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

he said, “and now I’m trying to see how large I can get it and keep it in focus.”
    Paavo sat on a stool at the end of the counter where Faldo worked.
    “Who are these people, anyway?” Faldo turned the magnification knob.
    “I found the photo at a crime scene,” Paavo said. “It might be important.”
    Faldo made a few final adjustments to the focus. “The woman’s quite a dish. A little flat-chested for my taste—”
    “It’s the badges I’m interested in,” Paavo said, interrupting.
    Faldo gave him an odd look, then he placed aneight-by-ten piece of low-contrast resin-coated paper under the enlarger, set the timer, and flipped it on. “Badges? Oh, yeah. Those that she and the guy are wearing. Christ, is he her husband? Looks old enough to be her father. Homely bastard, isn’t he? They made a cute kid, though.” When the exposure was complete, he moved the paper into the developer tray, and after a short while turned it faceup. The enlarged photo began to appear.
    “How’s your dad doing?” he asked as he used tongs to move the print into the stop bath.
    Paavo shrugged, tamping down his impatience. “Same. Still in intensive care.”
    “Well, he’s hanging in there. Good for him. I’ve been working with Ben on the CSU materials from the break-ins. Nothing I hate to say it, Paav, but the guys who did it were pros. Keep your girlfriend out of their way.”
    “She’s found a place to stay until this is settled.”
    “Good.” Faldo washed the print in plain water, squeegeed it, and hung it on an easel. “Here you go.”
    As Faldo turned on the fluorescent overhead lights, Paavo walked up to the photo. He could see some kind of symbols on the badges, but they were angled in a way that made them hard to read, and were still a little blurry. “Can anything be done with these to make them clearer? I’d like to know what they say.”
    “I doubt it, but I’ll give it a try. If you’re just curious about the badges, I can tell you about them. I used to wear one of those myself, years ago, before I decided I’d much rather live here in foggy and damp San Francisco than in hot and humid Washington.”
    Paavo eyed Faldo with surprise. “You know what these badges are?”
    “Sure.” Faldo grabbed a sponge and wiped up some spilled developer solution. “And if I didn’t, the building would be a dead giveaway for old-timers like me. It’s the Old Post Office Building in Washington, D.C.—Twelfth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. Years back, when the post office moved out, other federal agencies moved in, including the FBI’s metropolitan office. The badges they’re wearing were picture IDs. Employees had to wear them to get inside. The blue background on the guy’s meant he was a special agent. She isn’t, of course, given the time. But it’s pretty darn certain both of them worked for the FBI.”
     
    Angie unlocked the door to Aulis’s apartment. As she entered, she shuddered, finding being here as eerie this time as the last. An unearthly chill hung in the air, along with a musty smell.
    The investigators had finished their work, so the cleaning service she’d hired would be coming by in about an hour.
    Today, when she’d first arrived in the neighborhood, she’d knocked on doors and asked people if they’d seen anything strange—particularly a dark blue Mercury—before or since Aulis’s attack. As casually as she could slide it in, she also asked if they knew his old friend Cecily. To both questions, everyone’s answer was the same—no.
    Paavo had told her that Aulis had lived in the small apartment for only the past fifteen years or so, but he had lived in the area for most of his life.
    Her earlier phone calls to several of Aulis’s old friends—Paavo left the address book at their house after making calls about Aulis being hospitalized—had given the same results. The people she’d spoken with were all quite elderly, and sounded confused and anxious about her questions. She