[SS01] Assault and Pepper Read online

  He glowered but did not reply.

  “Sam, they’ve arrested Doc’s daughter. Tory.”

  Sam’s eyes opened wide as the drawbridge over the Montlake Cut. “But she didn’t do nothing, Miz Pepper. I swear—”

  A movement across the park caught his eye. I turned to see what it was.

  Two uniformed officers on foot patrol. Too far away to tell if they were watching us.

  When I turned back, Sam had disappeared. Like a ghost, or a figment of my imagination.

  But the terror on his face when I mentioned Tory’s arrest had been all too real.

  Sixteen

  You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.

  —C. S. Lewis

  No point searching. Man and dog could have trotted down countless alleys or taken refuge in urban alcoves known only to those in need.

  Plus, if Sam didn’t want to be found, he wouldn’t want to talk. And I’d invaded the privacy of people I cared about enough for one day.

  I sipped my coffee and watched the world go by, a virtual parade of hipsters, youngsters, and oldsters. Couples, families, and gaggles of teenage girls. A few folks heads-down on a timetable. Curious tourists. It was another one of those magnificent Pacific Northwest days that make you forget change is gonna come.

  A trio of teenage boys on skateboards made a human slalom course of the foot traffic. A young mother pushed a stroller between me and the Arch, her toddler’s chubby arms reaching for the flowing water. “Fish, fish,” the little voice called.

  And all of us dancing, in our own ways, to the Caribbean rhythms.

  The patrol officers had vanished, too. I suspected they’d been too far away to recognize Sam, but just because you’re paranoid doen’t mean they aren’t out to get you.

  My stiff hips and shoulders needed a good wiggle. A stretch and the caffeine made me feel like a new woman, eager to get back to the shop before the effects wore off. I’d been racking my brain for a substance with both culinary and medicinal uses that could be disguised in a cup of tea, causing rapid death. Either there wasn’t one, or I didn’t know enough to spot it.

  And Jane, my go-to source for all spice and herb arcana, had sworn that nothing in the shop could be used to kill. But in her distress, could I fully trust her?

  When I reached First Ave, my feet took a detour.

  To my surprise, Alex himself answered the restaurant’s side door.

  “Pepper,” he said, booming. “My favorite spice girl.”

  “I was walking by and thought I’d pop in.”

  “Glad you did,” he said, broad shoulders filling the partially open doorway. “We’re in full prep mode . . .”

  In other words, no time for interruptions. I understood—had expected as much—but felt a teeny sting of disappointment.

  “About tomorrow,” he continued. “Let me cook you dinner. Your place. Say, six.”

  “Six,” I said. “Perfect.”

  Halfway down Virginia, I realized he hadn’t even touched me.

  • • •

  EVEN for a Saturday afternoon, the shop was crowded. Sandra had a customer at her heels and a list in her hand, while Kristen conferred with a young woman poring over a stack of cookbooks. A short line had formed up front. I tossed my bag under the counter and helped Reed complete purchases and answer questions.

  If Tory wasn’t released soon, we might need to hire a replacement.

  A tall, slender man with pale skin and neatly trimmed dark blond hair walked in, gawping as if he wasn’t sure he’d found the right place.

  “Welcome to the Spice Shop,” I said. “How can we help you?”

  “Uh, I just wanted to see . . .” His voice trailed off. Tag had told me about eager beavers who rush to the scene of gory crimes and car wrecks, seeking a vicarious thrill in other people’s misfortune. This man made as unlikely a looky-loo as he did a serious cook.

  His gaze lit on the tea cart. “Oh, this is where . . .”

  I helped him out. “Seattle Spice has been here since the early 1970s, part of the Market’s modern renaissance. This is our ever-popular signature tea.” I poured a sample cup and handed it to him.

  He took the cup reflexively, staring at it. The newspaper had said only that police were investigating a death on a Market sidewalk, with nary a mention of the shop, tea, or poison. But bad news spreads like Nutella on a hot crepe.

  I picked up a box of twenty-four tea bags, hastily packaged less than twenty-four hours earlier. “For your wife? A souvenir from your trip to Seattle?”

  “Uh, yeah. Sure. Perfect.” Relief swept across his anxious face. I rang up the purchase. He lingered, examining the pepper grinders, running long fingers over stacks of books on salt.

  “Whew. Thanks for the help,” Reed said.

  “’Bout time you showed up,” Sandra said.

  “It’s been a madhouse.” Kristen wiped up the oregano I’d spilled on the counter.

  “Went to the jail.” The building seemed to hold its breath for a millisecond, then let loose.

  “How is she?” “What did she say?” “When will they let her out?” “You know that girl’s innocent.” The babble made it impossible to tell who said what.

  “Whoa,” I said, holding up my hands. The customer who’d bought the tea for his wife stared at me, wide-eyed, and headed for the door. Parsley poop. I thought he’d already left. With his long legs and dark pants, he looked like a colt that hadn’t yet found its footing. “Thanks,” I called out, hiding my embarrassment.

  “She’s fine—and not fine,” I told my waiting staff once I was sure we were alone. “Safe, unharmed, terrified.”

  “Talking to you? Trusting you?” Kristen’s questions held motherly concern.

  I wiggled my fingers, speaking low. “Yes, and no. Sandra, do you remember a customer named Marianne? Friendly with Jane. Middle-aged, well-dressed, fancy highlights.”

  Sandra’s brows dipped. “Yes, but now that you mention it, she hasn’t come in for ages. What’s she got to do with Tory?”

  What to tell them? They genuinely wanted to help. “Not entirely sure.”

  “You’re investigating, aren’t you?” Kristen’s and Reed’s voices rose in harmony.

  “Shushhhh.”

  Four or five thirty-ish women burst in, lugging heavy canvas shopping bags. A chunky blonde broke off from the huddle. “Is this where it happened?”

  “Uh, outside,” I said. A twitter of excitement chirped through the group. Kristen offered them tea.

  Sandra rolled her eyes. “This has been going on all afternoon.”

  “Buyers or gawkers?”

  “Buyers, thank goodness. Small items. Souvenirs. But not the spice tea. Actually, people aren’t drinking the samples like they usually do, either.”

  Like my curious male customer, who’d left behind a full cup. I glanced at the newcomers.

  “Okay, here’s what we do.” Taking a tip from how we helped our neighbors on cold-season mornings, we filled a tray with sample cups. “Be super schmoozy,” I urged. Kristen winked, then circulated through the shop and out to the sidewalk.

  With Zak out today, I took over reshelving the jars and tins. In some stores, herbs and spices are “serve yourself.” We prepackage a few popular items, but years as a customer convinced me that Jane was right: The personal touch increases trust, and trust increases sales. And freshness counts.

  My feet had just touched the floor, my hands on the ladder rails, when I heard a husky whisper. “They say poisoning’s a woman’s crime. Was it really poison?”

  A short woman with a cap of blue-gray hair glared at me with glee. Or maybe that was distortion from her thick glasses. Oversized frames are back in style—I thought of Fabiola—but these had a genuine look of 1978.

  “Yes,” I whisper
ed back. “We sell it by the ounce. How much would you like?”

  A horrified expression chased across her frazzled features and she toddled away, muttering.

  The steady flow of customers turned to a trickle by late afternoon, giving me a chance to snare Reed and explain what I needed.

  He turned on my laptop. The annoying little network screen flashed on. “Cross your fingers that they haven’t already disabled the network function.” He punched buttons, sending the electronic mice inside the machine scurrying around, making connections. Minutes later, he’d installed a new version of Chrome and the familiar Bookmarks popped up across the top of the screen. “There you go. Your laptop is now synched with the office computer—bookmarks, history, and all.”

  I shook my head. He made it look so easy. “So can we trace the history?”

  “Unless it’s been wiped. But remember, we can only tell what sites were searched, not who searched them.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “Just get me in.”

  “As soon as you start to follow the digital tracks, you change them. It’s like quantum physics.”

  Right. The observer changes the object observed.

  I was staring at the screen when Sandra stuck her head in the office. “All closed up, boss. Need anything before we go?”

  “Any chance you could work Monday? I’ll cover Sunday, but . . .” Tory usually ran the shop on Sundays, giving me a day off and Sandra two days.

  She nodded grimly.

  Reed called good night and the two of them left.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” Kristen said. We hugged.

  “Thank you. For everything. Eric, too.”

  I followed her out to the shop floor and locked the door behind her, then made myself a cup of hot tea. The origins of Jane’s recipe remain a mystery, but the results are darned good.

  Killer.

  Back at the computer, I followed Reed’s advice to take screen shots of each page that interested me and open it in a new window so I wouldn’t mess up the history. What was I hunting for? I’d made most of the searches, to sites for distributors, growers, and competitors. And recipes.

  Nothing out of place. No pages on “toxic properties of common herbs” or anything remotely similar.

  I leaned back to think, the chair squeaking ominously. What about some kind of exotic bacteria? A year or two ago, several hundred people got sick after eating peppered salami. Experts theorized that birds or animals contaminated the pepper with salmonella during harvest or drying. The bacteria hibernated in the dried peppercorns, then reactivated when they came in contact with water, in the meat or in the diner’s stomach.

  Everything in our tea went through certified safe handling processes to eliminate risk. Besides, no one else had become ill, and bacteria wouldn’t kill as quickly as Doc had died.

  And if the autopsy had shown signs of such a thing, the Health Department would have closed us down faster than you could say “caraway.”

  If Doc died from drinking our tea, someone had to have added a toxic ingredient after the tea was brewed.

  I banged my head on the back of the chair. What was going on?

  The hot drink rejuvenated me, and for a split second, I wished I could smuggle some into the jail for Tory. I had absolute confidence in our tea, both before and after the tragedy on our doorstep. This tea had built the business and it would keep us going strong for years to come.

  Take that, Detective Tracy.

  Nothing on the computer indicated any research into poisons or toxic substances, but the police might find that evidence—or whatever they were looking for—on Tory’s own laptop or phone. I had reached out a finger to power off when a web address caught my eye. The records page of the King County Superior Court website. I’d never had reason to search it, didn’t know what was available online.

  Another dead end. Turned out nonlawyers can search by case name or number and bring up a short summary of the file and docket, meaning a list of all papers filed and all orders entered. For pending cases, lay folk could check all scheduled court dates. But to see the records, you’ve got to fill out a request form online or at the courthouse.

  So who had used the office computer and what records were they after? Judging from where this fell in the list of sites visited, and my admittedly vague recollection of what I’d looked at in the last few days, my guess was this search had been done Wednesday or Thursday.

  Before Doc’s death or after? And if Tory had run the search, what had she hoped to find?

  The caffeine had worn off, and it was time to go home. Past time. I grabbed my bag and walked through the shop. Late-afternoon sun streamed in the clerestory windows, highlighting almost invisible particles in the air. “Incomplete thoughts,” my late grandmother called dust motes. I made a mental note to get Zak up on the ladder; he was the only one tall enough to clean the cobwebs off the Indian silver chandelier.

  I turned off the lights and let myself out, glad to have my key ring back.

  And wondered, as I crossed Pike Place, weaving between farmers and daystallers loading up their trucks, who on my staff was hiding something from me. When I reached the Market stairs, I patted Rachel the bronze pig on the ham end and admitted I knew the answer.

  But why? And how, how, how to get her to tell me.

  Seventeen

  Bees add flavor to honey naturally, through the nectars they forage. But you can spice up your honey with an infusion of lavender, mint, rose petals, or even a habañero.

  Tracy had said he wanted to talk to Sam. Had he figured out that had been the big man’s beret wrapped up in the dead man’s coat?

  Of course, Sam hadn’t written his name inside, like a kid going off to camp, and berets are hardly uncommon, even on bright sunny days in September. But Misty had recognized it, and no doubt others who’d gathered around the body Thursday morning had, too.

  I paused, one hand on the iron stair rail, picturing the scene. Yvonne, the nurse, the orchard girls. The cheese maker. Who else?

  Tag.

  The Market had been his beat for years. He knew nearly every daystall grower and artisan, every shopkeeper, and every employee by name, and they knew him. And while Tag’s charm and quick eyes might have doomed our marriage, they’d eased him into all manner of insights and confidences.

  But the last thing I wanted to do was ask Tag Buhner for help.

  To find Sam, I needed to get creative. Knocking on doors at each of the half-dozen low-income housing buildings in the Market would be time-consuming.

  And anyone who knew where Sam lived would also know he wouldn’t want to be found.

  The Clinic would be closed, too, so no chance until Monday to find out about this medical referral the girls had mentioned, or fish for clues suggesting the nurse had twigged to Sam’s presence at the corner when Doc died.

  The only person who might know what help Tory had given Sam was Jim. Worth a chance. I retraced my steps and started up Pike Place toward the park.

  Like many regular vendors, the orchard girls store their packaged products and displays in the Market’s basement lockers but cart the empty fruit crates home to trade for full crates that relatives deliver from the family orchard east of the mountains. They were piling crates into their van, its engine idling, when I walked by.

  “Angie, Sylvie, a quick question.” They looked at me expectantly, eyes wide, faces sweet. “Thursday morning, did you see Doc—before he died, that is?”

  One shook her head no; her sister nodded yes. “We’d already unloaded and you’d gone to park the van.” She glanced at her sister, then back at me. “I picked up the last box and saw him coming down the hill. He was putting on that big coat of his, and he yanked that hat out of a pocket and jammed it on. Almost like he was putting on a disguise.”

  Exactly what he’d been doing.

  �
�He got to your corner and peered in the front door.” She paused.

  “Then what?”

  “Then a produce truck drove in and blocked my view. I had to get my boxes into the stall and set up the displays. You know how it is.”

  Mornings in the Market, controlled chaos rules the cobbles.

  “Did you see Sam?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Yes,” her sister said. “I’d totally forgotten. I was walking back from parking and I saw him headed for his corner. But I stopped to talk to Yvonne and the honey guy”—her cheeks flushed a lovely clover pink—“and like Angie said, there’s all the trucks and commotion and stuff, so I don’t know where he went or what happened. Ohmygosh, do you think . . . He didn’t kill Doc, did he? I mean, he couldn’t, but if it wasn’t Tory—”

  And that was the question.

  Sylvie hadn’t told the police she’d seen Sam, because she’d just remembered. But her sister . . . “Angie, did you tell the police you saw Doc looking in the window?”

  “Uh-huh. The lights were on. I thought you’d come in early.”

  “Did you two ever notice Tory come in early? Or see her talking with Doc.”

  “No,” Angie said as Sylvie added, “Not that I remember,” one hand making a “who knows?” gesture.

  A horn honked and we all jumped.

  “Gotta go!” Angie waved at the impatient driver and the girls hopped in their rig and took off.

  At the corner stood a logjam of the daystallers’ rolling storage crates: one marked with a pair of dancing honeybees, another labeled HERB, and a third reading AYWA. Sounded like the name of an old ferryboat, or the abbreviation for some Washington town so dinky that I’d never heard of it.

  I headed for the park. As usual, clusters of kids lounged on the grass and adults stood at the wrought iron rail, gazing at the wide world beyond. No sign of Sam or Arf. No surprise—no doubt gone to ground somewhere after their anxious flight this afternoon. No sign of Jim or his compatriots, either.