Cooking Spirits: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (Angie Amalfi Mysteries) (10 page)

Stories of old women who could give the evil eye had
terrified Angie as a child. Simply receiving a compliment from a jealous person
could cause the evil eye to descend on the one being complimented. Mothers had
to be especially careful that their babies weren’t cursed. If someone praised a
cute baby’s looks, the mother had to be sure to say, “God bless her (or him)”
to ward off the attack.

When eight-year-old Angie heard that salt warded it off as
well, she put thimble-size amounts of salt into plastic wrap and held them shut
with rubber bands
.
She put the packets on doorframes and window frames
in the bedroom she shared with her sister
Frannie
.
One day,
Serefina
hired a painter, and more than a
little fuss was caused when he found them.
Serefina
leapt to the idea that one of her older daughters was doing drugs. She yelled
at Bianca, Caterina and Maria, threatening terrible things would happen to all
of them if the culprit didn’t confess. Finally, Angie piped up that it was salt,
and she did it to protect the family.

Serefina
tasted it. Angie told the
truth.

Neither Angie nor
Serefina
ever
talked about the evil eye again after that happened.
Until
now.

“Did Nana believe in ghosts?” Angie asked, knowing her
mother, who tried to act modern and practical, would never admit to such a
thing about herself.

“
Sì
,
of course.
Everyone believed such nonsense back in the old country.”

“What did they say about them? Are they dangerous, harmful,
scary, or like Caspar the Friendly Ghost?”

“You have to know why they’re still in this world.
Some good, some bad.
But mostly bad.”
Serefina
quickly added, “Or that’s what I been told. I don’t believe in such things.”

“Of course not,” Angie said.

“But many, many people I know have experienced the spirit of
someone close to them visiting them soon after dying.
Maybe
to say goodbye, or to see them one last time.”
She took a deep breath
then said, “It’s hard to believe, but that may have happened to me once.”
Serefina
turned her head and looked out the window at the
sky as the memory filled her. “I’m not saying it did. And many times, I told
myself it was just a coincidence, a dream, but sometimes, I wonder. Anyway, one
night—you were very young—I was sleeping, and suddenly woke up. There, at the
foot of my bed, stood my father. I hadn’t seen him in many years because he
lived in Italy, and with five children, your father and I didn’t have the money
to visit him very often.”

“Go on, Mamma,” Angie said when
Serefina
stopped talking.

“I swear to my dying day, on the Madonna herself, I was
awake and saw him looking down at me. He smiled.
‘
Papà
?
’
I said, I was
so surprised!
‘
Ti
amo
,
gioia
mia
,’
he told me. It was his voice, I’m sure of
it. He looked at peace, and then he said for me not to be sad.

“At that, your father woke up and asked why I was sitting up
talking to myself. What could I say? I saw that I was all alone now. So, I said
I had a dream, and told him to go back to sleep. Not an hour later, early in
the morning, I received a call from Nana. She told me that my
papà
had died about three hours earlier. I knew, then, he
had come to see me one last time. That he loved me so much…it still warms my
heart.”

Angie clasped her mother’s hand. “Of course he did, Mamma.
You’ve told me so many stories about him. He loved you very much.”

Serefina
sighed deeply as she
dunked another cookie in her coffee,
then
took a big
bite before going on. Cookies helped the sadness go away. “Anyway, that’s not
what most people think when they talk about ghosts. They think of miserable
souls, stuck on this earth because something bothers them or is unfinished and
they can’t rest.”

“Stuck here,” Angie murmured. For some reason, the idea
resonated within her. Not that she believed in ghosts. She and Stan, as they
sat quivering with coffee and brandy in her apartment after their scare at
Clover Lane, convinced themselves that bright sunlight had bounced off the
candy dish in a way that made them think it moved, that their running had
caused the book shelves to shake and topple a book, and that they had simply
managed to scare themselves with their jokes. Of course there were no such
things as ghosts!

“That makes sense,” she said after a while.

“What makes sense?”

“Nothing.”
Angie gulped down the
rest of her coffee and stood up.

Determination filled her. If she was tempted to believe in
ghosts, this house nonsense had gone too far. Time to cease and desist! She
needed to forget all about the house in the Sea Cliff and its self-propelled
books and candy dishes.

She didn’t care how cheap, beautiful, or anything else it
was. And she especially didn’t care what kind of creatures did or did not live
in it, or if they had issues that caused them to be ‘stuck’ on this earth. None
of it meant anything to her any longer. She had a wedding to plan. “Thank you,
Mamma. You’ve been a big help.”

“
Aspetti
!
Wait!”
Serefina
stood and followed Angie to the
door. “I don’t know why you’re asking about such things, and I’m not saying I
believe in them, but remember, Angelina, the words of
Sant’Agostino
.
He said that evil always tries to disguise itself as good. There is evil in
this world. You’ve seen it, I know, and if you get involved with dark forces,
it is not easy to tell which are good and which are bad. It is best to keep
away from them, all of them. Be careful, Angelina. And be wary.”

Angie nodded. Her mother’s words only confirmed her
decision. “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine now.”

 o0o

Connie was stunned to see Stan
Bonnette
walk into her gift shop. “What a surprise. Are you looking for a present for
someone?”

“I’m worried,” he said, taking a chocolate mint patty from
the tray by the cash register. “It’s about Angie’s fixation with the house
that’s for sale in the Sea Cliff. I need you to tell me everything is really
fine.”

“Everything is really fine,” Connie said. “Now, what’s this
about?”

“Ghosts.”
He
unwrapped
the patty. “I’m sure she thinks she’s seeing them.”

“Nonsense!”

“It’s true! She’s obsessed with them. She should be thinking
about other things, such as, does she really want to marry a cop? Personally, I
have my doubts, but that’s just me. Anyway, I think she’s got so many pressures
with her upcoming wedding and her lack of a good job, and now worrying about
where she and Paavo will live, that instead of dealing with everything, she’s
seeing spirits!” He bit into the chocolate.
“
Mmm
!”

“She hasn’t said anything like that to me,” Connie insisted.
“Frankly, I think you’re the one who’s delusional! And that’ll be fifty cents.”

“I was with her at the house. A gust of wind came through
because we had the doors open, and you’d think she saw
Banquo’s
ghost from Macbeth. It was ludicrous. She actually ran screaming out of there.”

“She ran screaming?” Connie asked.

“Yes! It’s true,” Stan confided. He tossed the wrapper into
the wastebasket, but didn’t reach for his wallet.

“What did you do?”

“I ran out after her. What else could I do? I had to make
sure she was all right. I think she’s losing it.”

“Maybe we should talk to Paavo,” Connie said.

“Hell, no!
I’m the last person he’d
listen to.” He reached for another mint and she slapped his hand. “Ouch!
Anyway, he knows how Angie feels about me, and I think he resents our
relationship. Leave him out of it.”

Connie knew the real reason Stan didn’t want to talk to
Paavo. Stan was intimidated by him and turned into a babbling bowl of
gelatinous goo whenever Paavo was near. “All right,” Connie said. “If we don’t
talk to Paavo, what can we do?”

“That’s obvious,” Stan said. “We need to convince Angie that
she doesn’t want to live in that house. She’s perfectly safe and happy in her
apartment. She should stay there.” He didn’t say, but mentally added “
Alone.”

He then took a dollar out of his pocket and put it on the
counter.

“Thank you,” she said. “But that’s the price for two. I’ll
get you change.”

“No need.” He picked up two more patties and walked out of
the shop.

 o0o

While Paavo continued to track down anyone who could give
him information about the shadowy Gaia
Wyndom
,
Yosh
pursued leads on Taylor Bedford. He gained no
information other than “Taylor wasn’t himself lately,” from friends, family and
co-workers until he found a bar three blocks from the crime scene.

“Sure I remember Taylor Bedford,” Donny
Petrollini
,
the bartender at
Harrigan’s
said. “He had to go on
the road all the time for his job, but when he was in town, he stopped in every
night after work. He would drink and get pretty well lit, then call a cab. I
think he didn’t want to face his wife.”

When drinking, Taylor would tell Donny about his miserable
life. “He spent two weeks in town at a time—two work weeks. He told me he hated
his home life so much, he’d leave the city on a Friday night for his business
trip, and not return until Sunday, two weeks later. Finally, I asked him,
‘Taylor,’ I
says
, ‘I never heard of no one leaving
home early and coming home late from a business trip.’ Well, he had drunk
enough that he says, ‘Who says I’m spending my weekends working?’” Donny
chuckled.

“Did he ever explain?”
Yosh
asked.

“He didn’t have to. He had a woman on the side. Sounded like
love, if you ask me. I mean, he’d spend three weekends with her. I’m surprised
his wife didn’t kill him. Hey, maybe she did.”

Donny went on to say that the last couple of months, Taylor
wasn’t as happy as usual. He told the bartender that he had decided to leave
his wife. He was crazy about ‘my girl,’ as he called her, and he couldn’t stand
that when they were at work, she pretended there was nothing between them.

“Wait…he said he worked with the other woman?”
Yosh
asked.

“That’s right.” Donny explained that Taylor told him the company
had a very strict no-fraternization policy, and his girl insisted that they act
like complete strangers at work. They could both be fired—or more likely, she
would be. Taylor kept telling her he wanted to marry her, but she kept saying
no. He wanted to tell his wife, tell his company,
tell
the whole world, that he loved her.

Taylor said his wife looked like every man’s dream, but
beauty was all she had. He claimed the only thing she ever loved was her
mirror. He didn’t even know why she married him.

His girl, on the other hand, was fun, fascinating, had a
wild imagination, and did everything with great enthusiasm, including making
love. Taylor said he had never been around anyone with such a lust for life.
That was why, at work, he couldn’t handle the drab way she dressed and acted.

Donny thought a moment. “I’m remembering one time something
weird happened. He was real shook up the day it took place—just a day or two
before he left on his last business trip. He cornered her in the supply room
and kissed her. She burst into tears and ran off. He said it felt like kissing
a stranger. It shook him, and he didn’t know what had happened to her. He
couldn’t take it anymore. He said he didn’t like her looking so dowdy either.
He knew the real woman. He said he wanted to stop living a lie. I never saw him
after that, and now I learn he’s dead. Poor guy; I guess he got his wish.”

Yosh
nodded.

Donny leaned on the bar and looked at
Yosh
.
“You know what was really sad about the guy? I think I was the only one he ever
really opened up to about all this. He gave me the impression that his whole
life, except for me and his weekends with his girl, was make-believe. He was a
good guy, and a good tipper. I’m gonna miss the poor schlub.”

Chapter 12

ANGIE DECIDED TO GO to the next
prospective wedding planner’s place of business after the irritating experience
of Diane
LaGrande
seizing on a wedding theme based on
her Cezanne lithograph. Now, Angie found herself in the back of a wedding gown
shop. She glanced at the dresses as she entered, but she didn’t find one that
jumped out at her as “the” dress.

Nancy Blum, wedding planner, was a tall, thin woman, pretty
enough to have been a fashion model. She greeted Angie and had her sit on the
opposite side of her desk.

“Here are some pictures of weddings I’ve done in the past,”
she said, handing Angie a thick photo album. While Angie turned the pages,
Nancy asked questions about the type of wedding she hoped for, the size,
location, and so on.

The weddings in the photos were lovely but, to Angie’s eye,
nothing special. There wasn’t one unique thing about them from the cakes, to
the flower arrangements, to the reception halls, to the combos for live music.
The brides’ dresses and veils were unexceptional, and the same for the
bridesmaids’ dresses.

Boring.

“So, let’s talk in specifics about the wedding you hope
for,” Nancy said.

“Something traditional, yet unique,” Angie said, handing
back the album.