm and dry.
    â€œ Angie! ” He pulled the towel off. “That’s enough!”
    She backed off. “I was just trying to help.”
    â€œI’m not a child. I