The Solace of Bay Leaves Read online

  The Solace of Bay Leaves

  Spice Shop Mysteries

  ASSAULT AND PEPPER

  GUILTY AS CINNAMON

  KILLING THYME

  CHAI ANOTHER DAY

  The Solace of Bay Leaves

  A SPICE SHOP MYSTERY

  BY LESLIE BUDEVVITZ

  Published 2020 by Seventh Street Books®

  The Solace of Bay Leaves. Copyright © 2020 by Leslie Budewitz. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, organizations, products, locales, and events portrayed in this novel either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarities to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover images © Shutterstock

  Cover design by Jennifer Do

  Cover design © Start Science Fiction

  Inquiries should be addressed to Start Science Fiction

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  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN: 978-1-64506-017-8 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-64506-018-5 (ebook)

  Printed in the United States of America

  For my Circle sisters

  who model bringing peace and creativity to this chaotic world.

  Jordonna, Jules, Marsha, Rebecca, Nancy, Sue, Maggie, and Carla

  Ingredients for a Killer Blend

  a.k.a. The Cast

  THE SEATTLE SPICE SHOP STAFF

  Pepper Reece—Mistress of Spice

  Sandra Piniella—assistant manager and mix master

  Cayenne Cooper—salesclerk with a secret

  Matt Kemp—salesclerk and retail wiz

  Reed Locke—part-time salesclerk, full-time student

  Kristen Gardiner—part-time salesclerk, Pepper’s BFF

  Arf—an Airedale, the King of Terriers

  THE FLICK CHICKS

  Pepper

  Kristen

  Laurel Halloran—widowed restaurateur and houseboat dweller

  Seetha Sharma—massage therapist

  Aimee McGillvray—vintage shop owner

  IN MONTLAKE

  Bruce Ellingson—bond broker who went for broke

  Deanna Ellingson—neighborhood real estate agent

  Cody Ellingson—their son

  Maddie Petrosian—Pepper and Kristen’s childhood pal

  Jake Byrd—aspiring developer

  MARKET MERCHANTS, RESIDENTS, AND FRIENDS

  Nate Seward—the fisherman

  Glenn Abbott—neighbor and city councilman

  Misty the Baker—guardian of Market tradition

  Jamie Ackerman—painter and Market newcomer

  THE LAW

  Detective Michael Tracy—homicide

  Detective Shawn Armstrong—homicide

  Officer Tag Buhner—on the bike beat, Pepper’s former husband

  Special Agent Meg Greer—FBI

  One

  Legend says that in the late 1950s, aspiring rocker Jimi Hendrix often met friends in Seattle’s Pike Place Market and played late into the night, on the steps in front of a passage called Ghost Alley.

  “THIS IS MAGIC,” NATE WHISPERED TO ME AS THE WAITER poured our wine. “I can’t believe I’ve never been here.”

  I smiled my thanks to the waiter. There are pockets of magic in every city, and since Nate and I got together a few months ago, we’d made a point of exploring them. The glow of new love adds its own magic to the mix, and we’d made a point of enjoying that, too. But this was our first evening at Jazz Alley.

  Across the dark, gleaming table, Eric Gardiner raised his glass, catching a flicker of light. His wife Kristen, my BFF since before we were born, raised hers. Nate and I followed suit. “Cheers,” Eric said. “Great to finally have a Friday night out, the four of us.”

  I heard my phone buzzing in the small beaded bag at my hip. I ignored it. No interruptions tonight. Besides, the Spice Shop was already closed. Nobody needed me for anything important.

  “How you scored seats for the dinner show,” I said, “don’t even tell me. She always sells out the house.” Diane Schuur, one of Seattle’s best-loved musicians, wouldn’t take the stage until after plates were cleared, but the promise and the wine had already begun to work their spell.

  “What looks good?” Nate scanned the menu. Fish scores high in Seattle restaurants, but as a commercial fisherman, Nate is picky about his pesce, not to mention his salmon, crab, and halibut.

  “The crab or sole,” I mused, “and Key lime pie. I had it once in Florida and ever since, I’ve thought that’s what vacation tastes like.”

  On the floor between us, Kristen’s phone buzzed in her purse. A flash of worry flitted across her face and she fished for the bag, then snuck a peek under the table. Cell phones were frowned upon here, with good reason. But they’d left their girls home alone, so I didn’t blame her.

  She held it out for me to see. The text wasn’t from one of her young teenagers, bored or ticked off at the other. It was from our good friend, Laurel Halloran.

  Detective Tracy is in my living room, I read. FBI on the way.

  “The girls are fine,” Kristen told her husband, showing him the screen as she nudged him to slide over and let her out.

  “It’s Laurel,” I told Nate. “Something’s up. Be right back.”

  I followed Kristen down the hallway to the women’s room. Inside, we huddled in the corner and she made the call, her blond head next to my dark one, the phone between us. This was not a place, or a topic, for speaker phone.

  “They have new evidence,” Laurel said, her voice barely a whisper. She lives on a houseboat on Lake Union, and short of closing herself in her own bathroom, there aren’t many places to hide. And like most cops, Detective Michael Tracy seemed to possess almost super-human hearing. “He won’t tell me what it is until the FBI agent gets here. What do I do?”

  Kristen’s eyes met mine.

  “Put the coffee on,” I said.

  THE cool damp that had hung in the air most of the day had turned liquid in the short time we’d been inside. Eric pulled the SUV into the alley behind the club, close to the rear door, so we managed to avoid getting soaked.

  No such luck at the docks. I hadn’t brought a coat, not expecting to be outside for more than the door-to-door dash. It was Friday night and everyone in the Lake Union houseboat community must have been home, watching movies or reading as the wind and rain lashed their windows, unaware of the ghosts lurking outside their doors. Kristen had found a folding umbrella under the front passenger seat, and Eric held it above us as we stood near the giant golden willow, where Nate unlatched the weathered wooden gate.

  “Excuse me,” a female voice called. “Do you live here? Do you know where I can find Laurel Halloran?”

  In the bluish light from the lamp skewered to a post on the mailbox rack, each box a different color, I saw a trim woman in a dark, hip-length jacket, jeans, and low-heeled boots striding toward us. She held a black umbrella.

  Nothing about her screamed “FBI,” but I knew.

  “This way,” I said, grabbing the rail alongside the short flight of steps to the
dock where Laurel’s houseboat was moored. Technically, it’s a floating home, since it isn’t actually seaworthy, but no one calls them that. Damp wood can be slippery and one misstep can lead to disaster.

  Four sets of footsteps followed me, introductions deferred. Normally, when I duck beneath the willow’s graceful branches, my tensions melt away, as if the tree guards an invisible gate through which stress cannot pass. That’s why Laurel moved here after her husband’s murder three years ago. She’d sold their beloved Mont-lake home, and she and Gabe, then fifteen, had set about settling into a new neighborhood. Still close to his school and friends, but a world apart from worry.

  Not tonight.

  Across the lake, lights glowed along the shore. Headlights whizzed by on Westlake Avenue, winking off and on as they passed the narrow gaps between buildings. More lights clustered at the north end of the lake where sailing yachts and working ships waited for repairs. On the hill above them—Seattle is a city of water and hills—the industrial figures of Gasworks Park stood watch.

  Laurel’s sapphire blue door faced an empty slip. Instead of a boat, she keeps a pair of yellow kayaks, now lashed to the side of the house. Friends with boats, or neighbors with seafaring visitors, are free to tie up any time. Colorful planters flank the door, including an oak half barrel holding a bay tree. Herbs and edible flowers fill smaller pots, befitting a chef who runs a deli and catering company. The rain had washed away most of the fish and diesel odor that clings to the lakefront, and I caught a whiff of bay and mint.

  I took a deep breath, knocked, and walked in. “Laurel, we’re here. And we’ve brought company,” I called. Despite my accidental involvement in several crimes over the past year, I had never before encountered an FBI agent in the course of his or professional pursuits. Nor had I met one in my long career working HR for a big law firm, before I bought the spice shop, or in my thirteen-year marriage to a cop.

  “Special Agent Meg Greer,” the woman said to me after umbrellas had been leaned in the corner, coats and jackets shed, and we’d all shaken like the damp dogs we’d become. Her green eyes assessed me as she held out her hand, her reddish curls frizzy from the moist air.

  “Pepper Reece,” I replied. My Pied Piper routine must have signaled me leader of the pack. Or maybe it was the long “thank God you’re here” hug from Laurel. Introductions were made. Detective Tracy had not met Nate or Greer.

  “Is there a reason you thought you needed to call a lawyer?” the detective asked Laurel, tilting his head at Eric.

  Laurel wrapped her arms around herself, gripping her elbows. “I called my two best friends,” she said. “Kristen just happens to be married to one of the most highly respected attorneys in the city.”

  “And the other comes with a man who can pour coffee,” Nate said. “Smells done. I’ll bring it out.” I watched with gratitude as my fisherman, tall, dark, handsome, and efficient, disappeared into the tiny galley.

  “Looks like we broke up a double date,” Tracy said, running a hand over his close-cropped hair. He’s a short man with medium brown skin whose ever-present camel hair sport coat strains across his stomach when it’s buttoned. Though we’d met a few times at police department functions when I was married, our first professional contact had come just over a year ago when a man died on the doorstep of Seattle Spice, the shop I run in Pike Place Market. Tracy and his then partner had caught the case and quickly focused on one of my employees. Thanks to my intervention, and a bit of four-footed luck, justice had been done.

  I sank onto the soft butterscotch leather couch and Laurel perched beside me, clutching a framed photo of smiling, sandy-haired Patrick Halloran. “Detective, as much as I enjoy seeing you,” I said, “we’re cold and wet and hungry, and we walked out of Jazz Alley before the music even started. What’s this about?”

  Tracy and Special Agent Greer sat in matching chairs opposite us. On TV, FBI agents all wear suits or tactical gear, but I suppose in real life, they try to blend in. And Greer could easily have been off duty when summoned to join the party, relaxing in her black jeans and black turtleneck. Just add the gun now holstered at her hip and go.

  Tracy cleared his throat. Patrick Halloran’s murder was officially an active investigation, and he called Laurel every few months to touch base and reassure her that the murder was still on their minds. But with no new leads, the search had come to a dead end.

  Dead end. I cringed at the term. Honestly, before I found myself repeatedly dragged into murder investigations, I had no idea how many death- and crime-related phrases we use every day.

  “As we told Mrs. Halloran,” Tracy said now, “preliminary ballistics received late this afternoon indicate a match between a handgun used in a shooting Thursday morning and Mr. Halloran’s murder.”

  “What? The shooting in Montlake?” I leaned forward. Nate set a heavy tray on the rattan ottoman, and returned a moment later with a stainless steel vacuum pot.

  “When Mrs. Halloran said she wanted to call you, I agreed because we know your friendship,” Tracy said. “And we know this is a shock.”

  Last winter, Laurel and I had found the body of an up-and-coming young chef. In that encounter, and others, I thought Tracy had come to see me as helpful. But he might not want to admit that in front of the FBI.

  If Tracy could be subtle, I could be humble.

  “Same gun, same neighborhood,” Eric said from his post by the French doors leading to the deck, one arm around Kristen’s shoulders. She looked as stunned as I felt. “Any other connection between the crimes or the victims that you know of?”

  “They were acquainted,” Tracy said.

  “Who?” I asked. “Who is he? How is he?”

  “Is anybody going to pour that coffee, or are we just going to let the smell torture us?”

  Our questions were reasonable, but clearly, Tracy wasn’t ready to answer. Such is the power of Vitamin C. Laurel poured and I passed out cups and saucers, along with a plate of almond biscotti from Ripe, her downtown deli. I forced myself not to fall on them like a starving hyena.

  Up to this point, Special Agent Greer had said nothing more than her name and that she was pleased to meet us. When we all had coffee, doctored to taste, and a cookie, she spoke. “I’m here because Mr. Halloran was an Assistant United States Attorney, which makes his murder a federal offense.”

  “But only if he was murdered because of his official duties,” Eric interjected. “Making this a joint investigation. Is the new victim also a federal employee?”

  “No,” Greer said. “Unfortunately, she’s not in any condition to talk to us.”

  “She?” That surprised me. “Who is she?”

  Tracy slipped a plastic sleeve out of the inside pocket of his jacket and handed it to Laurel. I stretched an arm behind her and peered over her shoulder.

  “Oh my god.” My hand flew to my mouth.

  “You know her?” Tracy asked.

  But when I raised my head to answer, I didn’t look at him. I looked at Kristen.

  “It’s Maddie Petrosian.”

  Two

  Burning coffee grounds mixed with bay leaves is said to repel almost any bug.

  “NOT THAT I SHOULD BE SURPRISED,” DETECTIVE TRACY SAID. “But this is Seattle, not Mount Podunk. Suppose you tell me how you know Ms. Petrosian.”

  “Is she okay?” I asked him. “Tell me she’s okay. How did we not know?” I asked Kristen.

  “It’s a relief to see that the SPD can keep some secrets,” Tracy replied. “She’s still unconscious. Head shot. The docs repaired an intracranial bleed. They won’t know if there’s any lasting damage until she wakes up. In the meantime, we have no witnesses and little to go on.”

  I’d spent part of my childhood in Montlake, so when the nightly news mentioned a shooting in the old grocery on Twenty-Fourth East, my ears had perked up. But the report had been short on detail and hadn’t named the victim.

&n
bsp; “How did we not know?” I asked Kristen again.

  “I wondered why Tim wasn’t at soccer practice,” she said. “He called when we were getting ready tonight, but I didn’t answer and he didn’t leave a message. I’ll text him now.”

  “Might be good to hear what the detective has to say first,” Eric suggested.