[SS01] Assault and Pepper (9 page)

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-foot-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.

And Spencer and Tracy headed for my door.

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt have lost its savor, it is good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot.

—Matthew 5:13

“They arrested her,” Reed repeated. “I can’t believe they arrested her.”

We huddled together in the middle of the shop while Spencer told Tory she was under arrest for Doc’s murder and Tracy snapped on the handcuffs. Tory still wore her black Spice Shop apron.

“I’ll call Eric,” Kristen called out. “He’ll know what to do.”

Tory shook her head no.

“Why not?” Kristen turned to me, eyes wide, worried voice rising. “Why doesn’t she want a lawyer? She didn’t kill him. Why would she kill him?”

“Call him anyway,” I said, watching Tory. “She isn’t thinking straight.”

With her perfect calm and salt-of-the-earth self-possession, Tory always seemed to know exactly what she was doing and saying. But now? It was all too strange.

“Don’t you want your purse?” Tracy asked. Tory shook her head no, hard, emphatically. Did she glance at me briefly, or did I just imagine it?

The uniformed patrol officers took Tory by the upper arm and led their prisoner out the front door. I glimpsed them tuck her in the waiting car, firmly but not unkindly.

A gaggle of cruise shippers had been in the shop when the police arrived, and they stood, agape. Oh, the wonders of the evil city, to report to the women in the bridge club and the church choir back home in Iowa or Indiana or another distant utopia. A few clutched bags of lavender or Puget Sound sea salt.

Spencer gestured. “You have customers, Pepper.”

In other words, show’s over, get back to business. But I was not so easily distracted. “Where are you taking her?”

“She’s in good hands.”

I gripped my elbows to keep from shaking. “What are you charging her with? She didn’t kill Doc. She couldn’t have killed Doc.”

“Boss.” Sandra touched my arm and tilted her head almost imperceptibly toward the customers.

I didn’t care what they heard or saw, what gossip they shared back home. I only cared about Tory.

But Sandra was right. I breathed deeply and put on my pleasant HR face. “So sorry about the disruption. All just a mistake, I’m sure. Sandra will be happy to help you make your purchases and”—I scanned the tables quickly before spotting the obvious choice—“please accept a box of our custom blend Spice Shop tea bags, with our compliments. A tasty souvenir from your sojourn in Seattle.”

“Keep the tourists happy,” the instructor in my business training class had said. A variation on the old adage “The customer is always right.” Still true. Even in a crisis.

Especially in a crisis.

“Don’t give them those,” Tracy said. I looked at him quizzically, and he took the box.

Sandra led the customers toward the front counter, spinning tales of the Market’s history. She had a nearly endless supply of such patter, some true, some questionable, and all entertaining. Reed skittled forward to help out.

Kristen emerged from the back room. “Eric says he’ll send an associate with criminal defense experience, to make sure they don’t pressure her to talk.”

Good luck getting Tory Finch to tell you anything she doesn’t want to.

I nodded numbly. Zak had already left for the day. Their relationship was a mystery. Would she call him? Should I? Later, I decided, when I knew more. No reason to worry him on his way to a gig when he’d be powerless to help.

Of course, if she didn’t want a lawyer, she might not want a friend, either.

Too bad, sister. You work for me, you got me in your life. I’m done being kept at a distance. Deal with it.

I held the door, that bland smile glued on my face, and handed each of the half-dozen tourists a business card. “Take a right at the corner and head up to the alley, then take a left and keep going till you reach the Pink Door. Get a table outdoors on the rooftop. Tell them Pepper sent you, and I’ll buy the first glass of wine.”

“The pink door?” said a balding man, a good-sized belly stretching his red-and-white-striped polo shirt.

“There’s no sign, but you’ll know it the moment you see it.”

A deeply tanned woman sporting a cap of snowy white hair put a hand on my arm. “Don’t worry. It will all work out.”

My throat tightened and my smile wavered. I bobbed my head and locked the door behind them.

Tory? But why?

I flipped our sign to
CLOSED
. “Why? Why arrest her?” I marched across the room toward the mixing nook, where Tracy had corralled my staff. He stood outside the nook, next to the samovar. “Why would Tory Finch kill a homeless old man living on the streets? Why would she kill anyone?”

Tracy shrugged. “The usual reasons. Some grudge she’s nursed all these years.”

I squinted. “What are you talking about? He just showed up last week.”

“Wouldn’t let her stay out with friends. Kept her from seeing some guy. Took away her TV privileges when she was eight and wouldn’t eat her beets.” He returned my hard stare with a look of studied disbelief. “You didn’t know?”

“Didn’t know what?” A small eddy began to churn in my gut.

Tracy’s lips curved smugly. Whatever was coming, I wasn’t going to like it.

“He was her father.”

•   •   •

THERE
are moments when a new piece of knowledge unlocks a door. Makes all the puzzle pieces snap into place and reveals the picture on the cover of the box. Like when I caught Tag with his girlfriend and understood in a flash that everything I had done to save my marriage had been a fool’s errand, and that I had to leave to save myself.

This was not one of those moments.

The four of us stared at Tracy in silence.

“Her father?” Kristen said. “Her father lives on the street? Did he follow her to Seattle? Was he trying to get money from her, or a place to live?”

An almost microscopic twitch on Tracy’s face said shut up and let him ask the questions.

“She’s always nice to street people,” Reed said.

“She grew up here,” I said. While Tory kept her private life private, I did know that much. Earlier this summer, a customer had recognized her, and they chatted for a while, the other woman telling me they’d been classmates at Lakeside, an exclusive private school in Seattle’s North End.

So not only had Doc probably not been homeless, he had probably been well off. Once upon a time, anyway. At least now I knew why he’d been so determined to stake out our corner. But why stalk his own daughter? What had he wanted from her? What had she refused to give?

As a cop’s ex-wife, I realized they might not know yet. And they would reveal only what they thought was necessary to get information from us.

Two could play that game. I sure as heck wasn’t going to tell them anything they could use against Tory unless I had to. She may have kept her distance; heck, she may have kept Lake Washington between us. But nobody works in HR as long as I did without developing an almost psychic sense of intuition.

One thing I knew for sure about Tory Finch: She would not involve anyone else in her problems. Wasn’t the corollary that she would not blame anyone else for them?

And isn’t murder the ultimate blame game?

“What evidence do you have?” I said, just as Reed spoke up. “How did he die?”

“Ah, see, now that’s the interesting thing,” Tracy said.

Here it comes
, I thought.
Fishing.
I folded my arms and leaned against the nook’s pony wall, determined not to rise to the bait.

“See, he was poisoned.”

One of my employees gasped.

I knew what was coming before he said it. I knew now why the detectives had been drawn to the samovar like a hungry dog to a butcher’s back door, and why Tracy wouldn’t let me give away our signature product.

“With a cup of your tea.”