Cooking Up Trouble (2 page)

She tried to shake off the feeling. Big old houses like this could be terribly creepy at night. Perhaps the next day she could convince Moira Tay to open up some windows and let sunlight and fresh air come in.

The kitchen was just a little way past the dining room. Before she reached it, the hall became pitch-black. She stiffened, then tried to laugh away her uneasiness. Wasn’t it always this way? she asked herself. When it was dark, that was when you began to sense all kinds of hidden creepy things. That was when something always went bump in the night.

Like that.

She froze, listening, afraid to take another step.

The sound of someone crying quietly seemed to float on the air. Angie’s goose bumps stood so high she was surprised she didn’t levitate. “Hello?” she called.

No answer. The crying continued a moment longer, then abruptly stopped.

It was the wind. That, or the creaks and groans of a house this old. Continuing forward in the darkness, she reached out until her fingers found the door frame, the kitchen door, and then the doorknob’s clammy metallic chill.

She twisted it and gave the door a push. Its hinges squealed as it swung open. When she was young, she and her fourth sister, Francesca, used to shake in their shoes watching ghoulish movies about Freddy Krueger or
Friday the 13th
. She remembered thinking how stupid the people in those movies were to go into dark, mysterious rooms.

There was no way in hell she was going to step into that kitchen without first turning on the lights.

Running her hand along the walls past the doorjamb, she found the light switch and flicked it on.

The kitchen blazed almost too brightly. The countertops and sink were all stainless steel. Yellow-painted cabinets lined the walls. She waited, listening, a part of her still convinced something was wrong here.

What nonsense! She was being childish.

She marched straight to the middle of the floor. The kitchen was spotless. But glancing at the range top, she saw a large, unwashed platter.

Slowly, she walked toward it, her mind refusing to accept what her eyes saw. Then she stopped and stared.

On the platter was a ring of cold lentil cutlets, and in the center, draped around an open package of rat poison, was a fat, gray, very dead rat.

“
I don’t want you
in my kitchen.” Miss Greer, the cook, stood in front of the kitchen door with her arms folded. She was a severe-looking woman, dressed in black, her gray hair pulled back and twisted in a figure eight held in place with a big black barrette.

“What do you mean, your kitchen?” Angie asked. “It’s Finley and Moira Tay’s kitchen, and Finley hired me to work with him on the menu. Is he in there?”

“I haven’t seen him this morning.”

“That’s odd. I couldn’t find him last night, either. Moira said he probably went into town and would be back in the morning.” Moira had appeared curiously indifferent to Angie’s tale of the rat in the kitchen. She said she’d tell Finley, and Angie should go back up to bed.

When Angie told her she’d be downstairs early to help with breakfast, Moira had said cold granola and oat bran muffins were all she planned to serve. There’d be nothing to help with.

Angie didn’t need a picture to know when she wasn’t
wanted, so she decided to sleep in. She usually skipped breakfast, anyway, to spare a few calories for the irresistible temptations of the day.

But now it was ten in the morning. Finley or no, she was ready to get started.

“I’m afraid he still hasn’t returned,” Miss Greer said.

“So he still hasn’t seen the rat?” Angie asked.

“Rat!” Miss Greer sneered, as if Angie were personally responsible for rodents. “Whatever are you talking about?”

Angie stood her ground. “I’m talking about the rat that obviously ate poison that someone—you, perhaps?—left in the kitchen! Do you know what would happen to this place if anyone from the state came by and saw rat poison so close to food storage? I can’t believe you or Finley are so out of touch with the world.”

“You’re having hallucinations. The only rats in my kitchen are the strange people who keep coming in here! I think it’s the Sempler ghosts playing tricks on you. Maybe they’ll get you to understand that you’re not needed here—and not wanted.”

Did she say ghosts? Angie wondered. Not only was Miss Greer hateful, she was a nut case besides. “You don’t know—”

Miss Greer stepped closer. “I know plenty. If Mr. Finley wanted to work with you, he’d be here. But he isn’t, is he? I think you’d better go right back where you came from and leave us alone.”

“I’m here because I have a job to do. In that kitchen!”

“Over my dead body.”

“You can join the rat, for all I care.” Angie stormed away.

Homicide Inspector Paavo Smith turned the Ferrari into a truck stop along Highway 101. He had driven through Hayesville twice already, as well as ten miles up and down the highway on either side of it, trying to find the turnoff Angie had told him to take. He gave up.

She’d laugh, he knew. Hotshot city detective and he couldn’t even find a rural road to a public inn. At least someone would find his day humorous. He didn’t.

It had started about six
A.M.
with him going to the office to spend a few minutes finishing up some last-minute details before leaving for a peaceful week in the country. Sometime, years ago, he’d taken an honest-to-God vacation. But he couldn’t remember when it was.

He’d been at his desk a couple of hours when his partner, Yoshiwara, came in with the news that one of the cases he’d thought had been wrapped up suddenly had begun to unravel. A guy he’d charged with stabbing his wife to death had always claimed someone wearing a black mask had broken in and done it. No evidence at all of a break-in existed, and plenty pointed toward the husband. Now, a black ski mask had been found in a dumpster three blocks away. Even though Paavo knew Yosh could handle the investigation and that the lab report on the mask wouldn’t be completed before his vacation ended, he hated going off and leaving something like that hanging.

His mood had turned sour having to walk out on an unfinished case, but now it was downright ugly over his inability to find the inn. A vacation had turned into a lot more trouble than he’d ever expected. No wonder he never took the damn things.

A couple of truckers outside the diner eyed the Ferrari, then him, then the Ferrari again. He did his best to ignore them, even though driving Angie’s car usually
made him feel like he ought to be a car thief, drug dealer, or at least a high-priced trial attorney.

Inside, the waitress pointed to a rotary pay phone on the wall. He dialed the number Angie had given him, but instead of Hill Haven Inn, he heard a message saying the number wasn’t in service. A repeat try netted the same result. “What the hell?” he muttered, then called Information. The number was correct. Finally, he called an operator for assistance.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the operator said, “but we’re unable to make a connection with that telephone line. I’ll have to send a service repairman out to see what’s wrong. Do you know if this number has a service contract with us?”

“No, I don’t.”

“We’ll have to check on that first,” she said.

“Thanks loads.” He hung up, scowling at the phone. “Terrific.”

“I can feel the presence of Jack Sempler here,” Chelsea Worthington said. “Can’t you?” She took a big bite of the avocado, tomato, and alfalfa sprout sandwich Moira and Miss Greer had served, along with barley soup, as a late lunch. Finley Tay still hadn’t returned.

Angie sat at a table on the patio with Chelsea and Patsy Jeffers, a plain, nervous young woman. No one else had shown up for lunch. Light morning rains had washed the land clean and sparkling. Despite the slight chill, the air was too fresh and clean to eat in the stuffy dining room.

“I don’t know Jack Sempler,” Angie said.

“You don’t?” Chelsea nearly choked.

Patsy sipped her Evian. “He looks a lot like my husband.”

Angie remembered Greg Jeffers—tall and tan, with a big jaw.

“My Greg’s the handsomest man I’ve ever seen in my whole life,” Patsy added as she carefully picked the avocado out of her sandwich.

“Except for Jack,” Chelsea said.

“But at least Greg’s alive,” Patsy replied.

Just then, a few large drops of rain began to fall.

Angie ignored them, her looking from one woman to the other. “Jack isn’t?”

“No.” Chelsea picked up her soup and sandwich and hurried toward the doors to the drawing room. “He’s one of the ghosts who live here. And I love him with all my heart and soul.”

“Hill Haven Inn? Never heard of it.” The young man, his hair shaved to the skin along the back and sides, while long and bluntcut on top, propped his back against the Coke machine, raised a can to his mouth, and drank.

Paavo tamped down his temper. “What about Finley Tay?”

“Nope.”

The waitress in the diner, a Shell station attendant, and now this fellow had all given Paavo the same answer. The same lie. He heard it in their voices, saw it in their eyes, and he didn’t like it one damn bit.

It was already nearly six in the evening. “There’s supposed to be a turnoff marked Hill Haven Road somewhere south of here,” Paavo said. “I couldn’t find the sign, but I’ve been told that it’s a road that leads out to the ocean.”

The man shrugged. “Lots of roads around here. I can’t think of one like that, though. I sure can’t.” He draped his arm over the Coke machine, then grinned.

“Give it a try.” Paavo’s voice was deadly quiet, but the
irritation and frustration he’d felt made it seethe with anger.

The grin vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “You might want to talk to the sheriff, mister.” The young man took a step back. “Maybe he can help. His office is behind the red building on the other side of the highway.” With that, he hurried to an old pickup and drove off.

Paavo watched the man go. His muscles ached with tension and he realized how close he’d come to punching the punk. Christ, he’d just spoken to a perfect stranger as if he were a hardened criminal rather than a wannabe tough who’d stopped off for a soft drink. Maybe everyone was right. Maybe he did need a vacation.

He gazed up and down the main street. Hayesville was no more than a gathering of small, dingy buildings along Highway 101. This was campground, lumber company, spotted owl, and Bigfoot country.
Trees of Mystery
bumper stickers were nearly as common as pinecones.

The tall pines and redwoods surrounding the town’s buildings were dark in the wintry light of early evening. It had rained earlier, and now wet roads and a cloudy sky had cast the whole area in shades of gray.

Paavo got back into Angie’s Ferrari, hung a U-turn, and soon skidded to a halt in front of the sheriff’s office.

“
That was Susannah Sempler
.” Moira Tay spoke to Angie in a slow, wispy voice as she glided across the high-ceilinged drawing room toward a large portrait that hung over the mantel. “Her father built this house.”

Moira was a tall, striking woman with long blond hair worn in a single braid draped over her shoulder. Her floor-length black skirt and black turtleneck sweater, along with makeup-free, deep-set brown eyes, gave her a timeless look of mystery, while her precise, delicate movements carried an air of otherworldly serenity.

“All I’ve heard about since I got here are the Sempler ghosts,” Angie said, gazing up at the portrait. “Is Susannah supposed to be one of them?” Angie sat on a red velvet chair surrounded by dark Victorian tables and chests and knickknacks. Small rugs overlay larger ones scattered over the dark hardwood floors. Each table and chest had a velvet cover with a smaller lace cover over it. The place was stuffed and cluttered and smelled of dust, not because Moira and Miss Greer hadn’t dusted, but because the surfeit of doilies and antimacassars and rugs
seemed impervious to cleaning, as if they’d carried the dust from years and years of lying about in this room and weren’t about to relinquish it.

Moira shook her head. “Everything you might hear about the ghosts is no more than make-believe. Susannah lived here alone until she died at age ninety-two. If you’re going to search for signs of the Sempler ghosts, I’m afraid you’ll be very disappointed.”

Angie didn’t want to admit how relieved she was to hear that. “That doesn’t bother me at all. I prefer the dead to stay quietly buried.” The portrait showed a lovely young woman with blond hair puffed out at the sides, then pulled up in a small chignon, 1890s style. She wore a pale blue dress with a lace neckline. “It’s hard to imagine someone so pretty living alone all those years, isn’t it?”

Moira sat on a green-and-gold sofa with a high, stiff camelback and high rolled arms. “Yes. But then, this is a very remote area.”

“That’s true,” Angie said quickly, realizing that except for her brother, Moira also seemed to live a solitary life.

Angie glanced at her watch. Six o’clock. Paavo should have been here hours ago. What if something had happened to him? She’d tried calling earlier, but the phone was still out of order, just as it had been yesterday.

She’d wanted to call Paavo and her mother, to let them both know she’d arrived safely. Angie might be twenty-four years old, but she was still Serefina’s baby, the youngest of five girls, not to mention the only one still unmarried, which her mother never failed to mention. To keep peace in the family, Angie made sure Serefina knew of her comings and goings. But not Paavo’s. She didn’t dare tell her mother he’d be here with her. Much as Serefina fancied herself modern, there were some things Angie didn’t talk to her about—like sex.

But where was Paavo? Angie hated waiting and worrying, and Moira wasn’t the most fascinating person to while away the hours with. “So tell me,” Angie said, “who are the other Sempler ghosts? Not that I believe in such things, of course.”

“Of course.” Moira smiled knowingly, her speech slow and precise. “Let me go back to about 1870, when Ezra Sempler built this house. He was a recluse, and after his wife left him, he lived here alone with his two children, Jack and Susannah. The brother and sister were very close and depended on each other completely.”

“Like you and Finley,” Angie interjected.

Moira’s already pale face turned a shade whiter, but Angie wasn’t sure why. “Perhaps,” Moira said. “In any event, everything changed when an orphaned cousin, the fiery, beautiful Elise Sempler, came to live here. She and Jack fell madly, passionately in love. Ezra objected to the match, though, and had Jack forcibly sent away to sea. Elise thought he’d abandoned her and jumped from the cliffs right out there.” She pointed toward the barren land and jagged rocks just past the gardens of Hill Haven.

“My God,” Angie said. The ocean seemed such a cold, forbidding tomb for someone young and in love. These days, Angie knew all about being in love. She glanced once more at her watch. She could all but see Paavo walking into the room. He’d probably be wearing tan Dockers and a black pullover. He’d stand in the doorway, looking casual and uninterested to anyone who didn’t know him; but those who did could tell that he was checking out the place very carefully, making sure everything was as it should be and that he wasn’t walking into any surprises. A cop’s way, eerily similar to a criminal’s.

“When Jack returned and found out what had happened to Elise,” Moira said, “he also died soon thereafter. Many say it was from a broken heart.”

“How awful.” So that was the ghost Chelsea insisted she loved. One who’d died because of his love for someone else. Did that make sense?

“The local people say that at times they can hear or see one of the ghosts. Or just feel their presence. But I assure you, Angie, I’ve lived here for four months and I’ve never felt them near.”

“That’s good.” Angie drew in her breath. “I hope I never do either.”

“Excuse me,” a soft, masculine voice said.

Angie started and turned quickly to see Quint, the gardener, standing in the doorway, his cap in his hands.

“Miss Moira,” he said, “should I contact the sheriff about Mr. Finley’s absence?”

“Still no word?” Moira asked, brows puckered.

“None. I walked over all his usual places,” Quint replied. “But no luck.”

“Wait a minute.” Angie turned to Moira. “Didn’t you say he drove off somewhere last night?”

“No,” Moira answered. “I thought he had. But his van is still here.”

Angie couldn’t quite believe what Moira was saying to her. She stood. “Let me get this straight. Finley hasn’t left Hill Haven, but you don’t know where he is?”

“No one has seen him.”

“You’re kidding! And you’re not out there looking for him? All of us should be.”

“I don’t want to alarm the investors,” Moira said, then turned her gaze outward, toward the ocean. “We’ll contact the sheriff. I’m quite sure I’d feel it if anything had happened to him.”

Angie didn’t go for this touchy-feely spiritual stuff. “How?” she demanded.

Moira shut her eyes for a moment, then with her hands folded gave Angie a serene look. Instead of answering, she said, “You’ll understand in time.”

“Why are you looking for this place?” Sheriff Butz asked, leaning back in his chair. Paavo had talked his way past the desk clerk and now stood in front of the head honcho.

“I have a friend who’s taken a job there for a week,” he explained. “A young woman named Angelina Amalfi. She flew up yesterday, and Finley Tay was supposed to meet her at the airport. When I tried to reach her today, the phone was dead.”

Butz stood up and walked around to the front of his desk, then half sat on it, facing Paavo. He was built like a boxcar, square and solid. “Calm down. I’m sure everything’s okay with your lady. Maybe she just wanted to be alone for a while. Gave you a line about where she’d be. It happens all the time. They get over it soon enough.”

“She wouldn’t do that.”

Butz chuckled, his gold tooth flashing. “Now, son, no man can ever say what a woman will do.”

Paavo had reached the end of his patience. He pulled out his identification badge and handed it to the sheriff. “I’m with the San Francisco police. Homicide. I know what this woman will do. She came up here, and I intend to find her. With or without your help.”

“San Francisco, hmm? Inspector Pay-vo Smith. Pay-vo. That’s a new one.” He handed back the badge.

“
Pah
-vo. It’s Finnish.”

“Hmm.” Butz’ beady eyes passed over Paavo dismissively. “I guess you S.F.P.D. homicide boys see dead bodies all the time. Go to work in the morning and take your pick of corpses, right?”

Paavo steeled himself. “Not exactly, Sheriff.”

“Well, we don’t get many homicides up here. Don’t get a lot of wacko big-city crimes either. You know why, Pay-vo?”

Paavo’s teeth ground. “Why?”

“’Cause we’re very particular about who our neighbors are.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that maybe this community wants no part of people like Finley Tay.” He pulled a pack of Tiparillos from his breast pocket and offered one to Paavo. Paavo shook his head.

Butz lit up and went to the window, staring at the street as he talked. “It’s easy to take down road signs. Easy to cut a telephone wire. Now, I’m not saying that goes on. It’s against the law.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“People up here might not be as sophisticated as some, but we know which way the sun comes up. We also know we don’t want any part of these psychics and spiritualists. It stinks of cult, like you guys have in Frisco. Any cult who tries to set up here is asking for a whole hell of a lot of trouble.”

Paavo hadn’t heard that Tay was involved in a cult. He wondered if Angie had heard anything about it.

“My friend is only here as a cook,” he said.

Butz folded his thick arms, his jowls puffed up and his slitted eyes grew even narrower. “I say, let ’em starve.”

“Sheriff Butz!” The desk clerk knocked on the door at the same time as he pushed it open and stepped into the office. “Excuse me. Telephone. Sounds important.”

“Hell.” Butz glanced at the blinking button on the phone. “Give Inspector Smith here a map to the old Sempler place.” He grinned maliciously at Paavo. “Watch out for ghosts. Word is, the place is haunted.”