The Solace of Bay Leaves Read online

  “Pepper!” Laurel grabbed my arm. The elevator door opened and I stepped in. She followed. I punched L for Lobby. The door closed and I lifted my eyes to the display, watching the numbers tick by.

  “What is going on?” she said through clenched teeth. “You just blew any chance we had of getting in to see Maddie or Tim.” “Didn’t you see her?”

  “Who?”

  “Lovely Rita, meter maid. Looks like she went from screwing cops to being one. Not that the two are mutually exclusive.”

  “Oh,” was all she said. We reached the lobby. The door opened and an elderly woman with a walker pushed her way in before we could get off, so we wriggled around her. As a rule, you should let people off before you get on. But there’s a rule against knocking down little old ladies, too.

  Not to mention a rule against sleeping with other women’s husbands.

  We made it outside without me bowling anyone over and stood on the sidewalk a few feet from the entrance. After we’d caught our breath, Laurel spoke. “What is she doing here? Lovely Rita, I mean. That isn’t really her name, is it?”

  “Worse,” I said. “It’s Kimberly Clark.”

  Laurel snorted. “Who would a name a kid after toilet paper?”

  “Don’t ask me.” Needless to say, Pepper is not the name on my birth certificate.

  I leaned against the building, the bumpy gray stone poking my back. “I had no idea she’d joined the police force. She had to attend the state law enforcement academy, go through all the training.” She’d had plenty of time. It had been three years—three and a half, if I were counting. As I apparently was. Not to mention overreacting.

  “Did she see me?” I said. “She’ll think I’m an idiot.”

  “Why do you care what she thinks?” Laurel zipped up her coat and shoved her hands in her pockets. It was chilly, but at least it wasn’t raining. “They aren’t still seeing each other, are they?”

  “No. He broke it off—to save our marriage, he said, but I was done with the secrets and lies. If they got back together, I haven’t heard.”

  We’d come here to find out who was keeping secrets about Patrick Halloran’s murder, and then I’d gone and let Lovely Rita punch my ticket.

  “Hey, I’m sorry. Let’s go back up. I’ll tell the guard I’m super upset about Maddie, known her since kindergarten, yada yada. Ask him if Tim’s there. ICU must have its own waiting room— maybe the guard will let me in to talk with someone.”

  “Are you kidding? You pull a stunt like that, Lovely Rita will be on the phone to Detective Tracy faster than the speed of light. He’ll never trust you again.”

  Oh, gad. I’d not only overreacted to old news, I’d seriously mucked up my chances in this investigation. The apology was forming in my rattled brain when I spotted a man studiously avoiding us.

  “Don’t look now, but there’s a man on the other side of the doorway who was upstairs when we were. Not that that’s suspicious, necessarily, but . . .”

  “But you are suspicious.” Laurel’s voice was tight, her eyes twitchy.

  “Let’s take a walk. Just act normal.” Of course, the moment someone tells you to act normal, that becomes nearly impossible, but we tried. We strolled past him, me jabbering about a problem customer made up on the spot. When we got within a few feet, he leaned down to stub out his cigarette. Ah, the irony of a smoking area outside a hospital entrance. A trick, to avoid letting us see his face?

  The rain and fallen leaves had made for slick spots on the sidewalks so we walked with extra care. At the next intersection, I glanced behind us.

  “Can you see him?” Laurel asked.

  “No.” FBI? I hadn’t noticed him in Montlake. Was he watching over Maddie, or watching out for us? I did see Ramon, the security guard, crossing the street a block back. He was wearing a rain coat. Security staff shift change?

  “I—I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him before. The guy you spotted at the door, I mean.”

  “What?” I stopped midstride and nearly tripped over my own feet. Better than my tongue, which happens with some regularity.

  “Friday afternoon, at Ripe. You know that open passage between the main tower and the café?”

  I nodded. I’d worked in the tower for years.

  “I stayed late to help prep for a catering gig. When I left, about four thirty, I crossed the passage, then headed to the garage elevator. He—I’m sure it was him—was sitting on a bench inside the lobby.”

  “Alone? Doing anything?” Friday afternoon. After Maddie was shot, but before we knew about it. By then, the cops must have had the ballistics linking the bullets recovered from Maddie’s shooting to Pat.

  “On his phone, I think, though he did glance up when I walked by. I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure it’s the same guy.”

  The phone. The perfect surveillance cover.

  And the guy. A guy you wouldn’t notice, unless you did. Average height and build. A ball cap and a dark rain jacket, the kind of jackets half the men in Seattle wear. Some even wear them with suits. I closed my eyes briefly to picture it. Navy. Like that narrowed things down.

  “People wait outside hospitals all the time. And sit in building lobbies, too. Had you seen him before? Does he work there?”

  “I don’t think so. Seen him, I mean—I have no idea whether he works there. Thousands of people work there. They don’t all come into Ripe.”

  “Fools. They have no taste. He must be FBI.” I told her about seeing Special Agent Greer in the Market, even though I’d convinced myself she wasn’t watching me. “Do they smoke? I always think of them as super-healthy, clean-living types. Runners.”

  “A secret vice.”

  Or the cigarette had been another bit of innocuous cover, like pretending to be on his phone while he kept an eye on Laurel Halloran.

  A familiar figure caught my attention and I called out. “Tim!”

  Tim Peterson stopped and looked around. I called out again and hurried toward him.

  “Pepper,” he said. We hugged.

  “We were hoping to run into you,” I said. “How is she?”

  “Still in a coma, but her vital signs are good. Thank God they got to her quickly, so there wasn’t a lot of blood loss.” His voice mingled exhaustion with relief, and he pushed back the hood of his rain jacket and ran a hand over his thinning light brown hair. Maddie hadn’t changed her name when they married, saying that since Petrosian and Peterson both meant “son of Peter,” why bother? Tim used his middle name; his real first name, like his father’s, was Peter. I’d roll my eyes if I hadn’t been the victim of parental naming weirdness myself, though I’d lucked out when my grandfather bestowed the perfect nickname on me as a toddler.

  I introduced Laurel. At the sound of her last name, Tim’s eyes widened. “Patrick Halloran’s wife?” he said.

  “I am so sorry,” she said, holding his hand in both of hers. I felt my eyes swell and my jaw tighten. Why did tragedy strike good people? It’s an age-old question, and there is no answer.

  “Thank you for coming. I’ll let Maddie know—I like to think she can hear me.”

  “Tim, a quick question. Do you know why she was there? In the old grocery? I know you don’t get involved in the company, but . . .” Tim was on the management team for the Sounders, though doing what, I couldn’t say. Soccer isn’t my game.

  “All I know is she was meeting her builder there. He was late— got caught on the other side of the drawbridge.” Tim shook his head. “Thank God he got there when he did.”

  “Was someone else meeting them? Or did someone follow her?” I asked.

  “Not that we know. The police have her phone and they’re checking, but they haven’t found anything yet. I’ve gotta run and pick up the kids. Maddie’s mom’s coming in on the red-eye.” We air-kissed and he hurried down the block, aiming his clicker at his car as he went, the lights flashing in response.
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  When Laurel and I reached the back side of the Cathedral, we sat on the steps. I could almost hear the medieval chants, though I was pretty sure they were only in my head.

  “So what do we know?” I stuck out my thumb. “Maddie was shot last week in the building she was about to tear down. After years and a fight with the neighbors.”

  “Who knew she would be there besides her builder?” Laurel asked. “And presumably, her secretary. I mean, she owns the place, but she’s not tearing down the walls herself, is she?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past her, but no, probably not. So that’s the first question: Who knew Maddie would be in the old grocery?”

  “Second question: Did she take a burglar by surprise? Who would break in to a building about to be renovated? To steal the old refrigerator? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Don’t thieves break in to old buildings to steal copper wiring or plumbing? But the police would know if anything like that had been taken.”

  “And they wouldn’t break in in broad daylight, with a gun,” Laurel said. “The same gun that killed my husband.”

  I sighed. “Maybe everybody’s wrong about the gun. Maybe Pat’s killer tossed it, or sold it, and it’s coincidence that it was used in another crime in the same neighborhood.”

  Laurel gave me a sidelong glance that dismissed the idea as ridiculous. Was it? Detective Tracy says he doesn’t believe in coincidence, but when odd things happen involving the same person or place, check it out. My mother, with her woo-woo ways, says the Universe has reasons beyond human understanding, and uses coincidence to direct our attention to signs we might otherwise ignore. They were saying the same thing. Not that either would ever admit it.

  Why would a halfway intelligent killer use the same gun twice? Didn’t everybody know forensics examiners could match bullets? It wasn’t easy; they had to get lucky and find bullets that were intact enough for the marks from the gun barrel to be compared. But it wasn’t just NCIS TV magic.

  “Okay, so let’s talk about Maddie. We don’t know why Rita— Officer Clark”—it was going to take me a while to change my mental image of her—“was in the ICU. Yes, Maddie’s a crime victim in a coma, but they don’t have the manpower to guard every crime victim. Her presence might not have anything to do with Maddie.”

  “She could have been checking on another patient,” Laurel said. “When she heard the guard shout, she responded. Or she stopped in after her shift to visit her grandmother, and swung by to get an update on Maddie. That’s a reasonable request of a young officer.”

  “She’s not that young,” I said, aware that I sounded like a petulant teenager instead of a grown woman. I couldn’t help it; that’s how Rita made me feel. Kimberly. “Tell me about Pat’s role in the protests against the grocery project.”

  “He went to the public meetings, and the Neighbors United board met at our house a couple of times. That could have been earlier, though. I’m not sure. He didn’t get as involved with the grocery project as he did on the wetlands issue. It was soccer season—he still coached little kids, plus following Gabe’s team, and work was crazy busy.”

  “He tangle with Maddie?”

  “No. You know, I remember her being at the first big public informational meeting, but I didn’t think she was part of the grocery project.”

  “Why was she there then? As a neighbor?”

  “I guess. I never knew. It was years ago, right before he was killed, and a lot’s happened since then. Some builder-guy did the talking—I don’t remember his name—and Deanna. We did feel a little uncomfortable around her, but no big deal. We were never close.”

  “Deanna, you mean? The woman we met in the coffee shop, who lived next door to you?” The stone steps were cold and damp.

  “Right. The original plan was to tear the building down and build condos. She would get all the listings. But the group contended that the project was out of character with the neighborhood, and they thought eventually some of the other buildings would get torn down, too. Like dominoes. I haven’t kept up, but at some point, the whole project was redesigned, with a gourmet market on the ground floor and a few midprice rentals upstairs. That’s when I started hearing that Maddie was involved.”

  “No condo sales and no commissions,” I said, musing. As Nate had noted this morning, people can get antsy about protecting their income stream. Maddie had plenty of other irons in the fire, I was sure. But what about Deanna? The builder-guy who’d done the talking in the early phases? Who else had lost a bundle to the change in plans?

  Laurel peered over the stone balustrade. “No sign of Mr. FBI. Though I feel better, knowing they’re keeping an eye on us.”

  FBI agents are trained to blend in, to not be noticed. He had the right clothes. But we had noticed him. Maybe he wanted us to know he was there, like Greer yesterday in the Market. She hadn’t been trying to hide from me.

  Was their presence meant to be reassuring, or a warning?

  I like to think I’m a pretty decent observer, and that I can watch out for myself just fine, thank you. But this was a tangled web, and I was getting a very unsettled feeling.

  LAUREL dropped me off near my building. I put a hand on her arm. “If you see anyone you feel hinky about, promise you’ll call the police. Don’t try to tough this out on your own.”

  Her throat tightened. “You know, I’ve never had a friend who would do what you did for me today.”

  “Meet for breakfast, drink coffee, and go for a drive in the rain?”

  A smile tugged at one corner of her full lips. “You know what I mean.”

  “I do. And I appreciate you not telling me what an idiot I was for freaking out over Lovely Rita.” “We’ll let that be our little secret.”

  I was half a block away when the drizzle turned to downpour and I broke into a sprint, not stopping until I reached the front door of my building.

  No sign of a tail, in the car or now that I was on foot. Though if he were any good, we wouldn’t notice. And he, whoever he was, probably knew where each of us lived and worked.

  You’re giving yourself the willies for no good reason, Pep, I told myself as I reached for the door, key in hand.

  My loft is in a 1920s warehouse. During build-out, in developer-speak, the builder created a new entrance with a modern lock and intercom system. The door is one of those pneumatic thingies that close firmly on their own, the lock making a satisfying snick when it catches.

  So why was it already open?

  Nine

  In October I’ll be host

  To witches, goblins and a ghost

  I’ll serve them chicken soup on toast

  Whoopy once, whoopy twice

  Whoopy chicken soup with rice

  —Carole King and Maurice Sendak,

  “Chicken Soup with Rice”

  I’D TOLD LAUREL TO CALL THE POLICE IF ANYTHING SEEMED amiss.

  Would I follow my own advice?

  No damp footprints dotted the slate entry way. None led up the wide plank stairs to my floor, or down to the lower level. But the rain had only just turned serious. An intruder could easily have had dry feet.

  How could someone have broken in? The doors were state-of-the-art. The developer had assured me of that, and when Tag helped me move in, he’d confirmed that the locks were all but unpickable. If that’s a word.

  “Don’t be an idiot twice in one day,” I muttered and reached into my bag for my phone.

  “How” turned to “who.” Who would break into a downtown residential building on a rainy Sunday afternoon? Surely a burglar would pick a more opportune time.

  Someone who wasn’t after jewels or fancy electronics. Someone with more personal harm in mind. Under the circumstances, it was not necessarily narcissistic to imagine that someone was after me.

  My thumb hovered over the keypad. Was I really going to call 911 for a balky door latch? I could p
ractically hear Tag saying “better safe than sorry—it’s what we do.” But calling felt like a waste of precious police officer time. It felt foolish.

  From a lower level came the sound of—what? A door, closing softly. Deliberately.

  Then, footfalls.

  I pressed the nine and moved my thumb across the keys to the one. A loud burst of laughter rose up the stairs. Female, followed by male tones, low and indecipherable. She laughed again and so did he, the sounds growing closer.

  I hit pause on my panic. Burglars might work in pairs and close doors quietly, but they don’t climb stairs laughing and joking.