“Ask for the whole loaf so when they offer you half, you can say you’ll take three-quarters and claim you compromised for the sake of the community. Even if you tick everyone off in the process.”
“Exactly. But these neighbors were smart, organized, and suspicious. They figured the block would never be the same. The businesses would fail, and he would buy them up and bulldoze everything. No more salon or coffeehouse. No more affordable rentals.”
Hard to imagine the changes going that far. But when a guy uses fear to get what he wants, you never know how far he’ll go.
I turned back to the file, flipping pages as I talked. “Who was the seller? And why did Maddie need to hide behind an LLC? Oh, so the seller died and the property went into his estate.” I’d thought the man who ran the grocery ancient when I was a kid, but he’d died quite recently. The lawyer handling both the estate and the sale was Amanda Wagner, a young woman from the old law firm. I hadn’t seen her since its collapse, though I knew she and her husband, whom she’d met at the firm, had set up shop in an old house near Broadway, doing landlord-tenant and real estate work. And apparently, probate. “That would explain the delay. Did you tell all this to the police? Why didn’t they take your files?”
“They took some files but let me keep copies, so we can run the business. They copied our hard drives and took Maddie’s phone and her laptop. I told them everything, but I’m such a space right now, worried about Maddie. Have you seen her? They won’t let me see her yet.”
“I have seen her. She should fully recover, but it will take time. One more thing and then I’ll let you get back to work. Can you give me a list of her purchases on the block, by date?”
Jess sat at her computer and clicked away, pausing once to consult a paper file. I was surprised at the extent of the paper filing system—I’ve managed to limit my paper files to personnel, some catalogs, and a few tax and banking records—but chalked it up to the nature of the business.
While she worked, I wandered into Maddie’s office. If there had been a course in business school on staying organized and keeping a clean desk, Maddie had obviously aced it. A yellow legal pad lay on her desk, a few notes on the top page. Hard to decipher, but the few words I could make out seemed to relate to a school fundraiser.
In the corner of the room, a poster on an easel showed a water-color-style rendering of Maddie’s vision for the new building. Almost brick for brick a copy of the original I’d seen in her family album.
A striking landscape of the San Juan Islands hung above a trio of waist-high bookcases. A few objects and family photos were interspersed with books. I picked up a photo of Tim and the kids, taken a few years back. The boy, Max, was the same age as Kristen’s youngest, thirteen now, and the girl, Mia, two years younger. Although kids you don’t know well are always older than you think. They were beautiful, and I felt a stab of envy, or maybe it was grief for what I had never had.
Although if Laurel was right about the affair—and I still hadn’t wrapped my head around that possibility—maybe Maddie didn’t have it all, after all.
Next to it sat a shot of Maddie and her parents. I didn’t remember a lot about her father, David Petrosian, one of those dads who seemed more focused on business than family. I’d almost envied that, since I could never escape my dad, our high school history teacher.
I’d made quite a practice of envying Maddie. But not right now.
Not right now.
Then came a recent shot of both kids, in soccer uniforms, with Tim and a man in a Sounders uniform. A small wooden stand held a tiny Armenian flag, three equal bands of red, blue, and orange.
On the last bookcase stood a photo of the corner grocery back in the day. If I’d guessed right, the building had once belonged to Maddie’s great-grandfather, Mr. Gregorian. How it had left the family, I had no idea. Maddie had been determined to get it back. But what a price she’d paid.
And on the shelf below that, next to a cluster of painted rocks I assumed had been a kid’s art project, was a snapshot of Maddie, Kristen, and me at our high school graduation, in our caps and gowns.
I put the photo back. Better get out of here before I lost it completely.
Out front, Jess handed me the list of Maddie’s purchases in the neighborhood. As I’d suspected, the first came two and half years ago, when she bought the insurance agency property from Frank Thomas’s widowed mother. Then she’d acquired the building that housed the salon, followed by the gray stone apartment building and the other office building. Last came the corner grocery. That gave her five of the six properties on one side of the street. She appeared to have no interest in the buildings on the west side.
“What about the coffeehouse?” I asked.
“They didn’t want to sell. The building’s been in the family for ages, and they want to keep it for their kids. Maddie respected that.”
“Thanks,” I said. “You’ve been a huge help.”
“Anything for Maddie,” Jess replied. “I can’t believe this.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
I left the cookies.
Twenty-Three
Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.
— Langston Hughes, “April Rain Song”
I SAT IN THE SAAB OUTSIDE MADDIE’S OFFICE. MY BACK WAS stiff from the wingback chair, which as I’d predicted, had not been as comfy as it looked. Jess hadn’t thought the police terribly interested in Maddie’s real estate dealings, but I suspected her fear and anxiety were skewing her perceptions. Surely they’d trained their radar on Jake Byrd.
He wouldn’t have been the first person to leap from losing out on a business deal to murder. He had to have spent a small fortune putting together a proposal, preparing the drawings, and all the other doodah, even if it was preliminary. A hundred thou? More? I had no idea how much his gamble might have cost him.
If this was Byrd’s first big project, as Jess thought, what had prompted it? A career change, a step up in the world, a move into the big time? Hopes dashed, money lost, pride wounded.
It would sting; of course it would. And I understood the urge for revenge, the urge to scream and yell and throw things. I had fallen prey to those urges myself, in days better forgotten.
But attempted murder? Why would it have made sense to take a shot at the woman who’d outmaneuvered him? Or to have killed Pat, with the same gun. If he had—that didn’t seem smart. Had a second shooter set him up?
In the law firm days, I had heard trial lawyers say that people get more riled up about disputes over real property than over personal injury claims. It defied logic, but they swore it’s true. Losing the safety and security of one’s home, a place you had saved for and gone into debt for, evoked more tears and sleepless nights than whiplash from a rear-ender.
But this hadn’t been Byrd’s home. And why would he have gone after Patrick Halloran? Yes, Pat had been active in the community group, but so had many others who were now alive and well. And Byrd likely would have acquired both the property and the necessary permits, had Maddie not intervened.
I picked up my phone and called Detective Tracy. Voice mail. I didn’t leave a message; what would I say?
My back was still talking. That’s what I got for skipping yoga. I put the car in gear and turned onto Nineteenth. A new deli had taken over the space on the opposite end of the block from Maddie’s office. Ages ago, as the Surrogate Hostess, it had been the heart of the community, serving strong coffee and warm cinnamon rolls. In the seventh and eighth grade, after my family moved out of Grace House, Kristen and I had often stopped in after school. I couldn’t picture Maddie in the group of girls at the long pine tables, but she must have been there. It was great to see the place buzzing.
I turned the corner and slowed in front of St. Joseph’s, a graceful white stucco church with a tower that pierced the pale gray sky. Ver
y 1930s Art Deco. The anchor of the neighborhood in my childhood, though I wondered how many of my old friends and classmates could afford to live around here now.
Seeing our graduation photograph on Maddie’s shelves had shaken me. If I had a copy, it was slapped in an album now buried in a box in my basement storage unit. Clearly I had not remembered Maddie as central to our lives—Kristen’s and mine—the way she’d thought about us.
And that made me feel terrible.
BOXES filled the entry of the shabby two-story converted clapboard, a house turned law office. Paint cans and drop cloths were stacked in one corner.
“We found the perfect space. Modern, clean. Parking,” Amanda Wagner told me, a copy of the Washington Court Rules in her hand.
“Is Justin moving with you?” Justin Chapman, whose actions had helped destroy the law firm where Amanda and her husband had been young lawyers and where I’d learned the HR trade. He and I had met again this past August, after his wife’s murder. I hadn’t liked him any better then than I had years ago.
“No. He found an office share—not sure where. Figures, we give notice and the landlord decides to upgrade this place. New paint, carpet. Oh, well.” She stashed the book in an open box. “Sit, while I still have an extra chair.”
I told her about my long friendship with Maddie Petrosian and that I understood she’d worked on the deal for Maddie’s purchase of the corner grocery.
“Horrible news about the shooting,” Amanda said. “Sounds like she’s recovering, though. I can talk about the deal, but nothing privileged, you understand.”
I did.
“Mehmet—Mehmet Barut—was a crusty old guy, but I liked him,” she said. “He owned that grocery practically forever. Since 1970, I think. He ran the place himself until two or three years ago. When he hit eighty-five, his kids got after him to sell, but it was hard for him to let go. It gave him financial stability after he and his family immigrated.”
Mehmet Barut. M.B. Or, to the neighborhood kids, Emby. “From Turkey?”
Amanda nodded and went on. “He agreed to give Jake Byrd an option, but he was reluctant to actually sell. Then we got another offer. By then, Mehmet was quite ill and had moved down to Portland to live with his daughter. Byrd couldn’t match the second offer, so the kids convinced him to take the higher one. He agreed, but died before signing the contract. The kids—they’re in their fifties—debated whether to sign or not, so the probate took some time. Got it wrapped up a few weeks ago.”
“What was their concern?”
“By then, we’d discovered that Maddie Petrosian was behind the entity making the second offer. The daughter knew Mehmet had refused previous offers from the Petrosians, so she hesitated.” Amanda reached for a stainless steel water bottle. “Sure I can’t get you anything? We’re packing the coffee maker last so we can unpack it first.”
“Smart, but no, thanks.”
“Maddie’s father had pestered Mehmet to sell, and he didn’t like that. Called him a pushy Armenian, out to pull one over on a Turk. But the son lives in Seattle. He’d been to the community meetings, and he knew the neighborhood didn’t like Byrd’s plan.”
“That’s for sure,” I said.
“The son thought Maddie had the experience to do things right. The neighbors liked her plan and it met city requirements, with a façade consistent with the rest of the block and a grocery on street level.” Amanda took a long drink, then continued. “Nothing like packing to kick up dust. Seeing her plans tipped the scales. They knew Mehmet cared deeply about the neighborhood. He’d been part of it for decades. They trusted Maddie to follow through and not go all high-end condo, even if her grocery sells more fancy wine than Twinkies.”
Maddie did love fine wine, but I suspected she was not above selling Twinkies.
“And they figured he’d have enjoyed scoring a small fortune off the Petrosians, way more than Byrd could put on the table,” Amanda continued.
“Might ease their minds to know the Petrosians weren’t after the property because they wanted to outplay a Turk. I believe it once belonged to their family, decades before Barut bought it from someone else.” My guess was Barut knew the history, and let the old nationalist animosity get in the way of helping a family regain its legacy. Nothing else explained Maddie’s willingness to trick him.
“If it was so important, why’d they ever sell?”
“Dunno.” I stood. “Thanks a million. Good luck with the move.”
I pointed my creaky old Saab toward downtown. Maddie’s scheme hadn’t been so underhanded at all. Smart. Shrewd. She’d found a way to get what she wanted. Family trait, though in this instance, she’d succeeded where her father had not.
But Amanda had asked a good question. I intended to get the answer.
BACK in the Market, on foot, I slowed when I got to the Asian grocery, wondering if the woman in the photo with Joe Huang might be working. I had no good excuse to talk to her. But thinking about the shop and its possible connection to Huang, and his possible connection to Patrick Halloran, over the last few days had made me crave cold sesame noodles with a hot stir-fry. That’s just how my mind works.
But every plan—and a recipe is a plan—needs a few essential ingredients.
The old lady was not on front door duty, so my ankles were saved their ritual nipping. I found the egg noodles and chili-garlic paste, but wasn’t sure I had enough sesame oil on hand. I was staring at the shelf, pondering toasted or regular, organic or inorganic, cute bottle or ho-hum, when a woman spoke to me.
“May I help you? Sesame oil is very good.”
No mistaking her. She was the woman in the photo—small, dark-haired, maybe thirty. “Can’t make up my mind—too many options. For sesame noodles and a stir-fry.”
“This is my favorite.” She was several inches shorter than I, about five-two, and the top shelf was a stretch, but she reached for a shapely brown bottle with a white label, the name written vertically in Asian characters. “Plain is good. Toasted is better.”
Toasted would have more flavor, ideal for drizzling on top. Plain would tolerate the heat of cooking better, without picking up a scorched taste or setting off my smoke alarm. “I’ll take them both.”
“What else do you need?” she asked as I followed her to the counter. “Sesame seeds? Soy sauce? Tamari?” Though her grammar was correct, her inflection was off, suggesting she was born abroad and had learned English as an adult.
“Mama!” a small voice interjected. The woman and I turned to see a small girl, who bowed her head, then raised it and spoke. Her purple jacket hung open, the pink backpack dangling from one hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Hello, there,” I said. The child in the photo, the child I had seen in the back hall with the old lady. Then I heard shuffling feet and glanced toward the back of the shop in time to see the old lady peeling off a coat as she disappeared into the office. “Do you go to the Market preschool? Does your grandmother meet you after school?”
The girl nodded, turning shy.
“I run the spice shop down the street,” I told her.
“Oh, where Arf stays,” she said. “The dog who used to live with Sam.”
“That’s right,” I replied, surprised, though I shouldn’t have been. Sam had been a fixture in the Market, and Arf his faithful companion. The dog had more friends here than I did.
The woman rang up my purchases. I handed her a twenty and as she fished in the drawer for change, my eyes drifted to the photographs on the wall behind her. Family pictures, as in Maddie’s office. But the one that stood out was a group of two dozen men and women, all ages and ethnicities, united by their dress-up clothes and beaming smiles. In the middle stood a former lawyer from my old firm who’d been appointed a federal judge ten years ago, in her black robe. She was beaming, too.
The woman followed my gaze and pointed to her younger self, standing beside
an older couple. I recognized the old lady right away. “The day we became citizens,” she said, and grinned. “The whole family.”
I grinned back, then glanced at the photo again. No Joe Huang. “Your husband, too?”
Her smile wavered, and she did not answer my question. “Lily is a citizen times two. She was born later, here.” She reached for my tote, but I dug inside for a collapsible bag to hold my shopping. By “times two,” I assumed she meant that Lily was a citizen both because she’d been born here and because her mother had been naturalized. Did that also imply that her father was not a citizen?
Is this what we’ve come to, I wondered, that immigrants feel obliged to explain their status to a virtual stranger?
“She’s a delight,” I told her mother. “Bring her down for spice tea and to pet the dog. You’re both welcome, anytime.”
The Solace of Bay Leaves Page 20