Cooking Up Trouble (16 page)

If ghosts were as real as Chelsea and everyone else in this place seemed to think, he’d have liked to see Matt’s ghost. If nothing else, he’d have liked the chance to tell Matt how much he missed him, to tell him he was the best friend Paavo ever had. He’d have liked the time to say good-bye.

Hell. His eyes shut as he tried to push the thought away. There was no such thing as ghosts.

No one but Chelsea cared
about eating breakfast, Angie realized. The others seemed to stay up most of the night and sleep away the morning—except Moira, who never seemed to sleep at all. Wasn’t that a trait of zombies? With this crew, anything was possible.

Force of habit and misplaced duty caused her to join Moira, once again, in the kitchen to assemble the same boring breakfast of soy coffee, oat bran muffins, granola, and orange juice.

Paavo and Running Spirit gulped down hot coffee, cold orange juice, and then left to continue their search for Patsy. Martin, Bethel, and Reginald didn’t show up at all, while Chelsea ate two muffins and a bowl of granola. Her fright last night had increased her appetite.

Since Martin and Reginald were still asleep, Angie wondered if one of them might have been Chelsea’s nightwalker. On the other hand, she didn’t know when Running Spirit had left Moira. It wouldn’t have surprised her to learn that Moira threw him out of her room, leaving
him more frustrated than ever, and as a result, he went looking for Chelsea, thinking she’d welcome the attentions of a live man. But she couldn’t imagine Chelsea being an object of lust for Robinson Crusoe while still on his desert island, let alone for Running Spirit.

Angie decided she’d reserve judgment on what the nightwalker meant to do with Chelsea, if anything, until she learned who he was. None of these men could be potential rapists. But then she couldn’t see any of them, or the women either, as potential murderers. Which just went to show how poor a judge of character she must be.

After the kitchen was straightened up, it was time for Moira to change the bed linens and do what had become her usual routine of cleaning for her small battery of guests.

Meanwhile, Angie went to visit Chelsea, who had gone back to her own room. There Angie discovered that not only had Paavo found a secret passageway in Chelsea’s room last night, but he had been in there while breakfast was being served and had put slide bolts on it so that no one else could use it to break in.

“He’s so clever,” Angie said proudly. “Cute, too. At least to those of us who like our men tall, dark, and handsome with baby-blue melt-your-heart-away eyes, rather than pining for ghostly apparitions.”

Chelsea agreed. “For a man, he is nice. He also showed me how to spring the secret lock.”

“Really?” Angie was impressed. “He’s a regular Houdini. Show me.”

Chelsea slid back the bolts—one high and one low on the panel—then, as Angie watched, she hit the sensitive points and the panel sprang open. They pushed it open further, then, holding up candles, peered into the spider-infested passageway.

“How disgusting,” Angie said. “Paavo actually went in there? It’s all full of spiderwebs.”

“I know,” Chelsea said. “I was going to try using it, but I think I won’t. Paavo said it just went down to the library, where there’s a door like this one.”

“If that’s all, I’ll take the regular route,” Angie said.

She soon left Chelsea to do just that, deciding she ought to figure out what to serve for lunch before she got involved in anything else.

The first floor of the inn, as far as Angie knew, was empty except for Moira, who was dusting the drawing room.

But as she neared the kitchen, she heard some noise coming from it and froze. Utensils in a drawer rattled as it was being shut, then the refrigerator door was opened, then closed. It could be any number of people, she told herself. Someone from the outside could have come in, or from upstairs could have come down. She shouldn’t feel so skittish.

Still, she stepped up to the kitchen door very carefully, ready to run if anything looked the least bit untoward. She held onto the door frame and slowly bent her head forward, just enough to see inside.

Danny stood at the counter. He had a small paper bag, and she watched as he cut a thick slice of cheese from a brick, put plastic wrap around it, and put it in the bag, following it with an orange. When he glanced up and saw Angie in the doorway, he snatched the bag of food and stepped back.

“What are you doing?” Angie walked toward him. “You can eat with us if you’re hungry.”

“Oh.” He bit his bottom lip. “I was going to go looking for that lady myself. And when I got here I felt a little hungry….”

“You don’t have to hide. No one would care if you wanted to take any food.”

“I’m not supposed to be here.”

“That’s hard to believe.” She was going to have to confront Moira about the boy and why she didn’t want him to be known to these people.

“See you. Bye.” He grabbed the sack and ran off.

Angie didn’t bother about lunch, but went back to Chelsea to convince her that the two of them ought to go out and look for Patsy. Everyone else, it seemed, was already doing so.

Paavo sat alone in the kitchen, eating toast, three eggs that he’d fried for himself, and having a cup of reheated soy coffee. One thing he could say about soy coffee—reheating didn’t make it any worse.

It was long after breakfast. He’d just come in for a break from the Patsy search, felt hungry, and wasn’t about to trouble anyone for food. Particularly not Angie.

Moira stepped into the room. “Oh, I didn’t think anyone was here.”

“I helped myself,” he said. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.”

He saw that she hesitated near the doorway. “Join me?” he asked. There was a lot he wanted to ask her about, but yesterday the pain of her loss had been too fresh. Today she looked a bit better.

“All right.” She filled a teakettle with water and put it on the stove to heat. After placing her favorite herb tea mix on the counter, she began rummaging through the back of a cupboard. “Ah. Success.” She held up a tea bag. “Lipton’s.”

He grinned. “Lady, you’ve made my day.”

She got out the cups, then sat beside Paavo at the counter, silently watching him eat and waiting for the water to boil. He knew she didn’t mind the silence—would probably relish it, in fact.

Why did he know that about her? Was it just because she looked and acted so much like Sybil, or was there something more to this woman, another dimension that he was open to? Good God, but he hated how he was thinking that way more and more these days. He’d probably go back to Homicide as a goddamned Edgar Cayce or something. Might help with a few tough cases, though.

The tea was ready just as he finished eating. She placed his cup in front of him. “I’ve wanted to ask you about your brother,” he said, “and if you have any idea why this happened to him.”

She folded her hands. “I’m not terribly surprised.”

Her words surprised him. “You’re not surprised he was killed?”

“Not really. To Finley, people were like mice, and he was a very big, very clever cat.”

He heard both bitterness and sadness in her voice.

“You’re saying he treated people here that way? You?”

“All of us.” She dropped her hands, drawing deep breaths as she tried to find her composure, then she stood to leave. “Excuse me.”

He took her arm. “Tell me about it. If someone here killed your brother, or harmed Patsy…” He didn’t have to list the dangers any of the rest of them might be in. “Is there anyone that you suspect? Is there anyone who particularly hated him?”

“Hated him? I guess the one who hated him the most was me.”

“You?” Was she saying she killed him?

“I didn’t do it. Despite some very unpacifistic ideas I
may have had from time to time about doing just that. But I’m sure others have felt the same way. All the investors wanted to kill him.”

“Why?”

“He duped them. Every one of them. He found out what their dreams were, and he played with them, holding their dreams and hopes out like bait. The people you see here are the ones who reached for that bait. He hooked them and reeled them in. Now they’re stuck, bleeding, dying. And they hated him for it.”

He wanted the facts that she held so closely. “I need to know about it, Moira. All of it. Before anyone else is killed.”

She shook her head, her hands covering her eyes.

He pressed on. “Tell me about Jeffers. His wife is missing and might be dead. What brought them here? Do you know?”

“I’m not sure.” He could tell she was lying, hesitant. Was she afraid to tell him? Or was the story she would tell too painful? He waited and finally the hesitancy passed.

“Finley met Greg several years ago at an ADOBE convention. That’s Atlantis, Dolphins, and Out of Body Experiences. Greg had, even then, some idea of becoming a guru, or whatever it is he calls it. Anyway, it all boils down to the same thing—a charlatan. He planned to get rich by feasting off the disaffected, the unhappy. Finley cultivated a friendship with him. A blood brother, so to speak.”

Her chuckle was directed inward, and he could see that there was much more to this story than her words revealed. “I understand you and Jeffers knew each other long ago. Was it before this ADOBE meeting?”

“Yes. Years earlier. Finley didn’t meet Greg back then, though.”

“I see. Go on,” he urged.

With a sigh, she came back to the present and her story. “Finley met a wealthy heiress named Patricia Mannington. She was plain, lonely, and had been taught all her life that men wanted only one thing from her—her money. She was a nervous woman, fragile, and very wary of Finley. He saw that if he tried to date her himself, he’d simply scare her off. He had a better idea.”

“Involving Greg Jeffers, I take it?”

She nodded. “Finley looked up his old ADOBE friend, told him about the inn he hoped to buy someday, and went on to tell Greg that Finley believed he would be perfect as a homegrown Maharishi Yogi—all he needed was the financing to get his face, body, and ideas before the public, and someplace to call his ashram.”

She began to play with her braid, twisting it, her hands shaking and her manner agitated as she continued talking. “Next, Finley began to tell Greg all about the very straight-laced, innocent woman he knew, and how no man had ever been able to penetrate her self-control and wariness of being married for her money. At the same time, Finley worked on Patricia, telling her of the aesthetic young man who had no interest in anything material in this life. A man who thought only of spiritual things. He talked about them to each other for over three months, telling Greg that Patricia refused to meet him because he was a man and she was afraid of his ‘baser instincts,’ and telling Patricia that Greg refused to meet her because she was a woman who might divert his mind from pure, lofty, and spiritual thoughts.”

“Very clever,” Paavo said, watching Moira’s closed, guarded expression as she told this story.

“Yes, wasn’t it?” She took a moment before she continued. “When they met, I learned from Finley that Greg
held himself back, scarcely looking at her, so all Patricia saw was a wonderfully handsome, virile man, afraid of her as a woman. No one had ever paid her such a compliment before. She fell head over heels in love. Greg played his role so well that in the end Patricia, or “Patsy” as he lovingly called her—the height of irony—proposed to him. She convinced him that through the sanctity of marriage their relationship would continue to be pure and spiritual, even though their flesh would be as one. He fell on his knees and thanked her.”

“I wouldn’t think he could be that good an actor.”

“There you’re wrong. He’s an excellent actor.” Her words were bitter.

“So Patsy bought Greg his ashram,” Paavo said. He could see the pale, desperate woman giving Running Spirit Jeffers whatever he wanted.

“What actually happened was that Greg tried to leave her out of it. He cut a deal with Finley, giving Finley money to put into this inn in exchange for Finley’s written promise that the inn could be used and advertised as Greg’s ashram. Greg believed he was being terribly clever, duping Finley into giving away control of the whole inn for only a small portion of what it would cost if he owned it.”

“Sounds good,” Paavo admitted.

“Too good. Apparently Greg was madder than hell when Patsy pointed out that all he had for his money was a piece of paper that was worth about two cents. It was a contract a first-year law student could break, and Finley was a lot cleverer than many bar exam graduates. Patsy called Finley on it, only to learn that Greg wasn’t the only investor, and that the Baymans planned to use Bethel as the inn’s main attraction.”

Paavo had to laugh.

“Don’t laugh yet,” Moira said. “You don’t know the half of it. After talking to Finley, Patsy got on the phone and called the Baymans, demanding that they pull out of the inn. That was the first they’d heard of the Jefferses. When the two couples approached Finley, he let two more bombshells drop—namely, Reginald Vane and Chelsea Worthington.”

“But Martin Bayman’s no Greg Jeffers,” Paavo said. “He wouldn’t just hand over thousands of dollars to Finley for promises on a piece of paper.”

“Apparently Martin had been in charge of Bethel’s finances all these years, but when the economy began to turn sour, along with her career, he took bigger and bigger chances, until he lost everything. The only way to get money was to begin again, to try to make Bethel the star she never quite became the first time around. For whatever reason, he turned to the inn. No bank would lend him money, so he couldn’t be a mortgagee. Instead, he got money somewhere to buy a share of the inn directly from Finley, believing he could maneuver Finley into running it the way he said. But he couldn’t.”

“And Vane?”

“Apparently, as a single man with a job as an electrical engineer, he was able to save a lot of money. Investing in the inn was the way he wanted to finally enjoy some of the money he’d worked for all these years.”

“Chelsea?”

“Her parents apparently believe getting her out of their lives is worth any amount of money.”

“It sounds like Finley did his homework well. What brought everyone here?”

“Patsy did. She got on the phone and called them all and asked that they meet here. Greg and Bethel were the two most obviously in conflict, as far as which would be
the inn’s main attraction. But Reginald, it turns out, doesn’t want anyone here disturbing the spirits. Only Chelsea seemed to want the place to be an inn, just as Finley proposed.”