[SS01] Assault and Pepper Read online

  No, I thought, itching for another meatball. This food is that good.

  The chef beamed. He wiggled his fingers at the server, who held out his order-taker dealie and showed him our ticket. “Ah. You’ve chosen well. I hope you will let me buy dessert for the table, as a professional courtesy.” He turned to me for an answer.

  I knew already I would be too full for dessert, because I intended to eat every bite on my plate and any scraps my companions dared leave behind. And I didn’t care. I grinned and nodded like a bobblehead doll.

  Our main courses went down as smoothly as the meatballs, gliding across our palates like well-aged mezcal. We barely spoke. Not that we shoveled it in—no. We ate respectfully, deliberately, in reverent silence.

  “Well,” I said after the server cleared our plates. “I’ll be coming back here. And after your praise, I bet I won’t have to beg for more of his business.”

  Laurel’s eyes glinted, from more than the glow of the tin and glass star lights and wrought iron chandeliers hanging from the timbered ceilings. “When the news breaks,” she said, “you’re going to need goodwill in the food community.”

  The delicious food in my stomach became a sodden weight. “Tell me you didn’t put on a show worthy of an Oscar.”

  “No.” She wagged her head quickly. “This food is fabulous. I don’t normally praise other chefs to their faces. It’s not like we’re competitors—I’m doing breakfast and lunch and everyday take-out with a gourmet flair.”

  Ripe’s slogan.

  “But why not give an honest rave?” she continued. “It can’t hurt.”

  I grabbed my bag and left the table, shaking. Could Tory’s arrest damage my business? The thought had not occurred to me. Why would anyone—commercial or casual customer—lose confidence in me because of accusations against my employee?

  Or was Laurel right? Should I be out proactively reinforcing old relationships and building new ones?

  I shoved open the red padded door to the women’s room—a vestige of a prior decorating scheme—and entered a shrine.

  A montage of Frida Kahlo paintings covered one wall, embellished with stone-studded silver crosses. Another wall bore a mural of her famous calla lilies and dense jungle foliage. Deep pink and red floral headdresses of the style she often wore had been mounted above the gilt-framed mirrors over the sinks, so that I seemed to be wearing one.

  It went well enough with the stretchy green-and-purple peasant blouse I’d pulled on over my black yoga pants—a spare top I’d kept at the office—but looked out of place with my dark spikes of hair.

  The stakes were bigger than I’d realized. How hard are you willing to fight for the new life you’ve made? I asked myself.

  Doc’s death and Tory’s involvement could affect more than just my shop and my own livelihood. The recession had cut a lot of HR jobs, though I had connections. I could always find something. But I felt an obligation to the Market and my staff to keep the Spice Shop going.

  To make sure Tory had a job to come back to, when we got this mess cleared up.

  I took a deep breath and stared at my reflection. Funny how seeing yourself with a fiesta on your head changes things.

  Not that I wasn’t peeved at Laurel. When I resisted getting involved, she all but manipulated me into taking action.

  Right goal, wrong approach.

  “What would Frida do?” I said out loud. Behind me, a toilet flushed and a door unlatched. A woman I didn’t know emerged from a stall.

  A slow flush crawled up my neck. Our eyes—mine embarrassed, hers amused—met in the mirror.

  “Frida,” she said, dropping her handbag on a gilt chair covered in lush purple velvet, “would order another drink and eat cake.”

  I nodded at the mirror.

  Sí.

  Twelve

  Others say laughter is the spice of life.

  Not one, not two, but three desserts crowded our small table. Flan with fresh berries and caramel. A chocolate molé cake adorned with a crown of chocolate mousse and dark-flecked ice cream. And a sponge cake—très leches—resting in a swirl of fruit reductions that reminded me of those gigantic all-day lollipops kids get at carnivals.

  “They make their own ice cream,” Kristen said in a hallowed tone. “Coconut and black pepper.”

  “What are we waiting for?” I sat and picked up a fork.

  I have never seen a group of men share dessert the way women friends do. Sure, a man will split a piece of pie with his wife and tolerate her taking a sip of his postprandial brandy. But to let another man stick his fork into the same food over and over? Horrors to them; part of the fun to us.

  The rhythm of forks going back and forth between dishes dispelled the tension between Laurel and me. Or maybe it was the sugar and milk, so sweet and soothing.

  The sounds of guitars being tuned and amps being checked wafted into the restaurant from the lounge.

  “The address Tory put on her W-4, three years ago, was in the U District,” I said, “but the bus she got on Wednesday after work goes to Capitol Hill. So she moved. But where?”

  “That fits.” Kristen waved her empty spoon. “I saw her walking out of QFC on Fifteenth a few weeks ago, carrying bags.”

  “Which way did she go?”

  She tightened her lips and shook her head. “I had the kids with me. I didn’t notice.”

  I couldn’t believe I didn’t have a current address for one of my employees. That was bad management in about six different ways and probably a serious IRS violation. No matter that I distribute paychecks and W-2s in person.

  “Monday morning, everyone is filling out job applications and new forms. We are redoing the personnel files and doing them right.”

  A guitar riff interrupted me.

  “Let’s get another drink and watch the show,” Laurel said, scooting back her chair as if her heels were on fire.

  “Long day, long week. I don’t think—” But my protests fell on empty chairs. My friends had taken flight. Resisting the temptation to lick the cake plate, I whispered to it instead. “Thank you. We’ll meet again soon. Promise.”

  The lounge was nearly full, but Laurel and Kristen had lucked out, snaring a table up front. I slid into my seat.

  “Mexican coffee,” I told the server, glancing over in time to see Laurel hand her a small white card that read RESERVED.

  The room lights dimmed and a spot picked out the lead guitarist as the first notes rang.

  Holy molé. Zak.

  My jaw cramped as I glanced at my girlfriends, their eyes trained on the stage. Here I thought we were hanging out, drowning our sorrows, and they’d planned this to force me to get involved. To prove how much Tory’s fate mattered. To tell Zak about her arrest tonight.

  My chest tightened. I didn’t know whether to be mad at them for pushing me, or glad that they cared so much.

  We were all here because we cared about Tory.

  “How did you know he’d be playing?” I leaned toward Laurel, sitting closest to me.

  “Kristen called him while you were on the phone with Jane. It was obvious he didn’t know about the arrest.”

  I didn’t have to tell him tonight. We could just enjoy the music. But stalling wouldn’t be fair—to him, or Tory.

  My drink appeared and I raised it to my face, eyes closed, breathing in the earthy scent of fresh Mexican cinnamon—misnamed, as most of it comes from Sri Lanka. My mother’s one conventional domestic habit in my childhood had been to greet us—my brother, me, Kristen, and her sisters—with milk and cookies after school. The house on Capitol Hill had radiated an aroma of yeast, sugar, and cinnamon that no amount of remodeling could dispel.

  Relax, a voice inside me said, followed by the voice of this afternoon’s cruise ship tourist: Don’t worry. It will all work out.

  The music took me back, b
rought me forward, swirled and hipped and hopped around me. A little grunge, a little alternative, a little hip-hop, with a nod to Seattle’s storied jazz scene, all blended together perfectly.

  “Did you know Zak could play like this?” I leaned across the table, but the music drowned out my words.

  For a woman who considered herself committed to her employees, turned out there was a lot I didn’t know.

  The band played way past all our bedtimes, but was so much fun I didn’t mind. Still, I understood when at midnight, Laurel called a cab. The cooking starts early at Ripe. Another round in front of us, Kristen and I settled in until the band’s last number. The lights rose and the crowd funneled out. Zak hopped off the stage and headed for our table, snagging a chair on his way. He twisted the lid off a bottle of water and looked at me expectantly.

  “It was great,” I said. “Honestly. Stupendous. The music in here is as good as the food in there.”

  He broke into a grin, took a long swig, then rolled the frosty bottle over the back of his neck. “When Kristen called, I hoped Tory would come with you. You’ve probably figured out . . .”

  And the sweet tone in his voice told me he would never forgive me for keeping secrets. The house music was a touch loud for the conversation we needed to have, but I dove in anyway, hating every word I had to say.

  “Zak, I’m so sorry.” Alarms went off in his soft eyes, and I put a hand on his illustrated arm. “Tory’s been arrested. They’re going to charge her with Doc’s murder.”

  Despite the low light, I saw him blanch, then color in anger and confusion.

  “Wednesday morning,” I continued. “When Doc and Sam were arguing, you knew who Doc was, didn’t you?”

  He dropped his gaze. “She thought we shouldn’t tell you. I disagreed, but her family, her decision.”

  “Why was he in the Market? What did he want from her?”

  He raised his big bald head, looked me in the eye. “She wouldn’t talk to him and wouldn’t tell me why. It goes back years.”

  Tracy had suggested as much, but surely the reasons were deeper than those he had tossed off. There was little end to the harm a parent could do to a child. Not that. The thought jolted me. Surely Tory would not have such strength and self-possession if she’d had an abusive childhood.

  Zak spoke firmly. “Not what you’re thinking. He never hurt her physically. I asked and she swore it. And you know Tory doesn’t lie.”

  I let that one go and tightened my grip on his arm. “Help me help her, Zak. This is real trouble.”

  His Adam’s apple throbbed.

  “I’ll need to talk to her friends and neighbors,” I continued. “But I don’t even know where she lives.”

  He took a long drink of water and wiped his mouth on his arm. “Up on Twelfth, in one of those old apartment houses. All the tenants are artists and they divvied up the attic into studio space.”

  The lounge was nearly empty now, the rest of the band well into tear-down.

  “Gotta go.” He scribbled an address on a cocktail napkin and shoved it into my hand. Two steps and he turned back, bent down, and kissed my cheek.

  “Thanks, Pepper. With you on her side, I know it’s all going to work out.”

  Thirteen

  Pepper is hot. In fact, it’s the most popular spice worldwide, accounting for more than twenty percent of the global spice market.

  The night loomed dark and quiet—as dark and quiet as the heart of a city gets at 1 a.m.

  Eric came downtown to scoop up Kristen and dropped me off in front of my building. After one of those days that felt more like forty-eight hours than the standard twenty-four, all I wanted was to brush the chile-tequila-coffee medley out of my mouth and hit the hay.

  “Where have you been, so late?”

  My new pink shoes might have had springs in them, I bounced so high. “You scared the devil out of me.” Tag had grabbed the door before it closed and now gripped both knob and door, as if I might try to shut it on him. I squinted at my watch. “What are you doing here?”

  He was alone. No bike, no uniform—just one fiercely protective off-duty cop, hiding in the shadows like the criminals he loves to chase.

  We all like someone watching out for us. But not when it’s the wrong someone.

  “Oh, never mind. Come on in. It’s late and I’m tired, and I don’t want to stand out here arguing.”

  He followed me up the wide stairway, trudging over worn planking yet to be refinished, under industrial fluorescents that hummed and winked. I’d long stopped asking the developer when he intended to make the promised upgrades. At least the umpteen Simple Green baths my neighbors had given the stairwell had banished the industrial perfume of engine oil and moldy sawdust.

  Inside my loft, I slipped off my party pink shoes, dropped my bag on the kitchen counter, where it gave an ominous thunk, and got out tea. Chamomile, that herbal tonic of insomniacs, tastes like dried grass clippings to me, but our nighttime blend, heavy on jasmine and lavender, softens the edges nicely.

  “Wow.”

  I snapped the infuser shut. Tag stood by the door, surveying my domain. I’d forgotten he hadn’t seen the place since it was little more than a shell and he’d made an excuse of carting over a few things he was sure I’d left behind by accident.

  “So that’s where Mom’s old picnic table went. You swipe it from her trash?”

  Same old Tag. His mother, Phyllis, knows fun and funky furnishings delight me, though her own style runs to Bauhaus, Danish modern, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Phyllis adamantly—and rightly—refused to take sides in our divorce, but she keeps in touch. We shared a delicious afternoon at the Pink Door earlier this summer when she came down to check out the changes I’d made in the shop. I knew she approved when she ordered a bottle of Prosecco at lunch.

  “It was a gift. As you know.”

  “Sorry. Truce?” He held up his hands. I nodded and raised my tea in question. “Coffee, if you don’t mind. I’m on shift in an hour.”

  I got out a second mug and the French press and ground the beans. The aroma alone was enough to wake me up.

  “Building’s a firetrap,” Tag said. “But it suits you.”

  It hit me like a grandfather clock striking midnight that in all the day’s drama and trauma, I had never considered calling Alex. He was not the kind of guy you turned to for comfort.

  Neither was Tag. Not at the moment, anyway.

  I flopped on to the couch, surrounded by a sea of pillows, and propped my bare feet on the timeworn pine packing crate, a combination coffee table and blanket chest. Tag perched on the edge of a blond oak midcentury rocker—one I’d rescued from a neighbor’s trash and re-covered myself, back in the bungalow days.

  “You knew, didn’t you?” I said. “That Spencer and Tracy suspected Tory?”

  He stared at his coffee, avoiding my gaze. A fine white scar on the inside of his wrist pulsed faintly. His tell—so subtle no run-of-the-mill crook would ever spot it.

  “You couldn’t give me a hint?” I continued.

  He slammed the mug on to the crate and stood. A big, fat drip rolled down the side. “You know better than that. You were a cop’s wife for a long time.”

  “Too long,” I said. He’d begun to pace but stopped to glare, angry but guarded. “Too long not to know you could have told me if you’d wanted to. You could have suggested they arrest her somewhere besides the shop. Do you know what kind of damage that can cause a business?”

  Tag had a way—they might teach it in cop school—of making himself appear even taller than his six-two. He used the trick now, and I steeled myself to stay seated, to not let him intimidate me.

  “You couldn’t have kept that a secret, Pepper, and you know it.”

  The contempt in his voice stabbed my heart and my jaw. Don’t react. He wants you to react. In HR, I kept secr
ets every day. Still knew things I’d never told.

  “You’d have felt sorry for her,” he went on. “One glimpse of those golden brown eyes of hers and you’d have spilled your guts.”

  “No, Tag. You’re the one with the weakness for golden brown eyes.” Mine are hazel. I rose and opened the door.

  He marched past me to the landing, where he paused for a look back. “You can’t fix everyone’s problems, Pepper. Don’t even try.”

  His feet thundered down the wooden stairs. I stood in the doorway until I heard the front door of the building slam shut.

  I dumped the now-cool coffee into a schefflera plant in need of a boost. Outside, lights whizzed by on the Viaduct like fireflies on speed. All around me, things were coming down and things were going up. On the pier, the Great Wheel stood, still.

  I carried the empty mugs into the kitchen and headed for my sanctuary. Two corner walls of exposed red brick give the bedroom warmth, while light reaches the caramel interior walls from French doors opening to the living room. I fluffed the pillows against the black tufted leather headboard and turned down the black-and-white “orange peel” quilt, both vintage finds Kristen and I had snared on an island excursion. Grabbed a book from the bedside stack and climbed in.

  Spice lore and history fascinate me. Jane left a few references at the shop; I keep an eye out for others, old and new. For my birthday, Kristen’s youngest gave me her favorite volume about that intrepid Siamese cat, Skippyjon Jones, Lost in Spice.

  Once or twice, I’d chosen a book from the library’s online catalog without reading the blurbs and ended up with a hot romance. The Flick Chicks still razz me about the spicy movie choice that turned out to be pure porn. We had to stream Julie & Julia instead.

  And then there were the Brother Cadfael mysteries by Ellis Peters. A loyal fan, my mother downloaded them all on the Nook my father bought her for the move south, and rereads them regularly. On her visit home last spring, she unearthed her collection of paperbacks from my brother’s basement and presented me with the dusty box as if it were the lost Ark of the Covenant. Maybe I could learn a thing or two from the elderly crusader turned monk and herbalist. He always solved the crime. Always served justice, though he didn’t always serve the law.