To Catch a Cook: An Angie Amalfi Mystery by Joanne Pence Page A

her expression curious but serene.
    “Yes,” Angie said. “It’s just that I’m so worried.”
    The nun entered the room. “I’m Sister Ignatius. I visit our Catholic patients here, along with Sister Agnes. But I’m afraid I don’t know this man.”
    Angie placed her hand on Aulis’s. “His name is Aulis Kokkonen. He’s Lutheran, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind your visits or your prayers.”
    The nun smiled. “Well, thank you. I’ll be sure to stop by, then, on my rounds. Is he a relative?”
    “No…not yet. I’m dating his son.”
    “Ah, I see,” the nun said warmly. She studied the bandages on Aulis’s head. “What happened to him?”
    “He…he was shot.”
    “Oh, my!”
    “It was a robbery, we think, at his apartment.” As Angie began to explain what had happened, the thought that niggled at the back of her mind sprang forth and her eyes filled with tears. “First my apartment was burglarized, then Paavo’s—that’s my boyfriend—and a few days later, Mr. Kokkonen’s. I’m so scared that the three might be related…and if so, it all started with me.” She took a Kleenex from the bedside table and wiped away her tears.
    “Why you?”
    “I don’t know! That’s the problem. If it was me, why? I don’t understand the connection betweenPaavo and Aulis and me with these robbers. Yet they struck my apartment first.”
    Through her rimless eyeglasses, the nun’s warm brown eyes were calming. “It’s not your fault, dear You can’t know what would possess someone to go after another person.”
    “Thank you, Sister,” Angie intoned, the nun’s words making her feel a little better. She even felt a twinge of good old Catholic guilt over her initial reaction to the two nuns in the hall.
    “It does sound as if you and your friend need to be careful, however,” the nun cautioned.
    “We’re trying to be,” Angie replied.
    “Good. I’m glad.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “Oh, gracious! I must go now. I’m sure Sister Agnes must be ready to leave without me. We can’t be late for evening prayers.”
    “I’m glad to have met you, Sister,” Angie said. “My name is Angelina Amalfi, by the way. People call me Angie.”
    “I’m sorry for your friend,” the nun said, and then she was gone.
    The room felt emptier and colder. As Angie watched over Aulis, she said a few prayers as well, for Aulis, for herself, and especially for Paavo.
     
    Paavo glanced at the clock on the once-white, now-in-need-of-paint wall in the Homicide bureau. Nine o’clock. At night.
    The detail was empty, everyone gone but him. Mayfield and Sutter had been here until about ten minutes ago when a new case landed in their laps, a domestic dispute gone bad. Neighbors called the cops, but by the time the uniforms got there, all was quiet. They found the wife dead in the kitchen, the husband missing.
    Nelson Bradley had phoned earlier and toldPaavo he’d best be able to access the personnel info when only the night-shift people were around. They were the forgotten people. There weren’t many of them, and no one bothered, at that time, to peer over anyone else’s shoulders to check on the validity of their “need to know” the data they were accessing.
    A friend in Personnel had given Bradley the password and access codes to get into those files without raising red flags in the Integrity Branch. One disaffected employee helping another, Paavo thought. He guessed it was some sort of bureaucratic sense of justice.
    Now he awaited Bradley’s call.
    The evening quiet gave him a chance to make a few phone calls to speed up the identification of the hit-and-run victim outside Aulis’s apartment. Paavo didn’t like the preliminary findings, that the victim—slim, late thirties, no distinguishing characteristics—had no identification on him, and no fingerprints on file. He was a John Doe, and unless something dramatic turned up, he’d continue to be one.
    The only interesting information came