Cooking Spirits: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (Angie Amalfi Mysteries) (13 page)

He then returned to Gaia’s home and canvassed her neighbors
to ask if any of them ever saw or heard of a sister. He basically wanted to
assure himself that no sister, identical or otherwise, existed. He suspected
Gaia had made up the name, just as Taylor called himself Trevor. It made sense
that the two used false names to cover up their affair. Between Taylor’s
marriage and possible workplace non-fraternization issues, they decided to keep
the relationship a secret.

To his surprise, a neighbor said she once saw the two women
together, well over a year ago, and they looked almost identical except for
hairstyle and that one seemed prettier than the other, perhaps because she wore
some make-up and styled her hair better. Paavo tried to shake her belief in
what she might have seen, but could not. The neighbor was in her thirties, a
stay-at-home mother, and her vision seemed to be a solid twenty-twenty. Paavo
could find, however, no one to corroborate her sighting.

So, the question was, should he believe Ray Larson and that
one neighbor…or not?

o0o

Angie got a call from her sister Maria who wanted to know
why Angie had asked their mother about ghosts and spirits. Angie listened to
her with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Maria had also talked to
Caterina and learned Angie was house-hunting, which was something else she
wanted to hear about.

Maria then invited her to lunch at the Rose Tattoo
restaurant on Columbus Avenue in San Francisco’s North Beach district.

Angie almost said “no,” but that made her feel guilty, so
she agreed.

Maria was the sister she got along with the least. Well, no,
that wasn’t exactly true. She probably got along least well with
Frannie
who was just a little older than her. They used to
fight all the time growing up, and continued to fight into adulthood. But then
she also didn’t get along all that well with Caterina until she went to Italy
with her and the two of them had several heart-to-hearts. Come to think of it,
the only one she never fought with was Bianca, the oldest of the lot, and the
most motherly. Despite all that, she loved her sisters dearly, and was always
ready to defend them if needed.

She changed into an Emilio
Pucci
silk dress, and drove to the restaurant.

She knew why Maria was interested. Maria thought of herself
as having “a spiritual nature.” Angie thought of her as downright spooky. When
Maria was a teenager, everyone in the family assumed she would become a nun.
But then she met a jazz trumpet player, Dominic Klee, and married him after a whirlwind
courtship. A stranger couple, Angie had never come across...unless she
considered
Frannie
and Seth who should have gotten
divorced ten times over by now. Caterina and Bianca’s marriages were fine—but
those sisters were both older and set in their ways. Angie couldn’t imagine
either of them even looking at another man. They were both nauseatingly
comfortable with their spouses—sort of like not throwing away favorite slippers
just because you found a new pair on sale.

In her opinion, she and Paavo were the perfect couple.

Angie gave a sad sigh for her sisters that none of them had
managed to find anyone half as simultaneously cool and hot as Paavo. It seemed
to take forever for her to convince him that they could be a couple, let alone
get married, and yet he still made her toes tingle, her pulse quicken and her
heart thrum. They came from very different backgrounds; she had a large and
loving family, and he had no one but an elderly Finnish gentleman who raised
him. The love he received from Aulis
Kokkonen
never
took away the loneliness or sense of abandonment he had experienced as a child.
Angie vowed he would never feel lonely or abandoned again—not as long as she
had a breath left in her.

Maria stood on the sidewalk waiting for her. She was the ‘exotic’
Amalfi sister, with long, straight black hair, olive skin, and dark brown eyes.
She liked to dress in deeply colored, gauzy clothes, and enjoyed turquoise and
silver jewelry. Paavo once said—to Angie’s irritation—that Maria was
exceptionally beautiful. Men’s taste could be quite mysterious.

After the two finished with small talk and gave their orders
to the waitress, Maria took a sip of her cabernet sauvignon and then turned her
nearly black eyes on Angie. “Okay, little sister, I know you didn’t talk to
Mamma about ghosts because you’ve developed an interest in the afterlife. What
crazy thing is going on with you this time?”

 Angie bit her tongue to avoid giving the answer the
tone of that question deserved. Angie sipped some merlot because biting her
tongue hadn’t helped. Finally, she said, “I found a house that Paavo and I both
love and can afford, but it sometimes has a strange ambiance to it. And I just
found out it hasn’t been lived in for thirty years.”

Maria gawked at her. “Thirty years? You’re joking! I
wouldn’t want to buy a house that no one has lived in that long. It could be
infested with rats and heaven only knows what else. Where is this dump?”

“The Sea Cliff.”

“No way!
It must be falling apart
because of an earthquake or something.”

“Not according to
Cat
. The former
owner maintained it well, and now her daughter wants her to sell it.”

Maria gave a toss of the head. “There’s your first problem:
believing anything Cat says where money is involved.” Maria then contorted her
face into one of those piously angelic expressions that made Angie want to hit
her with a cream pie as she added, “She knows nothing about what is truly
valuable in the world.”

“That’s Cat for you,” Angie said.

“Did she show you any other houses?”

“About a hundred.”
Angie stopped
talking as the waitress brought them orders of spinach, mushroom, ricotta
cheese frittata, and a chicken Caesar salad, which they proceeded to split
between them.

After a few bites of the frittata, Angie continued, “Aside
from all that, whenever anyone tries to buy the house I like, they back out of
the deal for one reason or another.”

Maria’s brows rose at this. “Cut to the chase, Angie. What’s
going on?”

“The last people who lived there—tenants not owners—were
murdered.” At Maria’s horrified expression, she quickly added, “Not in the
house, but near it. It looked like the husband shot his wife and then himself.
The police questioned that conclusion, but could find no evidence that both had
been murdered. Questions remained, including their car being stolen and not
found for a year miles from San Francisco. The case remains unresolved to this
day.”

Angie then told Maria all she had learned about the deceased
occupants. At the end of her tale, Maria sat silently for a moment,
then
exclaimed, “You’ve got to show me this house right
now!”

 
o0o

Angie insisted that Maria not tell Cat about Angie’s key to
the house. Maria agreed; she would have agreed to just about anything to get
inside it.

Even as she opened the door, Angie thought this was not a
good idea.

Maria remained on the front porch and made the sign of the
cross before stepping across the threshold into the house.

“
Ooooh
,” she said, as she slowly
moved to the center of the living room, her arms wide and her hands
raised
as if she were holding a beach ball on her head. “It
feels cold in here.
Very, very cold.”

“Well, the heater hasn’t been on in some time.” Angie said,
dismayed, but hoping this would be as bad as it got. “And the house is on the
ocean so the breeze is fairly brisk.”

Maria lowered her hands and turned in a circle. “Someone is
here.”

Oh, God!
“Someone?”
Angie
asked.

“Or something,” Maria whispered.

“This was a bad mistake!” Angie said. “We should leave.”

Maria suddenly turned pale and gripped Angie’s arm.
“Something feels off.”

“
Off?”
Angie
repeated.

Maria clasped her hands together and pressed them to her
chest. “Oh, my, this is so terrible,” she said, although her voice said it was
exciting and wonderful. “When something feels bad in the house, it usually
means there are
evil spirits
.” Her voice now dropped and she inched
closer to Angie. “Dark beings who want to do you harm!”

“No way!”
Angie stepped back and
shook her head. Truth be told, her whole body shook at Maria’s wild-eyed gaze.
She wasn’t sure if her nerves crackled because of the house or her crazy
sister. “I don’t think that’s the case.”

Maria slowly turned her head so far to one side she reminded
Angie of the first time she watched Linda Blair in the old movie,
The
Exorcist
. At least Maria’s head wasn’t spinning…yet. “Someone is living
here,” Maria whispered.

“You think that because the house is furnished.” Angie was
frantic. “Even Connie said it looks like the owners could come walking in.”

Maria’s gaze fixed on Angie. “Have you ever noticed any
emanations?”

“
Eman
—”

“Something moving, or from the corner of your eye see
something zip past, or notice a scent in the air that shouldn’t be there.”

Angie was near tears. “Yes…yes…and yes.”

Maria tucked in her chin. “Surely, you know what’s going
on.”

“No.” The word came out as a squawk

Maria looked heavenward and heaved a sigh before continuing.
“Look, the Flemings are connected to the house because this is where they
wanted to live their lives. They expected fun,
life!
But instead,
someone stole their lives, someone who may still be alive, and unpunished.” She
folded her arms, eyebrows raised. “My guess is that’s why the house is
haunted.”

“Just stop!” Angie covered her ears. “I do
not
want
to hear that the house I want to buy is haunted!”

Maria tugged on Angie’s arms, trying to free her ears so
Angie would listen to her. Angie slapped her hands away.

Maria moved closer and shouted, “THE SIMPLEST REASON FOR
SOMETHING HAPPENING IS MOST OFTEN THE CORRECT ONE. THAT THIS HOUSE IS HAUNTED
IS THE MOST DIRECT EXPLANATION!”

“No it’s not!” Angie lowered her hands realizing nothing
could block out the sound of Maria’s shrieks. “Ghosts don’t exist!”

“Not in your world,” Maria gave one of her all-knowing,
oh-so-superior smiles. “But in mine, there are a lot of them.”

Angie counted to ten. “All right, since you know all, tell
me what to do about them. How do I get rid of them?
If such
things exist, of course.”

Maria pondered Angie’s questions. “You know, Angie, this
could be very interesting.”

“I don’t want interesting!” Angie put her hands to her
forehead and turned in a circle. “I want dull. I want normal!” She raised her
arms to the ceiling, head back. “Other people can buy a house and not have to
worry about it being haunted, why can’t I?”

“Stop the dramatics and listen to me!” Maria leaned closer,
her dark eyes twinkling with macabre interest. “You might want to find out why
they’re here.”

“They?”

“Oh, yes. I’m sure there’s more than one spirit here.”

“You mean they’re having some sort of a convention?
My God!”

“Stop shrieking! You’re making my ears ring. It’s not that
bad. Lots of houses are haunted. People learn to ignore what they see and can’t
explain, and develop completely wrong explanations for that which they can’t
ignore.”

Angie flung herself onto the sofa. “So the best thing for me
to do is to ignore everything.”

Maria sat beside her.
“Of course not!
If you leave things as they are, who knows what will happen? If the spirits
here are dark ones, you could become possessed!”

“Possessed?” Angie felt as if her throat closed simply
trying to get the word out.

“I don’t expect you to know how to deal with such things,”
Maria said.

“You’ve got that right,” Angie said, worried now. “How do I
do it?”

Maria pressed her palms together, her face beaming. “It’s
easy,” she announced, looking happier than Angie had seen her in a long, long
time. “Why didn’t I think of this earlier? It’s the answer to everything. We’ll
hold an exorcism!”

Chapter 15

PAAVO AND YOSH compared notes and discovered
neither had gotten very far in the investigation.
Yosh
talked to everyone at Zygog about Gaia and Bedford. He had the clear impression
that Gaia had been attracted to Bedford for a number of years, but in the past
month or so, people noticed that when he wandered near, Gaia would rush away.
In the past, she would stare at him with round cow eyes, and hang onto his
every word like a puppy.

No one thought much of it because Otto Link had made it
clear to everyone that he and his boss
were
an item. Link
had the plushest job in the place since Bedford spent two weeks out of town
each month, and during those days Link had little work to do. He read books and
played computer games. No one dared to complain since they feared Link would
accuse them of homophobia.

The more
Yosh
looked into it, the
more he began to suspect Otto Link’s affair took place more in his mind than in
fact.

Bedford’s wife was the mystery. If his marriage was as
dysfunctional as Otto Link and the weekend rendezvous with Gaia—or her mysterious
sister—made it appear, why did she put up with it? From all he could tell, she
lived a life completely separate from Bedford’s. She had her own circle of
friends and organizations that she belonged to. Her days were busy, and she
didn’t seem to care if she had male companionship or not. When Bedford was in
town, he escorted her to functions; when he wasn’t, she went with other people.