Cooking Spirits: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (Angie Amalfi Mysteries) (4 page)

“Lonely? It’s surrounded by open space!” Angie eyed her as
if she’d taken leave of her senses. “That’s desirable in a city. A little
landscaping and fresh paint and it’ll look one-hundred percent better. Let’s
see the inside.”

Cat’s expression was decidedly sour as she opened the lock
box to remove the front door key. Normally, Angie’s suspicions would rise at
too good of a price for a house, and she would walk away from it. Cat’s
reluctance to show it to her, however, had the opposite effect.

When Cat opened the door, Angie’s thoughts turned from
obstinate to ecstatic. The foyer led directly to the living room with a wall of
windows.

“The view is breathtaking!” The picture windows faced north
to Baker’s Beach on the western edge of the Presidio with a glimpse of the
Golden Gate Bridge spanning the water to Marin County. Looking west out over
the Pacific, she could see the
Farallon
Islands, for
once not lost in fog.

 Angie struggled to turn her gaze back to the house.
Furniture filled the living room and dining area beside it. “I thought you said
no one lived here,” Angie said.

“No one is living here,” Cat repeated. “The furniture comes with
the house. If you don’t want it, the seller will move it out before you take
possession.”

“Well, if I were to take the place, this furniture would all
go! It’s old and hideous.”

As Angie slid open the glass door to the back garden and
stepped outside,
Caterina’s
phone chimed news of a
text message causing her to dig into her purse to find it. At the same time,
the candy dish on the coffee table rose up high in the air and then dropped
with a thud onto the area rug.

Angie walked a little way out onto the patio. The yard had a
level area, and then sloped downward. A surrounding fence gave protection from
the area’s namesake, the sea cliff.

“It’s a client,” Cat said as she composed a reply. “Give me
a moment before we see the rest of the house, okay?” Cat hit “send” and then
looked up. “Angie?” Finally, she stuck her head outside. “What are you doing? I
thought I heard you come back inside. I’ve been in here talking to myself!”

“Just looking around.”
Angie went
back indoors.

“That yard will never do once you have kids,” Cat said,
pulling the sliding glass door shut. “They’d be over that fence and playing on
the cliff in no time at all.”

“You may be right,” Angie said. “But by the time Paavo and I
have kids old enough to go outside and play without being watched, I suspect
we’ll do like so many people and move out of San Francisco. While we’re
newlyweds, however, I plan to enjoy city life. Let’s see the kitchen.”

They walked through the dining area which also had a wall of
windows facing the ocean, to the kitchen. The wall between the kitchen and
dining room had been removed. The bar and stools in its place gave the kitchen
an open and airy feel.

“This kitchen is a nightmare,” Cat said, running her hand
over the off-white porcelain tile countertops. The appliances were also white.
“I’d need sunglasses to work in here.”

The refrigerator door suddenly swung open. Then, the oven
door did the same.

“My God, these appliances really are old,” Angie said as she
shut both doors. “Or they were badly mishandled by someone. Not that it
matters. I would want new, top-of-the-line appliances and granite countertops
wherever I lived. This kitchen could be made truly beautiful!”

The refrigerator door opened once more and she gave it a
shove with her elbow, closing it as she moved out of the kitchen. The more she
saw of the house, the less sense it made that it hadn’t sold, and that the
owners weren’t asking twice as much for it.

On the opposite side of the living room, a large master
bedroom and bath also faced the water.
One small room,
perfect for a den or a future nursery, was across the hall from it, along with
a guest powder room.
Upstairs were two more bedrooms and a full
bathroom. The view from the upstairs bedrooms was even more breath-taking than
on the main level. Angie could see making one a guest room and the letting
Paavo have the other to use as an office, man-cave, or whatever he wanted.

Angie was beside herself at this find. “If Paavo and I were
to buy this house,” she said, “Paavo could either sell his house or rent it out
and put the rent money towards the mortgage. We could make this work, you
know.” She glanced at her sister. “By the way, your perfume is awfully strong.
I noticed it when I came downstairs.”

“Strong?
It’s the same as always!”
Cat said indignantly. “But I think you’ve gotten ahead of yourself. There are
better houses out there than this one.”

“But none with a better view or price!” Angie went off to
see the laundry room, mudroom and garage. Cat stayed in the living room and
made a quick phone call back to her office manager.

“I think I’m falling in love,” Angie said as she rejoined
her sister.

Cat had just ended the call, dropped the phone back into her
handbag and faced Angie with a big smile. “If you really want to buy the place,
I’m sure I could get a good deal for you. I still owe you for that little
incident that sent us to Italy. I’ll even throw in my share of the commission.
Call it a wedding present for you and Paavo.”

“Really?
That’s awfully generous.”
Angie just stared at her, wondering what was up. Familial love didn’t flow in
Cat’s veins; money did.

“Nothing’s too good for my baby sister.”

Now, Angie felt certain something odd was going on, but she
was too excited to care. She spotted the candy dish on the floor. “Funny, I
hadn’t noticed that before,” she said as she picked it up and put it back where
it belonged. “This house could be the one!”

“You’ll have to get Paavo out here right away,” Cat advised.
“Why don’t you call him and see when he’s available?”

Angie grew even more suspicious of her sister’s about face.
“Wait, let me think about this first,” she said. “The problem is
,
it’s too perfect…except for this hideous furniture. It’s
been on the market a long time, so why hasn’t it sold? I’d like to know more
before I get Paavo involved. Could you find out its history? You said others
dropped out of the deal. I’d like to know why.”

“What does it matter what others did if you love it?” Cat
asked, with an emphasis on the word ‘love.’

Cat’s words and demeanor troubled Angie. “I’m not going to
think about buying a place that has some kind of bad karma or mystery attached
to it.” Her tone was emphatic and determined. “Find out all you can. Also, I
want Connie to see it and hear its story. Only if everything sounds good will I
bring Paavo out here.”

“Connie? You’re kidding me!” Cat shuddered.

“Connie has a clear head. She’ll be perfect.”

“Whatever,” Cat muttered as they went out the door.

 As they walked out to Cat’s car, they missed what
seemed to be an act of ceramic suicide as the candy dish rose off the table,
flew through the air, hit the stonework around the fireplace and landed in tiny
pieces on the hearth.

Evelyn Ramirez, the Medical Examiner, called Paavo to her
office. It was in the basement, along with the city morgue and the autopsy
room.

“I haven’t had a chance to do the autopsy yet,” she said,
“but I found something that might help identify the victim, or at least give
you a clue to someone who knows him.”

She picked up an evidence bag with a piece of a business
card inside it. “It was covered in blood and stuck to some clothing. I suspect
that’s why whoever removed everything else missed this. I used a wash to remove
as much of the blood as I could. In any case, I did some investigating of my
own with the help of a phone book.” The book lay open behind her desk and she
pointed to an advertisement in it as she spoke. “The card looks like it’s from
Zygog Software in South San Francisco. You can see that the ‘
Zyg
’ and the logo match
Zygog’s
.
I’m not sure of the name on the card, but it looks like ‘
Tay
’
something. The rest of the card hasn’t been found yet.”

 “Good job,” Paavo said. “This gives us a start. The
fingerprints, such as they were, got us nowhere.”

Paavo and
Yosh
immediately drove
to Zygog and asked to speak to the head of the personnel department. They
explained the situation, leaving out most of the gorier details, and showed him
a photo of the business card.

“That’s our card, all right,” Larry Peters said.
“
Tay
…hmm.
We have a Taylor Bedford
who’s our top salesmen. Let’s hope it’s not him. But your victim could easily
be one of his clients. Let’s see if Taylor’s available to speak with you.”
Peters picked up the office phone and punched in a number.

He looked pale as he hung up and faced he detectives. “The
staff secretary said he hasn’t arrived yet. He is expected; he should have been
here by now.”

Paavo glanced at
Yosh
, then said,
“May we see his boss?”

“Certainly.”
Peters led them to
Mark Carter’s office and quickly explained the situation.

“Let’s hope Taylor is all right,” Carter said. He was in his
fifties, slim, with glasses and a receding hairline.

“Would you describe Bedford to us?” Paavo asked.

“He’s a bit over six feet, good physique—probably goes to
the gym while he travels to stay fit.
Brown hair; brown
eyes.”

“Age?”
Paavo asked.

“Forty.”

“Distinguishing marks or anything about him that might help
with identification?”

“Nothing I know of,” Carter said.

The description fit that of their victim, as best they and
the M.E. could tell.

“Would you like me to call his home?” Carter asked. “He
should have returned on Friday. Maybe he’s simply sick.”

Paavo and
Yosh
listened as Carter
talked to
Larina
Bedford. She said she expected
Taylor home last night but he hadn’t made it. She had thought about calling
Carter to ask him where Taylor might be, but decided to wait a little longer.

“I can’t imagine what happened to him,” Carter said to Mrs.
Bedford. “But on the road things sometimes do get screwed-up. I’ll let you know
as soon as I hear from him.” With that he hung up and faced the detectives.
“This doesn’t look good at all.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Paavo agreed. He and
Yosh
wrote down Taylor Bedford’s home address and phone number, plus other
identifying information.

“Before we go,” Paavo said to Carter, “what’s Taylor
Bedford’s position here?”

“Sales.
Our company produces
one-stop software that helps tool and die manufacturers and sales companies
inventory and price their equipment, send bills, and so on. It also provides
software assistance to mechanical engineers who work closely with the tool and
die makers. Taylor’s territory is northern California. He travels two weeks a
month to visit clients and find new ones.”

 “How easy is it to learn to sell such software?”
Yosh
asked.

“Not easy at all. It’s a rarified world. That’s why Taylor
has a huge territory and travels so much. He’s our most dedicated salesmen. I
have to believe he’s all right.”

Chapter 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, some time back.
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…most of the time.

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 right parked behind her. “Thank you so much for meeting us,”
Angie said to Connie as she got out of her car.

 “I’m glad to help. From the outside it looks
promising,” Connie said.
“Great neighborhood.”

“We’ll go in 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 place
before you leave. You know how important it is to me 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 idiot. “But first, have you found
out anything at all yet?”

“Not much,” Cat said. “The owner is a widow. Apparently, she
used to live in the house, 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 market has been soft.”

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