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

by Joanne Pence

  “Well, the heater hasn’t been on in some time.” Angie said, dismayed, but hoping this would be as bad as it got. “And the house is on the ocean so the breeze is fairly brisk.”

  Maria lowered her hands and turned in a circle. “Someone is here.”

  Oh, God! “Someone?” Angie asked.

  “Or something,” Maria whispered.

  “This was a bad mistake!” Angie said. “We should leave.”

  Maria suddenly turned pale and gripped Angie’s arm. “Something feels off.”

  “Off?”Angie repeated.

  Maria clasped her hands together and pressed them to her chest. “Oh, my, this is so terrible,” she said, although her voice said it was exciting and wonderful. “When something feels bad in the house, it usually means there are evil spirits.” Her voice now dropped and she inched closer to Angie. “Dark beings who want to do you harm!”

  “No way!” Angie stepped back and shook her head. Truth be told, her whole body shook at Maria’s wild-eyed gaze. She wasn’t sure if her nerves crackled because of the house or her crazy sister. “I don’t think that’s the case.”

  Maria slowly turned her head so far to one side she reminded Angie of the first time she watched Linda Blair in the old movie, The Exorcist. At least Maria’s head wasn’t spinning…yet. “Someone is living here,” Maria whispered.

  “You think that because the house is furnished.” Angie was frantic. “Even Connie said it looks like the owners could come walking in.”

  Maria’s gaze fixed on Angie. “Have you ever noticed any emanations?”

  “Eman—”

  “Something moving, or from the corner of your eye see something zip past, or notice a scent in the air that shouldn’t be there.”

  Angie was near tears. “Yes…yes…and yes.”

  Maria tucked in her chin. “Surely, you know what’s going on.”

  “No.” The word came out as a squawk

  Maria looked heavenward and heaved a sigh before continuing. “Look, the Flemings are connected to the house because this is where they wanted to live their lives. They expected fun, life! But instead, someone stole their lives, someone who may still be alive, and unpunished.” She folded her arms, eyebrows raised. “My guess is that’s why the house is haunted.”

  “Just stop!” Angie covered her ears. “I do not want to hear that the house I want to buy is haunted!”

  Maria tugged on Angie’s arms, trying to free her ears so Angie would listen to her. Angie slapped her hands away.

  Maria moved closer and shouted, “THE SIMPLEST REASON FOR SOMETHING HAPPENING IS MOST OFTEN THE CORRECT ONE. THAT THIS HOUSE IS HAUNTED IS THE MOST DIRECT EXPLANATION!”

  “No it’s not!” Angie lowered her hands realizing nothing could block out the sound of Maria’s shrieks. “Ghosts don’t exist!”

  “Not in your world,” Maria gave one of her all-knowing, oh-so-superior smiles. “But in mine, there are a lot of them.”

  Angie counted to ten. “All right, since you know all, tell me what to do about them. How do I get rid of them? If such things exist, of course.”

  Maria pondered Angie’s questions. “You know, Angie, this could be very interesting.”

  “I don’t want interesting!” Angie put her hands to her forehead and turned in a circle. “I want dull. I want normal!” She raised her arms to the ceiling, head back. “Other people can buy a house and not have to worry about it being haunted, why can’t I?”

  “Stop the dramatics and listen to me!” Maria leaned closer, her dark eyes twinkling with macabre interest. “You might want to find out why they’re here.”

  “They?”

  “Oh, yes. I’m sure there’s more than one spirit here.”

  “You mean they’re having some sort of a convention? My God!”

  “Stop shrieking! You’re making my ears ring. It’s not that bad. Lots of houses are haunted. People learn to ignore what they see and can’t explain, and develop completely wrong explanations for that which they can’t ignore.”

  Angie flung herself onto the sofa. “So the best thing for me to do is to ignore everything.”

  Maria sat beside her. “Of course not! If you leave things as they are, who knows what will happen? If the spirits here are dark ones, you could become possessed!”

  “Possessed?” Angie felt as if her throat closed simply trying to get the word out.

  “I don’t expect you to know how to deal with such things,” Maria said.

  “You’ve got that right,” Angie said, worried now. “How do I do it?”

  Maria pressed her palms together, her face beaming. “It’s easy,” she announced, looking happier than Angie had seen her in a long, long time. “Why didn’t I think of this earlier? It’s the answer to everything. We’ll hold an exorcism!”

  Chapter 15

  PAAVO AND YOSH compared notes and discovered neither had gotten very far in the investigation. Yosh talked to everyone at Zygog about Gaia and Bedford. He had the clear impression that Gaia had been attracted to Bedford for a number of years, but in the past month or so, people noticed that when he wandered near, Gaia would rush away. In the past, she would stare at him with round cow eyes, and hang onto his every word like a puppy.

  No one thought much of it because Otto Link had made it clear to everyone that he and his boss were an item. Link had the plushest job in the place since Bedford spent two weeks out of town each month, and during those days Link had little work to do. He read books and played computer games. No one dared to complain since they feared Link would accuse them of homophobia.

  The more Yosh looked into it, the more he began to suspect Otto Link’s affair took place more in his mind than in fact.

  Bedford’s wife was the mystery. If his marriage was as dysfunctional as Otto Link and the weekend rendezvous with Gaia—or her mysterious sister—made it appear, why did she put up with it? From all he could tell, she lived a life completely separate from Bedford’s. She had her own circle of friends and organizations that she belonged to. Her days were busy, and she didn’t seem to care if she had male companionship or not. When Bedford was in town, he escorted her to functions; when he wasn’t, she went with other people.

  Perhaps the saddest thing in this case, to Yosh, was that Gaia was so alone in the world that no one claimed her body. In fact, her boss, Julio Sanchez, was the only person they could find to go to the morgue to identify her. She had made no provisions for burial, which meant she would most likely be cremated by the state. It was a dismal end to what had appeared to be a lonely life until Bedford entered it. And now he was gone…perhaps by her hand.

  Yosh wanted to think that Larina Bedford had killed both of them—she had motive, and she was distinctly unlikable. But if she had murdered them, she may have committed the perfect crime because they couldn’t find one shred of evidence against her.

  Paavo read over the M.E.’s preliminary report. “You know, Yosh,” he said, “the time of death for Gaia is all over the map, but we know she was still alive after Bedford’s murder.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that, too,” Yosh said. “When I talked to the bartender, he said something had upset Bedford about his relationship with the mystery woman. What if something happened between them, and that something split them apart? Maybe Gaia, who never had anyone at all in her life, couldn’t stand to lose him.”

  “So you’re leaning towards her killing him and then committing suicide?” Paavo asked.

  “Stranger things have happened.”

  “We’ve got to figure out if there really is a twin sister,” Paavo said. “That’ll be the key.”

  “There’s no evidence of it,” Yosh insisted.

  “Except for one neighbor and one old man who believed there really were two different women.”

  “Or one sad woman who finally found somebody who made her happy,” Yosh said.

  Paavo couldn’t let the idea of a twin go. He talked to her neighbors again, asking if they ever saw her on we
ekends. None could remember with certainly, except that they rarely saw her at any time. She had a car but she always had it in the garage when she in or out.

  Then an idea struck. He knew Gaia’s date and place of birth, and drove to each hospital in Oakland, California until he found the one with a hospital record of her birth. Looking at the record, he learned that Shirley Wyndom had, in fact, given birth to twin girls forty-four years earlier. The girls were named Gaia Ann and Urda Lee.

  With this starting point, back in homicide, he tracked the girls to Marin County where their parents moved when they were eight years old. He followed their schooling through graduation from Drake High in San Anselmo.

  Both parents were killed five days after the girls’ twenty-first birthday when their car ran off the road on Highway 1 just south of Jenner. Their assets went to their two daughters.

  After that, he found no further mention of Urda. He could find no Social Security number for her, no California Driver’s License number or any other normal part of life. He could find no evidence that she paid taxes or died. It was most peculiar.

  The Jenner house was in Gaia’s name only.

  So what had happened to her sister? Was she, or was Gaia, the woman called Marilee?

  Paavo expanded his search to extended family members. Surely, someone existed who remembered those girls.

  o0o

  “Maria wants an exorcism, but she can’t get one,” Angie said to Connie over shrimp salads at a Fisherman’s Wharf restaurant. Since Paavo was working on his murder investigation that evening, Angie decided it would be a good time to talk to her best friend.

  Connie choked on a shrimp. “You’re joking.”

  “You’ve met Maria,” Angie said. “She never jokes. I no sooner let her into the house than she went all ‘woo-woo’ on me, and said I could become possessed if we buy it.”

  “Good God!” Connie gasped. “Why in heaven’s name did you take her there?”

  “She wanted to see it. I thought it’d be harmless. No such luck.”

  “So now she’s trying to get an exorcism for you?”

  “None of the priests she knows—and she knows a lot of them—will go to the Bishop about providing an exorcist unless there’s some outward sign of a person being possessed. They can’t do an exorcism on a house just because someone ‘thinks’ a ghost might live there. They told Maria she’s jumping the gun.”

  “Or jumping the shark,” Connie said. “Maybe the whole fish tank.”

  “If only another house would come up, I’d forget this one,” Angie said, eating as if the food were cardboard. “But none of the affordable ones are half so nice.”

  “Look, honey, Maria is ridiculous! Ignore her.”

  “But even you said it felt odd.” Angie took her napkin off her lap and put it on the table. She had no more appetite. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “It felt odd because it stood empty for so long, that’s all.” Connie stabbed one of Angie’s crouton’s with her fork. Her appetite was fine.

  “But now that I’ve got Maria thinking the place is haunted, she’ll tell Mamma, and my mother will be afraid to come visit me!”

  “Would your mother believe the house is haunted?” Connie asked.

  “In a heartbeat.”

  Connie thought a moment. “So the only problem now is your sister’s involvement.”

  “No. My problem is that bargain-hunter’s House of Dark Shadows,” Angie cried.

  Connie remembered her conversation with Stan, how he worried that Angie had not only become obsessed with the house, but it caused her to possibly believe in ghosts. Stan thought it best if she forgot about that house and stayed in her apartment. Connie hated to admit that Stan could be right, but he was.

  With that, inspiration struck. Even Connie was amazed that such a crazy and frankly devious idea had come to her. Angie usually came up with ideas like that.

  Connie cleared her throat to get Angie’s full attention. “Well, it’s not Catholic at all, but it might work on Maria,” she began. “I know a woman who’s dabbled in the occult and performs séances.”

  “A séance?” Angie interrupted. “Maria won’t believe in a séance!”

  “This woman has acted on stage, and she’s quite good. Her séances feel very real, trust me on that!”

  Angie shook her head. “I don’t think—”

  “Just listen. We’ll invite Maria to the house and hold a séance. My friend will tell Maria the ghosts have gone. That way, you’ll have Maria off your back, and you can think about buying the house with a clear head.”

  Angie thought a moment. “If your friend can pull it off, that actually is a good idea.”

  Connie smiled slyly.

  o0o

  The next day, Paavo tracked down a second cousin of the twin girls’ father, Henry Wyndom. She was eighty years old, living in Los Angeles. After a conversation by phone that convinced him she had information, he went to Lt. Eastwood and got approval to catch the next commuter plane to L.A.

  Helen Atherton was a bright, well-turned out woman. She invited Paavo into her pleasant but cluttered home.

  “I really can’t tell you much about Gaia. I’m sorry to hear she’s dead, but I haven’t seen her or her sister in years,” she said even before Paavo sat down in the living room. She offered him coffee or tea, and put out some vanilla wafers. He gladly accepted a cup of coffee. She soon sat down across from him, ready to answer questions.

  “You mentioned Gaia’s sister,” Paavo began. “Was there only one? No brothers?”

  “One sister, a twin. That was all; and that was enough if you ask me.” She gave a firm nod. “I had nothing to do with the girls after their parents died, I’m sorry to admit. I just never cared for them.”

  “What can you tell me about their parents’ deaths?”

  “Not much except that their car apparently went out of control on Highway 1 on the way home from their cabin in Jenner. It ran off the road and rolled down a cliff along the Pacific.”

  Her wording struck him. Also, being face-to-face with her convinced him her mind was sharp and her words honest. “You said it ‘apparently’ went out of control?”

  “That’s right. That road twists like the Dickens, but my cousin knew it well. I’m not saying accidents don’t happen, but Henry was a very careful driver. If anything, he drove too slow! And Henry always maintained his cars. I see no reason for it to have gone off the highway, unless someone helped it along.”

  Interesting speculation, Paavo thought. “Were you and Henry close?”

  “As children we were. But I didn’t care for his wife, Shirley, so I saw less and less of them as time went on.”

  “The twins were age twenty-one when their parents died, so I take it they inherited everything?” Paavo asked.

  “They certainly did, including a house in Kentfield. It was pricey when Henry and Shirley bought it in the 1970’s, but worth a small fortune when the girls finally decided to sell it a few years back. They must have made a tidy sum off the place, even splitting it between them.”

  “What do you think really happened to their parents?”

  “I have no idea. It was called ‘driver error.’ The car caught fire, so there wasn’t really much left to investigate, I suppose. And no reason to suspect anything. No real reason, in any case.”

  “Meaning?”

  She pursed her lips, then sat up a little straighter. “Meaning I always found it suspicious that their parents died shortly after, as adults, those two could take charge of their inheritance. To me, those girls had ice water in their veins. They didn’t even hold a funeral service or anything for their parents. I doubt they ever shed a tear for them. They were little demons when they were growing up, and I doubt they were any better as adults.” She raised her head. “I wouldn’t put anything past either one of them And I’d never turn my back on them, either.”

  Paavo turned the conversation to the missing twin. “Gaia lived in San Francisco and worke
d in South San Francisco before she died. But I can find nothing about Urda. As far as you know, is she still alive? Any idea where she might be living?”

  “I know Urda is alive because I see her books in stores. A new one comes out every six months or so.”

  He was surprised. “She’s a writer?”

  “Yes. Paranormal romances—werewolves and vampires, that sort of thing. She makes a fortune at it, too, I understand.”

  “She doesn’t use the name Urda Wyndom, does she?”

  “My gracious, no. She uses a pseudonym, Marilee Wisdom.”

  “I see,” Paavo said. “Do you have any idea where she lives?”

  “Urda was always a free spirit compared to Gaia. She didn’t like to be tied down by many possessions. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn she lived out in the woods somewhere. She used to live in Marin County, or maybe Sonoma. I doubt she’d go much farther than that. The two sisters didn’t get along, but they always kept an eye on each other—a close eye. If Gaia lived in San Francisco, Urda wasn’t far away.”

  “How well did they get along?” Paavo asked.

  Helen snorted. “Like oil and water. Each always tried to get the upper hand on the other.”

  “Were their personalities the same or different?”

  “Exactly the same. Both pretended to be nice, but they weren’t. I already said they were demons as children. As adults, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn they were monsters.”

  Paavo found the words chilling, but the more he learned about this case, the more he believed she was right.

  He handed her his card, thanked her for her time, and left.

  Chapter 16

  ANGIE OPENED THE apartment door to find two women making tiny waving gestures and smiling at her.

  “Hello, we’re from Bride’s Little Helpers.” They spoke at the same time, and it was like listening in stereo. After not liking the pushy, opinionated wedding planners she met, Angie decided to move in a completely different direction and contacted a firm that described their services as providing assistance in the planning of a wedding, and fulfilling the bride’s every dream. She contacted them that morning and, to her amazement, they said they would be there in an hour. And they were.