“If this other chef simply figured out what was in Edgar’s blend, then he’s out of luck,” Eric said. “But Edgar isn’t publishing the recipe, like when you post recipes on your blog or hand out copies in the store. If the other guy actually got ahold of Edgar’s recipe without permission and is using it, then yes, Edgar might have a claim for theft. Hard to show value, though.”
“Oh, Edgar will claim plenty of value, you can count on that. But thanks.” No sign of Savannah yet, and Mariah was happily distracted by the dog. “Another question. This might sound like blasphemy. Laurel adored Pat, everyone admired him, but I never knew him. Were there rumors? Could he have been involved in something—illicit?” Like what, I didn’t know, but ever since the confab in Laurel’s back room, I’d been wondering.
“Pat?” Eric shook his head. “No. No, he really was the guy in the white hat. He didn’t have any secrets.”
That couldn’t be true. We all have secrets. The only question is what we’ll do to keep them.
The front door flew open and Savannah flew out. She was the image of Kristen at that age. She hugged me and headed for the car while Eric sent Mariah to wash her hands. I took my soup and my dog inside.
“Pepper, good news!” Kristen said. “Maddie’s awake. The swelling in her brain has gone way down. Tim says you can see her tomorrow if you have time.”
“Oh, thank God,” I said, and I meant it. I may have inherited my mother’s distrust of the institutional church, but God and I are fine. “I’ll make time.”
Within a few minutes, we’d all arrived and unpacked our soup kettles and Crock-Pots. Wine and conversation flowed.
“What kind of Seattleites are we?” Kristen asked as she surveyed the bounty on her stove and kitchen island. “All this soup and no clam chowder.”
“Who has time to make it?” I said. “And why bother when you can swing by Ivar’s or the chowder shop in the Market?”
One rule for soup exchanges is no takeout, Laurel excepted, since she’s in the takeout business. And the homemade rule doesn’t apply to the dishes the hostess provides, thank goodness. Kristen had sliced up a rustic loaf of bread from Three Girls and scored a dozen truffles from our favorite chocolatier. Add salad for the perfect meal.
“I smell peppers and bay. That Tony’s black bean chili, Aimee?” I asked. Our newest addition, Aimee McGillvray, had joined us in August, not long after I’d helped solve a murder in her vintage retail and design shop, the place where I’d found the tansu and neon lips. She’d just taken a sip of wine, and wiggled her eyebrows in a “yes.” Her brother, who shared her apartment, was the family cook.
“Soup conjures up home,” Seetha Sharma said. Laurel had invited the massage therapist to Flick Chicks a year ago, shortly after she moved to Seattle. Though she’s over thirty, she avoided learning to cook until this past summer, after resolving tensions with her Indian-born mother. The results were improving. “I always thought I hated Indian food, but it turns out I kinda like it.”
“You were probably just trying to differentiate yourself from your parents,” Laurel said. She gave her tomato-basil soup a stir. “Like when I was in my vegetarian phase, before I opened the restaurant, and thought that was the only healthy food. Gabe rebelled by demanding McDonalds.”
“I bet he wanted the toys,” Kristen said.
“Is this your mother’s recipe?” I asked as Seetha ladled out small bowls of lentil, potato, and cauliflower curry, rich with spices, and we all snickered. My quest last summer for Seetha’s mother’s chai recipe had nearly led to disaster, but it had also prompted some great taste-testing. Seetha didn’t know the full story, a secret Sandra and I had vowed to keep to ourselves.
After dinner, we migrated to the elegant home theater in the basement, a product of the recent remodel. The wine and truffles came with us. Tonight’s offering was Tampopo, the Japanese classic that spoofs both Westerns and Samurai movies.
“Why do they call it a noodle western?” Seetha asked as we settled into the comfy chairs.
“You’ll know in about two minutes,” Kristen said. She picked up the remote and off we went, to the land of truck drivers who wear cowboy hats and single mothers who run noodle parlors. The effort of reading subtitles muted the possibility of conversation, until Kristen hit pause for a potty break.
I refilled wine glasses. “I’m convinced the building is the link between Maddie’s shooting and Pat’s. But why now? The redevelopment’s been under consideration for years. Why try to stop it by stopping her now?”
No one had an answer.
“Why do you suppose,” I continued, still on my feet, “the project changed so dramatically? Part of it seems to have been the neighbors—they wanted that wreck on the corner gone, but they wanted the right replacement.”
“It isn’t unusual for commercial projects to take a long time,” Aimee said. “Or change along the way. When I was doing interior design, the final plans rarely looked anything like the initial concept.”
“Like your loft,” Kristen said. “How many times did we rework the kitchen plans? You were living in my guest room and we laid it out on the floor right here, with colored tape and cardboard.”
“And it turned out perfectly, thanks to you,” I said. “But who is this Byrd guy who upset everybody? I Googled my eyes out and I couldn’t find him. Were he and Maddie partners?”
“Doubt it,” Kristen said. “She likes to run the show.”
“So she bought up the other buildings, then I guess she bought him out.” I’d been too tired last night to try to remember what Glenn had showed me, about looking up purchases and sales. I hadn’t thought it mattered. But I was getting more and more curious.
Nobody had any answers. Kristen dimmed the lights and we went back to the movie. Arf lay at my feet. Gun, the trucker determined to rescue the noodle parlor, was taking Tampopo, the owner, to visit other shops. They tasted and compared notes. A master noodle maker came in to teach her. A construction crew arrived to rebuild the kitchen, and a designer to give her shop a new look.
I bit into a ginger truffle and thought about Carl’s explanation of how bonds work. How much had financing influenced Maddie’s plans? Who would know? Tim had an MBA, too, but he always made it a point of pride to say that Petrosian Properties was Maddie’s baby, not his.
But even Maddie wasn’t made of money. What if she’d brought in Byrd as a partner to help foot the bill, but then when they couldn’t agree, she worked out another plan? She bought up the other buildings in the block, and then what? I’d seen the sales price for the insurance agency’s building and it had been substantial though not outrageous, but that was just one building. Borrowing the bond analogy, I wondered if she’d used the buildings and their future income as collateral for a loan, not just to pay for the property, but to buy out the partner, or whatever he was.
Was it underhanded or good business?
I kept coming back to why. If we were talking about other people—faceless, anonymous developers—making money or doing deals might be motive enough. But not Maddie. According to the stylist, she’d promised to update the buildings without raising rents. Just talk—puffing—to mollify the tenants? Stories like that run rampant, new landlords making promises they broke as soon as the ink on the deal was dry.
“Do you remember when Maddie started coming to the meetings about the corner grocery?” I whispered to Laurel.
“No.”
“Was she part of Neighbors United?”
“No.”
“Quiet,” Kristen said. “We’re watching a movie here.”
The permit files would name the key players, wouldn’t they? But I couldn’t waste a day digging in city archives and poring over dusty drawings and applications.
I decided to go to the public meeting tomorrow night. Its purpose was to update the community on the criminal investigation and answer questions. Surely people who’d worked with P
at on neighborhood issues would be there. But I didn’t live in Mont-lake. I’d be less like the proverbial sore thumb if Laurel went with me.
After that, I’d ask her about the Ellingsons.
Then, I promised myself, I’d tell Tracy and Greer everything I was thinking. Let them look into this mysterious partner, financing, and other details that took time and computer databases I didn’t have.
While I focused on my friends.
IN THE loft, I stashed the soup containers in the freezer and changed my shoes. I was still dressed for work, but no matter. Arf and I headed out to stretch our legs. Clear skies for the first time in days. An orange glow touched the tops of the Olympics, and the air smelled clean.
Some friends and relatives think I’m crazy to walk alone at night downtown. But I wasn’t scared, and not just because of the fifty-pound dog beside me. Although he does have good guard dog skills.
If you project a sense of belonging—this was a trick I’d learned from Tag—a sense that this is your turf, people generally leave you alone.
It was easy. Grace House had been a terrific place to be a kid, and our family’s Montlake cottage the perfect next step. When Tag and I got married, we bought his great-aunt’s run-down bungalow in Greenwood and we’d worked hard to make it into a sweet home.
But living downtown felt right. Too soon to tell what all the changes in the city and in my life would mean. Whether downtown would still feel like home in five years.
As we walked, Arf pausing every so often to sniff something, I ran through the possible links between the two shootings. The same gun, but one shooter or two? The burglary gone wrong theory Detective Armstrong mentioned was one I’d leave to them. Again, they had the manpower. Or person power. The joint task force had kept busy over the years, checking every burglary suspect for a connection to Pat, but found nothing.
No, the link between the victims had to be the building. But what, and why?
Why had Pat, a committed soccer dad, changed his mind and stayed home from Gabe’s tournament?
And why was Special Agent Meg Greer following me?
Eighteen
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by. And now I’m lost.
—T-shirt slogan, after Robert Frost
I STOPPED.
She didn’t.
“Pepper. Hello.”
I tightened my grip on Arf’s leash. She made no move to pet him, which seemed strange, but he gave none of the usual signals that something was amiss. “Are you following me, Agent Greer?”
“Actually, I’m not,” she replied. “I live up on Elliott. I decided to take a walk and ran into you.”
Elliott Avenue a few blocks north of the Market had become a haven of urban housing, home to apartment complexes that took up half a city block or more. I’d been in a couple of the apartments—very modern, very small.
Did I believe her?
Did it matter?
“Why would you think I was following you?” Greer asked.
I gave her a long look. “You better come up.”
“Well, don’t you have a spectacular view?” she said a few minutes later, gravitating toward the windows, as first-time visitors always do. “My place overlooks the swimming pool no one uses.”
In the kitchen, I started tea and chai masala brewing in the French press. It’s an easy shortcut, not as flavorful as brewing the tea and spices in a sauce pan with the milk, but I didn’t feel like going all out for Special Agent Meg Greer. I didn’t believe for one minute that she just happened to walk by my building, and I wanted answers.
I joined her at the windows and pointed at the lights glowing across the water. “That’s Alki, the northern tip of West Seattle. Beyond is Bainbridge Island.”
“It all looks so different at night. Love the way the lights shimmer on the water.”
Since the viaduct had come down, I’d begun noticing all kinds of lights and shadows that had always been there, even if I’d never seen them.
“Just so you know,” she said, her tone a shade darker than girlfriend-confidential. “I am armed.” She slipped off her jacket, exposing a small black gun in a small black holster on her hip. Like the other night at the houseboat, she wore black jeans and a turtleneck, and black boots.
“I assumed as much. It doesn’t bother me. I was married to a cop.”
“So I hear.”
It’s always disconcerting to discover that other people know more about you than you know about them. Especially when the other person is a cop.
The chai was ready. I set two steamy, fragrant mugs on the dining room table, and we sat.
“If you’re keeping an eye on me,” I said, “you know I spent the evening with Laurel and other friends at Kristen’s house. Is your partner following Laurel? Or is he at the hospital, guarding Maddie?”
She frowned. “We aren’t following you. And we aren’t guarding Ms. Petrosian.”
I wasn’t convinced, on either count. “Tell me, how did a nice girl like you end up in a job like this?”
One side of her mouth curled. “The FBI, you mean? I heard a recruiter speak in high school and I was hooked. My parents were baffled—he was an accountant, and she taught kindergarten.”
“So did my mother,” I said. She nodded ever so slightly and I realized she already knew. Had she had a nice sit-down with Tag, or run me through the databases? I could feel the heat rising in my chest and hoped it didn’t show on my face.
“You an accountant, too? Or a lawyer? I gather most FBI agents have some kind of professional training.”
“It can be helpful,” she said. “Particularly in this case.”
“Because Pat Halloran pursued fraud and financial crime. And because of this Joe Huang investigation none of you wants to tell me anything about.”
“It’s better that you don’t know.” She picked up her mug. “For your own safety.”
“Right. You’re all happy to ask me to help you find him, but tell me why? Oh, no, you couldn’t possibly. You might endanger an innocent civilian.”
“We’re not in the tit-for-tat business, Pepper.”
“Everybody is,” I said. “Whether we want to admit it or not.” I wasn’t sure I believed that, not a hundred per cent, but law enforcement types are in the information business. The gathering, not the sharing.
Greer gave me a long, hard stare, then set her cup on the table. Expression grave, eyes somber, she picked up her coat and left without another word.
At the sound of the loft door closing, Arf raised his head.
“What? Was it something I said?”
I didn’t hear the front door to the building shut, so I went down to check it. Locked.
Back upstairs, I dumped the chai in the sink and poured myself a glass of Sangiovese. The blood of St. Joseph. It fit. My blood was boiling.
IN THE law firm, I’d helped manage more than two hundred staffers—secretaries and receptionists, paralegals and billing clerks. Running a firm that size had taken a team and I’d loved it.
But not half as much, it turned out, as I love working with five people who work hard, laugh often, and report directly to me. Seeing them—Sandra, Reed, Kristen, Matt, and Cayenne— snugged into the nook sipping and nibbling made me smile. If Cody liked baked goods half as much as the rest of us did, he’d fit right in.
The Wednesday morning staff meeting is a chance to chat up new products, puzzle over problems, and stay connected. That’s why I bring treats. Sharing good food encourages collaboration. Plus it sets a tasty tone for the day.
We went over the events scheduled for the next few weeks, including the anniversary celebration. The samples we’d offered the food tour—Favorites from the Spice Shop Collection—had been a hit, so I suggested we do a repeat.
“But not the Baked Paprika Cheese,” Sandra said. “When people have to spread things themselves, t
he line slows and the table gets messy.”
“The floor, too,” Matt said.
“Good point.” We debated alternatives, and chose three to price. Kristen had the decorating plans in hand, and Reed had been busy promoting the event on social media.
Then we discussed the mystery of Edgar and the stolen spice. Everyone was aghast, but no one had an explanation. I revealed the new labels Fabiola, our graphic designer, had created for our winter blends. We’d be shipping packages to our Spice Club members in a few weeks.
Earlier, Cayenne had asked me if she could have a few minutes at the meeting, but before I turned things over to her, I had one more item on my list. I passed around Greer’s photographs.
The Solace of Bay Leaves Page 15