[SS01] Assault and Pepper Read online

  “Detective Spencer is interviewing witnesses.”

  I straightened and eyed him sharply. “So now you know this wasn’t death by natural causes?”

  His dark eyes gave nothing away.

  The leaky windows in my loft—another upgrade awaiting the end of Tunnel Mania—had tipped me off that mornings were getting cooler, and I’d grabbed a raspberry pink fleece jacket on my way out the door. It matched my watchband and complemented my new pink shoes.

  I fished in my jacket pocket for my spare key. “Voilà!” I said and held it up as Tracy dangled my key ring from two fingers.

  He followed me inside, uninvited but not unexpected. I dumped my things in the office and walked back out, sipping my latte. Some tea and spice shops sell coffee beans, but I’d decided to leave that to the experts. And in Seattle, coffee experts abound.

  Tracy was giving our shelves the same curious inspection Spencer had.

  “Are you a cook, Detective?”

  “My wife is.” He continued to scan the rows of glass jars and other curiosities.

  An image of a pretty, petite dynamo popped into my mind. Laughing, chasing two small children at a lakefront beach party, if memory served.

  His gaze stopped on the samovar.

  He turned toward me abruptly and slipped a notebook out of his jacket pocket. “Shall we sit?” He gestured toward the mixing nook.

  “I can spare a few minutes.” As if a detective with an agenda and a list of questions would give a fig that I had a shop to prep for the day.

  “You’ve got an established work schedule, I presume. I’ll need a copy, plus all time records that show changes—anybody work late, switch shifts, that sort of thing. Everyone gone when you left Wednesday evening?”

  “What does my staff have to do with this? Doc was dead before we opened Thursday. And yeah, I’m always the first to arrive and the last to leave. Except Mondays, my day off. I usually come in anyway, at least part of the day.” Still high season, still my first year. Still my baby.

  “Except,” he said, “when you’re not.” A long pause. “When your resident artist beats you to it.”

  Point. And if we were talking foul play, any of them could have seen something critical, whether they realized it or not.

  “Do they all have keys?” A department-issue notebook lay open to a blank page, a black pen advertising a local hotel beside it.

  “No. Just Sandra and Tory. Sandra’s my assistant manager. She opens and closes on days I’m off. Tory’s been here the next longest, and someone else needs to have a key, in case I’m out when it’s time to lock up. You know, I might run to the bank, swing by the Market office, make a delivery.” Reed and Zak handle most of our mail runs and downtown deliveries, but I like to visit the commercial accounts occasionally. Like Alex.

  “And is it understood that employees may use the shop for personal reasons at other times?”

  I frowned. “No, not really. A retail shop has no other uses.” If Reed wanted to study here or someone wanted to use the nook for a meeting, fine. No one had ever asked. “But I don’t have a problem with Tory coming in early to sketch.”

  His head bobbed ever so slightly, revealing a sprinkle of salt in his peppery, close-cropped hair. “You seem to have quite a bond with the Market residents and the people of the street.”

  My eyes narrowed. I had no idea what might have gone wrong, what—besides a heart attack—might have killed Doc. But why are the less fortunate everyone’s first suspects?

  “Some of them are very observant,” he continued.

  The relationship between the police and the street folks is complicated. Suspicions cloud both sides. Individual patrol officers often forge good working relationships with individuals. Homicide detectives, on the other hand, work where they’re needed, lessening the chance of long-term connections.

  But I wasn’t keen on making those connections for Detective Tracy. I’d told Jim he’d have to trust my judgment, but that meant I had to control my judgment—and watch my tongue. “If you need to talk with them about what they saw, why don’t you ask for Officer Buhner’s help?”

  “I’ll do that. Thing is, the one I’m interested in seems to be missing.”

  I caught my lower lip in my teeth. He had to mean Sam. Beret-free Sam. “I’m sure you can track him down. You guys know all the shelters and housing programs. The camps. All the haunts.”

  He nodded. “Now, about that schedule.”

  My HR brain briefly debated my obligation to protect my employees against my obligation to cooperate with the police, but experience told me the work schedule wouldn’t legally be considered confidential information. So I flicked on the office computer, and the printer spat out a copy. “Fridays are busy. They’ll all be in at some point today. Reed comes in at one, and Zak leaves at two.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. Thanks for your time.”

  After he left, I scrambled to fire up the tea. Tory arrived in time to finish the job while I set up the cash drawer and did a last-minute walk-through. A box or two remained from yesterday’s deliveries, and I tucked those out of the way.

  I unlocked the front door and propped it open so the world could see we were back to normal. Sort of—normal does not include a mound of flowers and notes handwritten on scraps of paper or cardboard no doubt scrounged from recycling bins. I culled out the most badly wilted bouquets and rearranged the rest—in the sight line but out of the foot line.

  A shame to risk the notes being blown away and trampled. I slipped them into my apron pocket. If Doc did have a family—well, I’d give the notes to Spencer or Tracy and let them decide what to do.

  And then we were off and running, attending to the Friday rush and rattle. Sales had dropped a hair on Thursday—not too much to absorb, but business owners watch the trends, and I like mine moving up.

  Judging by the jars waiting to be reshelved, Seattleites were trending up on red, green, and especially black teas. They were planning weekend meals from every corner of our map, using every herb and spice from Aleppo pepper to wasabi. (We got your roots, your powders, and your tubes of paste, and not one of them is horseradish colored with spinach powder. On my honor.)

  September is still tourist season in these parts. The PDA clues us in on the big draws—the annual Flower and Garden Show in February, Folklife, Seafair, Bumbershoot—and dozens of smaller festivals and gatherings. More than ten million people stroll through the Market’s nine acres every year.

  And though we couldn’t see the terminals from here, I knew one of the nearly two hundred cruise ships that stop in Seattle had docked at the Bell Street Terminal, aka Pier 66. The giveaway? The wristbands and the clutches of women, a few men straggling behind, and their purchases. Cruise shippers don’t bring in shopping lists or recipes. They buy products: lavender wands and sachets from Sequim, the town across the Sound that calls itself the Lavender Capital of North America, probably because that’s easier to pronounce. (For the record, it’s said Skwim. It’s a Klallam word. Or Clallam. Or Cle Elum. You think spelling some English words is tricky—try the native languages.) Sea salt harvested from Puget Sound. Or our Seattle Spice Shop Tea, custom blended every week and sold for your tasting pleasure in bags or bulk.

  And when we have them, our seasonal spice blends.

  Today’s tourists kept Zak busy, quizzing him about the shop, the tea, the Market, and more. He is a good ambassador, despite the unlikely appearance—or because of it. To the cruise ship crowd, he’s proof that grandsons can grow up to be decent young men despite strange hair, terrible music, and tattoos peeking out of shirtsleeves.

  Minutes before noon, I was straightening a display of tea mugs and infusers when Sandra hustled over. “Favorite cop alert,” she whispered, and Tag, in uniform, strolled in as if he owned the place, slipping off his mirrored sunglasses in a gesture of extreme cool.


  A cop’s presence has a curious effect. Even among the upstanding, you can detect a touch of anxiety. What’s going on? Why is he here? Tag, naturally, eats it up.

  “Let’s get a bit of sunshine,” I said and headed for the side door. I made a mental note to be sure Zak returned the Inn’s flowerpot doorstop before he left. Fridays are a gig night for him, so he works a short shift. “To what do I owe the pleasure, Officer?”

  “Just—want to make sure you’re okay.” His china blue eyes showed concern. As I’ve said, he isn’t always a schmuck, but it’s not always easy to tell.

  I crossed my arms and sucked in my lower lip. “Thanks. ’Preciate it. Glad to have the yellow tape gone—you know how busy weekends are down here.”

  He hadn’t put the sunglasses back on, and for a split second, an uncharacteristic glimmer of hesitation crossed his face. I opened my mouth to ask what was on his mind when he spoke. “Well, then, good. Glad to know everything’s good. You’ll be fine.” He slid the glasses on and kissed my cheek. “Later,” he said, and strode down the hill, bike shoes tapping on the concrete sidewalk.

  What the heck was that about?

  I followed slowly, drinking in the sunshine and atmosphere. One of my favorite buskers often plays on the corner across Pine, and the strains of his fiddle danced on the air. Locals on lunch breaks smiled, tossed change in the beat-up black case open on the sidewalk, and kept moving. Tourists sauntered by, snapping pics with their phones. A few stopped to listen, forming an attentive semicircle. When he finished the piece—Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times Come Again No More”—he bowed deeply, then flashed a grin, toothless as an eight-year-old.

  To my surprise, several of Doc’s compatriots had lined up along the Spice Shop’s front wall, flanking the mound of flowers. Each man had his head bent, hat in hand. A show of respect or coordinated panhandling?

  Only one logical response. I popped inside, filled a tray with paper cups of tea, and headed back out. I felt a bit like an altar girl—servers, they’re called now. I’d ached to be one in fifth grade but my mother had refused to sign the consent form. Jim stood nearest the door, and his gaze barely met mine when he took the cup.

  “Seen our friend today?” I asked. Sam loved the Market musicians.

  A barely detectible shake no.

  “If—when—you do, please let him know we’re thinking about him.”

  A faint nod. I offered cups to all the men, then to passersby. Tray empty, I felt someone’s gaze and followed the feeling. Across the way, Yvonne flushed and whipped her head back to her stall, fiddling flowers madly. Empty tray in hand, I crossed the street.

  “Not sure if you’ve been giving the men your unsold flowers to add to the tribute or if they’ve been paying you, but either way, thanks. It’s nice to see Doc honored.”

  “You shouldn’t encourage them to hang around, giving them tea and crumpets.”

  I shrugged. A debate as old as Seattle’s hills. Does acknowledging street folks and offering occasional generosity encourage vagrancy as some claim—those who deride tolerance and call the city “Fre-attle”? Or is it simply human kindness to show compassion for the less fortunate? The latter, in my view. The homeless are just like the rest of us. Except for that home thing.

  Besides, they get their crumpets day-old from the Crumpet Shop in the Corner Market.

  “And thank you for helping Alex Howard pick out that gorgeous bouquet. It made my day.” This time we both blushed and she almost smiled.

  After lunch, the Market Master dropped in. Part den mother, part supervisor to the farmers and craftspeople, from the moment the morning bell rings, he’s on the move.

  “So sorry to hear what happened. I was out in the field yesterday—literally. Inspecting a potential grower’s operation.” He reached for my hand and embraced it in both of his. “Anything you need?”

  It struck me how no one ever wants to say the D words: “dead,” “died,” “death.” As if the words themselves are to blame for the sadness they bring—and the sense of mortality they trigger. We’d heard every euphemism in the book in the last twenty-four-plus hours, from “bought the farm” to “met his Maker.”

  A homeless guy might enjoy owning a farm. But if Doc was as unpleasant as the other street men suggested, it might not be his Maker he was meeting.

  “Thanks,” I said. “It’s crazy to find someone dead on your doorstep. But we’re fine.”

  “It happens from time to time.” He squeezed my hands again, an earnest expression on his narrow, weathered face. “Anything we can do, you let me know.”

  Callie the librarian arrived with the broken grinder, five-year-old future geologist in tow. Zak took charge of the child while I inspected the tool. You stuck a whole nutmeg through a hole on the side of a two-inch cylinder, then pushed a wooden plunger that held the nutmeg against a small grater attached to another wooden handle. A trombone-like metal slide held the two pieces together. Gripping both handles, you slid the cylinder back and forth across the grater. Rather ingenious, and a genuine antique.

  And seriously busted. One of my potential replacements was an excellent match and a bargain to boot, so she bought it. She’d also brought a list of herbs and spices to stock up on, so by the time she left, we were all smiling.

  But it was nearly witching hour for Zak, so I decided to take the day’s shipments to the mailing service myself, in the Soames-Dunn Building a few hundred yards north-ish.

  I strapped two plastic crates crammed with small boxes and padded envelopes to our rickety orange hand truck and toddled up the street, leaving the crowded sidewalk to the foot traffic. Walking in the street has its hazards, too—the cobbles and vehicles the least of them. Most shops lack alleys and space is tight all over, so deliveries sometimes sit next to curbs for hours, alongside recycling bins, piles of flattened boxes, and other urban obstacles.

  The Market opened in 1907, and most buildings date from the expansion in the teens and twenties. The Market Historic District is the only mixed commercial and residential district on the National Historic Register. Chain stores aren’t allowed unless they started here, like the original Starbucks, which opened in 1971 in the Stewart Building, and the first Sur la Table, begun the next year right behind the Spice Shop, in a building that once housed the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shop. Both still buzz with caffeinated sightseers and locals.

  A few minutes later, I pulled my cart out of the shipping service and paused in the Arcade to slip the receipt into my apron pocket. As I did, a sweep of dark fabric caught the corner of my eye and I glanced to the rear of the Arcade.

  It was not unusual to see men and women in costume downtown, and a few of the more eccentric folk consider long black coats daily apparel, even on warm days. But if my vision was correct, that coat belonged to a man I wanted to see.

  I shoved the cart up tight against the wall and dashed to the back of the Arcade, past the Soap Box and the Oyster Bar and their competing aromas. Bounded up the zigzag of ivy-draped steps for Upper Post Alley. At the first turn, I stepped aside for a thirty-ish man descending, stroller in hand, followed by a woman carrying a toddler. I hid my impatience behind a smile. Dashed ahead as soon as they passed by.

  When I first started working downtown, the Pink Door restaurant and cabaret was the only place of note in this stretch of Post Alley. (And even in the Market, a place with its own psychic tarot reader and a trapeze act is of note.) Since then, the old mortuary has become home to the Irish pub, and the alley boasts a tea room, a chocolatier, and the wine shop on street level, with housing on the upper levels.

  And lots of doorways, all empty.

  Breath a bit ragged, I hurried on. At Virginia, I looked both ways. Sam was nowhere to be seen.

  Still searching, I headed up to First, scouted the block, then jogged down Stewart to Pike Place, circling back to the Soames-Dunn to reclaim my cart. How could a six-f
oot-plus black man in a long, dark coat and a good-sized dog simply disappear? Sam always said—joking or not, I never knew—that the beret made him invisible.

  But the beret was in a police evidence bag.

  Maybe the magic was in the coat.

  Foot traffic had thinned enough for me to push my empty cart down the sidewalk. Jim, Hot Dog, and the man I’d seen last night at the park kept vigil outside my shop.

  “Jim, I need to talk with Sam. For his sake.”

  The scarred half of Jim’s face remained immobile, but caution filled his eyes.

  “Hell, man.” Hot Dog’s words came out “Hey-el, menn.” “You said last night we could trust her.”

  Something unspoken passed between the two and I got the feeling, despite Hot Dog’s words, that Jim was still wary of me. His Adam’s apple bobbed, his eyes lowered. He hesitated, then spoke quietly. “If he’s in the Market, and I’m not saying he is, you might find him Down Under, by where the bead shop used to be.”

  “Why there?” My brow furrowed. Down Under, the lower levels beneath the Main Arcade, is home to shops of all kinds, including my favorite import shop. Before it moved, the bead shop on that level had hosted a specter who liked to play tricks on the owners and rearrange the beads.

  Strange place for Sam to hang out.

  “But he ain’t always in the Market,” Hot Dog said. “Could be anywhere.”

  “Pioneer Square?” I said. On the other end of downtown, the Square is a perennial favorite of the street folks. It had been Skid Road when the term referred to logging, not the destitute.

  No response. Jim and Hot Dog were telling me that they weren’t really telling me. I understood. Don’t let Sam know we told you, and don’t tell anyone else.

  First places first. I tucked the cart inside the shop and crossed Pike Place to the daystalls. Waved to Yvonne and trotted toward the wide stairs leading down to the Mezzanine level and Down Under.

  But I hadn’t gotten far when a flash of sunlight off bright metal drew my attention back to the street. A shiny blue patrol car glided to a halt in front of my shop and two uniformed officers exited. A second patrol car idled a hundred feet behind, the uniformed driver standing by her open door, eyeing the crowd. Her partner took up a sentry post at the bottom of the hill. A familiar unmarked car parked on Pine. Tag and Olerud circled on their bikes.