Free Red Hot Murder: An Angie Amalfi Mystery by Joanne Pence Page B

was there. His cell phone wasn’t on him.
    “You knew Ned well,” Paavo said to Joaquin. “What do you think happened to him?”
    Joaquin stared out the window at the lake a moment before saying, “He was troubled about Teresa, but he wouldn’t say why. When asked, he’d just clam up, and say he’d take care of it. It wasn’t like him. Ned was usually open, friendly. He liked to help people. Maybe too much.”
    Joaquin had nothing more to add, and Paavo continued going through Ned’s belongings. In a lamp table drawer he found a small obsidian rock carved in a dog or wolf form.
    Paavo held it closer to the light. “Do you know what this is?”
    Joaquin stared at the carving then shook his head and looked away. “Just a charm. Tourists like them. You see that sort of thing a lot around here. It’s worthless.”
    Paavo gave the older man a sharp glance. Why was Joaquin suddenly lying? The carving wascrude. He placed it back into the drawer.
    The den had a number of photos—Teresa alone, Teresa and Ned together in happy times, several of Doc and Ned, and even an old one of Ned, Paavo, Doc, and Aulis, all young and smiling at some long-forgotten photographer.
    Paavo felt a pang at the last one. He’d tried as much as possible to treat this like any other murder case; he handled them at work all the time. The photograph, though, was a reminder that this case was different. Ned had been a friend.
    Paavo was going through Ned’s computer and e-mails when Joaquin gave a shout.
    In the bedroom Joaquin sat on the floor by the open closet door. Before him was a box filled with newspaper clippings about the discovery of Hal Edwards’s body.
    “I heard things last winter, in those few days that Hal was in town,” Joaquin said as Paavo looked through the papers. “There was a rumor that Ned hated him; wished he was dead. I couldn’t understand it. Why would Ned feel one way or the other about Hal? Their paths hardly crossed. Then, Hal was gone, and the rumors ended. I never told Doc what I’d heard. I doubt anyone else would have either.”
    “Yet, for some reason,” Paavo said, “Ned went out to the place where Hal’s body was found, and that’s where he was murdered.” Paavo flipped through the stack of articles from newspapers around the state. “We need to find out why he saved these, and what he was looking for, because whatever it was”—Paavo lifted his eyes to Joaquin—“I think it killed him.”

Chapter 9
    Angie rushed over to Doc’s house. She’d rather stay there than in the bungalow in case the tarantula was a family man. Not that she had a lot to be afraid of. From the common room, she’d phoned her doctor in San Francisco to ask about tarantula bites and learned they were highly painful, but not otherwise serious. Since she felt nothing, she hadn’t been bitten. Tarantulas would rather run than bite, and attacked only if provoked. By the time the doctor finished, she felt guilty that she’d killed it.
    Since tarantulas were burrowing animals who lived in soil, to find one in a cabin was highly unusual. She had to talk to Paavo right away.
    She expected to sit outside until Doc, Paavo, and Joaquin returned. She tried the doorbell, just in case. To her surprise, Doc answered. Haggard and drained, he looked as if he’d aged ten years since morning.
    “Hi,” Angie said. “Is Paavo back? I thought I’d come and see how you fellows were doing. See if you needed any help.”
    “He’s not back yet,” Doc said, wearily. “I’m going into town. You can wait here until Paavo returns.”
    “To town?” The man looked ready to drop. Doctors, she’d heard, always made the worst patients. “Don’t you think you should rest?”
    He shook his head. “Rest? Hell. The only rest I’ll ever take again is the eternal variety. No, I’ve got to be the one to tell Teresa. Ned would have wanted me to, though I don’t know how I’m going to do it.” He briefly covered his eyes then turned toward