Cooking Up Trouble (10 page)

Reaching the top of the ledge
, she looked at the long drop to the next beach and stopped. “Paavo!” She called his name over and over.

Silence.

She didn’t have to be a medical examiner to know Tay was dead, and had been for several days. It was good, in retrospect, that she hadn’t eaten lunch. She’d never have been able to hold it down.

Slowly, she rose to her feet. How had she gotten up here, anyway? Maybe she could make it down to the beach to find Paavo. Or she might be better off going upward to the top of the cliff. All she needed was a rope or a hanging vine. Of course there were no hanging vines in California, and no one had left a rope hanging around, either. But even thoughts of playing Tarzan couldn’t shake the memory of Finley’s face. She shuddered. She could still feel the spongy mass under her palm, between her fingers.

Making the sign of the cross, she took a tentative step
down the far side of the rock face. A loose rock bounced all the way down to the beach. With shaking legs, she sat again. Just as she mustered the courage to try once more, she saw Paavo ambling over some rocks and heading toward her.

She waved her arms, calling his name as loudly as she could.

He ran over and stood on the beach, looking up at her on the ledge. “What are you doing?” he demanded, his face pale and tight, his breath coming in quick, short spurts.

She started to stand, but couldn’t.

“Don’t move!” He began to climb up the rocks.

“I found Finley Tay.” May as well sound like I planned it, she thought.

He stopped. “You found Tay?”

“He’s dead.”

“Wait.”

As if I have a choice, she thought. In no time, he was by her side, his intense gaze reflecting his concern for her and her finding. She reached up and lightly touched his shoulder, his wet hair, not realizing until he was with her how badly shaken she was by her gruesome discovery.

His hands gripped hers. “Are you all right?” His deep voice was like music to her.

“Yes.”

“Your hands are cold.” As if not trusting his eyes or her answers, he swept his hands urgently over her.

“I’m all right.” She stilled his hands, and her voice grew soft, hushed. “He’s down there.”

Paavo left her to climb down to Finley’s body alone.

Finley lay on his stomach, his face turned sideways, facing outward. Paavo carefully brushed aside some of the sand.

Finley’s thin, angular face was bloated. Maggots and beetles crawled amid the dirt-filled orifices.

Paavo stared at the matted blood on the back of Finley’s head, and at its peculiar concave shape. The skull had been crushed. He’d never seen an accident or a fall do anything like that. Unless something fell on him from a high distance—a tree limb, or large rock from a rock slide—whatever hit him had been hurled down with a great deal of force. The kind of force that means murder.

“Do you think he fell and the fall killed him?” Angie called from above.

“I’m not sure what the exact cause of death was, but it was more than a fall. Given the lack of blood here, I’d say he was killed elsewhere, then most likely pushed over the cliff to this ledge and covered with sand. In this spot, his body was impossible to see from the top of the cliff or from the beach.”

“Can we get away from here, Paavo?” Angie asked in a tremulous voice. “This gives me the willies.”

Paavo climbed back up to her side. “Just one question.”

“Yes?” She took hold of his hand, feeling secure now only when holding onto him.

“What made you climb up here in the first place?”

“I grew worried about the tide coming in. That beach is awfully narrow.”

“That’s because the tide
is
in.”

“Oh.”

Angie went with Paavo to tell Moira that they had found her brother. As a cop, Paavo had given bad news like this to people before, but Angie had never needed to. It wasn’t a duty she ever wanted to repeat.

They left Moira alone with her sorrow. Paavo needed to find a tarp or something similar to cover Tay’s body. He planned to do as thorough a review of the surroundings as possible before anyone else went out there. No way would he allow Finley’s body to be moved the way Miss Greer’s had been. He’d keep the crime scene as secure as possible until the sheriff could reopen the road and get some of his own men up here.

Before leaving, Paavo walked with Angie up to their room.

“I want you to stay here,” he said, “and keep the door locked. I’ll leave my gun with you on this nightstand.”

“I can’t imagine I’m in danger. It had to have been a personal thing against Finley. He had enough enemies. In town as well as among these investors.”

He thought of Miss Greer’s body. “Until we know why Finley and Miss Greer are dead, any of us could be in danger. Including you.”

“Miss Greer? I thought she had a heart attack?”

“No. I suspect she was murdered. And she was the cook here. Now you are. Or were.”

“I still am. It’s my job—”

“Humor me.”

“Yes, Inspector. Anything you say, Inspector.”

He knew that tone only too well. Frowning, he left.

Alone once more, Angie took a hot shower to rid herself of the chill from the outdoors as well as the smell and spongy feeling of Finley Tay’s face. No amount of soap seemed to help, though. And the chill she felt was from a lot more than a cold rain.

Frightening memories of the beach kept flashing before her. Finally, unable to bear it any longer, she went to Chelsea’s room and knocked on the door.

Chelsea opened it, a bright, expectant smile on her
face. She wore a cherry-colored velvet housecoat and a large black plastic butterfly barrette in her hair. Despite her outfit and her smudged eyeliner, Angie thought the woman’s smile made her look almost pretty. But her smile faded when she saw Angie. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry to bother you,” Angie said, realizing that Chelsea must have been expecting Jack Sempler to knock at her door. All the ghosts Angie had ever heard about would have just walked through it. “I wanted to tell you we found Finley Tay. He’s dead.”

Chelsea looked horrified. “Oh, my God! Come inside. Where was he?”

Angie walked into the room and sat down on the bed. “At the foot of some cliffs. Paavo and I were looking for Patsy, and instead found him. I put my hand on some sand. It slid away and there he was.” She shivered.

“You poor thing! And poor Finley. Did he fall?”

“We don’t know. Paavo doesn’t think so, though.”

Now it was Chelsea’s turn to tremble. “Let’s talk about something else. This is too horrible for me.”

“Was Finley a good friend of yours?” Angie asked.

“No. I scarcely knew him.” She bit her bottom lip. “I don’t mean to speak badly of the dead, but he used to scare me. Just a little.”

“Really? Yet you invested in his inn?”

Chelsea played with a button on her housecoat. “It was all because of Jack Sempler,” she said quietly.

“Sempler?”

She looked ready to cry. “Finley and Moira said Jack Sempler was here. Then last night the cards told me he would come to me. I’ve been waiting, but he hasn’t shown up yet.”

Seeing Chelsea’s forlorn face, Angie wanted nothing more than to give this whole crowd a piece of her mind.
It was wrong of Moira to have given the tarot cards the spin she did, and to have allowed Chelsea to think that a ghost was going to visit her.

“Is that why you didn’t come to breakfast or lunch today?” Angie asked.

“I didn’t want to take the chance that he’d come here while I was out.” Chelsea wiped away her tears.

“Would you like me to bring you something to eat?” Angie asked.

“No. For once, I’ve decided food will come second for me.” She glanced down at her girth and gave a wry smile. “I’m going to fast until he appears.”

“That’ll make him appear for sure.”

“Do you think so?”

Angie bit her tongue. The words Moira once spoke, saying that Chelsea’s wealthy parents had thought the inn a good investment for Chelsea, made Angie wonder if part of their willingness to pay wasn’t because they wanted to keep Chelsea away from them. But dealing with Chelsea’s naïveté by shunting her away like this was no solution. And for Finley Tay to have taken advantage of the situation was reprehensible. “You have to remember one thing, Chelsea. It’s possible that ghosts—well, those on the ‘other side’ as they call it—don’t exist in the same time zone as we do. His ‘tomorrow’ might not be exactly the same as your tomorrow. So if he doesn’t show up today, I don’t want you to be too disappointed. Promise?”

“I was worried about that myself.” Chelsea sighed. “But then I decided he would translate into my time frame. He’ll be here. He won’t disappoint me.”

“Chelsea, you can’t count on ghosts.”

“You can’t? How do you know?”

Good question. “My Italian grandmother told me. She knows all about ghosts and spirits and the evil eye.”

“The evil eye? What’s that?”

“It’s when someone puts a hex on you. Salt helps ward it off, if I remember right.”

“Salt? Well, that’s good.” Chelsea pulled a big bag of Ruffles out of the armoire and opened it. “Have some. Then we won’t have to worry about evil eyes, at least.”

Angie’s eyes lit up and she grabbed a handful of salty, fat-laden, fried potato chips.

“Here,” Chelsea said, handing her a Pepsi-Cola from under the bed. “Something to wash them down with.”

It was the real thing, not the caffeine-free, diet variety.

“Where’d you get all this?”

“I stocked up before I came. Not that I don’t love the food here. This is just in case I feel stressed.”

“I know what you mean.” Angie popped open the can and drank. Warm, but tasty nonetheless. “I often turn to chocolate, myself.”

Chelsea giggled. “Me, too.” She opened the top drawer of her nightstand. Snickers. Mounds. Butterfingers. Oh! Henrys. A bag full of Reese’s, another of Hershey’s Kisses, and two packages of Oreos. “Have some.”

It was too much to resist. Angie reached for a Snickers. “I like your kind of fasting.”

Chelsea kicked her shoes off, then arranged herself Indian style at the foot of the big double bed. Angie did the same. “Finley always said lunch should be no more than a single piece of fruit or a raw vegetable,” Chelsea said. “Light and healthy.”

The Snickers tasted better than ever. Angie was close to heaven. “This would be perfect if we had some real coffee,” she said.

“No problem. I keep a little electric Krups in the bathroom, and I brought some French roast from home. I’ll put it right on.”

“Chelsea, I love you!” Angie called into the bathroom where Chelsea had gone with her bag of coffee.

“I knew I’d hear those words today,” Chelsea called back over the whir of her coffee grinder. “Only I’d hoped it would be Jack Sempler who’d say them to me.” In a minute, she came out and took her place on the bed.

“What makes you so interested in Jack Sempler?” Angie asked. “Where did you first hear about him?”

“Have you ever experienced dejà vu, Angie?”

“Hasn’t everyone?”

“I mean the real thing. Like you know you’ve been somewhere or known someone before. In a past life, for instance.”

“No, I guess not.”

“Well, I did. I was at a paranormal convention in Anaheim, looking at materials about ghosts. Finley was there telling people about the inn he’d be opening in a few months and inviting them to it. He talked about the healthful regimen he’d have, but also about the Sempler ghosts. He handed out pictures.

“One of them was of Jack Sempler. The one over the mantel in the library. When I saw him, I knew him. I really did. I looked at those sad eyes searching the horizon and I knew he was searching for me. I’ve felt the same way.” She twisted her pearl ring.

Angie leaned forward. “What do you mean? What way?”

“Like…like there should be someone out there for me, but I don’t know how to find him. And if I don’t find him, then I’ll have to go through this life, through my whole life, all alone. Just like Jack did.” Chelsea took a bite out of a Mounds and didn’t say any more until she swallowed it. “You’ll probably think it’s silly, but I used to visualize myself with the man I love. I used to think he was Elvis.”

Angie swallowed an unchewed bite of Snickers and nearly choked on it.

“But I was wrong,” Chelsea continued.

Angie nodded, her eyes watering.

“I now realize that the man looked like Jack.”

“This was before you ever saw Jack Sempler’s picture?” Angie asked.

“That’s right.”

“Wow.” Angie put her chin in her hands. She couldn’t imagine visualizing the love of her life wearing a high stand-up collar and riding britches. But she could imagine someone like that before she’d ever imagine Elvis. Imagining a homicide cop was probably somewhere in between.

“Spooky, isn’t it? They say that if you visualize something enough, it’ll come true. I’ve visualized Jack Sempler until I nearly wore out my eyeballs! Now I just, well, I love him. I don’t know what else to say. And I have to see him again.”

“Again?”

“I believe in reincarnation. I believe we knew each other in a past life.”

Speechless, Angie nodded. Chelsea sighed, then poured them each a cup of coffee.

“And so that’s why you became an investor in the inn?” Angie asked.

“Yes. This way, I can come here whenever I want and stay in this very room. Jack’s room. It’s really much cheaper in the long run, as Finley explained to me before I gave him my money.”

“I’m sure,” Angie said, taking a deep, satisfying swallow of the steaming brew. She felt nerve endings and capillaries throughout her body crying in unison: caffeine, yes!

“Since Jack died here, his ghost is here.” Chelsea stuffed a couple Reese’s Pieces in her mouth.

“It’s strange no one knows how he died.”

“I think it was because he never found the woman he was destined to love.” Chelsea hesitated, then as if floodgates opened, words gushed out. “I understand him, Angie. I’ve never found the man in this life that I should love. But there’s got to be someone for me. I can feel it in my heart. I’m filled with love to give. But I can’t find anyone to love me in return.”