Cooking Up Trouble Read online

  Cooking Up Trouble

  Joanne Pence

  Dedication

  To Aaron and Zachary, with love.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Praise

  Other Angie Amalfi Mysteries by Joanne Pence

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  “I wouldn’t feed this swill to my cat!” Martin Bayman announced.

  Angelina Amalfi watched the older, gray-haired man stand, throw his napkin on his plate, and storm from Hill Haven Inn’s dining room.

  The lentil-soybean cutlets were not a hit.

  Angie had to agree with Bayman. The cats she knew would have tried to bury them.

  “Some people are so insecure, they have to make a big deal out of everything.” Disgust dripped from Finley Tay’s voice. Tay was the owner of the inn and would be its head cook when it opened to the public in another three weeks. In his midforties, he was a gaunt man with thinning brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, a long, angular face, small eyes, and sharp, jutting cheekbones. He was also Angie’s new boss. “Eat up, Miss Amalfi,” he commanded cheerfully.

  “Oh, I will.” She cut a bite-size piece from one of the patties. “This is so interesting. I’ve never heard of making cutlets with beans. I mean, they’re usually made out of meat.”

  Finley Tay’s fork froze in midair. The four-letter word she’d just uttered brought a look of shock to his face and a gasp to his lips.

  “Delicious,” Angie lied, stuffing the forkful of cutlet into her mouth. It was better than the foot she currently had in it.

  Maybe her new job wasn’t going to be such a piece of cake after all. From the time she first spoke to Finley Tay over the telephone, she should have known the job he described was too good to be true.

  He had told her he was opening an inn in an elegant Victorian mansion built in the 1870s by a man who’d amassed a fortune in the goldfields. It stood atop the windswept cliffs of a secluded promontory overlooking the rugged northern California coastline. Everything in it would be of the finest quality. To go with this setting, he was looking for a student of fine foods to assist him in developing a series of menus for gourmet dining.

  Angie wanted this job. The setting had decided her, as visions leapfrogged from Manderley to Wuthering Heights. She could easily imagine herself in such a place, even if Finley Tay, charming though he was on the phone, was unlikely to be a Max de Winter or a Heathcliff.

  The only minor proviso, Finley said, was that the food must be vegetarian.

  This gave her pause. But only for a moment. She was a student of cordon bleu cooking, so how much of a problem could a vegetarian menu be? Nothing a spicy imagination couldn’t solve.

  “Your job offer sounds like a wonderful opportunity,” Angie had replied. A wonderful opportunity to add to a résumé sorely in need of a current entry. She was out of work. Again.

  There was a second even more minor proviso, Finley added. Rather than a salary, she must be willing to receive room and board at the inn for a week, since he was strapped by opening-day expenses. She asked for room and board for two.

  He agreed so readily, she was almost sorry she hadn’t asked for more. He sounded ecstatic to have her, as if her cooking skills were the answer to his most heartfelt dreams.

  Gleefully, she took the job.

  After two weeks of reading every book about vegetarian cooking she could get her hands on, and talking to every chef she knew who had ever worked in a vegetarian restaurant, she had arrived at the small, windswept airport near the town of Hayesville.

  As she stood off to the side of the runway, her bags at her feet where the copilot left them, she saw a man awkwardly heading her way. Long, skinny legs stepped over rain puddles, and pointy elbows flapped, giving him the appearance of an overgrown flamingo.

  “Hello, Mr. Tay,” she said, holding out her hand. “I’m Angelina Amalfi.”

  “Right, right.” Without shaking her hand, he scooped up all three of her bags. “Got to hurry, Miss Amalfi. Storm’s coming.”

  She had to run to keep up with him. “Is the inn far?”

  He stopped in front of a battered VW van that sported gingham curtains, a crumbling GET OUT OF VIETNAM bumper sticker, and a faded peace symbol. “Hop right in.”

  She stared at the vehicle, a definite relic of the sixties. “They just don’t make vans like they used to,” she said.

  Finley ignored her comment as he tossed the bags behind the front seats, climbed in, and then faced her for the first time. “I should explain to you, Miss Amalfi, that I create the perfect balance of foods at each meal.”

  “That’s important.” She smoothed the front-seat upholstery over a bare spring, then got in beside him. “I always try to do the same thing. To begin each dinner with a small but elegantly arranged appetizer as the first course, let’s say warm bouchées or cold amuse-gueule—”

  “Food needs to be soft, easy to digest, and yet centered in simplicity, without nonessentials.” He scarcely waited until she was settled before he tore out of the parking area. The van rocked precariously at each turn.

  “Pardon me?” She must not have heard right over the roar of the engine.

  “What we eat,” Finley said, “must not impede our spiritual journey. It must not arouse the baser passions that deny us enlightenment.”

  Baser passions? Enlightenment? She forced her mouth to remain shut. Being slack-jawed made one look so foolish. She searched for something to say. “Enlightenment is important when eating,” she murmured. “I hate heavy meals myself. As I was saying to my good friend, Chef Raymond DuTuoille of Greengrocer—a true master of vegetarian cooking, as I’m sure you know—”

  “No. I pay no attention to those who choose to make names for themselves in this world.”

  She retreated into silence, trying to remember the alleged pluses of this new job. Finley Tay did not appear to be one of them.

  “Nurture the spirit as well as the flesh, Miss Amalfi,” Finley cried. He turned and smiled at her, taking his eyes off the narrow coast highway just as a sharp curve loomed ahead.

  She clutched the dash. “But there’s much to be said for the here and now, Mr. Tay.”

  “Here and hereafter! Don’t you agree?” He looked back at the road just in time to avoid a sudden plunge down the embankment.

  “Oh, God,” she murmured, her heart in her throat.

  “Ah, Miss Amalfi, I knew you’d appreciate my food philosophy, but it’s not that grand. Yet.”

  She stared at him as if he’d lost what little sense he might have had.

  Blissfully, he continued. “It’s important for the well-being of this inn that we see eye-to-eye this way. I have some business partners, I’m afraid, who aren’t the best judges of proper food and nutrition. But together we’ll convince them that we know best. Together we’ll develop food that sings.”

  She took a deep breath as the road momentarily widened. “A sort of Zen and the art of eating,” she said.

  “A woman a
fter my own heart.” With that, he began talking about soybeans. He knew seventy-three ways to prepare them.

  He was on number twenty-six when they reached the inn. It was a massive wood-framed house built on an out-cropping overlooking the Pacific. Gingerbread and fancy millwork etched scalloped patterns along the roofline and around the windows and doors. The imposing middle section stood three stories high, the topmost floor having two dormer windows looking much like two beady, peering eyes. Jutting out from it were a mismatched pair of two-story wings. The west wing, nearest the ocean, ended in an octagonal turret.

  Angie got out of the van and stood looking at the house, trying to remember what it reminded her of. Then she knew. Tyrannosaurus Rex.

  The house was badly in need of paint, and didn’t at all resemble the elegant mansion Finley had described to her on the phone. But she could imagine how lovely it could be if done in the multicolors that were so popular among San Francisco’s Queen Anne and Victorian painted ladies. “It’s distinctive,” Angie said finally, without much conviction.

  “It is,” Finley replied. “And much, much more. It’s a quiet, mystical place. A place to make your dreams come true.”

  “Really? Well, in that case I’m especially glad I’m here,” she said—and glad she’d convinced Paavo to tear himself away from Homicide to come and spend the week with her. Perhaps here her dreams about herself and the big, tough detective might come true as well.

  While Finley gave her a quick tour of the property, he introduced her to his sister, Moira, who would be helping him run the inn; Miss Greer, who served as general housekeeper and assistant cook; plus six “investors”—people who owned a share of the inn and now were here to see that it got off to a good start: Martin and Bethel Bayman, Greg and Patsy Jeffers, Chelsea Worthington and Reginald Vane.

  As Angie spoke with the investors, it became clear that it had been they, and not Finley Tay, who felt her services were needed.

  Now, as Angie looked over the meal of lentil-soybean cutlets, seasoned tofu, and steamed vegetables, she realized the investors had been absolutely right. If the menu didn’t change, the inn would close within a week.

  Few of the investors had chosen to eat here this evening. Even Finley’s sister, Moira, claimed to have an upset stomach. The message to Finley couldn’t have been much clearer.

  When Martin Bayman left, the only others beside Finley and Angie were Chelsea Worthington, a pleasant, round-figured young woman, and Reginald Vane, a formal middle-aged gentleman from Vancouver, British Columbia.

  “I think,” Reginald Vane said, smoothing his bow tie and casting a sidelong glance from Angie to Chelsea Worthington, “the soy-lentil cutlets are superb.”

  Angie couldn’t believe her ears.

  “Why, thank you,” Finley said smugly. He glanced at Angie’s plate and his brows lifted. “You’re not eating, Miss Amalfi.” His hurt tone failed to mask his irritation. “You must be hungry after your long trip up from San Francisco this morning and your tour of the inn. Surely a student of gourmet cooking has more of an appetite than this.”

  She wished he hadn’t reminded her. Without thinking, she reached for the basket of coarse black bread.

  “Soy bread,” Finley said.

  Angie’s heart sank. “Is there any butter?”

  Finley handed it to her.

  “Soy butter?” she asked.

  “Naturally.” He smiled. “Get it?”

  She hoped her wince passed for a grin. “Yes.”

  “This evening, in about a half hour, I’ll go on my after-dinner nature walk. It’s good to stir the blood and speed the digestive juices so that the nutrients are pumped into the body, not merely broken down and expelled. Please feel free to join me.”

  “Thank you, but I may retire soon,” Angie said. “As you mentioned, I’ve had a busy day.”

  Angie paced, unable to relax enough to lie down, let alone sleep. Her mind raced with the sights, sounds, and impressions of the day, all swimming in a meatless stew. None of the investors seemed to object to Finley’s basic vegetarianism; it was just the blandness of his particular soybean-based food philosophy that gave them pause—or brought them to a screeching halt.

  She stopped pacing and added Algerian vegetable stew to the growing list of menu possibilities she was putting together. She knew a delicious recipe that mixed butternut squash, new potatoes, chickpeas, and North African spices, and was served with couscous.

  She had to stop this and get some rest. Tomorrow her work would begin in earnest. She walked over to the windows.

  The room Finley had given her was large and octagonally shaped. Windows on five of the eight walls provided a breathtaking view of the ocean, the rugged cliffs, and the thick redwood forest that spread over most of the promontory. Dark clouds covered the moon in a portent of rain.

  Tomorrow Paavo would arrive. She felt excitement coupled with raw anxiety over having asked him here, taking him from his job. Too often he acted as if being a homicide inspector for the San Francisco Police Department was a way of life or something. Sort of like being a priest.

  She thought of shoulders broader than a tollbooth on the Golden Gate Bridge; of strong arms, legs, and hands; of his kisses…. No, he was no priest.

  He’d just come off a difficult case involving the highly publicized murders of two San Francisco restaurant owners. Throughout much of that time, she’d seen more of him on local news broadcasts than in person. The man needed some rest.

  That was why she “just happened” to mention that going away alone to such a remote area made her uneasy. Of course, she hadn’t reminded him that she’d traveled halfway around the world alone, or that a remote area in Northern California was a hundred times safer than most of the big cities she’d ever lived in.

  But he rose to the bait and told her he’d go with her. She didn’t allow herself too much guilt.

  She began to pace again. He’d hate the inn’s vegetarian food, but he was driving up here in her Ferrari Testarossa—a gift from her father a couple of years ago. What better use was there for a fancy car than to drive around in search of a good restaurant?

  All of a sudden, she stopped pacing. Chefs were always the first ones up in the morning. They’d have to make the coffee, mix biscuit batter, do all those get-ready-for-breakfast things before the guests arose. She’d been so busy worrying about everything else, she hadn’t bothered to think about the most obvious. She wanted not only to watch, but also to assist Finley in preparing breakfast, as a kind of damage control.

  Since she wasn’t a person who functioned well at the crack of dawn, she decided that this evening, in a leisurely manner, she’d go down to the kitchen to familiarize herself with the supplies and how they were arranged. Better tonight than to wait until morning, when she’d be harried and sleepy.

  Under the bed she found the pink satin mules she’d kicked aside earlier, put on a matching quilted satin bed-jacket, and left her room. Just before the stairs down to the first floor, the hall ended and a galley opened onto the large, silent drawing room below. The room was dark and empty except for a single night-light.

  In the foyer, another dim night light burned. Two hallways radiated out from it, one into the east wing and one into the west, like tunnels with no lights at the ends. The kitchen was in the east wing.

  In the still darkness, the smell of decay hit her. She’d vaguely noticed it earlier while being whisked from room to room, meeting the investors and hired help, and taking in all the antique Victorian touches that she was sure were original. Now, though, she could almost feel the rot in the house, coupled with a scent of wet earth—the scent one finds at a newly dug grave.

  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.

  2

  “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.