Chai Another Day Page 13

  Sandra raised one eyebrow, a trick I admire, in part because I’ve never learned it. “Sure. Cayenne apologized to me yesterday, but she didn’t say anything about the mixing and packaging.”

  “She’s interested, but we haven’t scheduled kitchen time yet.” I couldn’t tell Sandra I suspected health problems. And I didn’t want to train an employee in new tasks if she wasn’t going to stick around.

  “Something’s up with that girl,” Sandra said. “But I know you’re on it.”

  “Different subject,” I said. “Seetha might need to move. Any chance you know of a place for rent, affordable, where she could live and see massage clients?”

  “Oh, good luck with that. Rents are impossible. Why do you think my kid moved home?” Sandra slipped off her turquoise leopard print cheaters and hooked them over the top of her apron bib. “Reed’s dad might have space in his clinic. But her peeps might not want to mess with downtown.”

  Battling the overheated rental market, traffic snarls, and pricy parking made conquering the bhuts seem like a walk in the park.

  Customers came and went, spices in their shopping bags and smiles on their faces. That put a big smile on mine. Until I realized that I’d better get going with those deliveries.

  Running my happy place takes a lot of running around.

  My first few stops took me near Seattle Center, best known for the Space Needle. Or Space Noodle, as my dad invariably calls it. On First Avenue North, I slowed near the shuttered restaurant and the unfinished build-out next door where one of my customers had been killed last spring. To my surprise, construction was underway, a sign tacked to the plywood over one window reading FUTURE HOME OF. A plumber’s truck idled out front, obscuring what I wanted to know. A new restaurant? Or a bar? With all the concerts and other goings-on at the Center, this spot was ripe for food and drink. For someone not afraid of bad blood.

  It took decades to turn death into a marketing tool, like the owners of the Irish pub in the Market had. That building once held the city’s first mortuary. During the Klondike Gold Rush in the late nineteenth century, men were often robbed and left for dead along the grimy waterfront, and the city paid a bounty to funeral directors who picked up the bodies and disposed of them properly. Local lore says more than a few down-and-outers were killed for the cash, and that it’s the spirits of those unlucky souls who rattle windows, break plates, and drain the good whiskey at night. The pub owners leave a pitcher of beer and glasses out at closing, and make jokes whenever a glass flies off an untended table.

  I parked in front of the chowder house and dropped off my spices. Two more stops, then I zipped back down to Denny Way. Passed the Pink Elephant Car Wash, a sight that satisfied my urge for a bit of funky Seattle. Seriously, who doesn’t love a rotating neon pink elephant with a blue eye and a showerhead on the end of his trunk?

  My next delivery was to a trendy coffee shop and lunch-a-teria near Amazon headquarters. Back in my car, I slowed, in search of a man. And there he was, parked near the Spheres, the glass-and-metal domes housing a rainforest where Amazon employees can take a break, a meeting, or a nap.

  “One kosher dog, with sauerkraut. Do you have spicy mustard?” I said when my turn at the food truck’s window came. In the background, I heard the murmur of a radio tuned to a rare Mariners’ day game.

  “Miz Pepper, whatchewdoinear?”

  “What do you think I’m doing here, Hot Dog? Lunch.” A steamy, meaty aroma filled the air.

  I first met Hot Dog not long after I bought the Spice Shop, when he and a couple of other Market denizens helped me solve a murder on my doorstep and a mystery involving my staff. Not until this summer did I discover his real name, Harold Reynolds, and he bears enough resemblance to the popular ex-Mariner-turned-broadcaster to trigger double takes when he gives it. But he’s still Hot Dog to me.

  Kristen and I had urged him to take the Changing Courses program. When I heard that the job services staff matched him up with a food truck, I cheered. It was the perfect fit for a man who’d once told me he was allergic to walls.

  “Oh, Miz Pepper. You hungry, sure, but you checking on me. I know you.” He raised the brim of his ever-present Mariners cap with his arm, forehead gleaming. He winked.

  “Looks like the work suits you.”

  “They be high tech”—he flicked his eyes toward the Spheres and the office buildings beyond—“and I be low, but they like my dogs and I like their money.” He cackled as he handed me my lunch and pushed the bills I’d laid on the counter back toward me. I left them there. “They’re good people, mostly. And they do like my food.”

  I took my first bite and understood why. Weenies are not high on my list of culinary delights, but this one made me rethink my values. Spicy, meaty, juicy, with just the right tooth-feel. And not too much bun.

  Two men in urban casual—narrow-legged pants exposing bare ankles, one with a blazer over his solid color T-shirt, despite the heat—approached the cart. Amazonians, I surmised.

  “Gentlemen,” my friend said. “The usual?” They agreed, and he got to work.

  Hot Dog’s employer obviously had an ongoing arrangement with the parking lot owner. The truck was small, bright white, with a red-and-white striped awning and a red-and-yellow menu board mounted next to the window. A few tables and chairs huddled under red-and-white umbrellas, creating much needed shade. I sat to eat and watch the comings and goings.

  In no time at all, Hot Dog handed each man a wide red-and-white paper boat holding two chili dogs apiece. I could smell the tangy goo from fifteen feet away, and though I was full, it made me want one. They slid him bills, took their lunches, and left. No one else waited, so I tossed my napkin and walked up to the window.

  “That was terrific. You have found your calling.”

  “You hadn’t pushed me, I wouldn’t be here,” he replied. “You and Miz Kristen.”

  “You did the hard work. Aced your classes, met every requirement. I wonder, when you were in the program, do you remember a man, mid-thirties, thin, blond, with a wispy goatee?” I stroked my chin, hoping I wasn’t leaving streaks of mustard behind. “Started a few weeks before you, had some trouble and dropped out, then came back, about the time you started. I think his name was Tony.” The trouble had culminated with the man nearly upending my table covered with bowls of salt, pepper, and other spices, and storming out of the classroom in a cloud of fury and frustration. And I was sure I had seen him chatting with Hot Dog in the program’s dining room a few weeks later when I’d stopped by, though he’d done his best to avoid me.

  Hot Dog’s bright eyes narrowed. “Whatchew want with him?”

  “His sister, Aimee, runs a vintage shop on Eastlake. We’re in the same yoga class.” An almost imperceptible shift in his features told me I was on the mark. “I understand he does some work for her. She lives upstairs, and I think he might stay with her now and then.”

  My friend ran a damp towel over the stainless steel counter, inspecting the surface for invisible specks of dust or ketchup.

  “Her employee was killed earlier this week,” I continued. “And she’s worried about him. Not to mention the police.”

  “Miz Pepper, I ain’t one to dish dirt. You know that.” He went on wiping circles on the spotless counter.

  I waited. I’d learned in HR that most people can’t stand silence. If you can keep your own mouth shut long enough, they’ll fill it.

  Sure enough. “Tony ain’t a bad guy, Miz Pepper.” He raised his gaze to mine. “He’s got a bad case for the drugs. He got through the classes and the fieldwork, but flaked out on the placement sessions. You know, where they match you with an employer and if it works out, you get hired on for good.”

  “Any idea why?” Dropouts were uncommon. The training was solid—ranging from how to clean a dishwasher so it met health codes to knife skills and basic cooking—and casework staff helped students with housing, government benefits, even childcare. Almost anything they needed to get into the work f
orce and stay there.

  Knife skills. Cooks and carpenters have them.

  “Oh, I got an idea,” he said, his tone making clear what that idea was. “But I don’t know nothing for sure. I ain’t seen him since—” He broke off.

  “Since when, Hot Dog? Have you seen him since noon Monday?” His lips tightened and he gripped the plastic ketchup bottle so tight I thought the cap might fly off, ketchup squirting out like a fountain. “I was upstairs when the woman was killed. I want to know what happened. If he didn’t have anything to do with her death, then he has nothing to worry—”

  Hot Dog slammed the ketchup bottle on to the counter. Miraculously, the cap stayed on. “You think that on account of you never been in trouble. Oh, you think you have, ’cause nobody got it easy as it looks from outside. I get that. But real trouble? People itching to take away your life and liberty, never mind the pursuit of happiness? I don’t think so.”

  He disappeared from view, leaving me standing there breathless. Speechless.

  And apparently clueless.

  I leaned against the truck, the metal hot despite the shade the nearby buildings threw. It was a clueless kind of day.

  I still browse the HR mags and blogs and I know the buzzwords. Check your privilege. Don’t ’splain. Don’t equate your experience with anyone else’s. Had my blunder cost me a friend?

  A customer arrived, a young Asian man, and Hot Dog took his order. I waited, pondering my next step.

  A moment later, the man approached me and held out a paper napkin. “You’re Pepper? He said to give you this.”

  I read the note, an address on Aurora Avenue scribbled in blue ink. “Thank you,” I told the customer, loud enough for Hot Dog to hear. And by the slightest movement of his ball cap, I knew he’d heard.

  Apparently my sins were forgiven.

  Seventeen

  Londoner Nicholas Culpeper’s masterwork, The English Physitian (1652), later called Culpeper’s Complete Herbal, was the first major Western pharmacopeia, describing the medicinal uses of more than 400 herbs, from acanthus to yucca.

  I TUCKED HOT DOG’S NOTE INSIDE MY BAG, FOUND MY CAR, and got back on the road. My tummy didn’t feel good, but it wasn’t the fault of my lunch. It was the fault of my head, and the swirling eddy of uncomfortable thoughts.

  One of my HR mentors liked to say we’re all the hero of our own stories. Not that we see ourselves as Han Solo, saving Princess Leia, who could have saved herself just fine, thank you, and had in fact saved Solo’s backside more than once, if memory served. She meant we all want to justify our own actions, and we tend to tell our stories that way. It was a caution to listen with care when attempting to resolve a conflict—the more persuasive storyteller is not necessarily the most accurate one.

  But it was also a reminder to watch how we portray ourselves in our own minds. It’s easy to think evil thoughts of a driver who cuts us off, but maybe we changed lanes at the last minute or were going a teensy bit too fast. I pled guilty on both counts, and sent the driver behind me a silent apology.

  Maybe I had misunderestimated the vulnerability behind Tony McGillvray’s fear. If you’ve been in trouble, heads snap your way the next time trouble pops up. Putting what I knew about some of the students at Changing Courses together with Tony’s behavior in my class and Seetha’s suspicions, I was sure Hot Dog had been suggesting drugs were part of Tony’s current trouble. Most addicts don’t become killers, but addiction plays a part in violent crime often enough for the rest of us to make the leap of judgment.

  Hot Dog had called me out, and he was right. But he’d also given me a clue.

  To what?

  I parked and grabbed the delivery for Speziato. Before I bought Seattle Spice, I’d never been in a restaurant kitchen. Now, I was a regular at back doors around the city, and was often invited to taste a special or dine with the staff at “family meal.”

  I knocked, then turned the handle. It opened. I stepped inside. Prep hadn’t started yet, the kitchen dark and quiet.

  “Helloooo! Edgar? It’s Pepper, with your spice delivery.”

  Nothing.

  I called out a second time.

  Above the stainless steel prep counter hung a rack of knives. I cook; knives are tools. But right now, they made me nervous. I was walking into a nearly empty space, where anyone bent on attacking me could grab a blade. I’d heard the stories of restaurant employees trapped in coolers and back hallways by bosses drunk on power. Of servers and bartenders harassed by customers and groped in dark corners. Of women who kept silent about assault because they needed the job. And as Joelle’s murder made all too vivid, a knife can be a deadly tool.

  I heard a noise behind me and nearly jumped. Edgar emerged from the tiny office, his white T-shirt stretched tight across his broad chest and shoulders. I relaxed and let out my breath. It’s a fact of life that women are constantly assessing and reassessing when we’re safe and when we aren’t. Joelle had thought she was safe, walking in and out of Rainy Day Vintage with her boxes of merchandise. She’d been wrong.

  But though I’d briefly been spooked, I knew I was in no danger. This was Edgar, who’d started saving bones for Arf when he worked near the Market, in Alex Howard’s flagship restaurant. An immigrant who’d worked his way from busser to top chef, whose only vice that I knew of was to sneak the occasional cigarette in the alley. A man who’d earned my trust, and I his.

  “Ah, Our Lady of Spice, bearing smoked paprika, yes?” A grin spread across Edgar’s face and he took the box from me. “You got a boyfriend?”

  What? My mouth fell open, but I managed a nod.

  “Bring him in for dinner tonight,” Edgar said. “I’ll buy your appetizer. Let you taste for yourself.”

  “It’s a date,” I said, hoping he couldn’t hear the croaky relief in my voice. “Hey, tell me more about this man you saw walking back and forth outside yesterday.”

  “What?” He’d set the box on the counter and slit it open with a knife he’d pulled from his pocket. Now, he rummaged inside and lifted out the prized paprika. “Oh, right. Guy I called you about. Same guy I saw last week with Joelle.”

  I punched buttons on my phone. The pictures of Justin from the local paper were grainy, his head bent away from the camera. Edgar squinted, his head tilted, unsure. I called up the Logans’ website. On the Welcome page, a picture showed the smiling couple in front of their shop, Brandon wearing the bushy beard I remembered. I held out the phone. Edgar angled his finger to block out part of the shot.

  “Could be,” he said, glancing at me, “if he shaved.”

  “And you didn’t hear anything?” I asked.

  “Nada.”

  “When you saw him yesterday, you see where he was going?”

  “No. He went down the street, came back about ten minutes later. Where he went, I don’t know.” He led the way to the front of the house and ran a finger down a page in the reservations book. “Seven o’clock? I give you my best table. Inside, by the window. Nice and cool. I tell you, I grew up cooking in this heat. Thought I left it behind.”

  “I hear you. But letting you do the cooking sounds great.”

  “Two? Or you bring friends?”

  A double date with Kristen and Eric might be fun. No, not tonight. “Two.”

  “Perfect,” he said, writing in my name.

  Edgar let me out the front door and I stood on the sidewalk with a bag of bones, texting Nate with the evening plans. “Perfect” sounded—well, perfect.

  I dropped the phone in my bag and strolled toward Rainy Day Vintage. When murder darkened the Spice Shop’s door, I’d felt obliged to carry on. I’d felt I owed it to myself and my employees, and to our customers. But if it had been too horrible, with too much blood and destruction, I might feel otherwise.

  My mother would say I was dredging up doom. Inviting trouble and allowing my vibration to become misaligned.

  Letting my feng be shwayed.

  But to me, it was all part of business plan
ning. Compost happens. And I would hate feeling chased away, leaving a ghastly, ghostly mess for others to clean up. I’d rather poke the bad guys in the eye with the sharp stick of my resistance.

  If the man Edgar saw was Brandon, as I suspected, what had he been doing on Eastlake a few days before Joelle’s murder and again a few days later? This wasn’t his neighborhood. Aimee, Joelle, and the Logans had all worked together, but despite Jasmine’s reference to family, I didn’t sense a lot of warmth.

  At Aimee’s door, I brightened. Not for her any old neon OPEN or CLOSED sign. Hers read GET IN HERE NOW in red, green, and yellow. Or did when she was open. Right now, the sign was dark and impossible to read if you didn’t already know what it said.

  Even though I hate it when people stick their noses on the glass to see inside, when we’re clearly closed, that’s exactly what I did. Aimee sat on a stool behind the counter, one arm folded across her middle, her other hand cradling her chin. A variation of Rodin’s “Thinker.” Call it Worrier Pose.

  She started at the sight of me and hurried to unlock the door.

  “Pepper. What are you doing here?”

  “Spice delivery down the block. Thought I’d see if you were in. How you doin’?”

  “Lousy, if you want to know the truth. Detective Tracy said I could reopen any time, but it feels so pointless, you know?” She turned and I followed her into the shop. Behind the counter, a dozen neon lips glowed, each a different color—priced right for spur-of-the-moment whimsy.

  But they sparked no joy now. A mournful mood filled the air.

  “So don’t open right away. Take a few days off to collect yourself.”

  “I can’t afford that. Besides, what would I do if I wasn’t working? The shop is my life.” She ran a finger over the corner of a table, inspected it for dust, then wiped it on her short black denim skirt. “Pathetic, isn’t it?”