Red Hot Murder: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (4 page)

“How old was he when he left?” Paavo asked.

“The first time, about seventy.”

Paavo faced Lionel. “When Hal Edwards returned, did he explain why he’d run off?”

“Not to me,” Lionel said.

Paavo gazed at Joey.

“I never saw him,” Joey said, then stood up and
belched loudly. “I have a headache,” he announced, glass in hand, the other extended in wait until Lionel put an unopened bottle of pinot noir in it. “I’m going to my bungalow, Lionel. Tell my mother not to worry. And when the food arrives here tonight, have a girl make up a plate and bring it to me.”

He turned and left, ignoring Lionel and Paavo’s expressions of concern and farewell.

“Gets lotsa headaches,” Lionel murmured into his whiskey glass. “He’s kinda delicate like. Same as his old man.”

Angie and Paavo ate dinner alone. Clarissa had decided, like Joey, to eat in her room, and Lionel looked more interested in drink than food. Some silent albeit excellent cook had placed a delicious meal of enchiladas, refried beans with cheese, Spanish rice, and green salad on bowls and hot plates in the dining room. They served themselves.

While Angie got ready for bed, Paavo tried to reach Ned again. He had expected to spend this evening with Ned and then with the people at the guest ranch finding out all he could about Hal Edwards’s death, but that hadn’t worked out. He was surprised Ned hadn’t shown up that evening, since he’d initially sounded so eager to talk to Paavo before Doc did. Paavo’s plan was to see Doc first thing in the morning.

He decided to walk around the guest ranch a bit, to see it alone, with no one watching.

Angie put on a sexy black teddy and climbed into bed to wait for him to join her.

And now, here she sat. Alone. She yawned.

No TV. No radio. She didn’t want to fall asleep on the first night of her vacation with her lover. How unromantic would that be?

She opened the drawer in the nightstand. Sure enough, there was a Bible, but she also found a map of the state and an old, yellowed booklet entitled, “Jackpot, Arizona—The Town Hal Edwards Made Famous.”

The back of the booklet showed that the Arizona Historical Society, Yuma branch, had published it.

Angie fluffed her pillows, and settled back to read. She’d always had a secret love of history. Or, considering that her mother had used a historical theme for her engagement party, maybe her interest wasn’t such a big secret.

Clearly written to promote tourism, the sepia-colored booklet was filled with maps and old photographs of the town and the people. Jackpot had been a hard-living, hard-drinking, rough-and-tumble Western town in the early years of its history.

Jackpot’s buildings, land, and history were described in rather dull fashion. The only thing of note was a mysterious happening in 1893. Angie quickly realized it was the same story Lionel had mentioned.

A stagecoach had set off from Phoenix to cross the desert, heading for a little town on the Pacific called Los Angeles. Somewhere around Jackpot, it had vanished.

She sat up as she looked at the names of the passengers lost on the coach: Hoot Dalton, cousin of the infamous “Dalton Gang” of train and bank
robbers; Daisy Lane, singer and actress; and Willem van Beerstraeden, chef at New York City’s Waldorf Hotel.

How interesting, she thought. She’d been to the present-day Waldorf-Astoria many times, and didn’t realize it had begun as only “The Waldorf.”

She continued reading, and soon came to a write-up about Hal Edwards.

In Jackpot, a young Edwards opened a general store founded on cheap Korean War surplus. It soon expanded to include hardware, farm and ranch equipment, foodstuffs, pharmacy, and optometry services, and before anyone knew it, “Halmart Stores” were all over the state.

She turned a page to find a sepia-toned portrait of Edwards as a young man. Wearing a cowboy hat and bolo tie, he was startlingly handsome, with deep-set dark eyes in an intelligent face. He looked like a movie-star cowboy from the 1940s and ’50s, not John Wayne but more of a Gary Cooper type.

The chapter went on to say that Hal Edwards had built a hacienda a few miles from town, and contributed generously to the town and its people until Jackpot grew into a spot tourists went to to get away from harsh, northern winters. Hal and the town prospered until tragedy struck when, as a relatively young man, he suffered a debilitating stroke.

She read, “In keeping with the strong, can-do Edwards’s spirit, Hal recovered. Travelers to Jackpot can now visit and stay on his property. Called the Ghost Hollow Guest Ranch”—Angie’s eyes
began to glaze over at this—“it is renowned for its beautiful grounds and lovely cottages …”

Her eyes shut; she could take no more.

The booklet slipped from her lap onto the floor as her head nodded. Images stirred by her readings swirled through her mind.

Visions flickered in slow motion of her first visit to the Waldorf-Astoria with her parents when she was only fourteen years old, of eating at Oscar’s Restaurant, named for the famous Oscar Tschirky, the first maître d’hotel who was said to have invented such specialties as the Waldorf salad and veal Oscar even though he wasn’t a chef. That was the first time Angie realized she could build a career and a name for herself around her love of food and her skill at cooking.

Like the turning of a page, her dream switched to black-and-white. Suddenly, Oscar Tschirky himself appeared before her in a dapper 1890s tails and top hat. But instead of being at the Waldorf, he was walking down Jackpot’s dusty Main Street with a holster and six-gun strapped to his hip. The sun was high, as if it were noon.

Coming from the other side of the block, also armed and walking toward him with arms out at his sides like a gunslinger, walked a young, strong and healthy Hal Edwards.

On a street corner, strumming a guitar, a wine bottle at his side, Joey Edwards sang
“Do not forsake me, oh my darling,”
from
High Noon.
As he slurred the words “on this our wedding day,” even though Angie was asleep, she began to feel agitated and nervous.

She rolled to her side.

The sky was white with heat. Beyond the buildings and wooden sidewalks, a few bushes of sage and tamarisk rose from the hard-packed gravel.

“Where’s my chef?” Oscar asked in a clipped Swiss accent. Then louder,
“Where’s my chef?!”

“Your chef?” Hal looked over at Angie and flashed her a brilliant smile. “She’ll tell you,” he whispered.

“I will, Mr. Edwards?” she mumbled.

“Yes. You’ll find him won’t you, Angie …” His image rippled. “Angie …” he repeated, then louder, “Angie, are you asleep?”

She opened her eyes. Paavo sat beside her, silhouetted against the soft lamplight. “No,” she replied, shaking the bizarre dream from her mind. As she turned, the covers slipped from her shoulders, revealing the sheer black lace of her teddy. She held out her arms to him. “I’m not asleep at all.”

Angie thought the two-lane road they’d traveled from Jackpot to the Ghost Hollow Guest Ranch was rough going, but it was nothing compared to the narrow, bumpy road they followed early the next morning in the direction of the Colorado River reservation.

The car jostled so badly she had to hold the strap over the door with one hand, the dash with the other. Her stomach flip-flopped. Now she understood why Paavo had insisted that they rent a four-wheel drive vehicle.

After a while, he turned onto a gravel driveway. In the distance was a sprawling white ranch house.

“That’s a large home for one man,” Angie said. “Doc lives alone, right?”

“He does, and he has every inch crammed. He likes to collect things that interest him.”

“I think someone’s standing on the porch.”

Paavo smiled. “That’s him.”

As they pulled up in front of the house, Doc rushed forward to greet them.

Angie’s nerves bunched. While Paavo, time and again, had met relatives of hers who’d inspected him as if he were a bug under a microscope, she’d never had to experience that anxiety. She’d met his guardian, Aulis, before she and Paavo had become a couple, so it had been easy—along with the fact that she’d immediately liked the kindly gentleman.

Now, though, meeting Doc was different. She cared what he thought of her, and wanted to make a good impression for Paavo’s sake. She glanced down at her Moschino jeans, tank top, and red brocade Iisli jacket with Western-looking pearl snaps instead of buttons, and plucked a minuscule speck of lint from her top. She was also wearing a pair of new gray hand-tooled Justin ladies’ boots—all bought in San Francisco after a great search. She’d been sure she’d look quite outdoorsy.

Seeing Doc, she was no longer so certain.

From the name “Doc,” she’d been expecting someone who looked and acted like a toothless Gabby Hayes. The doctor, however, was a handsome man, a Westerner who could easily give Clint Eastwood or Sam Elliott competition. He was tall and solid with a thick mane of gunmetal gray hair. His long face was deeply tanned, lined and weathered, with blue eyes that probed, and a thin, firm mouth. He wore black slacks and boots, a white shirt and a black string tie, and moved with strength, energy, and purpose unexpected in a man of seventy.

“So what the hell you doing still sitting in the car?” His deep voice boomed impatiently, and car
ried a hint of a drawl. “Come on out where I can see you.”

Paavo and Angie did as told. Paavo’s face lit up with warmth and delight as Doc snared him in a crushing bear hug. The two were the same height, and Angie couldn’t help but think that if Paavo’s father were alive, he’d be much like the man before her.

“Goddamn! It’s good to see you!” Doc stepped back and grabbed Paavo’s shoulders, looking over the boy he’d known and clearly proud to see the man he’d become. “Grown a bit from the skinny brat I last saw. Guess I can’t threaten anymore to take you over my knee if you give me any grief.”

“I never dared cause you trouble back then,” Paavo said with a grin. “And I still wouldn’t.”

The two men laughed. Angie smiled, moved by their obvious affection, and glad someone who had been close to Paavo was going to be part of her life.

“Smart kid. I always told Aulis that.” Doc patted him on the back as he glanced at Angie and winked. “Looks like you’re doing all right for yourself, too. Good job. Beautiful fiancée. I’m glad for you.”

“Thanks,” Paavo said. “Let me introduce Angie.”

“Shame on us for carrying on and ignoring your lovely lady.” Doc held out his hand toward her. “I am Dr. Loomis Griggs, but I only answer to ’Doc.’ Welcome to my home.”

Angie shook his hand as she said, “I’m Angelina Amalfi and only answer to Angie. Thank you for inviting me.”

When their hands met, she could feel Doc’s scrutiny of her careful makeup, highlighted hair, soft skin, long nails, and clothes. For the first time, she had a clear understanding of how Paavo felt when her parents studied him to decide if he was “worthy.”

“Let’s go inside,” Doc said. The way he eyed her, she hadn’t yet been accepted. It must be the clothes. Damn, why hadn’t she worn her sophisticated DKNY mauve pantsuit?

Pausing at the front door, Doc’s face hardened a moment as steel blue eyes made a quick but thorough sweep of the morning landscape. And in that instant, as Angie studied him, she realized the brash, talkative, almost jolly fellow was a phony. This man was tough as nails, serious to a fault, and with a shell that would be hard to penetrate. Yet, judging from Paavo and Aulis’s reaction to him, well worth it if one could succeed.

Doc asked after Aulis Kokkonen as he led them to the living room.

A floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace dominated the room. Wide, deep, high-backed leather chairs draped with Navajo blankets and a monstrous leather couch smothered with colorful pillows competed for floor space with rustic tables and a huge rolltop desk. On walls and shelves were Indian sand paintings, assorted Southwestern antiques, and a great many books. Angie peeked at one of the shelves. Some of the books were in Greek and Latin.

The scent of many a burnt log and countless firings up of Doc’s numerous hand-carved pipes permeated the warm, masculine room. No woman’s
touch was seen anywhere, and Angie’s curiosity was immediately aroused as to why such a handsome, eligible man didn’t have a woman to share his home.

There were layers and layers to Doc Griggs, she thought, and it was going to be interesting to delve through them.

“Go on and sit down you two, any place that suits you,” Doc said cheerfully as he brought out a tray with coffee, cream, and sugar. His joviality seemed forced, and his face bore signs of strain. She knew that Paavo was anxious to learn what was troubling Doc, but Aulis had warned him that Doc opened up only in his own time, and pushing did no good. Paavo needed to be patient, and so did she.

She took a sip of coffee, and nearly spit it right back out. It was so strong and muddy her teaspoon could have stood straight up in it. She reached for the sugar bowl.

“Like it?” Doc asked.

“It’s great,” she murmured.
Great, if you liked liquid tar.

Doc grunted in agreement. “Nothing like real coffee to get the juices flowing in the morning. Well, I’m starving. I’ve usually eaten breakfast by this time. Who’d like bacon and eggs? I’ve also got toast or English muffins to go with it. We need to eat before we set out.”

Set out? Angie’s reaction to the phrase was fleeting, almost like a slight tremor of the earth, and vanished with the suggestion of food and a sudden desire for eggs Benedict.

Why would that be?

Then the booklet she’d been reading and her strange dream came back to her, along with memories from some of the culinary classes she’d taken. One of the dishes that Oscar Tschirky, a.k.a. “Mr. Oscar” and “Oscar-of-the-Waldorf,” immortalized was eggs Benedict, created—if she remembered right—as a hangover cure for one of the Waldorf-Astoria’s guests, a Mr. Benedict, who ordered “toast, bacon, two poached eggs, and a hooker of hollandaise sauce.” Oscar had used English muffins and Canadian bacon, and was so impressed with the results he put it on the restaurant’s menu.

How odd that in her dream, Oscar was saying, “Where’s my chef?” and that the booklet had described one lost passenger as the Waldorf chef. What did it all mean?

Maybe, since she’d agreed to help Clarissa with the cookout—and it was obvious from their little talk that Clarissa had no idea what she wanted Angie to serve—she should consider cooking Waldorf dishes, the ones made famous by Oscar, since there was a connection between the Waldorf and Jackpot. Who would have ever imagined such a thing?

All that aside, at the moment she could all but taste eggs Benedict. And perhaps if she wasn’t in the way, Doc would tell Paavo what was troubling him. “Do you mind if I cook breakfast while you two talk?” she asked.

“But you’re my guest,” Doc replied.

“She’s also a gourmet cook,” Paavo said, smiling at her in understanding. He might not know about the craving for eggs Benedict, but he’d read
her mind about giving Doc and him a chance to talk. “She can make the best Italian and French food you’ve ever tasted, and just about everything else as well.”

“Is that so?” Doc asked.

“I try,” Angie stated.

Doc nodded. “In that case, I won’t complain.”

“Have you heard from Ned?” Paavo asked.

“I’m sorry he stood you two up.” Doc sucked in his breath. “I sure as hell don’t know what’s gotten into him lately. He’s been distracted and troubled. It’s driving me nuts trying to get to the bottom of it.”

“What’s it about?” Paavo asked.

“He won’t say.” Doc thought a moment. “He clams up even worse than you do. All I know is, it seemed to start about the time Hal Edwards came back.”

“I’d like to hear about that,” Paavo urged.

“The story starts a while ago,” Doc said with a grin. “But isn’t that the way with most old men’s tales? You know how for years Hal Edwards had it all—wealth and honor. But then after his stroke and divorce, he was left with nothing much but his lands in Jackpot. To everyone’s surprise, though, with a little help from me as his doctor as well as from physical therapy and the people who worked for him on the ranch, he recovered. He turned the ranch into a moneymaking resort, and seemed content, though he never got over his fury at Clarissa and her lawyers for taking his business in the divorce settlement. But then, for some reason, he became increasingly paranoid. He’d wor
ried for years that Clarissa would come back into his life and take everything else he owned the way she had his business. I guess those worries got the better of him because suddenly, he took off. Vanished.”

“He told people he was leaving, didn’t he?” Paavo asked.

“He ranted, made threats, but nothing specific. No one heard a word until he contacted his bank for more money. He was in Mexico. He stayed there five years. We thought he’d never return. But then, this past winter—late January—he came back. He stayed about three days, had those female ostriches delivered to the hacienda, and then took off again.”

Even though he’d heard all this before, Paavo was still incredulous. “He was gone five years, then out of the blue returned with a hundred ostriches?”

“And left again almost immediately,” Doc said. “Or, so we thought. It turns out he didn’t leave. He died. And his body wasn’t found until a couple weeks ago.”

Paavo didn’t like it. Not only was Hal Edwards’s death suspicious, Paavo thought, this whole story was. “Hal Edwards was a rich man, and you’re saying no one looked for him? No one wondered why he’d disappeared again?”

“His family didn’t seem to care. Keep in mind, he’d just returned after five years’ absence. Everyone assumed he’d gone off again and would be back when he was ready.”

The story didn’t hold up. Being gone five years gave him
less
reason to disappear a second time, not more. And why would he have brought the os
triches and then left them? Someone, clearly, hadn’t wanted anyone to look for Hal—or to find him.

“How does Ned tie in with any of this?” Paavo asked as Angie walked in with the eggs Benedict. It was clear from her expression of interest that although she’d been cooking, she hadn’t missed a word.

“From the time Hal Edwards came back,” Doc said, eyeing the plate of food Angie placed in front of him, “Ned was a changed person. I don’t know why.”

“Did they get along?” Angie asked as she refilled the coffee cups—this time with her own brew.

“I didn’t think they knew each other well enough to care one way or the other.” Doc splashed Tabasco on his eggs and hollandaise sauce. Paavo noticed Angie visibly blanch. She started to stand, but then caught herself, sat back down, and gulped some coffee, trying not to look at the desecration of her delicate sauce. Doc, fortunately, was too engrossed in eating to notice. “Come to think of it, whenever Hal’s name came up, Ned looked decidedly unhappy. Angie, these eggs are delicious.”

“Thanks,” she murmured. Doc reached for a bottle of green chili sauce. She felt the urge to tear it from his hands. “So tell me,” she forced herself to ask, “what’s Ned like?”

Doc’s face lit up, and it was clear he enjoyed talking about the younger man. “He’s grown into a fine person. He was just a little guy when his dad passed away and his mother moved here to raise Ned in the country. Ned loved it, but it was too
quiet for her. Eventually, she met a man in Phoenix, and they got married when Ned was sixteen.” Doc broke off his narrative to say to Paavo, “She passed on a couple of years ago.”

“I’m sorry to hear it,” Paavo said.

“She was a nice person,” Doc added, then turned back to Angie. “Anyway, Ned didn’t care all that much for his new stepfather. He asked to stay in Jackpot, and lived with me until he finished high school.”

“So it was just him and his mother when Paavo knew him,” Angie said.

“Yes.” Doc looked fondly at Paavo. “Two little boys who’d already had it pretty rough. They’d both learned what loss was all about at a young age. To me, it helped forge a bond between them. Both paid no attention to the trivial things that so many kids got caught up in, and they valued friendship and honesty. Still do, from what I gather.” He gave Paavo a pointed stare.