Cooking Spirits

Chapter 5

5

Connie Rogers locked up her gift shop, Everyone’s Fancy, at six o’clock on the nose and followed the directions Angie gave her to Clover Lane. She arrived twenty minutes later.

As usual, she was on time; Angie was not. Connie and Angie met when Paavo investigated the murder of her sister, Tiffany, a while ago. They immediately hit it off and had been close friends ever since. She once heard Angie’s oldest sister refer to her as “Ethel” to Angie’s “Lucy,” which she found insulting to both of them.

Ten minutes later, Angie’s silver Mercedes CL600 coupe pulled into the driveway next to Connie’s ancient red Toyota Corolla. Cat’s white BMW SUV parked right behind her. “Thank you so much for meeting us,” Angie said as Connie got out of her car.

Hands on hips, Connie studied the street. “I’m glad to help. From the outside it looks promising. Great neighborhood.”

“We’ll go inside and look around. Cat’s still trying to find out the history of the place. As soon as she does, she’ll tell me everything she’s learned.”

Cat walked up to them. “I’ll let you two in, but then I’ve got to run. It’s a long drive to Tiburon, and I want to get home before dark. Now, Angie, I’m trusting you to lock up the house before you leave. You know how important it is that you don’t mess up anything if I give you this key.”

“I know, I know. I’m not a child!” Angie wondered when her big sister would stop treating her like an i***t. “But first, have you found out more about the house yet?”

“Not much,” Cat said. “The owner is a widow. She used to live here, but after her husband died, she moved out and it became a rental. Now, her daughter put the house up for sale. I suppose the owner is too old to handle her affairs anymore.”

“Well, that makes sense,” Angie said. “But it doesn’t tell me why it’s so cheap and hasn’t sold in… how long has it been on the market?”

“Two years. But the real estate has been somewhat soft.”

“Not in San Francisco.” Angie glanced down the lane to Sea Cliff Avenue. “And not in this neighborhood.”

Cat had no answer.

“All right, let’s go inside,” Angie said.

Cat opened the lockbox and removed the key. “I could just unlock the door and then put the key back in this box.” Cat gave Angie a stern look. “But in case you two lock yourself out of the house by mistake, or find some other door that needs to be unlocked with the key, I’m going to trust you with it.”

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

Cat showed her how to re-lock 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 strange about this place. One minute she says I don’t want it, and the next she’s 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 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 folded her arms. “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 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 a 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 walked around, eying the place. “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 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 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, fists 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 lives 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.

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 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 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 made little 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 often 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.”