[SS01] Assault and Pepper (10 page)

It burns, it stings, it turns you into a virtual dragon! Yet thousands of YouTube users post videos of themselves taking the ever-popular, ever-stupid Cinnamon Challenge, a pointless attempt to swallow a tablespoon of cinnamon in 60 seconds without water. Don’t be an idiot. Just say no.

Detective Michael Tracy slid a long white envelope out of the inside pocket of his sport coat and handed it to me.

In old B movies, starlets recoil from a subpoena or warrant, extended by an unseen hand, as if they could avoid legal process by treating the thing like a diamondback ready to strike. I’d listened to lawyers in the lunch room recount tales of witnesses who refused to touch dangerous papers, and Tag had once had to tase a suspect who tried to avoid arrest by setting fire to his house and running out the back door.

At the moment, I sympathized with the starlets and the suspect.

If the papers Detective Tracy handed me were any indication, I was “
the possessor of premises believed to contain or harbor evidence of a crime, e.g., murder in the first degree, e.g., causing the death of one Damien Finch, street name ‘Doc,’ with premeditated intent.
”

I felt like swearing. Tracy had gotten a warrant to search my shop for evidence of murder. Premeditated murder. Intent to kill.

“How’d you find out his name?”

“His wallet.”

Duh
.

First-degree murder. Accidental poisonings do happen, but if it’s truly an accident, it isn’t usually murder, is it? Manslaughter, if the circumstances make it a crime, and a terrible, horrible, regret-to-your-dying-day mistake if they don’t.

What about a spice wizard who poisons her father’s tea?

“
Evidence of poison, the means to poison, or intent to poison or otherwise harm,
” I read. Was it getting cold in here?

“If you tell me what poison you suspect,” I said, running through my mental list of potentially toxic spices, “we could speed up your search. I mean, overdosing on nutmeg can send you on a bad trip, but it won’t cause any real harm. And some folks are sensitive to cinnamon or mustard, but even a megadose would only give them a serious stomachache. If they managed to choke it down.”

“No, I don’t think I can share that information,” Tracy said dryly. “Ms. Piniella, if you’d be so kind, unlock the front door and allow my officers in.” A minute or two later, officers guarded our doors, and a small cadre of detectives and patrol officers wearing rubber gloves stuck their noses in every corner of our business. They climbed the ladder and poked and prodded our jars and bags and boxes while the four of us fidgeted in the mixing nook.

Tracy told me I could leave, but I didn’t budge. Then he suggested the others head home. Either he didn’t anticipate further questions for them, or he was willing to postpone the quiz in exchange for fewer eyes on the search. But Kristen had looped her arm through mine and refused to go, and the others chimed in that they were staying, too.

Now my employees leaned forward in their seats in the nook, radiating a blend of anger and determination, watching every move the detectives made. Retail keeps you sharp-eyed.

“Do you store spices anywhere else?” Tracy asked me.

“Yes and no. We blend and bag our tea every week at a certified facility in SoDo.” South of the Dome—the long-gone Kingdome. “The tea and spices we use are shipped directly there. Everything else comes here.”

“Does Ms. Finch have access to that facility?”

“No. Ms. Piniella and I take turns supervising production.” I gave him the name and address of the place. Jane had used it for years. “Once it’s blended and bagged, we keep it here.” I gestured toward my ancient Chinese apothecary, bought long before I imagined owning a spice shop. It still emits faint whiffs of jasmine and ginger. But its open drawers hold tea strainers and infusers, the upper shelves designed for a Buddha figure now displaying teapots and mugs. Plastic bags of bulk tea and boxes of individual tea bags fill the lower shelves.

The nineteenth-century piece had belonged to an elderly widower on our block, and I’d admired it for years. After his death, his daughter said he’d wanted me to have it. Tag had groused—“What do you want with that piece of junk?”—but I’d insisted, and he and the old man’s son-in-law had gingerly carted it to our house.

It seemed life had been preparing me for the unforeseen.

I followed Spencer and Tracy to my office, a glorified broom closet. Two people barely fit, so I leaned against the door frame, arms crossed, observing the search.

Don’t you block my line of sight
, I told Tracy silently
. This is my life you’re pawing over and don’t you forget it.

A heavily varnished remnant of chipboard had been wedged between the walls to make a desk out of two dented black file cabinets, the shelves above crammed with reference books, food mags, and catalogs.

Many spices and herbs are imported, and it isn’t always possible to buy directly from the grower. For some exotic varieties, especially those suited only to remote climates or harvested in countries where export is difficult, suppliers hold the key.

And while paper catalogs might be going the way of dinosaurs, like those old fossils, they have their uses—besides propping up a rickety table leg. To some of my commercial customers, no website will ever convey as much as a picture they can hold in their hands. Others like to take a catalog back to their kitchen to browse during slack moments.

Happily, the shelves were reasonably well organized, and it took Spencer almost no time to conclude they held nothing relevant to Doc’s murder or Tory’s arrest.

“She use the computer?”

Holy moly. Would they, could they?

“No reason she would.” Tory had no responsibilities involving the computer and I’d never seen her on it, though I left it on during the day. She wasn’t the type to sneak a peek at Facebook or Twitter when she should be working.

The last thirty-six hours intimated that I didn’t really know what type she was.

“No,” I repeated, shaking my head slightly. My business depended on that computer. And yes, I had a backup system, and our iPad cash register could function on its own, but having the hard drive seized would be a major PITA.

Tracy looked skeptical, but then, he usually does.

Spencer sat in my chair and riffled through my file drawers. I’d started my own filing system when I bought the business, and true to my HR roots, the files were all clearly labeled and organized.

“Supplier records, and leasing info and correspondence with the PDA in the top left drawer,” I said. “Financial records in the bottom.”

Spencer flipped while I peered over Tracy’s shoulder. I detected a faint odor of a particular chile. “Thai for lunch,” I said. “You eat in the Market, or that place down by SPD Headquarters?”

His dark cheeks flushed slightly and his eyelids twitched, as if to say, “
How the heck . . .”

“This drawer is locked.” Spencer tugged at the handle of the bottom right drawer.

“Of course it’s locked. Those are personnel files. No one has access to them but me.”

“Pepper,” Tracy said firmly, “the warrant.”

“The warrant does not specify confidential personnel information, and there is no reason to believe those files have any relevance to your investigation.” I tried to channel the lawyers I’d worked with. The good ones.

“Everything related to Ms. Finch is relevant. We have a witness.”

“I don’t care if you have six witnesses. You go back and get another warrant. I’ve got an obligation to protect those files until a court tells me otherwise.” I’d be violating the law myself if I handed them over voluntarily. Tory had no access to that drawer and it was hard to imagine how anything in a personnel file might relate to a charge of premeditated murder. It’s not like anyone writes on their job application that they intend to kill their father at some future date, on the employer’s doorstep.

I felt that old pain in my jaw. The sharp stabbing that said this might not be the most comfortable time to stand up for myself.

But I was through backing down. I met Tracy’s cold glare with one of my own.

“We’ll just do that then,” he said as Spencer said, “She’s right, Mike.” He looked annoyed.

My jaw replied with a spasm.

Tracy scanned the office one more time. “Where did Ms. Finch keep her personal belongings?”

Apparently I took too long to respond. Apparently Tracy no longer trusted me, if he ever had.

“Her purse,” he said, voice and eyes snapping like a peevish turtle.

How I longed to draw the line. To tell him no and mean it. To tell him no and believe I could get away with it, without facing charges of obstruction.

But the warrant gave them the right to search anywhere that they might find evidence of the crime or motive. And that included Tory’s bag, stashed in our staff-only bathroom. I edged past Tracy into the tiny room and opened the cabinet above the toilet. The brown leather shoulder strap of Tory’s olive green messenger bag flopped out.

“That one,” I said.

Tracy stretched to loop a finger through one of the leather tabs on the front pockets and the bag came tumbling down. He caught it mid fall, but the main zipper was open and stuff went flying. He swore loudly and clapped the thing shut, capturing her sketchbook before it slid out.

I snared her wallet before it hit the floor and scooped a pink lip gloss out of the toilet. A sketching pen skittered to a stop between Spencer’s feet. All three of us glanced around instinctively, but nothing else appeared to have escaped.

“Your fingerprints,” Tracy said, blustering. “Now you’ve contaminated evidence.”

“You’d rather it took a swim?”

“I don’t have an evidence bag that big on me,” Spencer said. “Play nice while I grab one.”

Tracy’s scowl deepened, but I put on my HR face. A small medicine cabinet hung above the sink and I started to tuck the lip gloss inside.

“Everything,” he snapped.

“Tory wore pink lip gloss every day. She would hardly stash poison in it.”

“Everything,” he repeated.

“Here we go.” Spencer returned carrying a large clear plastic bag. Tracy slipped it over the messenger bag and I started to drop the wallet and lip gloss inside.

“Bag those separately,” he said. “Since Ms. Reece has interfered with the process.”

Spencer complied, taking the wallet and lip gloss from me with a gloved hand, then filled out the peel-and-stick chain of custody forms.

“Thank you, Detective Spencer. You have been most kind.” I swept my arm like an old-fashioned maitre d’, pointedly ignoring Tracy, who huffed past me.

Back on the shop floor, patrol officers were labeling and logging evidence bags.

“They took all the paper cups,” Sandra said in a low voice, “and all our custom tea.”

“What about—” I spun halfway around. One gloved officer snapped open a large bag, while another lifted the samovar and gingerly slid it inside.

“Careful. It’s fragile. And not cheap.”

The officer holding the bag gave me a faint smile. “We’ll do our best, ma’am.”

My staff and I stood shoulder to shoulder, breath shallow, eyes darting as the detectives and officers finished poking, probing, packing, and labeling. The pile of evidence in their wheeled cart grew: the samover and its mate, paper cups, both rubber stamps, Tory’s personal mug, her messenger bag. All our trash cans and recycling bins. The tea, but no other inventory.

Odd, that, but it gave me hope that they would realize their mistake quickly and release Tory.

“Any medicinals?” Spencer asked. In the good cop–bad cop game, her role was obvious.

“Yes and no. We focus on the culinary, but many herbs also have medicinal purposes, in another form.”

Her eyebrows furrowed. I gestured toward the shelves. “Oregano, for example. You’ve eaten it, cooked with it. But oregano oil, which we don’t sell, is used as an antiseptic. Some mints are used in medicinal blends. Turmeric treats a number of conditions. Herbalists and naturopaths use cinnamon capsules to treat high blood pressure. I hear it works wonders.”

She consulted a list, tucked it back in her jacket pocket. “That’s everything, then.”

“Ladies. Mr. Locke,” Tracy said. “I’m sure we’ll see each other again soon.”

I smiled stiffly and latched the door behind him, then let out a deep, heavy breath.

My staff studied me, wide-eyed and wordless. A sense of gloom and despair filled the place. We had all worked so hard to make the transition from longtime owner to new, revitalizing the space and expanding the stock to make the Seattle Spice Shop into a sensory paradise where anything seems possible.

Anything but this.

“Group hug,” Kristen said. I guessed no one but her felt like it, but we all joined in. Sadness permeated our huddle. It made me angry—but at what? Not Tory, who had to be innocent. Not Doc—no one deserved premeditated murder, if that’s what it had been.

Not even Tracy. He was simply the focal point for a bad situation.

But he’d made Tory and me his targets, and that ticked me off.

“We’ll get through this,” I said, releasing the hold. “Sandra, can you blend a new batch of tea tonight? You should be able to get kitchen access despite the short notice, though we may have to pay extra for time on the bagging equipment.”