Cooking Spirits: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (Angie Amalfi Mysteries) (25 page)

 “We’ll take care of them,” he said.

“No! Don’t give them to the Humane Society. What if no one
wants them? They’ll kill them!”

“You should have thought of that before you murdered two
people,” he said as he pushed her into the back of the car.

o0o

From time to time, Paavo had talked to Angie about being on
a stake-out. His main recommendations were to drink little water, have some
strong coffee on hand in case you get sleepy, and food in case you get hungry.

As she drove to the house at 51 Clover Lane, she had filled
her tote with a thermos of espresso, a packet of almonds, five varieties of
energy bars, two apples, homemade chocolate chip cookies, Doritos, two types of
Cadbury bars, plus crossword puzzles and
Sudokus
.
After her visit to Carol Steed, she had a strong feeling that she needed to
keep an eye on the woman.

She might be crazy, but she wasn’t stupid and might have
figured out what Angie was up to.

Angie unlocked the door and walked into the house.

The furniture had been haphazardly moved around. A dead
mouse lay in a candy dish on the coffee table—not the candy dish she had
replaced. That one was gone. She had seen this dish in Carol Steed’s living
room.

She wondered if Carol thought she wouldn’t recognize it, or
if Carol purposefully tried to intimidate her.

Or had these actions been designed to make Angie think the
house was haunted?
To get her to abandon her wish to buy the
house?

For all she knew, Carol Steed had been watching her come and
go
from the house all week, and decided to scare her
off. Carol surely still had a key to the house. Very likely, she had broken the
candy dish and even knocked over the vase in the living room while Angie and
Stan were out on the back deck!

She had probably scared off all earlier prospective buyers
as well. Angie heaved a sigh of relief. She told herself not to worry any
longer about the occult or the supernatural. Everything had been caused by one
crazy old woman filled with guilt and madness.

Even as she tried to convince herself of that, however, some
events weren’t explainable.

Angie decided to simply ignore them.

She picked up the candy dish and put it and the dead mouse
out in the back yard. When she came back in, she made sure she locked the
sliding glass door. Then she opened the garage door and drove her Mercedes
inside, shutting the door behind it. That way, unless Carol had been sitting at
the window and saw her pull in, she wouldn’t know Angie was there.

Angie went through the house, checking and double-checking
that all doors and windows were locked, and then pushed a chair in front of the
window in the den. It faced the street, and Carol Steed’s home.

Now that she was set up for her vigil, Angie phoned Paavo.
He picked up on the first ring—a rarity.

“Guess where I am?” she said.

“Do I have to?”

“I’m in the Sea Cliff on a stakeout.”

“Stakeout?”
Paavo’s voice was a mix
of long-suffering and gloom.

“I’m convinced that Carol’s been coming in here to sabotage
a sale, and I want to catch her. Anyone who puts a dead mouse in a candy dish
deserves to be caught.”

“I don’t want to know about any dead mice. What I do know is
that you shouldn’t be confronting a crazy woman who may be a murderer.”

“Well…maybe I need my favorite detective on stakeout with
me. I’ve got goodies.”

“I’m sure you do. And you should take them and yourself
home.
Now.”

“You worry too much.”

“With good reason!
Anyway, I just
made an arrest in my double homicide. I’ve got a few more things to wrap up and
I’ll be there. Be careful. Take no chances.”

“You know me, I’m always careful.”

“Since when?”

“I’ll be waiting,” she said with a big smile as she hung up.

Two hours later, she realized how incredibly boring this
stake-out business could be. She had worked two crosswords and three
Sudokus
, ate an apple, an energy bar, half the packet of
almonds, and drank the equivalent of three espressos. The candy and cookies
were calling to her, but so far, she had succeeded in saving them for Paavo.
All in all, this might be a waste of time. She had just about decided to go
home when she heard a noise in the house, and what sounded like footsteps on
the hardwood floor.

Footsteps that were coming closer…

 
o0o

After he finished processing Gaia
Wyndom
and explaining the case to the District Attorney, Paavo returned to Homicide.

He found a report from the crime scene technician. Few
prints had been found at the crime scene, and none matched Carol Steed’s. He
expected that the original homicide inspectors would have discovered it if the
landlady’s prints had been found at the crime scene.

Despite that, he found Angie’s arguments convincing. He
wanted to talk to Carol Steed, and phoned the mental institution listed as her
residence.

He was told she remained on home leave as Angie suspected.

Since this was a cold case, he telephoned Lt. Eastwood to
explain what he was doing and that he planned to reopen the case. He got
Eastwood’s voice mail.

He didn’t like waiting, but after all, the case had sat in
storage, unresolved for thirty years. What difference could a few more minutes
make?

o0o

Angie peeked out of the den. She didn’t see anyone in the
living or dining rooms.

She put on her jacket, stuffed the food, thermos, and
puzzles back into her tote bag, grabbed her purse, and hurried across the
living room to the kitchen and through the mudroom.

She swung open the door to the garage and saw Carol Steed
standing in front of her car. She held a revolver. “Going somewhere?” Carol
asked.

Angie slammed the door shut and started to run,
then
reached back and turned the deadbolt just as a gunshot
created a hole in the door, missing Angie by inches. Now, she did run, sure
Carol would have a key to the lock.

Back in the living room, Angie heard the whirr of the
automatic garage door opener. Carol must be expecting her to go out the front
door, to try to reach neighbors, other people. If she ran out to the front of the
house, Carol would gun her down.

Instead, she dropped her belongings and fled out the sliding
glass door to the back yard.

She ran toward the fence. It was about four and a half feet
tall; high enough to keep small children in, but not so high as to obscure the
ocean view. Somehow, she’d have to climb over it. She wasn’t much of a climber,
but knowing a crazy person with a gun stalked her, despite the smooth leather
platform soles on her high-heel boots, she scrambled up and over it.

She crouched down and snuck along the side of the fence
toward the cliff. Everything in her wanted to go in the direction of the street
instead, but she believed Carol waiting for her there.

She hoped to find a place to hide somewhere along the very
backside of the fence where it ran along the cliff’s edge. But Paavo had said
he would try to get there soon. He’d see the garage door open, Angie’s car
inside it. He’d see the open sliding glass door.

But would he see Carol and her gun?

What if he didn’t? What if came here concentrating on
finding Angie and because of that, he got shot…or worse?

She had to go back, had to find a way to warn him and make
sure he was safe.

She froze, torn by what to do, which way to run, when the
choice was made for her.

o0o

Paavo parked in front of Carol Steed’s house at 60 Clover
Lane. He had grown tired of waiting for Eastwood’s approval and decided to talk
to Steed on his own—no harm in talking to someone.

As he walked up to the front door, rang the bell and
knocked, he saw the open garage door across the street at 51 Clover, Angie’s
car inside. He shook his head. Despite his warnings, he could well imagine her
wanting a front row seat to watch Carol Steed’s possible arrest.

No answer. He knocked again, but the results were no better.

o0o

Carol Steed held the gun on Angie. “Why did you have to get
involved in all this? Everything was fine in my life, and then you started
prying.”

Angie stood, her hands raised. “Please put the gun down,
Mrs. Steed. We need to talk.”

“I want you to walk towards the cliff.”

Angie backed up a few steps, as directed, then stopped. “I
thought you loved Eric. Why did you kill him?”

Carol’s brows tightened, her face filled with emotion for a
second or two,
then
she regained control. “He wouldn’t
give her up!” she cried. “He was young, and so foolish!”

“It must have been hard on you,” Angie said, trying to
control the shaking of her voice.

“I wanted Eric to tell Natalie that he loved me, to tell her
that Enid was our child. He refused. He married her only because she was rich,
you know. He loved me, and would always love me. But he wouldn’t explain that
to her! No matter what I said, he wouldn’t tell her he loved me.”

“You made them walk out here to the cliff?” she asked.

 “I told him I’d made a mistake, loving him, doing everything
for him! I even got rid of Edward.
Poor Edward.
But
Eric and I loved each other. We lived together until he brought Natalie into my
house! Then, I was supposed to go back to the little shack, stay out of his
life. Even after he’d gotten married, he’d come to visit me now and then. He’d
play with Enid. But then, he said he and his rich wife were building a big
house. He would leave me. He told me it was better that way.

“I couldn’t stand it! I couldn’t bear to lose him. I put my
gun to his head. Oh, he told me he loved me then! Yes, he swore it. He told
Natalie everything—how he loved me and Enid, how he would stay with us,
divorce
her. But then he told her I’d killed Edward!”

Angie blanched hearing that. She guessed what was coming.

“I knew, then, he was lying to me. He tried to warn her—that
if I’d killed once, I might do it again. He thought lying to me would placate
me. That I might let them go! He was wrong. I couldn’t let them live—not either
of them. If I did, they’d have me arrested. They’d take me away from Enid. I
had to raise her. She needed her mother….

“So I pulled the trigger. There was so much blood! It
splashed in my eyes, blinding me. I saw Natalie running and I fired again and
again. She fell. I carefully wiped the gun everywhere I could think of,
then
put it in Eric’s hand, pressing his fingers to it, and
went home.”

“But his car,” Angie said. “How did it end up at the Russian
River?”

“I wasn’t thinking. I went home and took a shower. Then I
packed a bag for me and
Enid,
got into Eric’s car and
headed north. I wanted to go to Canada. But then, just a couple of hours from
home, I started to wonder. What if the Canadian border guards checked the car
registration? What if word got out that Eric was dead? I realized that being
caught with his car would be a confession of guilt. So I hid it as best I
could. Then Enid and I hitch-hiked to a Greyhound bus station and took the bus
back to San Francisco. It took three days before the police came knocking on my
door. They were easily fooled. But you weren’t.” Carol’s attention focused on
Angie. “You seemed a nice enough young woman. Too bad you don’t mind your own
business. Now, back up a little more.”

Carol walked towards her and Angie had no choice but to back
away from the gun pointed at her, closer and closer to the cliff.

Angie
stopped,
her heels on the
edge of the land. Past her, it sloped rapidly downward. “Please,” she said.
“There’s no reason for this.”

Carol looked past Angie towards the ocean, her brow knitted.
“Eric?”

Then she shook her head, as if forcing away the vision. Her
gaze fixed again on Angie. She raised her gun as if to take aim.

A small white dog ran at her, barking and growling loudly.
She turned her head as the dog lunged, its teeth clamping onto her ankle. “Stop
it!” she shrieked, trying to shake the dog off, but it kept coming back. She
turned the gun from Angie towards the dog, trying to get it in her sights, but
it wriggled and jumped, still biting at her ankles and legs.

Angie saw her chance and threw herself at Carol’s arm,
knocking against it just as Carol pulled the trigger. The shot went wild. The
force of Angie’s tackle caused Carol to fall over. Angie landed on top of her.
Carol was much bigger, but also much older. Angie had one hand on Carol’s wrist
with the gun, using her body weight to hold it down, and with the other hand
she grabbed Carol’s hair, tugging on it to lift Carol’s head and then slam it
down to the ground, hoping to somehow knock the woman out or at least stun her.
Carol went from trying to push Angie away, to holding her wrist, and trying to
pull Angie’s hand free of her hair. But Angie held it in a death grip, knowing
if she let go, Carol might kill her.

Suddenly, the gun was no longer in Carol’s hand, and strong arms
reached around Angie, lifting her and telling her everything was all right, she
could stop now.

Paavo kept an arm around Angie, his 9mm automatic aimed at
Carol, who was holding her head and woozily trying to sit up. Sirens, signaling
the backup Paavo had called, shrieked towards them. Angie slumped against him,
scarcely able to hold herself up another moment.

o0o

“Let’s go,” Paavo said, walking Angie towards her car after
turning Carol Steed over to police custody. “
Yosh
is
on his way. He’ll take over for me here. In the meantime, you can wait in your
car, and then I’ll take you home.”