Chai Another Day Page 3

  “Speaking of Seetha,” Kristen said, “I can’t imagine how shaken she is, trying to save Joelle. And poor Aimee—what will she do?”

  The door opened again and the after-work rush began. Scads of downtown workers suddenly remember they need something for dinner and dash to the Market. Sandra and Cayenne had put together half a dozen “Twenty-Minute Dinner” recipes, neatly displayed with the necessary spices already packaged. Grilled salmon or halibut with our Lemon-Basil Seafood Rub. Shrimp Scampi seasoned with a garlic and red pepper combo. And our Perfect Burger Blend to make beef or lamb burgers, well, perfect. Visit a produce stall, swing by a fish market or butcher, and you’re set. Bakery and wine merchant optional.

  Cayenne returned to the shop floor, her poise restored, and we made sales while the sun shone. At six o’clock, the door closed on the last customer, and Cayenne and Kristen headed home. Matt stayed, as scheduled, to empty the giant cooler of iced tea and set up our pseudo-samovar to brew tomorrow’s first batch. Behind the counter, I closed out the day’s sales and counted the till. Not bad, for a Monday—vacationers escaping the heat by exploring the Market.

  The phone in my apron pocket buzzed. A text from Nate. I’ll bring halibut.

  I love it when men talk fish to me.

  I debated when to tell him about Joelle. But “murder” isn’t a word for a text. “Tragedy downstairs from Seetha—vintage shop employee died. No massage. Tell you later.”

  The reply was swift. “Sorry to hear. I can help with massage.” And a smiley face with a suitably crooked grin.

  Matt rinsed the cooler in the deep sink behind the front counter, then waited for me to finish counting.

  “Twenty-two, twenty-three.” I slipped the ones under their clip in the cash drawer and made a note. “What’s up?”

  “Pepper, I was wondering . . . It’s been three months. Time for a performance review?”

  Crackers, to quote Cayenne. I try to keep up on HR trends, and in Seattle, that means we’re influenced by the tech world’s evolution of HR. Their model suits me to a T. Too many years of formal rules and procedures had turned HR departments into evil stepmothers, and I much prefer the emphasis on individual responsibility and contributions. I’ve always believed that you have to talk with staff about their work as you go along. Lawyers are smart people, but not always smart about people, and in the law firm, there were always a few who could never understand that a once-a-year sit-down can’t make up for eleven months of silence. Employees need their bosses to talk to them. To establish clear goals and expectations from the start, train well, and be a good example.

  I might fall down on that last one now and then.

  Still, a check-in can be helpful for new employees. The first few weeks on the job are a virtual flood of info and expectations. None of it should be a problem, unless you’ve got A Problem Employee. Thankfully, we’d survived ours, although the building nearly hadn’t.

  “Sure. You bet. You’ve been here three months next week?”

  “This week. Thursday.”

  “Thursday, then. I’ll buy the coffee.” I’d need to schedule a session with Cayenne, too.

  “Great. Thanks.” He carried the electric insert for the samovar, a replacement for one cracked in an unfortunate incident last spring, to the tea table.

  A few minutes later, Matt finished sweeping and helped me set out the garbage and recycling, then dashed off to catch his bus. I tossed a tin of Lemon-Basil Seafood Rub in my bag and hooked Arf’s green leash to his collar, then we locked up and headed out. Because as much as I adore my shop and the Market, Dorothy got it right: There is no place like home.

  Four

  “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”

  —Groucho Marx

  ARF PICKED UP THE PACE AT THE SIGHT OF THE MAN WITH the light brown hair and dark brown pants outside my building on Western Avenue.

  The dog knows a good thing when he sees it. So do I. Although I suspect Arf’s main interest was the treat waiting for him in the small cooler on the sidewalk.

  I had other treats in mind.

  “Hey, good lookin’. Whatchya got cookin’?” Nate wrapped his arms around me and held me close, in one of those “whatever happened, I’m glad you’re safe and glad to see you” hugs. I love those hugs.

  I shifted position for a kiss. “Hmm. I smell fish.”

  No matter how well he scrubs, Nate always smells of fish and saltwater. He is a fisherman, after all. He lives on board much of the year, either on the Thalassa, moored at Fisherman’s Terminal, or a second boat, based in Dutch Harbor, Alaska. “Dutch,” to its regulars.

  And since noses often twitch when I walk into a room, especially after a stint of blending and packing, our friends say we’re a natural pair.

  I unlocked the door and the three of us climbed the wide wooden steps. The rest of the lyrics began swinging through my brain, though whether my version came from Hank Williams or Jimmy Buffett, I couldn’t say.

  Inside the loft, I unleashed the dog and dropped my tote on the bench next to the door, then kicked off my black clogs.

  My loft is classic warehouse style, with high ceilings, exposed pipes, and redbrick walls. Open concept, in designer speak, except for the bedroom and bath, although the kitchen has three walls since it’s tucked between the entry and the bathroom. The builder had salvaged oak cabinets from a country school on the Olympic Peninsula, and we’d topped them with an old zinc counter along the side wall and butcher block on the peninsula, where guests can perch on stools while I cook.

  As always, Nate’s attention was drawn to the view outside the tall, arched windows. (Why a century-old warehouse had windows at all, let alone twelve-footers, who knew?) I’d only been able to afford the place because the view was largely obscured by the Alaskan Way Viaduct, an elevated highway running north–south not far from the water’s edge. That was before the state announced an ambitious plan to drill a tunnel underneath the city for a new road and remove the viaduct, an earthquake hazard. Big Bertha, the tunneling machine, had finally finished her work, but teardown seemed to be taking its own sweet time. When the work is done, the views will be out of this world. So will property values and my taxes, but I’m not going to worry about that until I have to.

  Until then, the main room and tiny veranda share what you might generously call a peek-a-boo view. If you climb the ladder-like steps to the mezzanine above my bedroom (“meditation space,” the builder called it), you can watch the ferries chug back and forth across Elliott Bay, spy the winking lights along Alki Point, and admire the snow-topped Olympic Mountains, on the peninsula.

  And the sunsets. Oh my. Mid-August, the sun doesn’t set until close to nine, but the glow can fill the loft for hours.

  I wrapped my arms around Nate from behind, and he covered my hands with his. He’s a few inches taller than me, making it easy to rest my chin on his shoulder. The water had beckoned him since boyhood, luring him and his brother, his business partner, with promises of boats and fish and freedom.

  I had to wonder what he was thinking these days, a couple of months after we met at Fisherman’s Terminal. Though still fresh and new, our relationship was a gift. I knew he wanted it—he’d made that clear from the beginning. So did I.

  But what next?

  Dinner. I kissed his cheek and let my hands drop. “Care to fire up the grill, Mr. Seward?”

  “Aye, aye,” he replied, and unlatched the big window leading to the veranda. With windows like these, who needs a door?

  In the kitchen, I set out a wedge of double-cream Brie, a cluster of grapes, and a box of rosemary crackers. Found a bottle of the Sancerre the Market wine merchant, Vinny Delgado, had talked me into buying a case of—“What’s summer without Sancerre?” he’d said, and now that I’d tried it, I had to agree. I slid the bottle and corkscrew across the counter to where Nate now stood. He slid me a small bag packed with halibut cheeks. Hard to imagine I’d never tried
them before meeting him. Cut from the head, they’re sweeter and more tender than the steaks. These were fresh, part of the haul Nate had brought with him when he returned to the Lower 48 last week to catch the end of Seafair and Fleet Week. But mostly, to see me.

  I seasoned the fish, mouth watering in anticipation of the tangy lemon and the grassy-sweet basil, and sliced a lemon to grill on the side. Nate popped the cork and filled two glasses. He carried the wine, I took the cheese plate, and we stepped through the window into the afternoon heat. Not quite like stepping through the looking glass, but close. The veranda is barely big enough for a café table and two chairs, a gas grill, and my potted herb garden. My next-door neighbors, a city councilman and his husband, have a deck the same size, but manage to cram half the jungle on it. Keeping the Emerald City green.

  We sat and I took a long sip of the wine. So refreshing it almost made the temperature drop. Vinny may be a total goofball—his hobby is ghost hunting—but he knows wine.

  “Ready to tell me what happened?” Nate said. “This wasn’t just any death, was it?”

  He could read my moods like a book. It figured. Nathan William Seward was named for Lincoln’s rival and secretary of state, the man who bought Alaska, sometimes derided as “Seward’s Folly.” He’d grown up not far from the former governor of New York’s family home, and though he’d lit out for the Last Frontier after three years of college, he was smart, well read, kind, and funny. And sexy.

  Ticking off his charms told me how deep I’d fallen. I met his gaze, those luscious, honey-brown eyes, and let out a deep sigh. Then I told him what had happened—or what I knew, anyway.

  “Turns out, she was married to Justin Chapman. I never made the connection.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Who’s Justin Chapman?”

  “Oh, right. No reason you would know.” Though he’s migrated in and out of Seattle for twenty-some years, his experience of the city is vastly different from mine. I told him what I knew.

  “So after all that,” I said, wrapping up the tale, “the firm’s reputation was destroyed and the lawyers and staff had to scramble for new jobs. I don’t know a lot about the case itself—a drug company hid reports that proved a drug didn’t work as well as they claimed. Chapman knew it and kept his mouth shut, until a whistleblower came forward. I do know the judge found for the plaintiffs, and awarded millions in damages against the drug company.”

  “Chapman sounds like a piece of work. And literally hundreds of people have good reason to hate him. Including you,” he said, then took a sip.

  “To varying degrees, yeah. Although I don’t hate him, exactly. Besides, if he hadn’t done what he did, I would never have bought the spice shop. And he’s not dead—she is.”

  He set his glass on the table. “But you don’t know who was arguing about what, so you’re barely a witness.”

  “A minor one, at best.” I plucked the last juicy green grape off the stem. “I’m worried about the effect on Seetha. You remember what I told you about the bhuts, the Indian ghosts? They first appeared to her when her grandmother died, and returned last spring after the death in the restaurant. What if they come back?”

  “Will they go away if she moves?”

  “Good question. She’s staying with Laurel on the houseboat for a few days—we’ll see what happens. Hard to replace the set-up she’s got.” I plopped the grape in my mouth and stood. “Let’s grill those fish.”

  Nate caught my hand. “Have I told you how good it is to see you?” He pulled me into his lap, and for a long time, I gave no more thought to silly details like dinner.

  ONE fifty-four. Two-sixteen. Two-thirty. Digital clocks make sleepless nights more aggravating, as you stare at the changing numbers. When I complained about middle-of-the-night wakefulness at Flick Chicks, Laurel and my mother exchanged knowing looks and pronounced peri-menopause, which I thought was ridiculous. I’d turned forty-three in June. Then I checked with my pal Google, and realized they were probably right. Not that I was old, but my hormones were changing.

  I glanced at Nate, sleeping peacefully on his side, the off-white sheet draped across his waist, leaving his well-muscled back bare. My hormones were working just fine, thank you.

  No, tonight the problem was my mind. More precisely, murder on my mind. Though I hadn’t seen Joelle’s body, I’d seen enough others in the past year for my imagination to fill in the blanks. I’d seen the horror on Aimee’s face. I saw the terror in Seetha’s eyes every time I shut mine.

  I barely knew Joelle, as evidenced by my not having a clue that she was married to the man whose behavior had caused so much heartache. But then, I’d barely known him. And I had no idea why anyone would kill her. It had to be related to the argument I’d overheard, making me sorry I hadn’t heard enough to be useful. Joelle was attractive, lively, an experienced interior designer who’d always been pleasant to me.

  And I couldn’t stop picturing her lifeless body lying in a pool of blood. Purely my imagination—I hadn’t even glimpsed the scene of the crime.

  The restless mind can be a torturous place.

  I slid out of bed and into a short silky robe, then rolled the bedroom door shut as quietly as I could. Arf had his choice of beds—one beside mine and one beneath the windows. Tonight, he’d stayed in the living room, no doubt hoping to get a decent night’s sleep himself.

  He raised his head. I rubbed the top of it and scratched the magic spot behind his right ear. “Go back to sleep, little buddy. No reason for us both to be awake.”

  A few upper cabinets hang on the kitchen’s outer wall, fronted with antique stained glass windows. If I remembered right, Kristen and I had found the one edged in marbled yellow, a red-and-green art deco flower in the center, at Pacific Imports. Despite the name, not all their stock came from overseas.

  I opened the cabinet and rummaged through my tea collection. To my surprise, one vacuum-sealed bag read “chai tea,” redundant as that was. My cabinets don’t yield many oddball discoveries— when I left Tag, I took my clothes and books, my vintage collections including the cookware, and a few precious pieces of furniture. I’d stocked the kitchen from scratch. Then I remembered. It had come in a basket of teas Laurel brought when the Flick Chicks watched The Darjeeling Limited.

  What better time to try it? No worries about the caffeine—I was already wide awake. And the temperature had finally dropped enough to make hot tea drinkable.

  A few minutes later, I settled on the caramel chenille couch with a mug of sweet, milky chai and a stack of cookbooks and references. Many evenings, I curl up with a good mystery, but murder was the last thing I wanted to read about tonight.

  I try to keep our blends authentic, but I’m willing to make room for creativity. As I browsed, it became clear that the quest for authentic chai was pointless. No such thing—or rather, too many such things. My favorite Indian cookbook said the South Asian love of sweet, milky tea was an outgrowth of British colonialism, when factory bosses added cream and sugar to tea to keep workers fed and energized. As the drink became popular, regional tastes developed. Masala, meaning a blend of spices, was added, the most widely used the trio of cardamom, ginger, and black pepper I’d tasted in Seetha’s mother’s version.

  Black tea is most common, but green tea was not unheard of. The milk varies, too—buffalo milk sounded tasty to me; camel milk, not so much. No cow’s milk, for obvious reasons.

  I sipped my unknown variety with new appreciation, the spark of ginger and the bite of black pepper distinct.

  Even mixing and cooking methods differ. Some boil the milk with the tea while others heat the two separately. In one area of Kashmir, way up north, chai gets a salty flavor from baking soda. It’s then poured several times from one pot held high above another to create a pink froth.

  And the flavors aren’t limited to the familiar spices. One variation, among the Parsi, features mint and lemongrass. That would be particularly nice iced, I mused. But getting customers to accept it as chai might
be an uphill battle.

  Chai drinkers even debated what to dunk in the tea. My cupboards held no Indian cookies, but I found a bag of lemon thyme shortbread in my freezer. In the middle of the night, I’m not picky.

  Exhaustion finally got the best of me and I fell asleep on the couch, woken by dog kisses.

  “Hey, cutie. You finally get some rest?” Nate said. I sat up, rubbing one hand through my disheveled hair. He plopped down beside me and I relaxed against him, wishing we could go back to bed.

  “I couldn’t stop thinking about Joelle and the murder. I didn’t want to keep you awake, so I dove into product research.”

  He reached for the cookbook abandoned on my packing crate coffee table and flipped a few pages. “I thought I’d had halibut about every way possible, but black chickpeas and tomato-yam curry? I could almost eat that picture.”

  “Coffee?” I said. “Did you say coffee?”

  Nate slipped his arm out from behind my back and pushed himself up. “It will be ready when you’re out of the shower. I’ve got to dash—helping a guy with some engine work. We’ve got sister boats, so we give each other a hand when we can.” He drew me to my feet, then gave me a long, sweet kiss.

  I hadn’t even brushed my teeth yet. Must be love. Or something like it.

  A few minutes later, all clean, I slipped into stretchy black pants and a T-shirt sporting the shop logo—my work uniform, minus the apron—and rubbed goo in my hair. The smell of fresh coffee filled the loft.

  I poured the coffee in a go-cup and slipped on my clogs. “Time to go, pup. Let’s see what mysteries this day brings.”

  Five

  A study by Spanish psychologists showed that simply reading words with strong scent associations like “garlic,” “cinnamon,” and “ jasmine” stimulates the primary olfactory cortex, the part of the brain associated with smell.