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

Eco’s The Name of the Rose, probably the biggest book on the
shelf.
    “Run!” Angie cried. But she needn’t have bothered. Stan
pushed her out of the way and was the first one out the door. Angie followed
close behind.
    Behind them, the door slammed shut, and then the deadbolt
clicked into place.

 
    Chapter 10
     
    LATE THAT NIGHT when Paavo arrived
home, he found Angie in his living room, asleep on the couch. His cat Hercules
lay curled up asleep beside her, a half-eaten bowl of popcorn on the floor and
the TV on. “What’s this?” he asked, going to her. “Is something wrong?”
    “No,” she said groggily as she opened her eyes and sat up.
“I just didn’t want to be alone.”
    Despite her words that nothing was wrong, he knew her better
than that. He sat and held her.
    She said she had been stressing too much over the wedding
and their living arrangements, and that she was “practically seeing
things”—with emphasis on the word practically.
    He had no idea what was really bothering her, but if he was
patient, eventually she would explain. For the moment, simply having her turn
to him when she needed comfort meant a lot to him.
    o0o
    The next morning, as Paavo headed out the door, he found it
even more difficult to leave Angie sleeping in his bed, in his house, than in
her apartment. He wondered if he would feel this way after they were married,
as well. He did know one thing, though. Seeing her in his home made him feel
better about himself than leaving her in her father’s building. He supposed, in
these modern time, such thinking was old-fashioned, backward, and macho, but
nonetheless, he felt more like a man, a provider, with her there.
    Maybe she was right when she said they should find a home of
their own rather than live in her father’s apartment.
    When he arrived at work, he learned the autopsies had been
completed.
    Gaia Wyndom had ingested a large
number of sleeping pills, enough to kill a woman of her size and weight. No
other signs of struggle or trauma were found. The M.E. said it could have been
suicide, but she couldn’t be certain if Gaia purposefully took the pills, or
someone drugged her. The state of the body, however, was confusing.
    She had been found in a bath, so presumably the water would
have been comfortably warm before she got in—not even suicides got into tubs of
cold, uncomfortable water. Warm water should have sped up decomposition. The
small amount of decomposition indicated she had been dead only a day or two,
yet other bodily functions appeared to have ceased much earlier. The reports
were confused. The M.E. said she needed more time to run tests and research
exactly what had happened to the woman. The finding would make more sense if
she had gotten into ice water, but that was hard to imagine.
    If she had been alive all week, where had she been prior to
her death? What had she been doing? The time of death inconsistencies made it
difficult to determine what had happened to her.
    Taylor Bedford’s autopsy results were much clearer. He had
been killed by a knife at least seven inches long in the shape of a chef’s
carving knife. It entered under the ribcage and jabbed upward, piercing the
heart. A second stab in the same area assured his quick death.
    Whoever did it apparently took his wallet and cellphone.
They weren’t found in or near the dumpster or in the garbage truck.
    The autopsies were interesting, but didn’t tell Paavo much
he didn’t already know. No matter when Gaia died, she had been alive at the
time of Taylor’s murder. He knew that because Taylor’s death happened Saturday
night, and Gaia called in sick on Monday morning. People at work had indicated
she had a crush on him. Did she try to act on it and he spurned her so she
killed him and then herself out of remorse and guilt?
    When he returned from discussing the autopsy results with
the M.E., he decided to look more closely into Thomas Greenburg, founder of
Zygog.
    Greenburg bothered him. He