Cooking Spirits: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (Angie Amalfi Mysteries) (5 page)

“All right, already!”
Angie found
all her older sisters very exasperating at times.

Cat showed her how to relock the box after placing the key
back inside. She then left.

“Are you sure you want my opinion?” Connie asked as Angie
unlocked the door. “If you love the house, what does it matter what I think?”

“I value your opinion,” Angie said. “Also, I want to see it
without Cat standing over me. She’s acting very strange about this place. One
minute she says I don’t want it, and the next she’s practically insisting I buy
it. Something’s going on with her, and I don’t know what it is.”

“What worries me,” Connie said, “is that the house was a
rental, and now has sat empty for a couple of years. Clearly, there’s something
wrong with it. The land alone is worth what they’re asking. You and Cat both
know that, Angie. I’ll look at it, but you need to as well, and not in a
starry-eyed way.”

“I’m never starry-eyed,” Angie said.
“Although
this place is a quite a steal.
Let’s go in.”

She opened the front door, and Connie’s immediate reaction
was everything Angie had hoped for. The view was even more breath-taking now
than it had been earlier because the sunset over the ocean had turned the sky a
cascade of red and orange.

“Oh no, what’s this?” Angie hurried to the broken candy dish
on the fireplace hearth. “This wasn’t here earlier. It must mean somebody else
has come to see the house! Somebody else might be interested! Someone might
even make an offer on it before I get a chance!”

“Calm down. It’s been empty for a couple of years; it won’t
sell overnight,” Connie said as she wandered into the kitchen,
then
stuck her head into the garage before heading towards
the opposite side of the house to see the bedrooms and bathrooms.

“What do you think?” Angie asked hopefully.

“It’s a beautiful house, but…” Connie put her hands on her
hips and looked around. “I don’t know. This whole place has a strange vibe, as if
someone is still living here. It feels as if the owner could come walking
through that door any second and demand we leave.”

“Well, that’s not going to happen,” Angie said.

Connie wouldn’t let it go. “I wonder why the owner isn’t
still using it as a rental. Why leave it empty for two years? And what’s with
all the furniture?”

 “You’ve made your point.” Angie folded her arms. She
had thought much the same thing, but hearing Connie voice the concerns didn’t
make her happy.

Connie still wasn’t through. “Keeping the house meant the
owner dusted, vacuumed, did yard work, and paid taxes on it. That’s crazy. I
believe if something is too good to be true, run. This deal is definitely too
good to be true.”

Angie cringed. “Don’t you trust my sister?” she demanded. The
question sounded lame even to her.

“I trust you,” Connie said. To her, Caterina and Angie were
mirror images.
While Angie was remarkably selfless when she
wasn’t in monomaniacal one-track-mind mode such as with this house, Cat was
completely, unabashedly selfish.
When both were on the same wave length,
heaven help anyone standing in their way. In fact, all five of the Amalfi
sisters were that way.

Behind them, a vase with silk flowers rose up, suspended in
mid-air, from the small round table it decorated.

“The house does seem perfect,” Connie admitted. “And it also
seems you’ve made up your mind about it, no matter what I say.”

“I’m sorry,” Angie said, realizing she ran roughshod over
her friend’s opinion. “You’re right that I’m looking at it purely emotionally.
I need your clear-headed thinking. What am I overlooking?”

Connie folded her arms and walked around. “I don’t know.
Rationally, it’s great. It’s got a fantastic location. How many homes in San
Francisco aren’t squeezed between two others? Your neighbor sneezes and you
shout ‘
Gesundheit
!’ It’s a nice size; it’s pretty and
well built. You’ll get a home inspection so you’ll know if it needs a new roof,
or new electrical wiring, and so forth. There’s nothing I can rationally object
to.”

The vase floated across the room towards the stone
fireplace.

“But…?”

Connie shrugged. “Maybe it’s the thought of all the hours
you’ll have to spend here alone at night, waiting for Paavo because he’s off on
some homicide case until all hours. But I suppose if the case is interesting
you’ll be sticking your oars in the water as usual, so being alone out here
won’t be happening.”

The vase stopped moving.

 “Stick my ‘oars in the water’? What’s that supposed to
mean?” Angie asked, hands on hips. “I’ll admit that sometimes his homicide
cases are interesting, but I’ve never, ever, gotten involved where I’m not
wanted or, should I say, not needed.”

The vase did an about face and headed back towards the
table.

Angie turned her head ever so slightly…and jumped.

“What’s wrong?” Connie asked, startled.

Angie gawked as the vase slowly settled onto the edge of the
round table, and then slid to its center. She blinked several times. “Uh…”

“Angie?”

She walked over to the vase, stared at it a long moment.
“Nothing.”

Connie put her hand to her chin as she continued to look
around the room.
“All right.
If you must know, what
bothers me about this house is what I already said: I can’t get over the
feeling that someone is still living here.”

Angie turned her back on the vase,
then
looked over her shoulder at it once more. “You’re giving me the creeps!”
Clearly, her eyes had been playing tricks on her. “And you’re making me see
things. So just stop it!”

Connie placed her hand on the glossy white woodwork framing
the opening to the kitchen. “If walls could talk, I wonder what these walls
would say.”

Angie shuddered. “The more you talk, the more I don’t want
to know! Cat suggested that the past is best left in the past.”

“Well, if Cat suggested it, how can it possibly be wrong?”
Connie said. Angie knew she was being sarcastic. “Why not just see what Paavo
thinks? If he hates it, case closed. If he likes it, you can always investigate
further if you want to.”

“That’s a great idea!” Angie nearly jumped for joy. “No
reason I should put all this on my shoulders! Paavo should have a say. Now,
before we go, I’ll clean up the pieces of this broken candy dish. I’m going to
buy a replacement. If I tell Cat the dish broke, she’ll find some way to blame
it on me!”

She picked up the pieces. The bottom of the dish bore an
imprint of English Spode china, Garden Rose pattern. “I know a shop downtown
where I can get a replacement, or something close to it,” Angie said. “Cat will
never know.”

“I’ll leave that to you, Angie,” Connie said as Angie switched
off the lights and locked the front door.

o0o

 Paavo and
Yosh
took Taylor
Bedford’s coffee cup from his office and brought it to the crime lab where they
matched the prints on the cup with those of the corpse in the autopsy room.

Now, they rang the doorbell of the dead man’s house. Judging
from its size and its Marina district location, the Zygog sales job paid a lot
more than Paavo would have expected.

A strikingly beautiful woman with sparkling blue eyes and
black hair opened the door. “Are you
Larina
Bedford?”
Paavo asked, showing his badge.
Yosh
did the same.

Her blue eyes widened with fear. “Is this about my husband?”

“We would like to speak to you,”
Yosh
said.

She invited them into the living room and they had her sit
while they told her as gently as possible that her husband had been killed.

“Do you need me to identify his body?” she asked. Her eyes
misted, but no tears fell.

“It won’t be…possible,”
Yosh
said,
struggling to find a better word and realizing he couldn’t.

She looked ill. “My God,” she whispered.

They asked if they could call someone to be with her during
this time.

“No, Inspectors.” She turned her head away from their
scrutiny. “I’m used to being alone.” She took a few deep breaths then faced
them again. “I knew something was wrong when Taylor didn’t come home last
night. He always comes home Sunday night. I tried to call several times, but
his phone went to voice mail. I hoped he had been delayed on his return trip
and that’s why he wasn’t here, but that didn’t explain why he hadn’t phoned to
tell me. He was”—her voice broke—“a thoughtful man.”

“How long had he been away?” Paavo asked.

“Two weeks, as usual.
He traveled
for business. Two weeks away; two weeks home. That was his schedule.” She
stepped into the kitchen for a box of Kleenex. Taking one, she lightly dabbed
the corners of her eyes.

“When did you last speak to him?” Paavo asked.

“Friday.”

“Where was he?”

“Sacramento, I think. I’m not sure. He has, had, a lot of
customers there.”

That didn’t make sense to Paavo. Sacramento was only two
hours from San Francisco. Why wasn’t he home sooner? “Did he work weekends?”

“In a sense, he did. He called it ‘schmooze’ time. He
believed a customer found it hard to transfer his business to a competitor
after being wined and dined. So he’d usually set up golf games or other outings
for his clients on weekends.”

“And you didn’t expect him home until Sunday night?” Paavo
asked. “Was that his usual day to come home?”

“Yes. He would roll in about nine p.m. We’d talk, and then
he headed to bed to be bright eyed Monday morning. He was usually exhausted
when he got home.”

“Do you have the names of the customers or places where he
golfed?” Paavo asked. “Or who he met with over the weekend?”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I know it sounds odd, but he
traveled so much, I stopped trying to keep up with him years ago. His secretary
should know.”

“What’s her name?”
Yosh
asked.

“His name is Otto.
Otto Link.”

Chapter 6

YOU WON’T HAVE TO worry about a thing,
my dear,” Diane
LaGrande
said even before she sat
down on Angie’s sofa. She insisted on visiting her clients’ homes to get a
sense of their taste and color choices. That sounded logical to Angie, and she
invited her over. “I’ve done this many, many times. I know exactly what is
needed for a magnificent wedding.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Angie said. After her unhappy
experience with a wedding planner her sister
Frannie
had praised—she should have known better than to trust
Frannie
!—she
decided to go with the one constantly written up in the
San Francisco
Chronicle’s
style section as the best in the Bay Area, and who charged
accordingly. But this was Angie’s one and only wedding, and in such things,
price should be no object.

“Is this your first marriage?” Diane asked.

“Yes, it is.” Since it was morning, Angie served mimosa with
miniature cinnamon rolls and strawberry tarts.

“Isn’t that precious!”
Diane took a
big gulp of the champagne and orange mixture, then folded one leg over the
other, and looked around the apartment, evidently secure in the idea that Angie
could afford her service. “We’ll definitely create a wedding suitable to
someone who lives in an apartment like this.” She flashed a big smile as she
took in Angie’s art and furniture. Her gaze zeroed in on one wall.
“Oh, my!”
She stood and walked towards it. “Is that a
Cezanne?
A real Cezanne?”

 “Yes,” Angie said. It was a small lithograph.

“He’s one of my favorites.
An inspiration
to me.
Ah, yes! I can see it now.” Diane threw back her head, waving her
arms as if painting a tableau.
“You!
Dressed in reds
and yellows and greens; colors rich yet delicate like this Cezanne. Your
bridesmaids in a dotted impressionist array...
quel
magnifique
!
”

“I want a white dress,” Angie said, folding her hands on her
lap.

Diane slowly lowered her chin, eyes open and piercing.
“White?” she asked in a voice that sounded like she’d just described the inside
of a dirty toilet. “Oh, that’s right. You’re a new bride. Oh, well, I’m sure
you
can wear white, but we’ll have your bridesmaids in beautiful color! And never
mind your dress.” She fluttered her hands as if dismissing Angie completely.
“Everything else is what’s important. We’ll make your wedding into a veritable
rainbow of colors, with an emphasis on the deeper, richer hues.
Purple, blue…
indigo!”

“I’m not really an indigo person,” Angie said.

Diane lifted one eyebrow. “So?”

Angie cleared her throat. “Well, I am the bride.”

“Yes.
The bride who will be wearing
white.”
Diane looked down on her with something that struck Angie as
very much akin to pity. “As I said, my dear, I’ve done this many times. Many
times! My weddings are creative treasures. The very best possible! Memorable!
Colorful!
Daring!”
She picked up her
purse and turned towards the door. “I’ve got a good idea of what you want. I’ll
get started on it right away. I may need to borrow the Cezanne at some point,
to get the colors right.”

“Wait!” Angie hurried after her. “Let me think about this.
I’ve got more interviews coming.”

“Excuse me?” Diane looked down on Angie as if she had two
heads. “I told you I was free to work on your wedding. Surely, there isn’t
anyone else you could possibly want.”

Angie squared her shoulders. “I expect you’re right, but I
haven’t yet made my choice.”