Cooking Spirits: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (Angie Amalfi Mysteries) (20 page)

“Oh, my God, you’re right! You’re a genius!” Angie stood,
leaned across the table and kissed him. “I’ve been concentrating on the wrong
people! Somebody wanted that house to stay empty, and kept it empty for thirty
years! I’ll bet whoever it was, still wants no one to live there!”

Vinnie blushed from head to toe at her kiss, a big smile on
his face. “You keep us posted on this house business, Miss Angie,” Vinnie said.
“And now, what’s
happenin
’ with your
weddin
’ plans?”

Angie was sure Vinnie meant well asking about her wedding,
but that, too, wasn’t the happiest of subjects for her, although not half as
unhappy as ghosts. She soon finished her lunch, and left Wings of an Angel in a
much better frame of mind than when she entered. Her three friends always had
that effect on her, and she loved them dearly.

Time to scour the internet once more, she thought. How had
anyone survived without it?

As she drove, Angie mentally went through the information
she already had. Both Flemings were shot to death. Their house showed no break
in, which meant they most
likely
knew their murderer.

The case was considered a murder-suicide only because Eric
was found holding a gun and there were no viable suspects. The gunpowder
residue proved inconclusive.

The police learned that the Flemings liked to throw parties,
which meant many people’s DNA would have been all over the house. Paavo hadn’t
mentioned to her anything about DNA tests, or if they were even available back
then. He did say that the police conducted many interviews with people who knew
the couple or had worked with Eric, but they could find no motive.

A car honked at her. In the rearview mirror, Angie saw a
matronly driver indicating that Angie was “number one.”

When had that light turned green?

She drove on. Basically, all speculation was based on fact
that no one had any reason to kill the couple, and fell back on domestic
violence as the reason for their deaths.

Yet, those same conclusions may have stopped the police from
pursuing other motives and suspects.

She stomped on the brakes just in time as someone turned
left in front of her. She was again number one! It wasn’t her fault…at least,
she didn’t think it was. Being much more careful, she finally reached home.

She had already learned that the owner of the property at 51
Clover Lane was named Carol Steed, and that she had also been owner of the
property when Eric and Natalie lived there.

Angie decided to find out more about Carol Steed and anyone
else who knew the Flemings.

She then investigated the name of the owner across the
street at 60 Clover Lane. She suspected whoever lived there at the time of the
murders might have information for her. She was shocked to learn that Carol
Steed also owned that property.

Puzzled by this, she spent quite a bit of time searching San
Francisco birth, death, and marriage records on the Steed family. Eventually a
picture emerged.

Carol Steed was born Carol Ramsey in 1938. She married
Edward Steed in 1965. They had one daughter, Enid, born in April 1979. In
October 1978, however, before Enid’s birth, Edward Steed died in a fall.

As Angie previously learned, the two Clover Lane homes were
built in 1950 by Edward’s parents, Donald and Mary Steed, and after Mary’s
death, Edward became owner of both houses.

She now discovered that he and Carol had been living in the
smaller of the two homes, and then moved into the big Clover Lane house when it
became vacant.

Angie then went back to the notes Paavo had given her from
the crime scene report. Eric Fleming had moved into the big 51 Clover Street
house in November, 1978, one month after Edward’s death. That must have meant
Carol moved back into the smaller house. But why did she give up the bigger,
more beautiful home?

Angie considered that Carol might have had only a small
income, and rented out the bigger house so that she could have enough money to
live on. But if she needed money, she would have rented the house out again
after the Flemings were killed. No one would have moved into it immediately
after the murders, but a year or two later, few people would have remembered.
So money couldn’t have been the reason she gave Eric the big house to rent.

Suddenly, all Angie’s instincts went on red alert.

First, she went back to the marriage records and looked up
Eric and Natalie. Their wedding took place in November 1979. Eight months
later, both were dead.

She then got into her car and drove back to the
Chronicle
,
and hurried back to its morgue to see if she could find anything about Edward
Steed’s death, since he supposedly died in an accident of some sort.

She found an article written one day after he died. Edward
Steed had been scrambling on the cliff above China Beach and slipped on the
rocks. Reports were that he must have hit his head on a rock or boulder as he
fell because one side of his head, near the temple, had been struck hard enough
to kill him.

Angie knew a person could die in a fall along some sections
of the cliff over China Beach, but for the most part, the way the hill sloped,
the fall would be more painful and “scrape-inducing” than a break-your-neck
kind of drop unless a person was truly unlucky.

The report quoted Carol Steed as saying her husband climbed
on the cliffs for fun because it was a beautiful, sunny October day, and he
slipped.

Angie did a quick calculation…Carol’s daughter Enid was born
in April, so the prior October when Edward died, Carol would have been only a
couple of months pregnant—far enough along that she would know—but not so far
that the pregnancy would show. Carol was 41 when Enid was born. She and Edward
had been married for thirteen years with no children when Carol found herself
pregnant.

The very next month Carol moved out of the big house and let
Eric Fleming move into it. He was 28 years old at the time, handsome,
single…and if his parents were correct, a womanizer, and according to his
brother, enjoyed drugs and alcohol.

So, Angie thought, what if Eric met a lonely wife who lived
in a beautiful home, got her pregnant…and
poof!
the
husband was suddenly out of the picture?

Angie had her suspicions about what had happened, but how
could she prove any of it?

Why in the world didn’t the police investigators at the time
have the kind of mind she did?

Maybe because they were there; they saw Natalie and knew
about her money and beauty. They also saw the landlady. For all Angie knew, she
was gorgeous, but if so, the police might have suspected something. Most
likely, she wasn’t much to look at, a dozen years older than Eric, and that was
why thoughts of anything going on between Eric and his landlady never even
crossed their minds.

She went back to the online genealogical program she had
used earlier to find Eric Fleming’s relatives. In it, she learned that Carol
Steed’s daughter’s married name was Enid
Norbel
and
she still lived in San Francisco.

She then phoned her sister, Cat. “The person who wants to
sell the Clover Lane house, the owner’s daughter, is named Enid
Norbel
, right?”

Cat didn’t answer right away. “How do you know that?”

Angie smiled.
“
Ve
haf
our
vays
!
Thank you!”

She quickly hung up. She didn’t want Cat quizzing her, and
she didn’t want to lie to her sister.

Chapter 22

ANGIE TORE HERSELF away from her
discoveries and dashed across town for an appointment. She was both glad and
surprised to find a nervous Paavo already there.

She led him to the office area of St. Peter and Paul’s
church. They were there to talk to the priest about being married in the
church.

“Father John, this is my fiancé, Paavo Smith,” Angie said as
she introduced the two men. “Paavo, Father John.”

“Hello, Father,” Paavo said shaking hands with the priest. Father
John was in his forties, of medium height and build, with short graying hair
that was quite thin on top.

“I know Angie and her family well,” Father John said,
“although I don’t see her as often as I should.”

“I know; I’m sorry,” Angie murmured. She had warned Paavo
that Father John was an old enough priest to enjoy inflicting a little
old-fashioned Catholic guilt on his parishioners. Paavo would have preferred a
new-style, anything-goes priest, but he knew that wasn’t Angie’s way or her
family’s.

The priest turned to Paavo. “Paavo—that’s a Finnish name,
isn’t it? Are you Finnish?”

“My father was,” he said. “He died. My guardian was also
Finnish.”

“I suspect you were raised Lutheran,” Father John said with
a smile. “Most Finns are.”

“I’ve been told I was baptized in a Lutheran Church, and
when I was young I went to a Lutheran church with my step-father,” Paavo said.
“But once away from my guardian, I pretty much stopped going.”

 “A common situation with many young people these days,
I’m afraid. Tell me, do you still consider yourself a Christian?” Father John
asked.

Paavo moved uncomfortably in his seat. “As much as I have
any religious belief, it is the Christian way of thinking that I most follow.”

“What about children? Would you want them to be raised as
Catholics?”

“I would raise children as Catholic, and I would attend
church with them and Angie.” He looked at her. “I would like to do that.”

Father John nodded and then studied the couple a long
moment. “I’m sure there will be no problem with the two of you getting married
in the church. We’ll be glad to have you here. Who knows, someday you might
decide to join us and become a convert.”

“Angie can be persuasive,” Paavo said.

“I know the Amalfi women. And you’re right,” the priest said
with a chuckle. Angie had convinced the priest to let her break the news to
Paavo that they would also be attending the church’s pre-marital classes.

Father John ended the visit with a few words about the
sanctity of marriage and the life-long commitment the two were entering with
each other. He then gave a brief prayer for their future happiness, and made a
sign of the cross with Angie. He placed his hand on Paavo’s shoulder as he made
a sign of the cross over him, praying that one day he would find solace in his
marriage, and in his life.

Paavo found himself surprisingly shaken by the encounter.
How had the priest known he had no solace in his life? Was it that obvious? He
felt as if he had been on a hot seat in there. He was so used to the modern way
of looking at marriage and divorce, and how easily people moved from one state
to the other, that he forgot that in a great part of the world marriage wasn’t
a whim of the moment. And to Angie and church-going Catholics, it was a
sacrament. He didn’t know much about the Catholic
church
,
but he knew that there were only seven sacraments, so it was a big deal.

He was glad to leave, but at the same time, both the
priest’s blessing and his words about the sanctity and seriousness of what they
were about to undertake had moved him deeply.

 
o0o

After meeting with the priest, Paavo was more than happy to
go with Angie to dinner at the Russian Renaissance Restaurant. He immediately
ordered vodka. He rarely touched hard liquor and it rather amused and moved
Angie to see the effect meeting the priest and talking about their marriage had
had on him. Maybe he wasn’t as immune to religion as he thought.

By the time their dinner of borsch, stroganoff, and potato
vareniki
was delivered, the conversation turned to Paavo’s
intertwined cases.

“I’ve got two people who worked together,” he said. “The
man, Taylor, was married and having an affair with the identical twin sister of
Gaia, the woman who was killed.”

 “The obvious question is how jealous was Taylor’s
wife?” Angie asked.

“She doesn’t seem jealous at all. I have the impression the
two lived together but didn’t much like each other. The wife is beautiful,
movie star good looks.”

“Did the wife know Gaia had an identical twin?”

“I doubt it. Few people knew, not even her co-workers. To
hear them, she had no one in her life, no friends, relatives, had
never
been in love, and so on. Also, she and her twin didn’t
get along. Most people said they thought Gaia lived for TV shows and her cats.
Period.
She had no interest in the news, politics, movies,
or music.”

“So she basically had nothing going on in her life, and then
she was murdered?” Angie asked.

“One other thing, Taylor’s secretary, an older man, gave
every indication that Taylor might have had a tryst or two with him as well.”

“Really?
The wife had to suspect
something was wrong with her marriage, or she’s an idiot. Women know, even if
they don’t want to admit to anyone.”

“You think so?” he asked.

“Absolutely.
She knew he was a
cheat, and finally decided to do something about it. The beautiful wife
probably found out that her husband had thrown her over for those two and felt
so insulted that she killed him. I suspect she didn’t realize the woman who
worked in his office was the wrong sister.
Poor Gaia!”

“It doesn’t quite ring true,” Paavo said. “If she murdered
them, she had to have paid someone to do it since Taylor was stabbed to death
with a powerful thrust I doubt she could
had
inflicted. Gaia was killed after Taylor—or so we assume because she called her
boss to say she was sick and couldn’t come in to work. Now that I think about
it, though, it could easily have been Marilee who phoned the office, pretending
to be Gaia.”