Guilty as Cinnamon Page 6

  “The tickets are on the desk,” he’d said. “In the TV room, on the first floor.”

  As if I didn’t know where the TV room was. He’d hardly moved a dish or chair since I’d left. I’d taken only a few pieces of furniture: The Chinese apothecary he’d always complained about that now stood in the shop. The two-tiered tea cart, in red-and-white enamel, also now in the shop. And a cedar-lined mahogany chest, one of the first antiques I’d ever bought—a reminder of the hope chest my grandfather bought my grandmother when they were courting, lost in the fire that destroyed their home the winter I was fourteen.

  It’s odd to walk into a house where you used to live. We’d bought the run-down bungalow from Tag’s elderly aunt and spent all our spare time those first few years restoring it, adding modern outlets and appliances to the 1930s charm. We’d scraped and painted inside and out, congratulating ourselves for accomplishing such a major chore with only one spat, when Tag yanked the drop cloths off the roses before I finished the last window trim.

  I climbed the steps and crossed the porch. Not the time to wonder what had happened to us. Not after Tamara’s murder and Alex’s arrest.

  The oak door opened without a squeak. Inside, I punched in the security code—our wedding date. The sweet purple smell of lilacs mingled with beeswax and orange oil. Tag’s cleaning service used the same products I always had. And a hint of—what?

  In the corner stood the wingback chair his mother and I had redone—my first upholstery job—on one of the Persian rugs we’d found rolled up in the back of an upstairs closet. I stuck my nose in the lilac-filled Rookwood pottery vase—another family piece—on the dining room table.

  Ah, that’s the smell. I wrapped the blue cheese he’d left on the kitchen counter and tucked it in the fridge, between the bottles of Corona and the mustard.

  I’d been here a few times since I left, making a pickup or drop-off. And once or twice this past winter for Sunday game day. Go, Seahawks! But I had not been alone inside since moving out.

  Weird, weird, weird.

  The tickets lay right where Tag had promised, on top of a small desk we’d found on one of our rare joint hunts. I stood at the foot of the stairs leading to the master suite we’d created from two small bedrooms and a bath best termed a water closet. Don’t do it, Pepper.

  I did it. What can I say? I’d sweated blood and tears over that project. My fingers trailed the smooth pine rail as I climbed, remembering the terror on Tag’s face when an old storm window shattered in my hands and the shared relief as we realized I wasn’t badly hurt, despite the blood spatter.

  He’d swapped the double wedding ring quilt we’d been given for shirting striped linens and a navy comforter that went surprisingly well with the red-and-blue Persian rug and the unpainted fir floor. Tag did have a sense of style, despite his pokes at mine, but I sensed his mother’s hand.

  The closet door stood open. An icy spasm gripped my gullet. After I’d found him and the “parking enforcement officer” plugging each other’s meters, half a dozen signs of trouble had fallen into place. Including the time I’d picked up the cleaning—usually his task—and noticed shirts I didn’t recall him wearing.

  My breath snagged in my throat as I realized I was standing in my ex-husband’s bedroom searching for signs of Another Woman.

  You left him, Pepper. For good reason, yes, but you left. He’s entitled to move on.

  Maybe he was dating and I was the Other Woman.

  That I didn’t know shouldn’t matter, but it did. Meaning—what?

  Meaning it was time to go.

  I gave up the plan to cut peonies in the backyard—the garden wasn’t mine anymore, either—and dashed outside.

  “Good boy.” I grabbed Arf’s leash, and we trotted to the curb. I opened the driver’s door, and he hopped in. For a small guy—about twenty inches at the shoulder—he’s a heck of a jumper.

  A few blocks away, I stopped for a light, my heart still in high gear. What were you doing, Pepper? What had I expected—booby traps for intruders? But that wasn’t the kind of danger I’d faced.

  The danger of my own uncertain heart.

  A movement at the bus stop caught my attention. A slender black kid grooving to his earbuds. No—not a kid. One of the line cooks from the First Avenue Café. Tariq something. We’d met when I’d dropped off Spice Shop deliveries, and a time or two when I’d joined Alex and the staff for family meal.

  I waved. He frowned, trying to place me, and approached, tugging one bud free.

  “Tariq, right?” I said at the same moment he said, “You’re Posh. No, Pepper. That’s it.”

  Alex had dubbed me “Posh Spice” when he heard I grew up on Capitol Hill. No matter that my family were neither the landed old school nor the moneyed new aristocracy, but part of the hippie invasion forty years ago.

  “Hop in. I’ll give you a lift downtown.”

  Arf jumped into the backseat, Tariq slid in, his pack in his lap, and the light changed. A car honked, and I shifted gears. Urban ballet.

  “You work the line, right? Meat side?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Started in the Eastside joint, moved over here a year ago when Alex shuffled kitchen staff.” His torso rocked back and forth as he spoke. “Original paint?” At my look of surprise, he added, “I like cars.”

  “I’m sorry about Tamara,” I said. “Must be rough on all of you.”

  Tariq stopped rocking and snapped his head toward me. “You found her.”

  My hands tightened reflexively on the wheel and my jaw pinched as I turned onto Highway 99, aka Aurora Avenue, and merged into the zooming midday traffic. “Mm-hmm.”

  “Sucks,” he said, sitting back and gazing forward. “She was going places.”

  An innocent word choice? Staff changes are a constant in the biz, but her death only a day after her firing would be a serious blow to morale. Still, they knew the boss was a show-must-go-on, keep-the-customers-happy kind of chef.

  How would they respond to Alex’s arrest? Would Ops close the joint, or bring in a chef from another restaurant?

  It occurred to me that Tariq might not know about his boss’s arrest.

  I slowed for a light and stole a glance at him. The earbuds hung around his neck, the cord snaking down his white T-shirt to his pants pocket. His head rested against the seat, eyelids half closed, long lashes nearly brushing his cheeks.

  “Might be better if you hear the news before you get to work,” I said. “The police have arrested Alex. They plan to charge him with murder.”

  Did Tariq gasp? The traffic noise made it impossible to tell.

  Off the highway, I worked my way toward First Ave. Tariq did not speak, his lips parted, eyes wide and unfocused.

  “We’re in luck.” A bus drove away, and I slid to the curb, not worrying about the police cars parked in front of the Café. Tariq reached blindly for the door handle, and I put my hand on his arm. “Let me know if we can help.”

  He nodded and slammed the door, then reached back to touch Arf. He loped across the street and down the hill to the side door, the delivery entrance. Ops, the accountant, and the front of the house manager stood on the sidewalk. Some kitchen staff leaned against the stone wall; others milled nervously. Evicted, temporarily, while the cops did their thing.

  Scott Glass, the Viking-bearded bar manager Alex called Scotty or Glassy, paused in his pacing long enough to notice me. He drew long and slow on the cigarette gripped between his thick fingers.

  I pulled into traffic.

  Not my circus, not my monkeys.

  * * *

  I spotted the job applicant the second Arf and I jogged in the shop’s front door. My stumble down memory lane, combined with Mission Tariq, had made us late, and I’d splurged on a parking spot in the Market garage rather than run the Mustang home and dash back.

  First clue: the leg
warmers. Who wears leg warmers? Not even dancers, anymore.

  Second clue: the schoolgirl skirt. The yellow, gray, and turquoise plaid did not remotely coordinate with the rainbow-striped leg warmers. She’d topped it with a pale yellow blouse sporting a Peter Pan collar and a navy jacket.

  The Market is a magnet for free spirits.

  Third clue: her kohl-eyed, openmouthed gape at the shelves crammed with round jars, square jars, and ancient painted tins full of culinary and aromatic treasures.

  Alas, she did not glance at the door or me, suggesting retail instincts yet to be honed. But we could work on that.

  We sat in the mixing nook. She “loved” our tea. She’d “never tasted anything like it.” Spices were “so fascinating.” She spoke in italics. I asked about her retail experience. The answer was hard to decipher, but seemed to boil down to a talent for thrift store shopping.

  “What do you enjoy cooking?”

  She caught her lower lip in her teeth. “Umm. I don’t cook much.”

  Ah. That would be okay, if she conveyed the slightest interest in food. After all, that’s what brings customers in. But she didn’t.

  I trotted out my standard questions. How would you respond if a customer interrupts while you’re helping someone else? If they ask to use the bathroom? If you suspect a customer of shoplifting?

  What’s the difference between oregano and marjoram?

  Actually, that question is less important than the others. I can teach spice knowledge. I can’t teach patience or tact, though the willing student can learn. And I can’t teach temperament.

  She might have had it, but lacked the life experience to cope with the wildly unpredictable world of the Market. Every job has its quirks and quarrels, but let’s just say every day down here is a full moon.

  And, despite her avowals otherwise, I suspected she’d be a temporary hire. This sounded like fun, the pay was decent, and wouldn’t it be cool to work in the Market? Maybe that was the best I could hope for. But what I wanted—needed—was a food lover fired up about foodie retail.

  Or who at least took it seriously.

  “I’ve got a few other people to talk with”—happily, the lie did not set my pants on fire—“before I make a decision. If you get another offer before you hear from me, give me a call.”

  She gushed her thanks before dashing out.

  Retail: fun and easy, except when it’s not.

  Leg warmers.

  Sandra was thrilled to get the baseball tickets. It’s fun to treat your employees.

  Hold on to that thought. I’m a big believer in reaching for the positive, no matter how minor, when it seems like the world is falling apart. Those tiny things keep us afloat.

  An hour later, Sandra, Reed, and I clustered around the terminal for the new gift registry. The tech had taken us through its paces, showing us how to register hopeful giftees, create wish lists, and enter purchases. All that was missing was the software that would link the registry to our inventory system, triggering a memo to me when we had more requests for pepper mills than we had in stock.

  To Reed, it was a shiny new electronic toy. To Sandra, a gadget she was both afraid to touch and eager to master, so she could help more customers. To me, dollars out and, my fervent wish, dollars in.

  “Now all we need are brides,” I said. Our ads in the spring bridal magazines would appear any day now. They’d cost a pretty penny—one more worry.

  The front door opened and I turned, half expecting a vision in white beaded satin, trailed by her dazed-but-happy mother.

  But no. Our consolation prize was the Dynamic Duo. Starsky and Hutch. Cagney and Lacey. Batman and Robin. Andy Griffith and Barney Fife.

  Turner and Hooch.

  I suppressed the urge to share my smart-assery—as I said, in my experience, homicide detectives aren’t big on humor. Instead, I pasted on my bland-but-pleasant HR smile, anticipating more questions about my grim discovery at the building site.

  You know what they say about assumptions.

  So I nearly lost my socks—and my lunch—when Tracy slid a folded paper out of his inside jacket pocket.

  “We have a warrant,” he said. “For your sales records.”

  Whatever I might have expected, it wasn’t that.

  “Not all of them,” Spencer said. I followed her wary gaze as she assessed the crowd, or lack thereof. “Quiet in here.”

  “Midafternoon on a wet Thursday barely into April. What records? And do I get to ask why?”

  Tracy handed me the warrant.

  “Bhut capsicum? You’re joking, right? Who cares who bought ghost peppers? When you walked in, I expected more questions about—the body. Then I decided you wanted evidence related to Alex Howard, since you’ve arrested him.” They exchanged looks, wondering how I knew, and I sent Tag a mental apology for squealing. “But you think—you think ghost chiles killed her?”

  Their silent, impassive faces spoke volumes.

  “I suppose it’s possible, physiologically. But you’d need a ton of the stuff.” The papers shook in my hand as I scanned the list: my purchases and sales, and the dates and amounts of all transactions. “It would take more than I’ve sold at any one time. Diners crave heat these days, but chefs don’t keep a lot on hand. Peppers go off quickly.”

  No double entendre intended.

  “What I mean is, we sell it dried, not fresh, right? With a dried spice, the balance of oils is critical. It can’t be measured. The lighter volatile notes deteriorate faster than the darker or lower notes, and the flavors turn sharp and bitter. You’d think that wouldn’t matter, with all the heat, but it does.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Spencer said.

  “We can gather sales data for commercial accounts. But individuals buy the stuff, too, and we have no way to track that.” I couldn’t imagine someone buying an ounce at a time and hoarding it, pepper shopping like meth makers hopping from pharmacy to pharmacy snapping up Sudafed.

  The crazy stuff people do.

  “Read the damn warrant.” Tracy was losing patience.

  I read it once more, with feeling. They wanted more than sales info. They wanted my stock. Holy patchouli. I read on. They wanted all records of my sales to Alex Howard’s company. My brows creased.

  “Am I under suspicion?” Tracy ignored me. Spencer gave me the same bland smile I’d given her. “I’m guessing not, or you’d be conducting a broader search. And you wouldn’t let Tag help search Alex’s place.”

  Tracy’s gaze sharpened to a point, and even Spencer looked a tad surprised.

  “Well, you can have everything we’ve got on hand. Zak, would you—”

  Spencer extended one hand, palm out in the universal stop sign, then pulled thin latex gloves out of her jacket pocket. “Mr. Davis, kindly direct us to the containers without touching them.”

  He glanced at me, and I nodded, then we watched the detectives bag and label my complete supply of bhut capsicum, aka bhut C. I wasn’t worried about the loss—not a big seller, and we could get replacement stock in a few days.

  But my insides squirmed at the thought that one of my customers might have used my product to kill another customer. That Alex might have used my peppers to kill Tamara.

  And that he’d only known she was planning to leave because my employee had ratted her out.

  I swallowed back vomit and poured myself tea. Gripping the cup stilled my shaking hands.

  He would have discovered the truth eventually. He’d have been furious no matter when the news became public.

  Listen to yourself. You think he did it. I forced myself to take a sip, to stop my internal shivers. It didn’t work.

  How would you kill with peppers? Force someone to breathe pepper dust or ingest them? Stick their head in a plastic bag full of ground particles? I pictured Tamara lying on the floor of her future
restaurant. Her hands, her expression, all said she’d fought her attacker, but other than scuffed footprints, I’d seen no physical evidence of a struggle.

  My meth lab comparison might not be too far off. If they’d found chile powder on Tamara’s body, could the crime lab compare it to various supplies and determine the source stock? Of course, my competitors probably bought from the same importer as I did.

  That smell. Had my nose fooled me? Not cinnamon, but ghost peppers?

  Spencer noticed my furrowed brow. “Something you want to tell us?”

  I shook my head slowly. “Reed and I will put the sales and purchase data together. Should take—how long?”

  My youngest employee’s hands trembled as he read the warrant. “Three hours?”

  Spencer handed me a list. “Are we missing any spice merchants that you can tell?”

  I read slowly. Were all my competitors getting the third degree, too? “No, but restaurants and retailers get their stock from all over the country. They don’t necessarily buy local.” Particularly true of ethnic restaurants. If you’re buying your mango pickle from an importer in Los Angeles, you might get your cardamom pods there, too.

  The door opened, and Mary Jean the Chocolatier charged in, clearly On A Mission. “Pepper, I just love your shop. Where did you find that old map? And that clock. Being on street level instead of hidden Down Under—” She stopped abruptly, as if realizing the couple standing next to me weren’t ordinary customers.

  Sandra to the rescue. I couldn’t hear what she said, but Mary Jean stared at me and the detectives with a mix of surprise and awe. Eyes bulging, she nodded rapidly to Sandra, then scurried out the front door.

  “We’ll let you get back to business,” Spencer said, her voice warm. “Your cooperation means a lot.”

  It meant staying late while Reed downloaded the info off our computer system, checking it, printing it, worrying over it. It might mean helping find Tamara’s killer. And it might mean putting a man who’d been a loyal customer, if not a loyal friend, away for a long time.