Cooking Spirits: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (Angie Amalfi Mysteries)

by Joanne Pence

  Even after getting to know her better than any other person in his life, the beauty and warmth of her smile when she greeted him still awed him. He liked nothing more than to look into her wide-set brown eyes as he put his arms around her and kissed her. After a while, he took off his jacket, removed his shoulder holster and gun and left them on a table in the corner of the living room while she poured him a beer, his beverage of choice, and a glass of chardonnay for herself.

  He loosened his tie as he settled his long body on the sofa. She put Miles Davis on the stereo since Paavo liked jazz, then sat down beside him. He put an arm around her.

  “Tell me about your house-hunting adventures,” he said. “Did Cat come up with any places you like?”

  Angie nestled her head on his shoulder. “She did do that. The problem with most places is the price. Most houses in neighborhoods I like are outrageously expensive. Unless my job prospects change, we can’t begin to consider them.”

  The last thing Paavo wanted was to have Angie talking about her job prospects, or lack of them. To him, she was bright, clever, and talented, and had a knack for cooking right up there—to his palette—with chefs in the fancy restaurants she sometimes dragged him to. He felt sure she could be another Wolfgang Puck, Emeril, or any of the numerous big-time chefs she talked about. But for whatever reason, that ability had never led to a good job.

  “I don’t want you to feel you have to work, Angie. If the wolf is at the door, that’s one thing, but let’s not start out married life with that kind of burden. We’ll simply wait until the right place in the right neighborhood comes on the market.”

  More than most people, homicide detectives knew San Francisco wasn’t all quaint cable cars and popular tourist attractions. Like any big city, there were areas that weren’t safe during the day, and became hell holes at night. Innocent people died or were maimed simply because they were caught in the cross-fire. He’d never forgive himself if he did anything that put Angie in danger--especially when she did that so well by herself.

  “Actually,” she said, sitting upright. “I did find one house that I like, that’s in a great neighborhood and is affordable.”

  “Oh?” It wasn’t like her not to blurt out good news. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Nothing.” He lied. “Tell me about it.”

  “Right now, I’m still checking it out. The house has been on the market for a couple of years. It’s a lovely place in the Sea Cliff, with an unobstructed view of the Pacific Ocean.”

  “The Sea Cliff? You mean the area where, not long ago, your sister tried to sell a house and found a dead body inside?”

  “Yes, Cat knows the area extremely well.” Angie didn’t seem to realize what was wrong with this picture.

  Paavo shook his head. “Those places cost a million plus. What are you thinking? You know that’s out of our reach no matter how generous your father will be with the loan terms. Sometimes I wonder if it’s a good idea to get involved in a house at this point in our lives.”

  “Don’t worry so,” she said, giving him a quick kiss. “What if I told you the house was listed for $600,000? It’s a lot of money, but not for San Francisco, and not for that area.”

  The unbelievable price stunned Paavo. His little cottage would sell for between $400,000 to $500,000 not because of the house but because of the value of the land it sat on. “As I asked earlier, what’s wrong with it?”

  She grabbed his hand. “Do you think it’s a good deal if everything checks out?”

  “Check it out really carefully,” he cautioned.

  “Wonderful!” She gave him a big hug. Finally, he saw the Angie he knew and loved as she bubbled over with enthusiasm. He was about to kiss her when she popped her head up. “As soon as my questions get answered, I’ll take you to see the place. I hope, I hope, I hope it all turns out as I—”

  “Hope?” he offered.

  “Yes!” She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. He tried to hold her, but she sat up again. “Now, before we have dinner and can talk about other things, there’s one little bit of information you can help me with.”

  “Oh?”

  “The last couple who lived there were murdered…not in the house, but behind it, on the cliff above China Beach. It happened sometime in the 1980s. Would you be able to find out who they were and why they were killed?”

  “We should have some sort of record,” he said. “But that was over thirty years ago. You don’t think that’s why the house’s price is so low, do you?”

  “Definitely,” she said. “If a murder happened in the house, I wouldn’t want anything to do with it.”

  Now he sat upright. “Really? If it’s a good deal, who cares what took place thirty years ago?”

  “I’d want to know!”

  “Afraid of bad juju? Ghosts?” he asked with a grin. “It’s a house. Walls, window, doors. What people have or haven’t done near the house means nothing.”

  “You are so logical, Paavo,” she said. “What would I do without you? Are you saying if we both like the house and everything else about it seems fine, maybe we’ll want to buy it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Interesting,” she exclaimed. “And sensible. Okay, I feel much better now! And I’ll be even better when you find out what happened out there, who the people were that were murdered, and why. Cat assures me the murders had nothing to do with the house.”

  She was protesting too much. It troubled him. Sensible and logical were not usually part of Angie’s vocabulary. “Look,” he said, “if you would be bothered by what happened—”

  “No, no, no! I can put it out of my mind. Whatever happened to them won’t have anything to do with how I feel about buying the property. It’s simply idle curiosity.”

  He had dealt with those “idle curiosity” requests of Angie’s before, and pretty much reached the conclusion that as long as what she wanted to know wasn’t illegal, it saved time to simply comply rather than have her wear him down bit by bit. “Give me the address and anything else you might have, and I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “Wonderful!” She stood up. “Dinner will be ready in a little while!”

  He caught her hand and drew her back down to his side. “I’ve missed you,” he said softly as he took her into his arms. “Would it be so bad to start with dessert?”

  Chapter 7

  WHEN PAAVO LEFT FOR work the next morning, Angie woke up long enough for him to kiss her good-bye, and he was pretty sure she had gone back to sleep before he left her apartment. Since their engagement, he had moved some clothes, toiletries and shaving supplies to her house. He could imagine living here. It was convenient, it was a beautiful place, the rent Angie paid was miniscule…but it wasn’t his and wasn’t hers. She had been right about that. If she found a good house at the right price, personally, he wouldn’t care if the Manson family had lived there. But he could see that Angie might.

  In Homicide, he went through Taylor Bedford’s appointment book and credit card expenditures. It showed that he had been at the Masco Tool and Supply in Sacramento on the Friday before his death.

  Strangely, Bedford’s credit card didn’t show any hotel charges for Friday or Saturday nights. Although Bedford had been killed on Saturday, he wasn’t expected home until Sunday, so he should have been staying somewhere those two nights…unless Larina Bedford lied, and Bedford had, in fact, come home after his last meeting in Sacramento.

  Paavo looked over several months of credit card charges and a clear pattern emerged. For one week, Monday through Thursday, there would be a string of hotel bills throughout northern California, then a three night stay at the Mountain Shadows Resort in Healdsburg, followed by another string of Monday through Thursday hotel bills all over the area. For the next two weeks, there would be no hotel charges. This agreed with what Larina Bedford said about Taylor being home two weeks, and then two weeks on the road.

  But sh
e also said he spent weekends with clients. No charges were put on his business credit card for those expenses, however—except for the weekends in Healdsburg. Paavo would need to check Bedford’s personal credit cards to see if he covered all those expenses himself.

  Now, while Yosh went back to Zygog Software to continue discussions with Bedford’s boss, secretary, and co-workers, Paavo decided to head north.

  Sacramento was about two hours from San Francisco. It should have taken longer to drive there, but anyone who stuck to the 65 mile per hour speed limit along the multilane Highway 80 would get run over by every other car on the road. Slow drivers, not speeders, were the cause of road rage on California highways.

  Talking to the owner of Masco, Paavo learned that Bedford had spent only two hours with him on Friday morning going over updates and add-ons to the software packages, plus arranging for a trainer to come in and give some advanced lessons to the accounting staff. Paavo asked other key people if they had any dealings with Bedford on Friday. None had, and the owner had never been taken out to dinner or anywhere else by Bedford in all the time they had worked together. And, he didn’t even play golf.

  So, if Bedford didn’t spent time with his client on Friday evening or Saturday, where had he gone?

  Paavo had photocopied a number of other pages from Bedford’s appointment book and decided to check on some other clients near Sacramento. None of them had seen Bedford for over a month. None ever went to dinner, golf games, or anything else with the salesman.

  Going through Bedford’s business charges, he spent Monday night in Redding, Tuesday in Shasta, Wednesday in Marysville, and Thursday in Sacramento.

  Before that, he had spent the weekend in Healdsburg…Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, just as he had every fourth week for the five months’ worth of statements Paavo had copied. Why there? The small town in northern Sonoma County was hardly a hotbed of anything, let alone the tool and die trade.

  Bedford had only one client in Healdsburg, Steelhead Tool and Die.

  Paavo drove to Healdsburg where he met with the owner of Steelhead, a small family-run business. He learned Bedford showed up on that Friday afternoon for no more than twenty or so minutes to check on how things were going. He did that like clockwork, about once a month. While the owner appreciated the attention, he hadn’t asked for it and frankly rarely needed it. As with the Sacramento client, the owner had never gone to dinner or attended any kind of social outing with Bedford.

  Paavo saw a pattern. He saved himself some travel by phoning Bedford’s clients in Ukiah, Eureka and Shasta. Same story in all three places. Bedford was not the winer-and-diner his wife thought.

  While in Healdsburg, he went to the Mountain Shadows Resort, where Bedford booked rooms every fourth Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights.

  “Oh, yes, I know Mr. Bedford,” the desk clerk said solemnly, his black eyes wide as he looked from Paavo’s badge to the stern detective.

  “He’s a regular guest here, I understand. Once every month or so, he stayed the entire weekend,” Paavo said.

  “Well, um.” The clerk cleared his throat. “I’m not sure you could say that. He comes here once every four weeks, and he always pays for three nights. But”—cough, cough—“he doesn’t stay the whole time. He comes by, signs his credit card statement as if he’s staying, but then he goes to the room, showers, and changes his clothes to something much more casual. His wife meets him in the parking lot. He leaves his car here and the two drive away. I don’t know where, of course. He comes back Sunday night, spends the night, and leaves early Monday morning.”

  “He would pay for three nights, but stay one?” Paavo wanted to make sure he heard correctly.

  “That’s right. The maids started to talk about the guest who rarely slept in his bed. I was curious about it, and watched. They were right! As I said, on Sunday evening, he returns.”

  “Are you sure his wife was the person with him?” Paavo asked.

  The clerk looked even more uncomfortable. “Um, maybe I shouldn’t have said that, but the woman…she wasn’t the type that looks like a girlfriend. She was kind of, I don’t know…frumpy?”

  “I see,” Paavo said, even more confused. “Did you see the woman more than once?”

  “I did. Every time.”

  Paavo nodded, then thanked the clerk as he handed him his card and explained that he was investigating Taylor Bedford’s murder.

  As he left, he wondered who the woman was. He couldn’t imagine anyone ever describing Mrs. Larina Bedford as frumpy.

  o0o

  Angie was in a house-hunting mood after her talk with Paavo the night before, but she wasn’t one to settle on the first place she liked and could afford. When she learned Paavo would be out of town and probably not return to the city until quite late, she called Cat and informed her she wanted to spend the entire day—as long as it took—to check out every house that she could afford in the city, regardless of neighborhood, condition or anything else.

  The hour was late when Angie stumbled back to her apartment and flopped down, exhausted, on the bed.

  She had seen more houses than she thought possible, but refused to stop until she viewed them all. Caterina was ready to kill her before they reached the last one.

  But now she knew. The house at 51 Clover Lane was more of a buy than she ever dreamed.

  She wanted it.

  Somehow, she would get it.

  Chapter 8

  GAIA WYNDOM HAD left a message on her bosses’ phone early Monday morning saying she was ill and would need to take sick leave. Her boss thought it odd when she didn’t show up or call on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, but hesitated to do anything because she was such a private person. Strangely private, in fact. He knew she lived alone and had no family. Finally he got up the nerve to phone her house on Thursday to see how she felt.

  No one answer his call. The only emergency contact number in her personnel file listed a neighbor who sounded completely shocked that Ms. Wyndom would have given anyone her number as a ‘contact.’ The two never said more than “Hello” to each other.

  The neighbor did say, however, that she had noticed Gaia’s living room lights remained on all night for the past few days, which wasn’t like Gaia at all. She normally shut off all lights by ten p.m. at the latest.

  The supervisor thought and thought about it, and finally called the police. They sent someone who knocked on the door, but received no answer. On Friday, when she still hadn’t shown up or answered any phone calls, the police entered her small, Sunset district home to investigate. And then called Homicide.

  Officer Murphy, who secured the scene, let Paavo and Yosh into the apartment. The first thing he pointed out was a piece of notepaper in plain sight on the coffee table. They read it.

  To Nobody:

  You, nobody, cared about me.

  You, nobody, loved me.

  When I needed you, nobody was there;

  When I cried alone at night, nobody comforted me.

  I cannot go on sharing my life with nobody.

  And so, I have decided to become nobody, too.

  Gaia, no more

  Officer Murphy then showed them the way to the bathroom. Gaia Wyndom, wearing a plain white nightgown, lay in a tub filled with water. No visible signs of how she had died were evident. Judging from the condition of the body, she had not been dead long.

  It certainly looked like suicide, but homicide detectives were taught to never leap to conclusions. Clever murderers could fake a suicide and a suicide note. On the other hand, sometimes people did kill themselves.

  Findings from the crime scene investigators and the forensics unit would tell quite a bit.

  As Paavo and Yosh looked over the house to learn about the victim, the M.E. and her team arrived.

  Gaia Wyndom was 43 years old, and had owned her house for twenty-two years. Paavo and Yosh could not find a single photo of her or anyone else in it. Both detectives looked through drawers and closets to fin
d any bit of information about her. They found bank statements, utility bills and such, but nothing else—no diaries, journals, or anything similarly personal.

  Even her medicine cabinet didn’t have a single prescription in it. They started to wonder if she ever really lived in that house, but food filled the refrigerator as well as the pantry, clean dishes were ready to be put away in the dishwasher, and a few pieces of clothing were in a laundry basket.

  “I can’t remember seeing a house so empty of personality,” Paavo said to Yosh as he went through drawers in Gaia’s bedroom. “Nothing here indicates she had any contact with anyone else. Her mail was all bills, and her laptop had no e-mail except a couple pieces of spam. She may have wiped it clean. I’ll get CSI to look into it.”

  Yosh checked her phone and saw it had no caller I.D., not even a last number redial feature. He then went out to the garage to look for boxes of memorabilia—old school yearbooks, anything at all to show Gaia Wyndom had a life. He came up empty.

  “Does this make sense?” Paavo asked as the two stood in the living room of the eerily sterile house. The heat was on, but it felt cold.

  Paavo walked back towards the bathroom where Officer Murphy stood watching the medical team working. He asked, “Who called in the death?”

  “We got a report of a no-show from her place of employment. After twenty-four hours, we entered the house, found her, and called it in.”

  “It’s amazing they noticed she was gone,” Yosh said. “There’s nothing here to indicate what kind of a person she was, what she liked, who she knew. Nothing.”

  “When did the employer last hear from her?” Paavo asked.

  “Monday.”

  Paavo was surprised by that. “Five days ago. The body doesn’t look as if she’s been dead five days. If she killed herself, she must have thought about it for a few days before acting.” He turned to the M.E. “Any thoughts on time of death, Evelyn?”

  “I’m going to have to get back to the lab,” Ramirez said. “The findings aren’t making much sense, but the bath water could be complicating it. From the condition of the body, I guess—and it’s only a guess—she’s been dead a day or two.”