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

from a med tech at the scene, who had noticed the victim’s teeth. Several were missing, and the ones still in his mouth were decayed. In Paavo’s experience, most people with bad teeth ended up in a dentist’s chair at some point. The only ones he’d seen who hadn’t were generally from poor, third-world countries.
    Witnesses couldn’t agree on whether John Doe was heading toward Angie’s car, or even scarier, Aulis’s apartment, when struck by a dark blue car with no license plates. Something in the features caused everyone to believe the driver was a woman with short hair. Just what it was about the features couldn’t be agreed upon, and the consensus wasthat the car sped by too quickly for anyone to get a good enough look at the driver to attempt a composite drawing.
    A few people also noticed another car, a black…or brown…or dark blue one, leave the scene immediately after the accident, going in the opposite direction from the hit-and-run driver. No details could be given about that driver, either.
    The phone rang shrilly, and Paavo started. “Smith, Homicide.”
    “It’s me.”
    Paavo’s spine stiffened. “Any luck?”
    “I searched the personnel files going back from thirty to forty years ago searching for the name Cecily,” Bradley said. “Thank God it isn’t that common a name. Anyway, there were three. I think I’ve got a good idea which one you want.”
    “Tell me.”
    “Well, first, let me ask you about the one who worked the longest for the Bureau. She was in her forties during that time—Cecily Drury. She was a typist for thirty years, and retired at age fifty-five.”
    “Not her.”
    “Then I’ve got a sixty-year-old librarian, Cecily Reiner, who spent a year reassigned from DOJ to put our library in order.”
    “No.”
    “This is it, then. Cecily Hampton Campbell, a young woman, only in her twenties, married to a special agent, Lawrence Campbell. She was hired to work in Ident—that was the old fingerprint identification section. It used to be a big paper operation with thousands of people, most of them women. It was like an assembly line. Anyway, she left Washington and was transferred to the San Francisco Field Office. Her record shows deceased. So does his. She died over thirty years ago.”
    Paavo’s hand tightened on the receiver. That was her. The woman he’d spent a lifetime wondering about. To learn her name, hear of her marriage…her death…hit him a lot harder than he would have imagined. Cecily Hampton Campbell. “You were right. That’s the one. Would you send me her file? His, too.”
    “I’ll need another day or so,” Bradley said. “Files this old are in storage. It could take a while to get them. Of course, you know I shouldn’t send them. This is confidential information.”
    “I don’t think so.” Paavo’s voice was harsh, jagged. “There’s no privacy act for the dead.”
    As soon as he hung up the phone, he searched California and then national death records for Cecily Hampton Campbell.
    No record existed.

Chapter 12
    Angie constantly monitored the answering machine in her apartment for messages, especially on the lookout for those from her mother since Serefina knew nothing about her and Paavo living together in cousin Richie’s house, but also from the Russian jeweler. He hadn’t yet tried to contact her, or at least, hadn’t left a message. She called him, but the phone simply rang and rang. She wanted her brooch back.
    Since she was going out anyway to take some video shots of a new downtown restaurant with the unappetizing name of Les Chats, she decided to swing by Rose Jewelry and find out what was going on.
    As she drove slowly by the shop, searching for a parking space, she saw a CLOSED sign hanging on the front door. Taped below it was a note. She left her car double-parked and ran up to the note. It gave a telephone number in case of emergency. Back in her car, she punched in the number on her cell phone as she drove.
    “Lyons,