[SS01] Assault and Pepper Read online

  A good friend is someone who knows all about you and should know when to keep her mouth shut, even if you did ask for it.

  I found out about Tag’s affair when he told me he was working an extra shift for a buddy, freeing me to join my office pals for a drink after work at a trendy—and pricey—new place. To see what was going on. On my way to the restroom, I spotted Tag and Miss Meter Maid in a corner booth all but plugging coins into each other. I kept my cool on the spot, but yelled and screamed for a few hours and moved out the next day. Filed for divorce the next week. “Don’t rush this,” he’d pleaded, but the discovery made sense of tiny, odd details: furtive expressions, last-minute changes in a long-established work schedule, and clothes I didn’t think he’d worn coming back from the cleaners.

  In less than a month, I’d closed on the loft. A year later, my job evaporated when the partnership voted to dissolve. The firm had been hit with hundreds of thousands of dollars in sanctions after two senior partners failed to disclose information in a medical malpractice case. In the fallout, the accountants discovered the IT director had embezzled two and a half million. And an entire unit, including eighteen of fifty-six partners, decamped for another firm.

  I’d have voted a lack of confidence in management, too, but nobody asked me.

  And then came the chance to buy the Spice Shop. Took me twenty minutes to decide.

  A good friend admits when you’ve pegged her.

  “You’re right. How can choosing labels and logos be so hard?” Fabiola’s designs were variations of a scheme she’d been suggesting since our first project together, last winter. We’d been introduced by one of the displaced younger lawyers who snared Fabiola’s business after setting up her own firm representing “creatives.” Hate the term; love the women.

  And in truth, I loved her designs. But cute as they were, the change would cost that proverbial pretty penny. I had to be sure.

  Kristen read my mind. “You keep saying you’re doing better than you expected for the first year, money-wise. And it takes money to make money.” She stood, shaking her blond hair out of her eyes, and put her hands on my upper arms. “This place is worth the investment, Pepper. You’re worth the investment. You’ve come alive since you bought it.”

  I blinked back tears and nodded. “I’ll call Fabiola.”

  “And where did you get those shoes?” she called after me.

  • • •

  BY six ten, I was alone in the shop.

  The Second Watch patrol—Tag and Olerud’s afternoon-into-evening counterparts—had taken down the yellow tape. I cleaned up the doorway and fluffed the wilting memorial flowers for late passersby to enjoy. In the morning, I’d get a fresh bouquet or two. It would take some good Seattle rain to wash the last bits of black dusting powder away, though the stuff couldn’t be good for the water supply.

  Front door shiny and ready to greet the hordes on the morrow, I went back inside, leaned against the counter, and surveyed my domain. Kristen was spot-on: We were headed in the right direction, despite the cost of refurbishing the space and expanding the inventory. This was no longer Jane’s Spice Shop. It was Pepper’s.

  Time for me to make that statement to the world.

  I scooped up a ginger candy wrapper that had escaped Reed’s broom and dropped it in the trash. As I did, my watchband caught on the rim of the can and popped off my wrist.

  “Dang.” I could barely see the shiny bubblegum pink band. The closer my fingers got, the deeper it slipped into the recesses of the trash bag. I plunged my hand in further.

  No luck.

  I grabbed another bag, snapped it open, and started transferring trash. Halfway down, my nose wrinkled. Flowers? What were they doing in here? My staff knew better.

  Throwing decent flowers in the trash is universal bad karma. It’s seriously bad karma in Seattle, where recycling is religion. Even our sample cups have to be recyclable or compostable. Putting “green waste” in the wrong container violates more rules than you could shake a cinnamon stick at.

  Finally, I managed to extract my watch. It had settled into the folds of newspaper surrounding a bouquet of sunflowers nearly identical to the ones Alex had brought me. The ribbon said they’d come from Yvonne’s stall.

  After spending the day buried, they weren’t exactly fresh as daisies, but freedom and clean water would perk them up. I swapped them for Alex’s bouquet and wrapped my flowers in the discarded paper for the journey home.

  I didn’t know how they’d gotten there, but no city trash collector was going to levy a fine on me for wasting a perfectly good bouquet.

  Talk about bad karma.

  • • •

  I thought briefly about dropping in on Alex to say thanks in person, but it was nearly time for him to start dinner service. The gushy phone message I’d left earlier would have to do.

  After the crazy day, I decided to take the long way home, to stretch my legs and drink in the view. I swung up to Post Alley for a recommendation from my favorite wine merchant.

  “How you guys doin’ down there?” Vinny asked. Another merchant destined for his job. “Good thing you got a side door. Me, I’d be SOL.”

  I smiled and traded cash for a bottle of Oregon Pinot Gris. “Thanks, Vinny. Temporary inconvenience—we’ll be back to normal tomorrow.”

  “Good, good. Say, who was that fellow anyway? Never saw him till a week or two ago. Funny for a guy to move here just before the weather changes, but I guess we got a little while before Rain Season starts for real.”

  True on both counts. It’s common knowledge that some of the homeless travel the circuit, moving around the country with the weather.

  “Hope so. The webs between my toes have dried up. It’ll take a while for them to grow back. Cheers!” Webbed feet, an old Seattle joke.

  I headed up the Alley, past the Irish pub that had revitalized the Butterworth Building, site of the city’s first mortuary. Bad luck—the work of unhappy ghosts?—had driven out previous tenants, but the current incarnation seemed to have made peace with the past. No doubt the ghosts enjoy a draft of Guinness now and then.

  Another sparkling day on Puget Sound as the sun ducked down toward the Olympics. The usual folks clustered in Victor Steinbrueck Park—teens hanging out, couples arm-in-arm at the railing, tourists catching their breath after panting up the hills. A few men lounged near the totem poles—Jim, Hot Dog, and another man I’d seen outside the shop. But no Sam and no Arf.

  I returned Jim’s wave and made the turn to stroll down Western. A step or two later, I heard raised voices and looked back.

  “Get a job, freeloader,” a tall white teenager with floppy blond hair yelled at Hot Dog.

  “Who you calling freeloader?” Hot Dog raised his fists chest-high, the expression on his dark face hidden by the shadow of the totem pole. “Living off daddy’s credit cards.”

  My arms were full with the flowers and a bag of produce, my shoulder tote extra-heavy with the wine and a loaf of bread. And my phone, buried in there somewhere.

  The kid took a step closer. Two of his friends pulled him back. No doubt they saw what I did: He was younger and better fed, but Hot Dog had fought before. A couple standing at the overlook watched, alert. The woman dug in her purse. The man slipped his phone out of his pocket, handed it to her, and took a step forward, his attention on Hot Dog and the boy.

  “Come on,” one of the kids said.

  “Let it go,” said another. “It’s not worth the hassle.”

  The would-be fighter hesitated, then stepped backward, his friends’ hands on his arms. He finally acquiesced, glaring over his shoulder as they tugged at him, and the four headed up Virginia, away from the park. Hot Dog maintained his stance a good while, then sank onto a bench. Jim said a few words to the third man, who stood guard, eyes trained on the disappearing teens. The sightseeing couple resumed their fe
rry watch.

  I sighed in relief and turned toward home, but not before Jim scurried toward me.

  “Thing I like about you,” he said a few moments later, a slight wheeze in his chest, “is you keep your eye on things. A spot of trouble doesn’t scare you off.”

  “Thanks.” Prelude to a shakedown for cash or food? Some of the men who walk women to their cars or downtown apartments try that. Sam certainly never had—not that I’d heard, at least—but I didn’t know my new escort well. “Where’s Sam tonight?”

  “Sam?” A wheeze. “Heck, I don’t know. He doesn’t check in with me.”

  That didn’t ring true. Not only had Jim been the clear leader at the makeshift memorial, he’d hesitated long enough to make me think he was bluffing. A slight flush rose on the unscarred left half of his face.

  “Jim, this morning, you said something about Doc that puzzled me. If I remember right, you said, ‘Old man has no business interfering even after he’s dead.’ What did you mean?”

  Again, that hesitation, this time in his step as well as his voice. “Oh, just blowing smoke. Don’t give it another thought.”

  I stopped. “You’re blowing smoke all right—right now. Tell me what was going on with Doc, and what’s up with Sam.”

  His deep-set eyes grew weary, and his tone became guarded. “You’re married to that cop, aren’t you?”

  “I was married to Officer Buhner of the West Precinct Bike Patrol for thirteen years. Divorced for two. If you’re afraid I’ll tell him something you don’t want the police to know, you’ll have to trust my judgment. But if you try to harm me, I’ve got him on speed dial.” If I could find my phone.

  “Ah, shoot. Don’t be afraid of me.” He looked like a kicked puppy, disappointed in himself for having disappointed his owner. “I’m just an old man who likes my life and keeps an eye on his friends. Doc had Sam all upset. Sam, he—” Another wheeze. “Well, I’ll tell you the truth. He doesn’t always think straight. And sometimes, he gets—ideas.”

  He emphasized the word, making clear that Sam’s ideas weren’t always healthy ones. Delusions maybe.

  “And how does Doc come into this?”

  “Well, Sam likes his corner. He’s convinced it’s the best one in the Market. Now, it may be.” He’d recovered his dignity and held out a hand apologetically. “I mean no slight to you.”

  “None taken.”

  “What matters is Sam thinks so, and we all let him have it, because it means something to him. And whatever means something to a man has got to be respected. You aren’t a man anymore if you can’t manage that. Or a woman, too, I expect.” His cheek pinked, and I wondered how long it had been since Jim had had an extended conversation with a female. Did he have a long-abandoned wife somewhere? A daughter who prayed every night to keep him safe, and please God, bring him back to the family before he dies?

  “And Doc threatened that,” I said. Jim nodded solemnly. “But why?”

  A long, slow wag of the head. “No idea. Man just showed up a week, ten days ago. Ignored the rest of us. Didn’t want to talk—and I respect that, but we have our ways, and he didn’t want any part of them or us.”

  Doc had violated the rules of the streetwise community. Sounds odd to call it that, but every society has its rules. Theirs include protecting the weak, those who—like Sam—can’t always protect themselves. Doc either didn’t know the rules, or chose to disregard them. Why?

  And why stake his claim outside my door?

  • • •

  I’D been tempted to give Jim my strawberries from the Corner Produce or a chunk of bread from the French bakery, but realized in the nick of time that he would see the offering as an insult. He might eat in church basements or drop by the Market Food Bank for produce donated at the end of the day, but he was taking care of himself.

  I sipped my wine while the grill heated, on the teeny little ledge the developer called “the veranda.” You have to climb out one of the twelve-foot-high windows to reach it—why windows line the fifth floor of an eighty-five-year-old warehouse is a mystery lost to time. Five or six people could stand out there to get a breath and stare at the Viaduct, but access is strictly FOLI: First out, last in.

  The only interior walls in the place surround my bedroom and the bathroom. We’d left the high ceilings open, the ductwork and brick walls exposed in classic loft style. For the corner kitchen, my builder pal had struck the mother lode: oak cabinets salvaged from the demolition of a country school out on the coast. An old zinc counter runs along the brick side wall, and salvaged butcher block tops the peninsula, where I do most of my cooking. I’d hunted down leaded glass windows that the builder attached to basic wooden boxes for upper cabinets mounted on the side wall. Extra shelves had been milled from wood the last tenants left behind.

  I grated zest and juiced an orange, mixing orange, garlic, and cumin into creamy yogurt. The sliced chicken breast had taken a quick bath in my favorite citrus marinade. I slid the strips onto metal skewers for easy grilling. A bowl of greens stood ready.

  Time to fire. I carried the plate of chicken out the window and carefully positioned the skewers on the grill. Some single people hate to cook—“All that fuss for one?” But why deprive myself of good food? It’s easy to plan ahead—the extra chicken would go in a pasta salad or a chunky vegetable salad later in the week.

  In the distance, Bertha—the world’s largest tunneling machine—chugged on. While all this destruction and construction wreaked havoc with a woman’s piece of mind, I honestly believed in the waterfront revitalization project. As a matter not just of safety, but of healing old wounds and making downtown and the waterfront neighbors again.

  And I would have one freaking fantastic view—and maybe even a veranda I could sit on. A girl can put up with a lot for that.

  “Buona sera, Pepperoni.” My neighbor called to me. Our verandas are the same size, but while mine feels crowded with a few terra cotta pots of tomatoes, herbs, and flowers, his blooms like a jungle, flowering trees in giant pots, and who knows what else. He’s not actually Italian—he’s a gay, red-haired city councilman—but endearments in all languages spill from him effortlessly. “Smells delish, whatever it is. Ciao!” A plate of grilled salmon in one hand, he waved with the other and stepped through the window into his own loft.

  My conversation with Kristen—and my encounter with Tag—had triggered too many memories of too much change. They poked at my jaw, my shoulders, my stomach. In HR, we referred to a handful of employees who were always in turmoil as the “Crisis of the Month Club.” I had never belonged, despite recent evidence to the contrary. And I had no intention of joining now. Just as things were settling down, just as we approached my first anniversary as the Spice Queen of Pike Place, a man died on my doorstep. Maybe a crime, maybe not. But unsettling as it was, someone else’s crisis had nothing to do with me.

  I much preferred my personal club—the “Spice of the Month Club.”

  S for September and salt.

  I slid the chicken off the skewers onto a bed of greens, and drizzled the plate with yogurt sauce. Added a sprig of fresh thyme for garnish. I might not be dining at Alex’s fine table, but no reason to neglect the details in service for one.

  A little Puget Sound finishing salt would be bliss. I grabbed my favorite glass shaker, a reminder of the diners we stopped in when my brother and I were kids and we made long, hot treks to St. Louis to visit my grandparents.

  My collection of shakers, graters, mortar and pestle sets, sifters, and other kitchen paraphernalia had exploded in the last year. I’d hung gridwork panels on an open stretch of wall to hold the spice scrapers, egg beaters, and other gadgets that had to be seen to be believed. The modern version of Julia Child’s pegboard.

  The Flick Chicks had tested margarita salt last week when we gathered at my place for Mexican Movie Night. A double-header: Night of the Iguana t
o depress us about our love lives and Like Water for Chocolate to make us yearn for romance anyway. Not last week—this week. Two days ago.

  Murder on your doorstep destroys all sense of time.

  I set my salad on the dining table, a weathered round wooden picnic table Tag’s mother had given me. A consolation prize after the divorce, for a nearly furniture-less woman reassembling her life. Two benches sat under it, but I slid into a pale pink wrought iron chair I’d found at a sidewalk sale. It looked like a refugee from an ice cream parlor. A perfect match for my new shoes.

  Laurel could be pretty insistent. But I wasn’t going to do it. If I knew Doc’s family—if he had one—then maybe I’d go barging in with sympathy and flowers.

  But I certainly wasn’t going to track them down and pick up the phone, both caller and recipient feeling as awkward as an elephant in a roller rink.

  Kristen was right. I really had come into my own since buying the Spice Shop. I didn’t mind one bit being the “life begins at forty” poster girl. If the cliché fits, wear it.

  I glanced at my pink shoes, sitting demurely side by side at the front door.

  It was time to fully live my own life, and no one else’s. Not Laurel’s idea of what I ought to do, not Kristen’s or Sandra’s.

  Not even Fabiola’s.

  Eight

  The original Skid Road—the track used to skid logs down to the mill—was Seattle’s Yesler Way, now the heart of modern-day Skid Row, a gathering place for the down-and-out.

  —Murray Morgan, Skid Road: An Informal Portrait of Seattle

  I forced myself to take my usual route up the Market Hillclimb Friday morning. No spooking me.

  Detective Tracy stood outside my shop door, hands in his pants pockets. His tan sports coat, buttoned against the morning damp, pulled across his chest and stomach. There’s an art to looking rumpled before 8 a.m., and he has it nailed.

  “Morning,” I said through a bite of cinnamon-raisin bagel. Juggling bagel, latte, and tote, I pushed several bouquets aside with my foot. “Thought you police types travel in pairs.”