If Cooks Could Kill Part 29

"Why not?"

"I came here to confront Dennis. I was convinced, for a while, after you learned he and Veronica had been married, that he was an accomplice of hers. That he worked with her to swindle my clients and ruin me. That the two laughed together over it. But as I stood here and waited for him to open the door, I realized I no longer cared."

Paavo studied the man, taking in the measure of him, of the truth behind his words. "Explain."

"It wasn't worth it. What I did to my life-waiting for three years for Veronica to get out so I could confront her-was pure, self-indulgent idiocy. Her and Pagozzi-to h.e.l.l with them both. I want no part of either of them. So when I saw you pull up, I ran. It was foolish, not criminal."

"A pretty speech, but you could have been running for another reason." He paused. "Veronica Maple is dead, and you killed her."

A panoply of emotions flickered across Max's face-surprise, horror, relief, and regret. "No," he whispered, and then paused. "She was so very full of life...her mind always racing with ideas, big, exciting ideas." His lips tightened and his voice turned thick. "She could have done so much."

Yet another man Maple had double-crossed, and who seemed to love her. "If you didn't kill her, Squire, who did?"

Paavo's question snapped him out of his reverie. He shook his head. "I don't know."

"Dennis Pagozzi?"

"Dennis is no killer. And neither am I. The guys Ronnie was involved with, in the jewelry heist-they were killers. But I find it hard to imagine they did it."

Paavo eyed Squire a long moment, then holstered his gun. "They're pros," he said. "It wasn't a pro hit, and they wouldn't have killed her until after getting the diamonds."

Max lowered his arms, then shut his eyes a moment in relief at being believed. "So," he said, when he was able to speak again, "the question is, who did it? There's got to be someone...someone else she conned into helping her. That's what she was best at-a real-life femme fatale, like the rotten women in the film noir of the nineteen-thirties and-forties. I've never encountered anyone like her before, and hope I never do again."

"Someone else she conned..." Paavo murmured, and suddenly he realized the suspicions he'd harbored for some time about her murderer were correct. He knew the identify. "You're right. We've been looking at this from the wrong angle. We've been looking at money and diamonds. But greed isn't always the motive for all that's bad in the world. Sometimes it happens for the most unlikely reason-like love."

"Love?" Max scoffed, but then his expression turned thoughtful and he nodded. "Yes, I suppose you're right. The pursuit of love can make men do all kinds of things quite out of character."

Paavo opened the side gate-it unlocked from the inside-and stepped out onto the sidewalk with Max. "It can cause them to change,"-he gave Max a hard stare-"cause them to rise above the trouble or injustice society throws at them. Or, other times, with other people, it can cause them to simply go bad."

Max said nothing.

"Give it some thought." Paavo turned away.

Just then, the leprechaun drove up in the black Corvette, stopped in the middle of the street, opened the car door, and started to get out.

Paavo pushed aside one flap of his jacket so his gun was visible. The Jolly Green Pipsqueak popped back into the car and drove off in a rush.

Paavo got into his city issue Chevy and picked up his cell phone to give a call to the Fresno PD.

As he drove, in the distance, he could just make out what might have become his very own gorgeous black sports car. He couldn't stop a heartfelt sigh.

Sometimes love did turn a man's life upside down.

"I think I get it, too," Dennis said, putting the gun in his jacket pocket.

"Well, I don't," Connie said. "All I understand is, it isn't Max."

"Tell her," Angie said.

He wiped his eyes. "I didn't think I'd be crying to hear Veronica was dead. I thought I'd celebrate such news. She nearly ruined my life. Did I tell you that? All...all because she loved me, and she just wasn't enough. I guess that means, in a way, I ruined her life even more."

The others said nothing as he tried to compose himself.

"I remember her telling me things, like how she was able to convince her parole officer that she was putting off her release until his day off 'to avoid suspicion.' Can you imagine? She'd told him about the money she'd hidden, and he thought the two were going to go away together, leave the country, and live off of it the rest of their lives. She used him the whole time she was in stir, getting him to move her to more malleable cellmates, to get her simple jobs-heck, the last six months she worked in the prison library, where he'd 'visit' her in the stacks. She had the jerk wrapped around her little finger. He thought she loved him," Dennis started to laugh, even as he cried because she was dead.

"G.o.d, Veronica thought she was such a genius, and she ends up killed by someone who was just plain stupid!" Dennis's sobs and laughter grew louder. "Is that funny, or what?"

A gunshot sounded, and in the shocked silence that followed, Dennis fell to the ground.

Then the lights went out.

Max watched Paavo get in his car and head after the leprechaun in the Corvette. He shook his head and smiled. Connie had told him about Angie's little surprises for Paavo. This one was a bit over the top.

Max breathed deeply, filling his lungs with fresh sea air.

He was free now. Free for the first time in three years. Free of the sickness he thought of as love; free of hatred; revenge; and now, free of the need to hide from the police.

When he was ready, he would go back to Wings and apologize to Earl, Vinnie, and Butch. Even to Angie, who, in the way she helped Connie, had shown him what true friends.h.i.+p was all about. And to Connie. Especially to Connie.

Puffy white c.u.mulus clouds floated in a crystal blue sky. His heart swelled, and he started walking. As he went, his shuffling step turned springy, and soon, he began to whistle.

He'd take his time going to Wings. No need to hurry anymore.

Angie knew the layout of the restaurant like the back of her hand. As soon as she saw Vinnie hit the lights, she grabbed Connie's arm and led her to the stairway down to the bas.e.m.e.nt storeroom, Earl and Vinnie right behind them.

They shut and locked the storeroom door, then switched on the light, while Angie frantically called nine-one-one on her cell phone.

Someone banged against the door. Earl and Vinnie lunged at it, trying to hold it shut.

Another thud jarred the door, and the lock sprang open, pus.h.i.+ng the two small men back.

Connie screamed, and all of them leaped behind the crates of fireworks.

A stocky bald-headed man carrying a gun entered the room.

"Get up. Put your hands up!" he yelled.

"First tell us," Angie called, cowering ever lower behind the crate as she did so, hoping to throw him off kilter and buy time. "Are you the stupid parole officer?"

"Come out of there, Veronica. I won't hurt you. Not this time." He inched closer to the crates while Angie and the others frantically tried to find something, anything, to use to protect themselves.

"Please, Veronica. Talk to me. Tell me you're alive," he said.

"Stop! She's scared of you," Angie hollered. "Leave her alone!"

He froze. "Scared? Of me? Veronica, how can you be scared after all I did for you? After the way I loved you and helped make life easy for you in prison?" His voice choked. "I gave up everything for you. My wife. My job. My home." Tears coursed down his cheeks.

Angie nodded vigorously at Connie, trying to get her to answer him.

"Tell me I was wrong about you," Lexington pleaded. "Tell me you still love me."

Angie gave Connie a kick, but she was too scared to reply.

"d.a.m.n you! Talk to me!" He fired the gun. Connie and Angie screamed and cringed. "This time I won't miss!"

"Don't! Please," Connie whimpered.

"Veronica?" he whispered, then stepped closer. "Veronica, is that you?"

"Yes," Connie murmured.

"Oh, G.o.d!" he cried, joyous now. "I thought you were dead. I thought I'd killed you. But then I saw you near the jail, and I realized how much I still love you. We'll go away like we planned. I never cared about the money. I just want you."

As Lexington spoke, Earl and Vinnie quietly eased a package of firecrackers out of one crate, Roman candles and bottle rockets out of another.

"Come on, Veronica. If you love me, you'll come to me."

Suddenly, a man's voice shouted from the kitchen, "h.e.l.lo? Is Angie Amalfi around? My G.o.d! There's a man hurt here!"

Angie and Connie exchanged glances. "I'm here!" Angie yelled. "I'm downstairs! Call the-"

Lexington spun around as footsteps hurried down the stairs and a little man wearing green clothes and a sour expression limped into the storeroom. He stormed past Lexington as if the pudgy bald fellow didn't exist. "Where are you, lady? Is this another one of your stupid charades?" He walked right up to the crate Angie hid behind. "I see you! You can't hide from me!" He threw the car keys on the crate. "I tried to give it to him, I really did. I want my money!"

Angie gaped at him. She'd forgotten all about the new car she'd ordered for Paavo.

"Shut the h.e.l.l up!" Lexington roared.

Angie covered her head with her arms.

The leprechaun whirled around. "Who do you think you're-" His gaze dropped from Lexington's face to the gun in his hand. "OhmyG.o.d! You mean that guy upstairs was really..."

"Get over there!" Lexington ordered, waving his gun. The human pickle turned chalky white.

Suddenly a barrage of what sounded like machine-gun fire erupted. Lexington dived to the ground, firing as he hit.

The leprechaun bolted into a corner. At the same time, Vinnie lit a Roman candle and Earl a bottle rocket.

Connie reached into a crate and came up with a handful of cherry bombs. She grabbed a couple of Vinnie's matches, lit the bombs one by one, and tossed them at Lexington.

He crawled from one side of the storeroom to the other to avoid the firepower.

Pinwheels skittered across the floor, whistling and shooting off multicolored sparkles. Aerial spinners whirled overhead, missles and rockets launched, star-bursts lit the ceiling, while more packets of firecrackers blasted.

The leprechaun sobbed.

"You tricked me!" Lexington shrieked. "You don't love me. This is a game." He stood, pointing the gun. "Another of your games."

While Earl and Vinnie tried to figure out how to light a smoke bomb, Angie pulled a can of hairspray out of Connie's purse, then grabbed one of Vinnie's matches.

Earl, Vinnie, and Connie saw what Angie was up to, and all began to shout, "No! Don't!" as she aimed a plume of hairspray at a box of firecrackers and then threw a match at it.

The spray ignited and she lobbed the hairspray canister onto the crate.

Angie and her friends. .h.i.t the ground, arms over their heads, as Lexington raised his gun at Connie.

The crate exploded, knocking Lexington across the room. He hit a wall and dropped.

Fire from the first crate caused the others to go off, and the room became a smoke-filled ma.s.s of firecrackers, sparklers, whistles, and lights. A Fourth-of-July vision of h.e.l.l.

When the smoke and ringing in her ears lessened, Angie heard Paavo's voice. "Angie, are you in here? Can you hear me?"

"Hide!" she cried. "It's the parole officer! He's a killer."

"I know. I've got him handcuffed."

At his words and calm tone, Angie popped her head up over what remained of the fireworks crates. Her hair was singed, her face, clothes and hands black with soot. "Thank G.o.d!" she said, and ran into his arms. "What are you doing here?"

Paavo held her, then brushed some soot from her nose and cheeks. "I came to tell you to stop sending people in crazy costumes to see me. Also, to warn you to watch for Lexington, especially after learning the Fresno police suspected he killed a p.a.w.nshop owner." He faced Lexington. "Was it to hide your trail, or to make Veronica seem more dangerous, or both?"

Lexington, who was sitting handcuffed on the floor, stunned and looking crazier than ever, didn't answer.

As Paavo spoke, Connie, Earl, and Vinnie also stood and dusted soot and gunpowder off themselves. He scrutinized them. "What the h.e.l.l happened in here?"

"Lexington confessed," Angie blurted, with a quick glance at her friends. "That's all."

As Paavo's eyes narrowed and his lips tightened, the sound of police entering the restaurant reached them. Paavo pushed Lexington ahead of him up the stairs. The others followed.

In the kitchen, Butch had stopped the flow of blood from Pagozzi's shoulder, and Dennis was conscious. Angie called for an ambulance as the place filled with cops responding to Angie's and Butch's earlier nine-one-one calls, plus several neighbors' complaints about an all-out war having broken out in the small restaurant.

Paavo Mirandized Lexington and turned him over to the uniforms for the trip to City Jail.

"You used me," Lexington yelled at Connie as he was being led out the door. "You deserved to die! I loved you, you b.i.t.c.h! And I killed you! Maybe I'm not as dumb as you thought, Veronica!"

Finally, the paramedics took Dennis to the hospital, Butch with him, and Angie, Paavo, Connie, Vinnie, and Earl were left alone in the restaurant, shaken and saddened by all that had occurred.

Paavo went back down to the storeroom and looked at the now burned and smoldering crates with Chinese lettering, the firecracker paper, rocket and sparkler remnants lying all over the floor. "What is all this stuff? It looks like fireworks, but they're illegal in this city."

"It's confetti," Angie said immediately.

"That's right," Vinnie agreed. "Chinese confetti."

"We had some popcorn down here, too," Connie added. "When Lexington wasn't looking, Angie put it in a box of confetti and lit the box."

"Yes!" Angie cried, giving Connie a thumbs-up. "It began to pop, and this is the result."

Paavo frowned. "If that's the case, where's the popcorn now?"

"I was hungry," Earl said. "Sorry, boss, but I t'ink I ate da evidence."