Cooking Spirits: An Angie Amalfi Mystery (Angie Amalfi Mysteries) by Joanne Pence Page A

But then Otto Link
had also made suggestive comments about Bedford. Maybe he was the Casanova of
the tool and die trade.
    Paavo called Larina Bedford into
Homicide. She had acted so poised and self-assured at her home, he wanted her in a less comfortable environment.
    Homicide’s administrative assistant escorted her to the
interview room. Paavo allowed her to sit alone in it for nearly ten minutes
before joining her. The windowless room, with cameras in the ceiling, one gray
metal table and four cold, hard metal chairs was intimidating. It often made
people so nervous they couldn’t hide their lies.
    While Yosh observed from outside
the room, Paavo entered it.
    “Do you have news, Inspector?” Larina said without even a preliminary “hello.” She appeared to be anything but
intimidated.
    “Something new has turned up.” He sat across from her and
opened a folder, taking out Gaia Wyndom’s photo. “Do
you know this woman?”
    Larina looked at it a long moment.
“I do not.”
    “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