The Solace of Bay Leaves

by Leslie Budewitz

  “My recipe,” he repeated. “Mine.”

  I suppressed a sigh. I didn’t think Edgar would make a big stink, but the best way to protect our reputation and our relationship with Speziato was to figure out what had happened. Even if I couldn’t prevent the rival from sprinkling the blend on everything from crab cakes to ice cream.

  “I’ll figure this out,” I repeated, and we hung up.

  I flopped back in my chair. For the love of cardamom . . . Edgar had stopped short of accusing me of impropriety, but I didn’t blame him for being upset. So was I. We’d put tons of time into creating that blend—I’d been generous because Edgar works hard, treats his staff well, and is a tremendous cook. He’d learned from one of the best chefs in the city, the disgraced Alex Howard, now traveling the world and blogging about it. I’d wanted to help Edgar create his own place in Seattle’s lively restaurant community.

  It crossed my mind that maybe he’d learned this bluster from Alex, too.

  For shame, Pepper, I told myself. That is beneath you.

  I checked the other restaurant’s website. Closed Mondays.

  Good. I had time to make a plan.

  I was going to need one.

  Eleven

  In Europe in the Middle Ages, designated “market towns” had the right to hold a public open-air market where growers, butchers, and other merchants could offer their wares, fostering trade and a cash economy.

  I TEXTED LAUREL TO ASK IF SHE KNEW THE MAN I’D DUBBED RC, for Rival Chef. No, came the swift reply. Sent a similar note to Sandra, on her day off. She, too, had never heard of him.

  Meanwhile, more deliveries awaited. I hot-footed home to fetch the car, then eased my way down Pine, parking on the steep slope beside the shop, emergency brake and flashers on. Popped in the side door, and Matt helped me load.

  Dog nails clacked on the wood planks. I crouched and scratched Arf under his chin. “You sure you want to go, little buddy? Your bed is nice and warm.” In answer, he sat and cocked his head, offering his collar. I air-kissed his little black nose and found the leash, and off we went.

  Edgar’s spice trouble nagged at me as I navigated through downtown and up to Capitol Hill, home to many of my best customers. But all those years working HR had taught me to be a problem-solver. I’d learned by watching some of the city’s top lawyers and HR managers that finding the right solution matters way more than salving one’s pride.

  My last delivery took me to the back side of Capitol Hill, and from there, it was an easy slide into Montlake. I passed the Spite House, a local landmark. The mostly likely origin story for the narrow house, built long before tiny houses were fashionable, is that errors in platting created a sliver of a parcel between two larger lots. When the neighbor made an insultingly low offer, the owner of the parcel responded by building a wedge of a house, four and a half feet wide at one end, fifteen feet at the other, that blocked the neighbor’s view and forever kept the dispute in his line of sight. Whatever the true story, it’s a charming house, at least from the outside—yellow stucco with a curved white eyebrow arch over the front door.

  And it was a reminder that the neighborhood was an old one, with plenty of mystery in its history.

  “Let’s stretch our legs, boy,” I told the dog and parked near the coffee shop. Walk first, snoop later. My little gentleman was drawn to the puddles and I had to tug gently on the leash more than usual.

  I paused in front of Laurel and Pat’s former house. When they tell you not to make any drastic changes for at least a year after your spouse dies, they aren’t talking about a spouse murdered in the back yard. Talk about drastic.

  Sweet house, sweet neighborhood, and a great place for a kid to grow up. Murder aside, that is. I admired how the residents valued their community, advocating for safety, the parks and schools, and the wetlands nearby.

  What was I doing here? What was I hoping to find? A feeling, I supposed, as much as facts.

  I took a flyer out of the plastic box attached to the “For Sale” sign on the sidewalk.

  “A little gem. New on the market.” At the sound of a male voice, I turned to see a man strolling down the adjacent rose-lined driveway. The man we’d run into at the coffeehouse. “Hey, don’t I know you?”

  I shuffled flyer and leash to my left hand and held out my right. “Pepper Reece. Laurel’s friend. We didn’t get a chance to introduce ourselves yesterday.”

  “I’m Bruce Ellingson. You in the market? Great neighborhood.”

  Took me a moment to realize he meant the real estate market and this neighborhood, not Pike Place Market and downtown. Like I would really be interested in buying the house where my good friend’s husband was murdered. “I know, I know. I grew up a few blocks from here.” I glanced at the flyer. His wife’s listing, her picture on the bottom. “I was never in this house, and I hear it has a nice back yard. Can you see it from your place? Though it can’t be as nice as yours. What beautiful roses.”

  “You’re a rose lover? Come take a look at the back.” He led me around the tall hedge that separated the two driveways to the side door of an olive green two-story with a steeply pitched roof. A common style, a variation of the classic Four-Square known as a Seattle Box. “I just got a delivery of mulch and it’s blocking the path on the side of the garage, so we’ll have to go into the house to get to the backyard.”

  He held the screen door for me. Inside, I told Arf to wait and he stretched out on the door mat.

  “Bought this place when our youngest started first grade,” Ellingson said. “Hard to believe he’s a junior in college now. Or would be. Spends all his time in the basement when he bothers to come home. You got kids?”

  “Just the four-footer in your mudroom.”

  We walked through the kitchen, done in the French country style popular about twenty years ago and due for an update. That surprised me. Not that every real estate agent has to live in a show piece, but the ones I knew all lavished time and money on their homes. And Deanna Ellingson seemed like a woman who would want her home to look just so. I’m a nester with a fondness for home decor myself, so I understood that, though our styles could hardly be more different.

  Glass doors at the end of the dining room opened on to a deck and we went outside. I had never seen so many roses in such a small space. Tag and I had planted a few, and I knew rose lovers could get carried away, enticed by new cultivars, colors, and scents. Bruce Ellingson seemed to favor teas and grandifloras, and they filled a deep curving bed that lined the yard, but a pale peach climber, still in bloom, covered a wide swath of the cedar fence between his place and the yard next door.

  Bruce pointed out half a dozen favorites, calling them by name. My appreciation was genuine, even though barely half were still in bloom, and the recent rains had done them no favors. Despite his complaints about weeds and the challenges of keeping out the blackberries that grew in the alley, it was clear that roses were his passion.

  “You take care of all this yourself?” I asked.

  “Yes. My wife enjoys the results, but doesn’t have much time for digging dirt.”

  Not to mention what it might do to her manicure.

  “I imagine this does take a lot of time,” I said. “What kind of work do you do?”

  “Bond broker,” he said and held the door.

  Inside, instead of returning to the kitchen, I walked through the dining room to the front entry. A staircase led to the second floor. “Can I take a peek from upstairs? To get the full effect?” I started up, leaving Bruce no choice but to follow. Pushy, I knew, but I wanted to see into the Hallorans’ old yard and couldn’t think of any other way.

  At the top of the stairs, three doors stood open. I beelined to the corner room. His office—the decor masculine, the mahogany desktop clear except for a green-shaded banker’s lamp. Prints of ancient sailing ships hung on the walls, papered in a soft gray with a subtle herringbone pattern.
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  As I’d hoped, the windows opened to the yard next door. A narrow perennial bed curved around the foundation and the small wooden deck Laurel had mentioned, then stretched along the fence on one side. A yard designed not to show off flashy blooms, but to give a child space to play. I could almost see Pat and Gabe kicking around a soccer ball, Laurel leaning over the railing with a cup of coffee in hand as she watched.

  I could almost see Pat Halloran sprawled across the deck, bleeding to death from a gunshot.

  It gave me a chill and I turned away. Bruce Ellingson had remained in the doorway, shoulders rigid, skin pale.

  Back in the hallway, I spotted a small student desk in the adjacent bedroom, covered with papers and files. Gray sweatpants had been tossed on the pink-and-orange flowered bedspread, a pair of well-worn men’s slippers on the floor.

  Bruce Ellingson had forsaken an office that appeared to have been designed for him. And while he and Deanna looked the part of the perfect couple when they stopped for coffee on Sunday morning, I suspected they were using separate bedrooms. Not uncommon, for a host of reasons, but combined with the abandoned custom office, it seemed strange.

  “Thanks for showing me your roses,” I said, my hand on the stair rail. “They must be gorgeous in summer. You have a lot to be proud of.” I bounced down the stairs and moments later, Arf and I were back on the sidewalk, making tracks.

  I couldn’t believe what I’d just done, appealing to the man’s vanity about his roses to worm my way into his house. Mystery readers call that TSTL, too stupid to live. Happily, I had lived.

  I could understand Ellingson not wanting to work in his office for a while. After all, he had found Pat. You didn’t have to be good friends with a neighbor to be haunted by his death. But it had been three years. If his office held too many terrible memories of the sight I’d seen, why not swap rooms, making the girl’s room his office and his office a guest room?

  And though he’d gone along with my ruse, he’d seemed on edge. Because I’d pushed my way in, and in the process, gotten a disquieting look at his personal life? A second shooting in the neighborhood would upset anyone, as would an attempted burglary. Though Ellingson could have no reason to think the recent shooting might be linked to Patrick’s killing.

  This was all getting tangled up in my brain.

  We turned the corner on to the side street, where the houses and yards were smaller. A few feet ahead, a woman stood on her front steps, flipping through the mail. She glanced up at us and brightened. “Oh, an Airedale. My neighbors had one when I was a kid.”

  As if he knew she were talking about him, Arf looked at her, then me. I stopped and the woman came down the sidewalk toward us.

  “May I?” she asked, one hand extended for the introductory sniff, and I agreed. “How old?”

  “Four or five—I don’t know for sure.”

  “He’s a doll,” she said, and having gotten the sniff of approval, ran her hand over the top of his head and rubbed the magic spot beneath his chin.

  A small white car zipped down the street, a little too fast, and I instinctively tugged on Arf’s leash to keep him close.

  “Where are those police officers now?” the woman said, sounding annoyed. At my puzzled look, she explained. “There was an—incident nearby last week. A pair of detectives came by, asking questions.”

  “I heard,” I said. “The shooting at the old grocery.” I kept my friendship with the victim to myself.

  “Attempted burglary. It’s slated for demo any day now, so what they thought they’d find, I have no idea. Sadly, the owner arrived at the wrong time and was critically injured.”

  “Oh, my gosh. Is he okay?”

  “She,” the woman corrected. “And I don’t know. The detectives were more interested in gathering information than sharing it.”

  “You must all be upset,” I said. “I grew up a few blocks away. It’s always been a safe, quiet neighborhood.”

  “It still is,” she quickly replied. “Well, you might have heard about the prosecutor who was shot and killed at his home a few years ago. Right around the corner, in the next block. They never have solved that crime. But things happen everywhere, right?”

  “You mean Pat Halloran,” I said. “Laurel is a friend of mine. I’m Pepper Reece. And this is Arf.”

  “Lindy Harmon. Oh, poor Laurel. This must bring everything back for her.” She crouched next to Arf, who raised his chin for the extra attention. “Barry, my husband, worked with him on the NU protests.”

  “En-you? Oh, oh, um, Neighbors United? Laurel’s mentioned it, but I don’t really know what it does.”

  “Whatever we need to do,” Lindy replied. “We fundraise for the library and community center. Worked out a compromise when the highway expansion threatened the wetlands. Made our voices heard when the original proposals for the corner grocery were announced.”

  Maybe she could tell me what no one else had. “Right. So you didn’t like her original proposal? The owner’s, I mean.”

  “She had nothing to do with the original proposal,” Lindy Harmon said. “She’d had her eye on that property for years and along comes this other developer and buys it out from under her.”

  “What?” This was news to me.

  “But she got it back—I don’t know how. She listened to the community. She understood what would work in that location and what wouldn’t.” From inside the house came the sound of a telephone. Who still has a land line, I wondered, as Lindy straightened, gave Arf a last quick pat, and headed for her open door. “I can’t convince my mother to call my cell phone. She always says she doesn’t want to interrupt me. Nice to meet you both.”

  “Well.” I glanced down at the dog. “Learn something new every day.”

  If you didn’t, it wouldn’t be a very good day.

  Twelve

  Researchers believe that we choose what we eat and drink partly through sensory cues that draw on experience, such as our memory of enjoying the taste of an expensive wine, which prompts us to choose an expensive vintage the next time we scan a wine list.

  WOULD THE NEIGHBORING BUSINESS OWNERS TALK TO ME? They had to be on pins and needles. First, all the rumors and struggles over the development, and now a shooting. No doubt some of them remembered Pat Halloran’s murder, as Lindy Harmon did, although I hadn’t heard anyone connect the two crimes yet. Whether they thought Maddie’s shooting random or targeted, and whether they approved of her plans or not, they had to be worried for their own safety and their businesses.

  Though I had learned, to my astonishment, that crime is not necessarily bad for the bottom line.

  We circled back to Twenty-Fourth, cars and busses whizzing by. I had no idea what kind of building the corner grocery had replaced, but it was hard to imagine that this had ever been an improvement. Will today’s hip new looks become classics, or dated eyesores like the boxy stucco grocery? But despite its appearance, it had been a central meeting spot, a hub that helped define the community.

  It’s a fact of life and age that the places that hold our memories change without asking our permission.

  Of course, the moment you turn out the lights and walk away, a building takes on a shabby air. As if it knows it’s been abandoned and plunges into depression, the sidewalk sprouting cracks and weeds overnight. And that breeds crime, if you buy the broken window theory.

  Emby must have had a family. What had happened to them?

  “Come on, boy.” I tightened Arf’s leash. “Time to get to work.”

  The rest of the buildings on the block were a mix of styles, some the redbrick popular in the 1920s, another with a recessed doorway under a stately stone arch. It was the classic commercial district with a floor or two of apartments above the shops that once defined a neighborhood, before we all began hopping in our cars to work elsewhere. These days, it was a struggle to find the right mix that would serve nearby residents and remain viab
le. To its credit, the city made an effort to balance changing needs and keep the neighborhoods vibrant. But gentrification has its costs, and community can be one of them.

  Though I knew, as the tenant of an aged building in the Market, that no amount of character beats reliable wiring.

  The name on the first door we came to read FRANK THOMAS INSURANCE Serving Montlake Since 1977. I pushed it open and stepped inside, Arf at heel. An electronic chime announced our arrival, and the sounds of radio news drifted from a back room.

  My dad had brought me here to see the agent when I got my drivers’ license, to teach me some of the costs of driving.

  “Coming,” a male voice boomed. The radio clicked off. The front desk sat empty; it was lunch time.

  I scanned the walls, hung with a series of black-and-white photos of the neighborhood. One shot, partially hidden by a silk ficus tree, caught my eye and I stepped closer. The corner lot, taken from across the street. Two men in dark suits and hats stood on the sidewalk in front of a two-story redbrick building, still under construction. A slight distance apart stood a third man, in dark pants, a white shirt, and suspenders. Their faces were impossible to see—too far away, the sun too bright in their eyes. The owners and their tenant? Two bankers and the owner? No way to tell. I could only imagine what they might think, knowing that their businesses and buildings were long gone, and about to be replaced again.