Add a Pinch of Murder

by Joanne Pence

  “How long were he and Madrigal married?” Yosh asked.

  “Five years. Kevin was age twenty-six, Madrigal thirty-two when they wed. He had been two years out of law school at that point.”

  “I guess he had some pretty big student loans, going to law school and all,” Yosh said.

  “He did,” Vera concurred.

  “Had they known each other long?”

  “Yes, but they never paid attention to each other when they were young. The age and class differences seemed a lot greater back then. Madrigal was raised in a very sheltered environment by her widowed father. He doted on her … while Kevin was the son of his housekeeper.”

  “How was their marriage?”

  “Fine, I believe.”

  Blithe’s friends had told Paavo and Yosh similar stories, all believing Madrigal and Kevin were happy in their marriage.

  Vera no sooner answered the question when Madrigal swept into the room as if she were a queen and they her lowly subjects. She looked at them as if she had no memory of having met them before.

  They stood and reminded her that they had been at the Palace Hotel. “Oh, yes, of course,” she said, taking a seat across from them. Vera excused herself and left the room.

  Madrigal watched Vera go, then faced Paavo. “Now I remember. You were with Angie. She’s a dear. I should have realized she’d tell you we spoke. I’ve had a lot of calls, especially from the press. I guess when I told Vera I didn’t want to talk to anyone else, she took it quite literally. Of course, I never meant the police. I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. How can I help you?”

  “You’ve had two days to think about what happened to your husband,” Paavo said. “Have you thought of anyone who might want to kill him?”

  “Kevin was well loved by everyone,” she murmured.

  Yosh stepped in. “How did you two meet?”

  A small, secretive smile played on Madrigal’s lips. “As you know, Kevin’s mother worked as the housekeeper for my father after my mother died. She helped him with everything, and she and Kevin lived in one of our family’s rentals not far from the mansion.”

  “So Kevin lived nearby,” Paavo said, trying to move the story along.

  “Yes, but it wasn’t until after he finished his law degree and came to the house to see his mother that we ever paid any attention to each other. Before then, he always seemed like a little kid to me.”

  “You were living at home at the time?” Yosh asked.

  “I’ve always lived at home. I chose not to go away to school. Everything I could want is right here.”

  “But didn’t your father want you to leave home for a while?” Yosh pressed. “Sometimes it’s not just formal studies that you learn when you move away to college and live on your own.”

  She glared at him. “My father was happy and relieved that I wanted to stay with him. He had private tutors come to the house to teach me a lot more, I’m sure, than I ever would have learned in college.”

  Paavo couldn’t help but raise his eyebrows in Yosh’s direction as she told this story. She seemed like a young woman who might have learned a lot from books, but knew little about life.

  It was now Paavo’s turn. “So, you two finally met. Then what?”

  She smiled. “Kevin said I was like an innocent breath of fresh air to him after having been on campus for several years. It didn’t take long for us to realize we were in love, and he asked me to marry him.”

  “We understand he never passed the California state bar exam,” Paavo said, interrupting.

  “Actually, he simply didn’t bother to take it,” she said. “He realized it wasn’t the kind of work he was interested in.”

  “You two soon married?” Paavo asked.

  “Not so soon. My father objected to our relationship. He was worried that Kevin was just using me to get his hands on the Cambry money. He even tried firing Vera, just to get rid of Kevin. But nothing worked. It wasn’t until I said I was going to run away with Kevin, even if it meant using my own money to live on, that my father to relented. As long as we stayed near him, he said, he would give us his blessing. We agreed, and he did. Oh yes, he also rehired Vera.”

  Paavo lifted an eyebrow. “So she worked as his housekeeper even though she’s Kevin’s stepmother?”

  “They’re friends. She enjoyed it,” Madrigal snapped.

  Paavo nodded, as did Yosh.

  “What did Kevin do for a living?” Yosh asked.

  “He ran Dad’s charities. They don’t just run themselves, you know.”

  “Your family is independently wealthy,” Paavo said. “Where did the money come from?”

  “From the railroads. My great-great-grandfather was one of Leland Stanford’s most trusted associates. He made a great salary and had been given all kinds of stocks. Our family has been living on those investments for over a century now. It’s a shame that, since Kevin and I never had children, this arm of the family will die with me.”

  “What about other family members?” Yosh asked.

  “There’s my Uncle Neil, Dad’s brother. But we have nothing to do with that side of the family. He and Dad argued about money many years ago. Even as kids they apparently always fought. Finally, they agreed they didn’t like each other, and that was that. Uncle Neil sent flowers, but he didn’t bother to come to Dad’s funeral.”

  Yosh pressed. “What about his children, your cousins?”

  “I wouldn’t know them if I passed them in the street.”

  Finally, the detectives left, uneasy but uncertain why.

  o0o

  That same morning, Angie’s across-the-hall neighbor, Stanfield Bonnette, dropped in for a visit. He often stopped by unannounced—especially if he was hungry or bored. And he was often both. Especially hungry.

  Angie had to admit that deep, deep down she was going to miss Stan when she moved. At one point he was thinking about purchasing the house across the street from the one she and Paavo were buying, but since no one had died in it, the cost was fairly high. She wasn’t sure how much Stan was able or willing to spend.

  “Did you find out about the auditions?” he asked as he entered the apartment.

  “The …?” It took a moment for her to think of what he was talking about. It all seemed so far off. “Stan, you don’t know the half of it!”

  “No, I don’t.” He hovered near the door to the kitchen. “Want to tell me all about it?”

  “Hungry?” she asked, and wondered why she bothered.

  “As a matter of fact …” He hurried to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. “I can’t wait to hear what you’ve been up to.” His voice was muffled since he was half-way inside the appliance checking the leftovers. “I’ve tried coming over a couple of times, but you weren’t home. Ah, cassoulet.”

  “Heat it up. And there’s some ciabatta. I can make it into garlic toast for you.”

  “Heaven!” he exclaimed.

  As Angie reheated the stew and bread for Stan, and poured him a glass of Perrier, Angie told him about her disastrous gala, and meeting the newly widowed Madrigal Cambry Blithe.

  “It wouldn’t hurt to know someone with her kind of money,” Stan murmured.

  “I’ll introduce you. Maybe in a few months when she’s over this period of mourning.”

  Stan filled his mouth with cassoulet, held it a moment to fully appreciate the flavor, then swallowed. “She may be rich, but can she cook?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Forget her.” Stan took a bite of the bread and a sip of sparkling water.

  “In any case,” Angie said, “there’s no audition. They want a voice over. It’s not a job for me.”

  “No, you’re definitely an in-front-of-the-camera person,” Stan said, looking happier with each mouthful.

  “That’s nice of you to say, but I don’t think so,” she said.

  “In fact,” Stan added, “you should go back to that TV station that wanted to give you your own show.”

  Ang
ie shuddered. “I told you never to bring that up again.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “You were just starting out and nervous. Now, you’d be like an old pro.”

  “I don’t think so.” She tried not to think about her wretched try-out for a cooking show on a local television station. It was bad enough that they wanted to call it “Angelina in the Cucina” – cucina being the Italian word for “kitchen,” but things went from bad to worse quickly.

  She was supposed to demonstrate how to make “gnocchi,” an Italian pasta that adds potato to the all-purpose flour.

  From arguing about the pronunciation, Angie’s “nyaw-key” to the producer’s “ga-no-chee”—and who was the Italian in the room?—to his not liking her touching the dough to make sure it was light and airy enough for cooking, her demonstration was a complete and utter disaster.

  She wasn’t hired.

  “Actually, I did get an idea,” Angie said as thoughts of her strange conversation with the little white dog came back to her.

  “What idea?” Stan asked.

  “I should just forget about it. It’s silly.”

  “What if it’s not?” he asked.

  She took a deep breath. “Okay, what if I did one of those videocasts of me cooking and giving lessons along with helpful hints on how to make gourmet meals?”

  Stan’s eyes lit up. “Yes. I love it!”

  “You do?” She found herself surprisingly pleased to hear his reaction.

  “Of course. You could do it. Just think, your own cooking show on the internet. A videocast for food junkies. I can record it for you. And I’ll test the recipes, too.”

  “Do you know how to record a videocast?”

  “It’s not brain surgery,” he said. “We’ll start out on YouTube.”

  “You’re serious about this, aren’t you?” she asked.

  “Sure. If it does well, it could be carried world-wide on Roku, Apple TV, Hulu, and all kinds of similar gadgets that bring the internet to big-screen TV. And if it doesn’t go well, staying on YouTube isn’t terrible.”

  “I don’t know,” Angie said. “Do I want to commit to a cooking show when I’ve got a wedding to plan, a house to remodel, and a honeymoon to go on?”

  “The good part is there’s no set schedule with things like that. You do them when you’ve got the time.” He eyed her carefully. “The question, Angie, do you want to try this or not? You seem ambivalent.”

  “I’m interested,” she confessed. “I mean, I am sick of doing things for other people and not getting paid, and of others trying to tell me how I should be cooking when I’m the one with the schooling and experience.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Stan raised his hands and clapped. “I’ll make a video of you with my phone and take it from there.”

  “We can do a little better than that,” Angie said. “I’ve got a video camera that I bought for Frannie’s wedding. Not that she ever wanted to look at the videos I took of her and Seth. But it’s a good camera.”

  “Perfect.”

  Angie thought about it a moment. “You know, Stan, I think we might be on our way to something big.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  After Angie sent Stan back home, she drove to the Seacliff house to see how things were going. The contractors were starting that morning. The schedule was tight, but in a few months’ time her home with its remarkable view, large rooms, garden, and beautiful new kitchen would be move-in ready.

  She was relieved to see the contractors’ trucks were in front of the house as she drove up. Clyde didn’t disappoint. She parked and was heading for the front door, wondering how much work they’d gotten done already, when the door burst open and four large men came running out.

  Clyde hesitated a moment as he saw her, and then shouted, “We quit!” He ran to his truck.

  “Wait!” She hurried after him as he jumped in and slammed the door shut. The driver’s window was down and she gripped the door tight as he started the engine. “What do you mean? Why are you quitting?”

  He stared at her, eyes wide and looking a bit crazed even as he scowled. Then he took a deep breath and put the transmission back into park. “I don’t know what to tell you without sounding crazy.”

  “I need you to explain,” she cried. “Please.”

  He rubbed his forehead, then dropped his hand and in a quivering voice said, “Things started moving. A hammer twirled in the air. A crow bar was ripped from a worker’s hand. Right out of his hand! I don’t know what to say.” He stared at her, then shut his eyes a moment as he continued to gulp the air. “I want to say it wasn’t real. It couldn’t have been real. But we all saw it.”

  She shook her head. “I wonder if one of your men hadn’t heard stories about the place. Kids joked that it was haunted because it stayed empty for so long. But there was a good reason. A rational reason. I wonder if the worker didn’t say something to the others, or if his nervousness caused him to do and say strange things.”

  “You think so?” Clyde whispered.

  “I’m quite sure of it. I’ve been in the house many times and so have you. You came to see the job before bidding on it, then again for our meeting the other day. And no hammer or anything twirled before, did it?”

  “No, it didn’t,” he admitted.

  “See?”

  Clyde began to look decidedly sheepish, running his fingers through his hair. His coloring went from being ashen to red with embarrassment.

  “I suggest you go home now,” Angie said, “and come back with a new crew when you’re ready. It was just a little touch of mass hysteria. These things happen.”

  “They’ve never happened to me before.”

  “This is a perfectly normal house that needs a new kitchen. Please try again.” She wondered if she needed to beg him.

  He drew in his breath. “You’re right. We must have all made each other nervous until we were seeing things that weren’t there. Accidents they were. That’s all. God, but this is embarrassing.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” she said with a smile. “It’s not the first time these sorts of goofy accidents have happened, I’m sure. I’m glad I was here so I could talk to you. A bad day on the job mixed with too much imagination got to all of you. Nothing more.”

  “I’ll make up for it,” Clyde said. “I know you need the job finished in a couple months’ time so you can get the rest of the house ready to move into after your wedding, and I’ll make sure it happens. But … please don’t mention today to anyone. I mean, if my competition hears …”

  “Don’t worry. Mum’s the word. And thank you.” She gave him a big smile then stepped away so he could back out of the driveway.

  As soon as he was gone, Angie stomped into the house, and slammed the door shut. “Now I’m mad!”

  She marched into the kitchen. The old appliances had all been moved out. It looked as if the workers had been left alone until they began removing the porcelain tile countertops and taking the upper cabinets off the walls.

  She put her hands on her hips. “I thought you were gone. Actually, I had hoped you were gone. You can leave anytime, you know, and the sooner the better. This is my house now, and I need those men to finish what they started. Look at this mess. If you expect me to live here with the kitchen in this state, you are sadly mistaken. And if you think you can scare me away, you’re dead wrong!”

  One of the countertops that had been pulled off now stood on its side against a wall. An upper cabinet with its doors removed was no longer attached to the wall on one side, while still attached on the other. The crowbar lay on the floor beneath it.

  “Listen good,” Angie said, her voice growing louder with each word. “I managed to talk the contractor into coming back, and I need him to put in my new kitchen. Don’t push me on this! I’ll tell you now, I will burn this house to the ground before I run away and leave it. Have you heard of Cosa Nostra? The Black Hand? Omerta? I’m not Italian for nothing. Trust me on that.”

 
As she stood there trying to calm herself, she had to admit she didn’t know if she was the crazy one, or if the contractors were.

  She opened the drapes and stepped out onto the deck. She really had believed that anything “ghostly” about the house had vanished along with the discovery of the person who had killed Eric and Natalie Fleming, the couple who once lived here. But now, either they were still present, or the contractors were lying. Or she was dreaming.

  She pinched herself. No, that wasn’t it.

  What was she going to do? Should she tell Paavo what had happened? But he had never witnessed anything amiss in the house. And she still didn’t quite believe it herself. Maybe what she had suggested to Clyde wasn’t so far-fetched after all. One of the workers probably had heard about the house, got nervous, and conjured up the whole thing.

  Her hissy fit in the kitchen had been nothing short of ridiculous. Shouting at the walls! Threatening to harm this beautiful home! My God, she was really losing it.

  She folded her arms against a strong ocean breeze. Time to go back inside, she told herself as she spent a moment looking out on the water. San Francisco’s ocean beach wasn’t exactly a sunbathers’ paradise with its one-two punch of nearly constant fog and wind, but it was beautiful.

  She didn’t care what had happened with the contractors. This was her home, and it was worth fighting for. No matter what.

  o0o

  While Yosh went to Sausalito to talk to Oliver Cambry’s brother Neil and his wife, Paavo contacted Rico and Joey. They met at a coffee shop near Joey’s apartment, which Rico said was preferable to meeting inside Joey’s apartment which apparently was a man cave in need of a cave-in.

  “Hey, Inspector,” Rico said as Paavo entered the eatery. He and Joey were seated at a table with cups of coffee and gigantic slices of coconut cream pie.

  Paavo greeted both men amidst congratulations for his upcoming nuptials. He could see why Angie wanted to do what she could to help them. They were good people.