The Da Vinci Cook (21 page)

“What is Charles’s cell phone number?” he asked.

No one knew.

While Angie’s sisters waited like sentries for the Tiburon police to arrive, Paavo did more investigating on his own. The first place he checked was a his and hers home office.

It did look as if Charles had been kidnapped. But why? Did someone think Cat knew something about all this and had made Charles privy? And did she?

He booted up the two computers. Neither of the Swensons bothered with password security.

He logged on to Cat’s e-mail files first, and scanned through the sent and received messages. Almost all were about buying and selling real estate, although some referred to her old interior design business. There was hardly a personal message, joke, or even spam in the bunch. The woman was all work.

After increasingly quick scans of incredibly boring home sale information, Paavo shut down Cat’s computer and went to Charles’s.

There was nothing on it except some spam e-mail and a couple of get-togethers for golf. His history file showed that he spent all his time on financial centers—Quicken, Smith-Barney, UBS, Wells Fargo Bank—as well as an erotic literature download site. He’d never heard of Ellora’s Cave before this.

He soon left Charles’s computer and began to rummage through his desk drawers. A notebook neatly listed all of Charles’s computer passwords along with the sites involved. Very helpful. Since they had a fax-photocopier, Paavo made himself a copy and stuck it in his pocket, along with a list of Charles’s and Cat’s cell phone, home, and business telephone numbers.

In the bedroom, he did another search, not for anything in particular, but for something they didn’t want anyone else to see. If people like these two had a “secret something,” they invariably hid it in the bedroom. Maybe it was some innate nesting instinct, but he never found anything important in a living room, for example, or even a den. It was always in a bedroom.

He was about to conclude they didn’t have anything to hide when he opened a small top drawer. Inside, among other things, were monogrammed handkerchiefs—including a perfect match for the one found under the dead man’s body.

He stared, but his attention was drawn away by a Tiburon police car pulling into the driveway. Before he went down to meet them, he picked up the telephone in the bedroom. Holding the sheet with the Swensons’ various phone numbers on it, he called Charles’s cell phone.

“Hello?” a man answered.

“Charles?” Paavo said.

“Who’s this?” the man asked.

“Is this Charles?” Paavo repeated, although it didn’t sound like him at all.

Abruptly, the phone went dead.

Someone had Charles’s cell phone, and presumably Charles as well. His attention snapped back to the drawer where he’d found the matching sets of satin handkerchiefs, all with the C.A.S. initials embroidered in the corner. A drawer filled with men’s socks, linens, and boxes of cuff links. Men’s accessories.

The drawer belonged to Charles Arthur Swenson.

The handkerchief at the Piccoletti house had belonged to Charles, not to his wife.

Chapter 25

Angie was in the bedroom above Da Vinci’s, replaying in her mind her conversation with Marcello. Something about it bothered her.

Then Cat burst into the room. Her face was pale and haggard, her eyes frightened. “While I was out, I spotted a pay phone at a
farmacia
and decided to call Mamma.” She was gulping air, trying to remain calm and scarcely succeeding. “Charles is missing!”

“Charles?” Angie stood, frightened.

“Paavo, Bianca, Maria, and Francesca went to check on him. Our house was broken into.” Tears threatened. “What am I going to do? Why would anyone go after Charles?” She dropped onto the bed, elbows on knees, hands covering her face.

Angie found the news scary for two reasons: Charles being gone, and Paavo going anywhere with her three sisters. She sat down on the bed and put her arm over Cat’s shoulders. “Paavo will find him.”

“Charles couldn’t have gotten into trouble on his own,” Cat wailed. “It has to be because of me. I need to talk to Marcello.”

“Let’s call Paavo,” Angie soothed. “We’ll find out what he knows. Maybe Mamma got something wrong.”

“Nobody gets things that wrong. Not even Mamma.”

They hurried downstairs to Bruno’s office to use the restaurant’s phone. Paavo was still at Cat’s house and gave Angie the details not only of Charles’s disappearance, but also told her that someone had broken in to pick up Charles’s cell phone. He asked to speak to Cat.

Without prompting, Cat recited a list of her husband’s friends and associates, and information about Charles’s daily routine. She was trying hard to keep her composure. Angie felt helpless and angry.

When Angie took back the phone, Paavo asked if she’d been getting the messages he’d left at her hotel. She explained that she and Cat were staying in a “beautiful room”—sometimes it was necessary to lie—above Da Vinci’s restaurant.

“You’re staying
where
?” Paavo shouted.

Angie admitted that she rather liked Piccoletti.

She could practically hear Paavo’s teeth grind at that. “My contact at TSA can’t locate Marcello’s flight to Rome,” he told her, his voice stern. “I’ve got some suspicion about that, but no proof yet. Stay away from Marcello. Come home.”

“Marcello isn’t a worry,” Angie insisted. “It’s Rocco, and so far, no one can tell us where he is. Cat trusts Marcello.”

“I don’t,” Paavo retorted firmly. “You don’t know where Rocco is, Marcello popped up in Rome out of thin air, and now Charles is gone. What more do you need to tell you you’re in over your head?”

“It’s no safer in San Francisco,” she said, using her own form of logic.

“You don’t know that.” He spoke with the icy, deadly tone Angie detested. There was no talking to him when he got that way.

“Inspector Smith, you don’t know it either!” She hung up.

“Ouch!” Cat winced. “That didn’t go well, did it?”

Dejected, Angie gazed at the phone. “I don’t know what to do, Cat. What if he’s right?”

“You can go running back home if you want, but I’m not going anywhere before I talk to Marcello and see if he has any idea what’s going on with Charles.” Cat flipped through Bruno’s Rolodex. “Where is that cell phone number we think is his?”

“Speaking of cell phones . . . ” Angie thought back to her conversation with Paavo. “Why didn’t you call Charles on his?”

“Why bother? Charles only carries it around in his car in case of emergency. He never turns it on. Why?”

“Paavo said a stranger answered it.”

Cat thought a moment, then picked up the office phone. “I’ll call his cell phone right now and see what’s going on.”

“Wait!” Angie grabbed it from her.

A telephone tug of war resulted.

“Let’s think about this.” Angie yanked so hard that Cat, afraid of breaking a nail, let go. Angie put the receiver back on the hook. “What if Charles was taken hostage because someone wants to talk to you?”

Cat paled. “You’re thinking that if I call, whoever took him gets to make threats—to give me a timeline that I have to meet.”

“You can’t let them do that to you,” Angie insisted.

“Of course not.” Cat rubbed her aching forehead. “If that’s what’s going on, any call could put Charles in even more danger.”

Angie gripped her sister’s arm. “As long as they can’t threaten you with hurting him, they’ll keep him alive until they can!”

A strangled sound came from deep in Cat’s throat. “There’s another possibility.” She spun away from Angie. Her hand formed a fist that she pressed hard to her lips.

“What?” Angie asked, alarmed.

She could all but see the wheels in Cat’s brain spinning. Cat dropped her hand and squared her shoulders. “Nothing,” she said. “Forget it. What you said makes sense.”

“But?” Angie urged, even as she realized that Cat was hiding something. She remembered her earlier suspicions, before they ever reached Rome. Just what was her sister hiding?

Cat turned her back to Angie. “If someone has taken Charles, what could they want other than the St. Peter’s chain? Someone thinks I stole it. Charles’s captors must be expecting that I can give it to them for his release.”

Angie felt a little sick. “But since you don’t have it . . . ”

Cat faced her. Her lips quivered and tears filled her eyes. “Charles could be killed! I’ve got to get that chain back, Angie. Where the hell is it?” She choked back a sob.

Angie could feel Cat’s pain and fear. “We need to find out more about the chain, and I know just the place to begin.”

Paavo snapped his cell phone shut and stuffed it in his pocket. After his conversation with Angie, his tongue had teeth marks from biting it.

How involved in all this was Charles? His handkerchief was found in the house with a dead body and missing relic. That relic again . . . the fake priest . . . all coming together.

Cat ended up at Marcello’s house only because her manager, Meredith Woring, said Marcello had phoned in a complaint about her stealing it. Yet, Marcello was supposedly in Italy at the time.

He needed to talk to Meredith Woring. He’d wanted to earlier, but the Amalfi sisters kept getting in the way. Just like now.

He drove the sisters in Frannie’s Prius back to the Hall of Justice parking lot. He left them and got into his Corvette with a “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

Praying they wouldn’t follow, he drove to the Moldwell-Ranker office. One look told him the real estate market was every bit as lucrative as he’d been led to believe. The good news was that even his tiny bungalow out in the Richmond district was now worth a small fortune. The bad news was that to buy “up,” as they called it, he’d have to spend an even bigger fortune—one not supported by his salary. So he’d remained where he was. When he and Angie married, he expected to sell his place. That way he’d have some money to add to the down payment on whatever mansion she picked out, and wouldn’t feel he was living completely off her father’s money.

At the receptionist’s desk, he asked to see Ms. Woring. She wasn’t in the office, but he was asked to wait a moment, then the receptionist disappeared into an office.

An Ichabod Crane look-alike with thinning gray hair approached, the receptionist trailing behind him. “You’re looking for Ms. Woring, I understand,” he said, holding out a slim hand. “I’m Jerome Ranker, the head man here.” Then he chuckled. “At least when Ms. Woring isn’t around. Perhaps I can help you? Are you interested in buying or selling a home?”

Ignoring the question, Paavo asked, “Will Ms. Woring be back soon?”

“Not today, I’m afraid.” Ranker raised his chin. “But I’m all yours. Do you have a particular neighborhood in mind?”

“I’d like to talk about Caterina Swenson.” Paavo showed Ranker his badge.

Ranker’s smile vanished and he cast a cold eye toward the receptionist, who scurried back to her desk. “Why don’t you come into my office?”

The office was luxurious, a peaceful oasis with rose mahogany furnishings. Ranker invited Paavo to sit on a brown leather sofa next to a coffee table. He took the opposite end. Within minutes the receptionist appeared with a tray of coffee, tea, and dainty cookies. She served both men before leaving.

Upon Paavo’s query about Cat’s last day at work, Ranker sat back in his chair, steepled his fingers, and searched his memory. “Marcello Piccoletti apparently called Ms. Woring and accused Mrs. Swenson of stealing from him. After taking the call, Ms. Woring came to me, quite concerned. She told me that as he spoke, she’d pulled out his file and asked personal information—SSN, date of birth, and such—to verify his identity since she didn’t know him personally. Unless Mrs. Swenson has a very clever enemy who phoned and pretended to be her client just to get her fired—and has personal information about that client—it was Mr. Piccoletti who made the complaint.”

Paavo nodded. “Just to be absolutely sure,” he said, “I’d like to check the office’s phone records for the morning in question.”

“That’s easy enough.” Ranker went to his desk and sat down behind it. “You don’t have to bother contacting the telephone company. We have our own PBX. It’ll only take a minute to pull off those records.” He phoned in the request. Soon the receptionist returned with a three-page printout.

Jerome Ranker moved back to the sofa and spread the printout on the coffee table.

“This is strange,” he said, running his finger down a column of incoming calls. “I had the impression from Meredith that the call came in from Mr. Piccoletti’s home, but he must have been using someone else’s phone. Nothing shows up on caller ID, although we do have a number of calls where the caller ID has been blocked or isn’t available.”

Paavo studied the printout a moment. “May I take it?”

Ranker gave his consent.

Paavo folded it. “Where is Meredith Woring?”

“She had to go out of town suddenly. To Los Angeles. I understand her mother is very ill, but I expect her back tomorrow.”

Paavo thanked the man and found his own way out.

Chapter 26

San Pietro in Vincoli, or St. Peter in Chains, was a few blocks uphill from the Colosseum. From the street, a staircase led to a level, patio-like area in front of the church. As was common in Rome, quite a few people milled about on the stairs and near the entrance. Equally common was the Gypsy beggar sitting on the church’s doorsill.