[SS01] Assault and Pepper Read online

  From time to time, I had wondered what the heck I had done, buying the shop. And why, if retail was my destiny, it couldn’t have been in another precinct—one Tag would never transfer to, because he loves the bike beat too much. But I adore my shop. To me, the Market has always been the heart of the city—and its stomach. I’d never imagined working here and living so close, and yet it feels like a dream come true. With my loyal staff hard at work, customers trudging up hill to find us, and the phone and online ordering busy as ever, the dream was sweet, spicy reality.

  At ten after ten, Tory, Sandra, and I gathered in the nook to retest the spice blends. Tory appeared placid. But then, she hadn’t seen Doc’s lifeless body.

  And as my mother had told me in my angst- and drama-filled teenage years, it isn’t necessary to share every emotion you feel with the entire world.

  “Made a tasty lamb stew last night with this one,” Sandra said, pointing to the pungent blend. “Great idea to use that smoky pepper. Mr. Right fell in love with me all over again.”

  That brought a wee smile to Tory’s face, and a grin to mine. Sandra always refers to her husband of the last ten years as Mr. Right, to distinguish him from the oh-so-wrong first husband. Mr. Right claims to have married her for her cooking, but they are true lovebirds.

  “I’d like to tweak the savory blend,” I said. “I tried it in sour cream drop biscuits last night and it lacked zip.”

  “I sprinkled it on scrambled eggs this morning, and the flavors got lost,” Sandra said. “Let’s try increasing the oregano.”

  “Maybe double. And add a touch of lavender.”

  Tory was gazing up at a shelf full of antique British tea tins I’d found in a secondhand shop out on the Olympic Peninsula. Seeking inspiration for a painting, or daydreaming?

  “Did you get a chance to try these, Tory?”

  She jerked her attention back to me, eyes wide. It was obvious that she hadn’t heard a thing until I said her name.

  “We’re discussing some fine-tuning,” I said. “Let’s all try them now.”

  A short time later, the air redolent with lavender, we’d reformulated the savory blend into a classic Herbes de Provence and given a group blessing to the others. I hadn’t heard from Alex. Like most chefs, he was a night owl, but he knew we had a tight timeline. Maybe a quick call—I could use a little comfort, even if it came through the phone.

  The sound of bicycle shoes clicking on the wooden floor broke my reverie. Misty the Baker leaned her bike against the inside stair rail and picked her way down the steps, more concerned than I about her shoes—the plastic cleats were noisy but harmless. She raised a good-sized white paper bag.

  “Figured you could use something tasty about now. Macarons and sablés.”

  Cookies, in the vernacular. We hugged and I peeked in the bag, then handed it to Sandra, who promptly plucked out a chocolate sablé for herself and spread the rest of the meringue and butter cookies on a tray.

  “Find anything out about the old man?” Misty said. “The cops quizzed the bakery staff, but nobody knew him.”

  I shook my head. “Natural causes, I’m sure. But it is weird, right on our doorstep . . .”

  “Kinda creepy.” She shuddered. “But you’re brave. You won’t let it bother you.”

  Brave was the goal. I filled her sports bottle with iced tea and thanked her for the cookies. I got the best of that trade.

  My pal Laurel Halloran, chef, caterer, and a stalwart of the Flick Chicks movie club, had offered recipe suggestions for this season’s spice blends. It was too late to catch her before her lunch rush, so I called the deli to make sure she’d be in for a while.

  “You bet,” she said. “I’m so behind on paperwork, I should stay here all day.”

  “Why do we call it paperwork when we do it all on the computer?”

  “Beats me,” she said with a laugh. “You know where to find me.”

  Only after we’d clicked off did I realize I hadn’t mentioned Doc’s death in my doorway.

  But first, it was time to check in with our designer, who’d come up with some rough ideas for labels.

  Plus I could use some fresh air—perfumed with the fishy, salty, diesel-y scent of the city. I tossed the sample blends into my bag. CSI still had my keys—Spencer had said they’d rush the forensics and get them back to me ASAP, but that could mean anything. I fished the spare loft key out of my desk drawer and tucked it into a zippered pocket in my tote.

  I wanted to ask Tory about her sketches, but she was busy helping a woman new to the city stock her condo spice cabinet. The chance to make a good sale and win a loyal customer outweighed my nosiness.

  I walked down to Pike Place to check the sidewalk on the corner outside my front door.

  No new bodies had turned up while I wasn’t watching. Just flowers, piled up against the salmon pink stucco exterior. A dozen or more bouquets, some fresh, others a little brown around the edges, like they’d been picked from the garbage instead of the garden. A hand-lettered cardboard sign read, DOC—RIP. I felt a brief pang of shame for not having created a memorial myself.

  A few feet beyond the door stood a contingent of half a dozen denizens of the Market, men rarely seen in more than twos or threes. Tall, gaunt Jim, the left side of his face clear, the right scarred and bubbled as if by a burn. Irish Mick, who could be Italian for all I knew. A younger—meaning under forty—man called Hot Dog. Two men whose names I didn’t know.

  And lurking in the back, Sam and Arf. I had never seen Sam hatless. He looked uncomfortable without the beret, shifting from one foot to the other and barely glancing at me.

  “Thank you, gentlemen. It’s kind of you to remember Doc this way.”

  “Could be any of us,” Jim said, and agreement rippled through the gathering. “We acknowledge our own.”

  Judging from the pile of flowers, others in the Market had contributed, too. I looked over my shoulder at Yvonne, the closest flower seller to the Spice Shop. The Market Master assigns daystalls based on seniority and dependability, meaning Yvonne usually got this one, on a prime corner. In mid-March, she offers the first tulips, and in fall, the last dahlias, zinnias, and sunflowers. She glanced at me while a customer debated between two bouquets. Several of the bundles by my door bore her signature red and tan raffia, and from the color on her cheeks, I suspected she’d left one herself.

  I turned back to the men, their eyes on me.

  “Hope it don’t hurt your business none,” Jim said. “Old man ain’t got no business interfering even after he’s dead.”

  Another man chuckled.

  “We’ll be fine,” I said. “When the yellow tape comes down, we’ll rearrange the flowers out of the way, where folks can see them. You fellows stay here as long as you want.”

  They murmured thanks. I touched Sam’s arm lightly.

  “Miz Pepper,” he said softly. And I knew from the sadness in his tone that whatever Sam’s problems, he had not harmed Doc. But they might have argued about the corner. This had been Sam’s morning for it. Had Doc taken Sam’s hat, to boot?

  Their feud had been one of territory. When you don’t have much to call your own, you get pretty protective of what you do have. And if there’s a spot in this world where you like to sit, for whatever reason, it becomes pretty important, too. I got that. Why that spot was in front of my shop, I didn’t get.

  Get a move on, Pepper. Before you lose it.

  • • •

  TOOK more time to make my way one block from the Spice Shop to the Market entrance than to walk the eight blocks to my designer’s studio at First and Cherry. The first delay had been the two women standing at the bottom of Pine, staring, confused, at my blocked-off door. I pointed out the side door propped open, thirty feet uphill. The slope wasn’t steep by Seattle standards, but their expressions were dubious.

  “You want us
to hike up that hill?” one of the women asked. “I don’t remember a hill when we were here last summer.”

  “There’s been a mishap,” I said, not bothering with the details. “But we have a small gift for every customer today, as our thanks. A bundle of cinnamon sticks. Plus samples of our custom blend tea.”

  “I don’t care for cinnamon,” she replied in a Texas twang. “We’ll go somewhere else.” She flounced away. Her companion gave me a quick, apologetic smile and scurried off to catch up.

  I shook my head. The yellow tape signaled a situation out of my control, but some people are oblivious to the obvious.

  The Market family enveloped me. The dim sum seller, the produce hawkers, the ancient Chinese lady who teases small children by chasing their feet with a paper snake on a string. The guys who throw fish, the doughnut makers, the men who run the newsstand.

  “We’re not sure what happened,” I repeated over and over. “But we’re fine. Thank you.”

  The questions, the sad eyes, the expressions of concern for Doc and for me were proof that the Market—a city within a city—is by and large a safe place peopled by folks who treat each other as family.

  I left the Market at First and Pike, near where Rachel the brass pig, the flying fish, and the Market’s iconic clock and red-letter sign welcome one and all. (The pig was modeled on a real sow who lives on Whidbey Island. I was there the day she was brought to the Market to see her namesake. Fortunately, donors were more impressed than she was.) As I strolled down First Ave, my throat swelled with love for my city. I left after college, spending a year and a half in California. But as much fun as it had been to share a two-bedroom apartment with three other girls in a complex where rats darted across the sidewalk from one ivy-covered patch of “garden” to another, or to get hassled by pale, scrawny guys who swore they’d be software millionaires in six months every time I tried to relax by the swimming pool, I preferred the gray and the rain.

  The comforts of home.

  I passed the Seattle Art Museum and peered up at the Hammering Man sculpture. At nearly fifty feet tall, his arm moving up and down all day—resting overnight and on Labor Day—he’d raised a few eyebrows when first installed, but quickly become a symbol, along with the Space Needle and the troll under the Fremont Bridge, of the city’s quirky creativity.

  To my right, the Harbor Steps led first to Western, then on down to Alaskan Way, aka the waterfront. The western edge of the world glistened as tour boats and ferries came and went. The giant Ferris wheel turned. In the working part of the harbor, colossal orange cranes plucked containers off the big barges like chopsticks picking up grains of rice.

  On my way to Pioneer Square, I thought more about Doc. How long had he been in Seattle? What brought him here? Seattle is a city of people from all over—families like Kristen’s and my mother’s, who have been here for generations, are rare. Some folks, especially Easterners, chose the Pacific Northwest because it’s as far as you can go without leaving the lower forty-eight. Some came for the tech industry and, before that, for aerospace. Others came for the vibrant arts scene—from the funky to the sublime. Some came for the coffee and some for the wine.

  Where had Doc fit in? What, as Sandra had asked, was his story?

  Would we ever know?

  Another question: Why hadn’t I told Spencer about Tory’s encounter with Doc? Respecting her privacy—or his? Who cares if he violated the city’s ordinance against aggressive panhandling? The man was dead.

  If it turned out—and it wouldn’t, I told myself—that Doc’s death was not natural, then I’d speak up.

  Till then, keep mum and carry on.

  Our graphic designer’s studio is in a historic building at First and Cherry, with limestone columns and arches, and a red brick facade. The Great Tunnel project, the same one changing my own neighborhood inch by inch and foot by foot, had triggered the eviction of more than a hundred artists from an old warehouse badly damaged by the 2001 Nisqually earthquake. A dozen modern-day pioneers had seized on this building and pooled their relocation funds to redevelop the space into artists’ studios.

  Like Cher and Oprah, Fabiola uses only the one name, artfully emblazoned on the wall opposite the elevator in two dozen different styles, fonts, and colors. Different materials, too: a cobalt blue lighted sign (LED—clean and green); a mosaic of broken china; paint on canvas; hammered tin; barbed wire. Narcissistic as the display might seem, it sends the message that this woman can work in any medium the project might warrant.

  And she is her own best advertising. Today, she’d piled her dark hair, mahogany highlights glinting, on top of her head and speared the ’do with an oversized pair of emerald green glasses. Frames only—no lenses. Her blue-and-white floral print blouse sported a Peter Pan collar that reminded me of my grade school uniform, and short, cuffed sleeves trimmed with gold buttons that could have come off an old naval officer’s jacket. Her above-the-knee skirt—cobalt blue with white dots—swung when she walked.

  We all know someone who seems to embody our own aspirations with creativity, flair, and confidence. But then we catch a glimpse—an unguarded expression, a fleeting look that barely registers—and we’re reminded that none of us is always perfectly sure of every move we make. I know that about Fabiola, and love her even more for it.

  “Trade you shoes,” I said. Cherry red leather Mary Janes with three straps and a narrow toe, and the littlest stacked wooden heel.

  “Reecie,” Fabiola said, peering at me through the photos and designs clipped to a wire clothesline strung above her long, scarred white worktable, “play a little. Give your shop a new leash on life.”

  You can never be sure whether she’s fracturing a cliché on purpose or not. I’m not even sure Fabiola is the name her mother gave her, but no matter. She’s fab, regardless.

  (I don’t use the name my mother gave me, either. Even my mother doesn’t use it. I like to think she’s forgotten it.)

  “We’ve been over this,” I said, settling on one of the industrial-look metal stools designers favor. “The change in ownership was a serious big deal. I can’t risk messing up our image or the old customers, especially the irregulars, won’t know we’re still the same Seattle Spice Shop.”

  Especially now. My encounter with the Texan tourists reminded me how critical—and fragile—familiarity is to casual customers.

  “But you’re not the same. You’re young and hip and your packaging should reflect that. Not look like a state tourism office campaign from the 1970s.”

  The collage of mirrors on the far wall reflected my scrunched-up face, broken into bits and reassembled into a not-quite-recognizable, cubist-style whole. Fabiola and I replayed this debate with every design project. When to move away from the shop’s old identity? How quickly, how completely to give it my own stamp? Jane had taken many of the shop’s artifacts with her, and I’d rearranged, adding new furnishings and décor. More than one customer had been briefly confused, not realizing we were still the source they’d relied on forever until they recognized Sandra and tasted our distinctive tea.

  Wasn’t it about time to complete the Spice Shop’s makeover with a new logo?

  “Okay. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  “Yes!” She turned to the shelves beneath the mirrors, skirt twirling, and drew a fuchsia file folder from a stack. Expression somber, she raised it in both hands like a State Department security briefing book, or the communion host at Mass. She set it on the table, opened it dramatically, and spread out a cascade of images.

  New labels for the tins were just the start.

  She’d given us a crisp, graphic view of the Sound with the giant Ferris wheel and the mountains beyond, in primary colors accentuated with emerald green. A bold sans serif font that looked like an engineer’s block print with a forward lean, as if it were in a hurry, proclaimed SEATTLE SPICE SHOP.

  “We’ll u
se that font for your website and all your printed material.” That meant business cards, recipe cards, and shelf-talkers, which describe each herb and spice and suggest a few uses.

  She’d even redesigned our aprons, and the stamp we use on our paper cups.

  At that, I lost it. A rebirth, a death, a year of change. Two years plus of change. I couldn’t explain my blubbering, but Fabiola isn’t one to mind tears and snot.

  What did I owe the past? What did I owe myself?

  “Okay. I’ll do it. The whole shebang. To celebrate my first anniversary in the spice biz,” I said, rummaging in my bag for a tissue and finally spotting a box on Fabiola’s shelf.

  To celebrate another step in running my own life.

  “Celebrate yourself.” She raised one foot in her chic Mary Jane. “They’re on sale. The shop’s right around the corner. Tell ’em I sent you.”

  Ten minutes later, I strolled back up First Avenue with Fabiola’s file folder in my tote, next to my comfy black climbers, and tutu pink Mary Janes on my feet.

  Change your shoes, change your life.

  Six

  The Travels of Marco Polo introduced Europeans to Oriental spices, but many doubted his eye-popping tales. Not Christopher Columbus, who carried an annotated copy on his own travels.

  At lunchtime, the Market hops. That’s when office workers swing by to grab a slice of pizza at DeLaurenti’s, a sandwich at Three Girls, or a guess-what at Piroshky-Piroshky. Then they pick up produce, fish, meat, and cheese for the evening, and the seasonings to make it a meal.

  We hum extra loud on Thursdays and Fridays. When people have more time to cook—say on the weekends—they want to be more adventurous. And at the Spice Shop, “Adventure” is our middle name.

  Or it would be when we had our new labels.

  I tossed my tote and Fabiola’s file on the desk in the coffin-sized office, snatched up my apron, and joined the crew on the shop floor.

  “Move those to the front counter, where customers can enjoy them,” I said at the sight of a giant bouquet of sunflowers stuffed in an old pickle jar on the mixing table.