Free If Cooks Could Kill by Joanne Pence

there with the Saturday night special he’d picked up with Connie’s money.
    Damn them both!
    He smiled warmly at the woman. “To think, I came all the way down here to meet her. Did she say she was going to San Francisco right away?”
    â€œThat’s what I thought. Why the hell would she want to stay in this crappy town one minute longer than she had to?”
    Â 
    Connie’s mood wasn’t any better when she returned to her apartment that evening, especially after Mrs. Rosinsky, her landlady, confronted her on the stairs and demanded to know if she had a man living in her apartment. She should be so lucky.
    Of course, she denied it vehemently, wondering if the landlady had seen Max leave. But that wasn’t the case. Instead, apparently, some strange kind of police officer was looking for a man and thought he lived in Connie’s apartment. He’d contacted her landlady, who had denied it, but now wanted to make sure she was right.
    It was all too weird. On top of everything else, had she given sanctuary to a man wanted by the police? Even if he was, how would they know he’d spent one night there?
    She kicked off her Hush Puppies as she flipped through the mail. Two bills, four advertisements. At least the numbers weren’t reversed.
    Tossing her jacket on a chair, she went to the refrigerator for a Lipton diet lemon tea and to ponder the food situation for tonight’s dinner. It wasn’t pretty.
    The few customers who’d come into the shop that day were picky and didn’t buy anything. Many more days like that, and she’d end up back at the Bank of America as a teller. Standing on her feet for eight hours giving money to other people was not her idea of a good time.
    The hundred-eighty dollars Max had stolen from her was important. Most of it was grocery money. As she sprinkled some food into Goldie Hawn’s bowl, she wondered if she might be reduced to eating fish food before her business turned around.
    Goldie Hawn was lucky she was so small. Any larger, and she might end up battered and fried.
    Connie cooked some instant rice, then sautéed onion and garlic in a frying pan and added about a quarter pound of hamburger, crumbled, a half can of peas, and a little powdered ginger. When it was cooked, she mixed it together with the cooked rice, sprinkled soy sauce over the concoction, and voilà, “Connie’s Fried Rice.” Okay, so it wasn’t anything she’d serve company—and she wouldn’t dare mention it to Angie—but it was easy, filling, and most important, cheap.
    With each bite, irritation at Max Squire grew. How many times is one burnt so badly? She should track him down like a crazed bloodhound, then glom on like a rabid pitbull until he coughed up her money.
    Dennis Pagozzi supposedly knew Max. Old friends, wasn’t that what Max had said they were? MaybeDennis could tell her how to reach him. If she called Butch, he could give her Dennis’s phone number.
    God, but she hated the thought of phoning a man who’d stood her up! On the other hand, she was desperate, financially speaking.
    She was steeling her nerve to punch in the Wings of an Angel number when the telephone rang. She was sure it was Angie again, wanting to get together “to talk.” Why did people who had everything going well for them think that other people’s problems could be solved by talking? God knows, if it was that easy, she’d talk so much she’d rival Oprah.
    â€œHello.” She all but spat out the word.
    â€œIs this, uh, Connie?” a man’s deep voice asked.
    â€œYes,” she said hesitantly.
    â€œI’m Dennis Pagozzi. I called to apologize for missing you the other night. I was knocked out cold in a pick-up game. Spent the night in the infirmary.”
    Dennis Pagozzi! He’d actually called her. Was on her telephone. Right now.
    She swallowed hard, thoughts of all the movies and books