Cook's Christmas Capers (The Angie Amalfi Mysteries)

by Joanne Pence

  She led Angie to the dojo, and laughed about dojo being the term for a karate studio. That didn't bode well, Angie thought.

  Her eight fellow inmates, aka the other students, were standing around drinking coffee and looking extremely nervous, except for a chubby young man with acne and frizzy hair who seemed more interested in the doughnuts than anything else.

  "We're all here now," perky Sally said. "Enjoy your coffee and doughnuts because you won't be seeing anything like them for the next three days. You're going to cleanse your body as well as your mind and spirit."

  She then gave them keys to their dormitory rooms and sent them off to change their clothes. All came out wearing black pajama-like outfits with wide cotton trousers and bulky hip-length kimono tops that crossed in front and were held together by a sash. On their feet, they wore straw zoris.

  The coffee and doughnuts were gone, replaced by nothing. Chubby looked ready to cry.

  Instead of perky Sally, a woman of indeterminate age met them. She looked emaciated, wore no make-up, and her skin was badly dried and lined from the sun. Her similarly brittle and lifeless brown hair was parted in the middle and fell in bushy disarray past her shoulders. Her outfit, a sleeveless jumpsuit in a natural linen color, revealed darkly tanned arms without an ounce of fat that looked more like twisted cords of hemp than flesh.

  She announced that she was to be known as Seven. Those in the class were forbidden to use their own names. Each was given a two-digit number. Angie found herself named Thirty-five. How boring was that? Chubby ended up Eighty-eight, which to Angie were nice round numbers—much like he was.

  Seven brought them to a tatami-floor room where they sat on pillows and listened as one lecturer after the other told them all that was wrong with the world, mankind, and themselves. They spent the next three hours with no bathroom or cigarette breaks, then had a dinner of miso, brown rice, and boiled broccoli, all unflavored or "natural" as the group leader told them. Angie found it basically inedible except for the miso. She spooned some of the soup onto her rice to give it a little flavor.

  Suddenly, Seven yelled at her for defiling the rice. Everyone looked shocked. The leader went on and on about how stupid and ignorant Angie was about food, how she shouldn't do such a thing, that she was a vile, awful person, until Angie couldn't take it anymore and told Seven she was being ridiculous.

  "You see?" the leader turned to the open-mouthed group. "Number Thirty-five cannot handle the slightest criticism because she has rage against the world and she strikes back. That is the problem with the world today. Innate rage lashes out inappropriately. You are all watching in surprise. When you face anger, hate, irritation or any other negative emotion, you must simply laugh and clap your hands. Let's all try it now."

  The group forced themselves to laugh and clap along with Seven. "You, too, Thirty-five."

  The leader was a complete looney tunes, Angie thought, but she went along with the foul-tempered pillar of self-righteousness.

  "Doesn't everyone feel better?" the leader asked.

  "If she's not going to eat that," Eighty-eight pointed at Angie's rice, "can I?"

  "No, because you're already too fat," the leader snapped.

  At that point, everyone else laughed and clapped.

  Eighty-eight lowered his chin to his chest and chased the last couple grains of rice around his plate until he caught and ate them.

  Angie didn't know how much more of this she could take.

  o0o

  The second day started out somewhat better than the first in that they were given an egg with their hot rice and tea. One problem, however. The egg was raw. The way to eat it was to mix it with the hot rice and let it cook that way, and this time, it was permissible to pour some of the hot tea onto the egg-rice mixture. Angie would have rather put the egg into the tea kettle to soft boil it, but she knew that would be frowned on. At least the food was edible.

  After breakfast, the group walked around the grounds. It was an incredibly lovely two-mile walk. The Mendocino Coast was one of the most beautiful, pristine areas in the entire world, Angie thought, as she and the others viewed the ocean from the cliff tops near the institute. The land dropped sharply into the water and large boulders dotted the shore, jutting high into the sky. When an incoming tide hit those boulders, the spray would shoot into the air. The white spray against the blue sky was gorgeous to behold.

  "This is where you will learn to clear your mind of the world," Seven announced. "To toss it all away. Look at the beauty around you. When you cleanse your mind of all you have learned, you will discover that what you thought was truth is all a lie. There is no truth. Forget the world, its riches and rituals. Even"—she scoffed—"Christmas."

  Everyone laughed and clapped.

  "Tomorrow, the last day of our class, is the day the unenlightened call Christmas Eve. Some people asked why we have a class that day, when it means you must travel on Christmas Day to your homes. Simple! It's to help you realize that Christmas is a day like any other, and there's no reason to think otherwise.

  "When we go out into the world," she continued, "we will praise only nature and ourselves. We worship ourselves, the trees and the rocks. Together, we are nothing, and nothing is the one. That is the individual system of meaning, and we shall teach you to accomplish it!"

  Angie shuddered at those words. All in all, she'd rather be with her family and friends celebrating Christmas than here worshipping herself or a rock! She wondered if this was how Pet Rocks started.

  The group soon went inside. The morning lecture was about parents, and why everyone in the room was filled with anger. It was all their parents' fault. Parents raised children all wrong. The people of ISMI knew the right way to parent. In fact, they said, they knew the right way to do everything.

  Later that morning, Eighty-eight bore the brunt of an attack by Seven about being fat. His parents made him so neurotic he wanted to eat, but he alone shoveled too much food into his mouth. Several others in the class were similarly afflicted. Eighty-eight attempted to stand up for himself, talking about his low metabolism and such. That only sent the class into gales of laughter and clapping.

  Angie knew she was supposed to laugh and clap, but she found it difficult. She was appalled that so many people paid no attention to Eighty-eight's feelings.

  Soon, Eighty-eight broke down in tears and bolted from the room.

  That afternoon, it was Forty-two's turn to be skewered by Seven. Angie had to admit that she wasn't very sympathetic since Forty-two had laughed the loudest at Eighty-eight's misery.

  Forty-two was in love with her boss who not only was married, but also was a cad and slept with any woman who gave him the slightest encouragement. The leader screamed at her that for being stupid, that she didn't deserve to be loved, and that the air she breathed was a waste of good oxygen. By the time Seven finished, the woman was a curled up, sniveling mass of angst and misery.

  Angie wondered if Seven had ever been in love, or knew what it felt like to be loved.

  She saw that Eighty-eight was back in the room and gleefully laughed and applauded at each outrage and each retort Forty-two made to defend herself. Something about this, Angie thought, was really sick—a course in sadism as enlightenment.

  She didn't know how sick until later that day when she became the one under attack. By then, she had caught on to the tactic, as she was sure everyone had. The leader wore down the participant’s defenses, while the unnatural reaction of the crowd—the clapping and laughing—made the whole thing surreal.

  "You are sitting there quietly, Thirty-five," the leader said.

  "Yes. I'm watching," Angie stated.

  "You think you're above this, don't you? Why did you come here if you're too good to be a part of it?"

  "I'm not too good. I'm just curious."

  Seven's thin, dry face contorted with disgust. "You look very stupid sitting and saying nothing. You don't like the way this session is going, do you?"

  "I di
dn't say that."

  "Perhaps you should be leading it. You think you know everything already, don't you?"

  "One thing I do know," Angie said calmly, "is that you're no better than Eighty-eight or Forty-two or me."

  "And how do you speak with such authority?" Seven asked with a sneer.

  "Because I know ISMI will never amount to anything. Years from now, no one will have heard of it."

  The leader faced the other students. "She is stupid as well as arrogant."

  The class laughed and clapped.

  Angie didn't let any of this bother her. "I see how fake everything here is."

  Seven grew angry. "You are nothing! You know nothing!"

  "Don't I? Eighty-eight is just a shill, isn't he?" Angie said. "Your job was too easy with him. You said a few words and he went into a rage and then cried and ran off—all the things you've told people to expect at ISMI sessions. I'll bet he comes to each of these sessions, and his payment is probably all the doughnuts he wants. In each session you'll find people who are thinking, 'well, at least I'm not Eighty-eight.' This whole thing is a scam to make money!"

  Seven pursed her lips. "I feel sorry for you, Thirty-five. We are here to help people. We might have been able to help you, except that you're afraid to listen to us. What are you afraid you might hear? Something about you not being as pretty or as smart or as perfect as you think you are? You're nothing but a cheap little nobody trying to pretend you're someone special. I'll bet your friends laugh at you behind your back—if you have any friends."

  "I have friends," Angie said, although she was struck by the realization that she had no real friends in this world.

  "Is that so? Then, where are they? You're all alone in the world and you're trying to take it out on ISMI, when all you have to do is accept that you're nothing, and that the whole world is against you. It is against you, isn't it? Isn't it?"

  "It's not." Angie said. But the thought of how she found herself here, in this strange time, all alone…

  "Nobody cares about you, Thirty-five. Admit it! Nobody cares what you do, what you say, or what you think. They've all abandoned you, haven't they?"

  "No!" Her heart beat faster.

  "You're lying! You can lie to yourself but not to me. Not to all of us. We can see through you. You're nothing! You do nothing! No one gives a damn what happens to you. If you were to die, no one would miss you, no one would care! Admit it! Admit it, now!"

  "Stop it!"

  "Face it. You, your life, is meaningless!"

  "No, I'm someone in my world."

  "This is your world!"

  "No! Never! All this...it's a dream. A nightmare!"

  The class stopped laughing altogether, and Seven looked at her as if she were crazy. "You're delusional."

  Angie stood. "You believe that the ego is the most important part of man, that what 'I' want and how 'I' see the world is all that matters. You say there is no truth, but you're wrong. Truth has nothing to do with you or me. It's part of the world and bigger than any of us or all of us together. When you forget that, you raise Man to the level of God, and that's where you fall apart because, ultimately, man simply isn't good enough. And that's the fallacy behind everything you're doing and saying."

  "You know nothing about it!" Seven insisted.

  "I know I don't want to watch you tear down others. It's cruel, and doesn't teach anyone a single thing about themselves or how to make their lives better."

  With that, Angie walked to the door to leave. The classroom laughed and applauded as if she were a stand-up comedian. She shook her head and didn't even turn around.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Angie was ushered into the office of Hans Olaf Gerling, the founder of ISMI.

  He was a surprisingly young man. She expected him to be wizened and German, but he was about 5'8" and surprisingly husky for someone who should be eating the type of food served to his students. His brown hair was quite long and scraggly, and he wore a caftan, jeans, and Birkenstocks without socks.

  "You asked to see me, Miss Amalfi?"

  "Yes. I wanted to see who I was paying to be insulted. I didn't understand that was the game being played when I came here, Mr. Gerling."

  "Please, call me Hans. May I call you Angie?"

  "I couldn't care less."

  "Very good!" he said with a smile. He looked as if he was about to clap, but changed his mind. "Sit please." He gestured toward soft leather chairs. She sat in one, he sat facing her.

  "This is no game," he explained. "It has to do with RAGE—Righteous Anger Generates Equilibrium. People are afraid of their own anger, you see. That's what the problem is. It builds and builds inside us until it actually makes us ill. At ISMI we first bring that anger to the surface, get you to recognize it so that you can release it, and finally, to rise above it and find a state of equilibrium…of balance. We have a wonderful program here, and I think you're exactly the type of person who would benefit very much. You have a lot going for you, Angie. I can see that. In fact, it's almost dinner time. Will you join me?"

  "For miso and boiled rice? What goes with it tonight, cabbage?"

  He gave her an indulgent smile. “One of the things we do at ISMI is to wear you down physically as well as emotionally. The food you're given is enough to sustain you. There is definite nutritious value in all we serve, but it leaves most Westerners unsatisfied. Your cravings for meat, chocolate, caffeine, and so on, aren't being met. That's another reason why people are so quick to anger. But you're angry enough. You don't need to starve tonight. In fact, if you promise not to tell, there's a very good house of prime rib in town. You can get a baked potato with all the trimmings with it, and they do an excellent crème brûlée for dessert."

  She didn't have to think twice. "Mr. Gerling, you've got a date."

  o0o

  After dinner, Hans walked Angie back to her dormitory. They had spent most of their time together with him talking about himself—his philosophy, how he began ISMI, how it had grown and made him a very wealthy man, but (he quickly added) his spiritual growth, not economic, was the real benefit of all he did here—his own spiritual growth as well as that of the students who benefitted from the seminars.

  When they neared the rooms, Hans took her hand in both of his. "I must leave you here so no one sees us together. It's bad enough that we have to tear down people's self-esteem; we don't want them to think that the staff plays favorites besides."

  "I'm a favorite now?"

  He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it, then continued to hold it. "You are charming. Definitely a favorite. But I can also see that you're hiding something. I've never known a person with so much caution. You intrigue me, Angie. There's something that's different about you. Something very knowing. I have no idea what it is. But whatever it is, I do like it. I want you to know that."

  He moved a little closer, and she backed away.

  "Thank you," she said. "You've made this experience much easier for me. I understand everything a lot more clearly."

  "Good."

  She pulled her hand free. "Good-bye, Hans."

  He grabbed her arm as she tried to turn from him. "I'll see you tomorrow, Angie. After the other students leave, my time will be much freer, as I hope yours will as well."

  "Yes," she whispered, not liking how tightly he gripped her. "Of course." With that she jerked her arm free and hurried into the dormitory.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  It was only six a.m., but it was the first time Connie was able to reach Angie by phone after a day of being told she "wasn't available."

  "Don't do anything that will cause you to stand out from the other students," Connie ordered.

  "What do you mean?" Angie asked.

  "I'm coming up there with Stan Bonnette—he's been a big part of the research we've been doing. Also, Paavo will join us. He's worried about you. I think he cares about you. A lot. So just sit tight, okay? We'll be there as soon as we can."

  "Sure," Angie said.
"But can't you tell me what's going on?"

  "It's a long story. They're waiting for me to leave. Keep away from Gerling. We’ve discovered he’s really Peter Lemon, another of Starr's students. The name Gerling didn't exist until three years ago when ISMI started. We're on our way, but in the meantime, be careful."

  As Angie hung up, she realized Hans Olaf Gerling, aka Peter Lemon, must be the one behind the killings. No one could be that slimy and be innocent. The problem was, she had no idea why he did it. Or, frankly, how.

  Thinking of Connie's caution not to draw attention to herself, Angie went back to class. She acted ashamed of her actions the day before, which seemed to please Seven to a disgusting degree. The morning was even more hideous than the day before because most of the students agreed that they were, in fact, nothing. Now, Seven needed to fill them with meaning the ISMI way. What she actually filled them with was the need to sign up for ISMI's "infusion" class, five days, starting the second week of January.

  During morning break, Angie was hurrying back to her room to see if she had received any more calls or messages from Connie, when Hans Gerling approached her.

  "Mr. Gerling," she said, surprised.

  "After last evening, I should think you'd call me Hans." He clasped both her hands and kissed her cheek. "I couldn't wait until this evening to see you again."

  "Oh, well…" She looked around. No one was near. "I was going to get a sweater and then go back to class."

  He put an arm around her shoulders and turned her away from the dormitory. "Come with me. You'll learn more from me than in today's class. And I've got a nice fire going in my home."

  "Your home?"

  "Yes. I live on the grounds, you know. But my home is private. No one will bother us there."

  Oh, dear!

  o0o

  Hans' home was small but plush. The west side was a wall of windows looking out on the ocean. The north wall was rock-faced and included a large fireplace with built-in bookshelves on each side.

  "This is beautiful," Angie said.