Cooking Most Deadly by Joanne Pence

Author:Joanne Pence
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: HarperCollins US
Published: 1996-01-24T10:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Angie walked into her classroom to find a cellophane-wrapped bouquet of long-stemmed red roses in the center of her desk. Could they be from Paavo? she wondered, although he wasn’t exactly the flowers-giving type. Maybe he’d sent them because he’d been too busy to see her lately?

She searched the flowers for a card.

She hadn’t heard from Paavo in a couple of days. The city was astir in the wake of the murder of a retired judge’s wife, and Paavo was in charge of the investigation. This was another one of those cases where she saw more of him on the local TV newscasts than she did in person.

The press speculated that the same crazed murderer who had killed the typist had also killed the judge’s wife. They made much of the fact that Tiffany worked for a supervisor—the city government connection, they called it—which led them to dub the case the Municipal Murders.

The mayor and Board of Supervisors were furious at the gory attention given to their administration, as if bad government had led to the murders. No matter how much political pressure they exerted on the press to stop its coverage of the murder investigation, the interest continued. Finally, they realized there would be only one way to end the examination—for Homicide to catch the killer. Paavo was in the middle of a firestorm.

No card. That was strange. Who would send her such beautiful roses and not give his name? It had to be Paavo.

She quickly shuffled through the stack of papers the school’s administration office had left in her mailbox. Information about some fund-raising events, a faculty meeting for the regular staff, a meeting to introduce the new third assistant vice administrator, a list of some supplies that wouldn’t be bought because there was no money, another list of books that wouldn’t be bought for the same reason, and a card telling her about a late enrollee into her class, W.C. Lake. She flipped it over to see if it was a joke. She’d spent enough vacations in England to know their meaning of WC, and tied with “lake” made her wonder. She put the card aside. Probably just some unfortunate American name.

“Does anyone know who brought me the flowers?” she asked the few students, retirees mostly, who’d arrived early for her class.

“A sweet young man. Rather shy,” Lynette answered. “He said he was signing up for your class, but he couldn’t stay today, and hoped you’d forgive him.”

Something was strange about this. She’d had students sorry they’d missed class before, but none had been sorry enough to bring her a gift. Not even a posy of pansies, let alone roses. Especially since this was just an adult ed class. No grades and no credit.

“Did he give his name?” she asked Lynette.

“I don’t think so.”

“He said you’d know him when the two of you finally met,” Herman said, looking up from his notebook.

“He did?” Angie was more confused than ever.

“He seemed to be quite a fan of yours,” Joan, another student, added, then smiled.

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