Cooking Spirits: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (Angie Amalfi Mysteries) (12 page)

“She also worked at Zygog, and also died suspiciously just
days after your husband. Does that help your memory any?”

“There’s no reason why it should,”
Larina
looked him steadily in the eye. “I did read in the newspaper about a death at
Zygog, but that was a suicide, as I recall.”

“Her name was Gaia
Wyndom
. She
made a number of phone calls to your husband.”

Larina
folded her hands, resting
them on the table. “They apparently worked together. Taylor spent weeks at a
time out of the office. How else was she supposed to reach him?
Carrier pigeon?”

“The calls were off hours, to a cell phone different from
the one he used for everyone else.
You,
included.”

“My husband worked twenty-four-seven, Inspector. He had no ‘off
hours.’ If he called and wanted something, he would expect a reply anytime of
the day or night. If they had a special way to contact each other, I’m sure
they had a business reason for it.”

“I spoke with many of Mr. Bedford’s customers, and they said
he never took them out to dinner or anywhere else.”

Larina’s
face flushed red.
“They’re lying. They don’t want anyone to know what he gave them! If they
admitted to receiving gifts, they’re afraid the IRS will tax them. Instead,
they deny, deny, deny.”

“The
clerk at your husband’s favorite
motel in Healdsburg said Mr. Bedford would check into the motel, but rarely
sleep
there.”

She grimaced. “A motel clerk gives you your information? For
all you know, Taylor didn’t tip him or the housekeepers and they decided to
make trouble. I don’t know or care. Now, it appears to me you’ve wasted my time
by asking about some dead person at Zygog. Was she killed in the same manner as
my husband?”

“No, she wasn’t.”

“Do you have any proof that my husband cheated on me?” she asked
stiffly.

“Do you?”

She stood. “This interview is over, Inspector. If you want
to speak to me again, call my lawyer.”

He showed her to the door.

o0o

“If” ghosts were real, Angie told herself, and if someone
were murdered and the police gave up looking for his or her killer, that dead
person could be plenty angry, perhaps angry enough to stick around this mortal
coil in a non-corporeal form.

But ghosts weren’t real.

The only real people in this scenario were the two who were
dead, and whoever killed them.

Suddenly Angie realized what had been troubling her. It had
nothing to do with ghosts at all, but with her far too active imagination.
People told her she fantasized too much.

Now, she made up wild stories and came up with ludicrous
ideas because she didn’t have all the facts. All she had to do was fill-in the
details—which surely were far more mundane than knickknacks flying through the
perfumed air, or sad ghosts trapped in a house seeking vengeance or justice.
Once she did that, her worries about spirits would vanish into thin air.

Angie headed over to the
San Francisco Chronicle’s
“morgue”
of old newspapers and did a search on Eric and Natalie Fleming’s deaths. The
Chronicle
loved to fill news stories with personal details. Also, if there had been
anything odd about the deaths the
Chronicle
would have covered them in
gory detail.

She was right.

For the first time, she saw what Eric and Natalie Fleming
looked like.

Eric was a very late 1970’s to early 1980’s looking guy with
curly brown hair that hung below his ears and a broad mustache. He was also
handsome enough to have been a rock star. His cheekbones were pronounced, his
nose high and straight, his mouth pleasant, but his eyes most captivated her.
They were remarkable, with beautifully shaped eyebrows over heavy-lidded hazel
eyes.
Bedroomy
.
Being haunted by this guy didn’t seem like such a horrible
proposition.

Natalie was surprisingly thin and lacking in curves. Her
pale blond hair looked silky as it flowed in soft waves to her shoulders. In
sharp contrast to Eric’s casual jeans-clad appearance, in the newspaper photo
she wore an expensive looking dress with simple yet tasteful gold and diamond
jewelry.

The type of woman Joy perfume would appeal to.

Angie pushed thoughts about perfume from her mind and
returned to the news articles.

Eric came from a middle class family, studied computer
programing at UC Berkeley, and became one of many new “Silicon Valley
millionaires” of that era.

The
Chronicle
had called Natalie an “heiress.” She
had been born Natalie Parker, and raised in Connecticut. Her parents had been
killed when their yacht capsized in a storm off the Bahamas. Natalie, their
only child, inherited their money. Family arguments over the money caused
Natalie to turn her back on the remaining Parker clan and move to the West
Coast.

Their bodies had been found when a neighbor’s beagle ran off
and refused to come back. The neighbor had no choice but to cross the Flemings’
unfenced back yard to get to the dog. They might have lain there even longer had
he not found them since neither Eric nor Natalie worked or had appointments
that would have caused someone to look for them. Angie suspected that in
those pre-cell phone
, pre-text message days, unanswered
calls weren’t cause for immediate concern.

When the owner of the home that the Flemings rented unlocked
it for the police, they found two half-empty martini glasses on the bar between
the kitchen and dining area. Also, two uncooked pork chops were rotting on the
countertop next to a frying pan and bottle of canola oil, and lettuce, carrots,
and onion lay on the countertop beside a salad bowl. Easy listening music
played on KSFO, the “The Sound of the City” station.

Everything suggested that the Flemings had been interrupted
while having before-dinner drinks. It didn’t look at all like the kitchen of a
couple fighting so bitterly that they would soon both be dead.

The biggest mystery, the thing that most caused the police
to question the murder-suicide scenario, was that the couple’s car was missing.

Eric Fleming drove a Mercedes 350-SL, a two-seater. Angie
had learned from Paavo that the car turned up a year later in Sonoma County.
She searched the newspapers to learn more about its discovery, but apparently
the news editors had lost interest in the case by then. No one bothered to
report that the car had been found.

In fact, only one follow-up story had been written about the
deaths. It was about Natalie’s small dog and how it spent every day out on the
cliff as if waiting for Natalie to return. People tried to take it home and
make it their own, but the dog would always find a way to escape and go back to
the cliff. The paper told a brief but heartwarming story of how the neighbors
worked together to assure it had food, water, and shelter from the rain.

Angie made photocopies of the most fact-filled newspaper
stories.

She then went to the county assessor’s office to find the
history of ownership of the house on Clover Lane. A couple named Donald and
Mary Steed built in the 1950’s. Their son, Edward, inherited it in 1970, upon
his widowed mother’s death. He died in 1978, and ownership transferred to his
wife, Carol. Angie could find no change in ownership after that.

Angie had found out quite a bit about Eric and Natalie’s
life and death, but she still had no idea why they died, or who could possibly
have been responsible.

 o0o

Paavo and
Yosh
returned to
Wyndom’s
apartment to go through her personal and financial
papers to see if any red flags jumped out at him. Her death and Bedford’s had
to be connected, but how? Normally, the first person they suspected was the
wronged wife, but
Larina
Bedford seemed to care so
little about Taylor they couldn’t imagine her having enough feeling about him
to kill him. She seemed more the type to file for divorce and enjoy taking him
for every penny he had.

Scouring Gaia’s tax papers, Paavo discovered she owned
property in a small town on the Pacific coast highway called Jenner, some
thirty miles from Healdsburg. With that, things began to click.

While
Yosh
went off to Zygog to
follow a thin lead on Taylor, Paavo drove back to the motel in Healdsburg. He
showed the desk manager he’d spoken to earlier a photo of Gaia
Wyndom
.

“Yes,” the manager said. “That’s the woman. She would pick
Mr. Bedford up. I’m sorry to hear he’s dead. His wife has a nice smile.”

Paavo drove out to Jenner to see Gaia’s house. He found it
in a heavily forested spot among a row of similar cabins about a quarter mile
from the beach.

The cabin was small but well maintained, brown in color,
with white window frames and a red door.

No one answered his knock. Paavo went to a similar home next
door where an elderly man stood outside raking leaves.

Ray Larson owned the cabin and lived there year round. Paavo
asked him about the owners of the house next door.

“A single lady named Gaia
Wyndom
owns it,” Larson said.
“Met her when I bought this place some
eight years ago.
Guess she inherited it from her parents quite a few
years back. I had the impression it didn’t mean much to her. She rarely used to
show up.
Once a year at most.
The last few months,
though, her twin sister and her husband have been coming here just about every
weekend.”

“Her twin sister?”
Paavo had found
no indication anywhere that Gaia had any living relative, let alone a twin.

“Marilee, her name is.
Gave me a start
when I saw her.
Spitting image of Gaia.
Husband’s name is Trevor. Nice couple. Good to see middle-aged folks in love
that way.”

“So, had Gaia ever mentioned having a twin or any sibling
before you met her?” Paavo asked.

“Not a word.” Larson seemed lost in thought a moment,
then
gave a little chuckle. “It was eerie, the more I think
about it. Sometimes I called her Gaia by mistake, and she always answered. She
said identical twins get used to that. But when you look close, you see a difference.
Not physically, but in the eyes, the light from the eyes. Gaia is a serious,
quiet woman with dull eyes. Marilee laughs and talks a lot. Her eyes are so
bright if I didn’t know better, I’d say she was downright pretty.” His cheeks
reddened at that.
“Oh, sorry.
I guess that isn’t nice
to say, but any fellow knows those gals weren’t ones to turn a man’s head,
kinda plain and chubby, to my way of thinking. Still, at times, I felt sorry
for Gaia. Marilee is the person she should have been.”

“Do you happen to know Marilee and Trevor’s last names?”

He thought a minute. “You know, I don’t think they ever
said. We’re pretty much all on a first name basis out here, and they never got
any mail or anything. The only mail that ever showed up was for Gaia, and Marilee
said she’d give it to her.”

“So, Marilee and Trevor lived in San Francisco?”

“I suppose. Or the two gals saw each other a lot.”

“You said Marilee and Trevor showed up here every weekend?”

“They’d arrive Friday night, and leave Sunday. Not every
week through. In fact, I figured out their pattern—guess I got too much time on
my hands.” Larson’s eyes twinkled as he gave his information. “Three weekends
here, one weekend not. Oh—and on the first and third weekend, they’d arrive
separately, in separate cars on Friday. On the middle weekend, they’d arrive
together.”

Paavo nodded. That middle weekend was when Gaia picked
Taylor up in Healdsburg. “When did you last see them?”

“That’s easy, weekend before this past one. In fact, come to
think of it, something odd happened. They left on Saturday, not Sunday like
usual.”

Paavo opened the folder he carried and took out a photo of
Taylor Bedford. “Is this Trevor?”

The neighbor needed no time to respond. “Yes! That’s him. Why
do you have his picture? Can you tell me what this is about?”

Paavo hesitated only a moment. “I’m investigating his
murder.
His,
and Gaia
Wyndom’s
.”
Just to be sure, he showed Larson Gaia’s photo. “That’s her, right?”

“Yes, of course.” Larson’s bushy eyebrows rose as he looked
up at Paavo.
“But what about Marilee?
My god, is she
all right?”

“We’ll check into it,” Paavo said. “One question—did you
ever see Gaia and Marilee together?”

“Well…no, but I’m sure there are two of them, if that’s what
you’re thinking. No one could be that good an actress.”

“Thank you.” Paavo handed Larson his card. “If anyone at all
shows up here please call me immediately any time of the day or night.”

“I’m sorry to hear they’re dead,” Larson said as he took the
card.
“Doesn’t make much sense that it would be Gaia who was
killed with Trevor and not Marilee.”

“That’s true,” Paavo agreed. “It’s all quite strange, in
fact.”

Ray Larson nodded, and then faced the trees, his eyes
growing misty. “Gaia was a nice person.”

“So everyone says.”

Chapter 14

PAAVO IMMEDIATELY CONTACTED
Yosh
with the news that Gaia either had a twin sister, or
used the name Marilee to hide her relationship with Taylor Bedford.
Yosh
included questions about Gaia possibly having a sister
to his list as he spoke with co-workers of both Taylor and Gaia.

Paavo headed back to homicide where he searched under the
name “Marilee
Wyndom
.” No one by that name appeared
in any database. He tried various spellings such as “Mary Lee,” “Merilee,” even
“Merry Lee” but nothing worked.