Cooking Spirits: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (Angie Amalfi Mysteries) Read Free

close to his current partner, or to anyone else in Homicide. In
a sense, he feared ever again going through the sadness, bitterness, and even
guilt that had plagued him after Matt’s death. Matt had been alone when he
died, and Paavo always felt he should have been with him, been there to protect
him, to save him.
    Now, he held himself back from others in Homicide. He was a
colleague, but little more.
    He called Angie and told her something had come up, that he
couldn’t make it tonight. She sounded disappointed and troubled. She tried to
question him, but he had no answers, and soon ended the conversation. The last
thing he wanted to do was upset her, but tonight he needed time alone; needed
time to think.

 
    Chapter 2  
    NOT MUCH REMAINED to identify.
    The next morning, Paavo and his partner, Toshiro Yoshiwara , stood in an alley in the Financial District,
surrounded by high rise offices with restaurants, delis, bars, and a myriad of
shops filling the ground floors. The alley mainly existed for garbage pick-up.
    They had seen many dead bodies in their time, but none as
mangled as the poor sap before them. The brightness of the morning sun, the
beauty of a new day, seemed bizarrely at odds with watching the medical
examiner’s team pull body parts, piece by piece, from a garbage truck. Even
hardened crime scene investigators struggled to keep their breakfasts down.
    Earlier, one of the scavengers on the route had been
wheeling a dumpster back into place when his partner operating the garbage
truck told him to climb up to see why it seemed to be straining. The scavenger
saw the human legs and feet—jeans and a man’s soft leather slip-ons—slowly being
sucked into the trash compactor. He screamed for his partner to cut the power,
but it was too late. Only one foot had been saved.
    Blood dampened the ground in front of the dumpster as well
as the metal inside, making it appear as if an altercation had taken place
right there, and the victim had been tossed into the dumpster to die.
    “We won’t be able to tell anything until the medical
examiner’s team sorts all this out,” Paavo said, although from the color,
hardness and lividity of the foot that hadn’t been smashed, the death had
occurred a few days earlier. He tried to find jacket or pants pockets to look
for a wallet or other identifying papers, but the material had been badly
shredded. At the moment, neither pockets nor their contents were identifiable.
Finally, he peered with dismay at the mess that was their crime scene.
    Things had been quiet in Homicide before this call came in. Almost too quiet. It had given Paavo time to confirm the
decision he had made last night after listening to Katie Kowalski—that Katie
had been right. She did need to move on with her life, and so did Micky . And so did he . If she met a
good man, one who would be a good husband to her and a father to Micky —a full-time dad, not someone who visited once a
month—so much the better for both of them. Paavo would find some way, in time,
to continue to be a part of Micky’s life, and to be
there to make sure the boy was well-treated, safe, and happy. He was good with
that.
    But now, he turned his full attention to what he knew best, dealing
with a murder and the crime scene. It was located in the center of the busiest
section of San Francisco during the week, and one of
the quietest areas on weekends. The job of canvassing the Financial District
and talking to anyone who might have seen or heard
something, would be a nightmare.
    “The poor bastard’s teeth were crushed when his head went
through the compactor,” Yosh said. “Dental records
won’t do it.”
    Paavo nodded. “Let’s hope we have some fingerprints on
file.”
    “Yeah,” Yosh said, “once we find
his fingers.”
     o0o
    Angie and her sister, Caterina Amalfi Swenson, spent five
hours going to houses throughout the northern section of San Francisco, Angie’s
favorite part of the city. Cat, as she liked to