Guilty as Cinnamon

by Leslie Budewitz

  “You watch. They’ll be lined up down the block. Hey, I know it sounds callous, but if I don’t get back to work soon, I’ll go nuts.” He stretched out his hand. “Pepper, thanks. I knew I could count on you to be my friend.”

  Friends. A little word that covers a lot of ground.

  * * *

  THE morning mist had turned to drizzle while I was inside. I pulled up my collar and slipped the hood over my spiky hair. One more advantage to the do: It’s practically waterproof.

  The hood—and the rain—put me in a monkish mood. What would Cadfael do? Retreat to his workshop where he’d light a brazier to warm his thick hands and a cup of mulled wine, and then he’d ponder.

  Too early for wine, but not for the modern substitute, a nonfat, double-shot latte. I ducked into a coffee shop overflowing with old-world ambiance: wood counters mellowed by time and elbows, a vintage chandelier, and coffee-themed clutter. And a mural of a half-robed goddess gifting humanity with that blessed bounty, Coffea.

  Go forth and multiply.

  The hiss and hum of espresso and steamed milk made good background music for contemplation. Fascinating to see a powerful, sexy man out of his element, deprived of the command and control that define him.

  No matter what, we were not getting involved romantically. His longing look, the outstretched hand—they were natural reactions to stress, to confinement in a place so lacking in the human touch.

  He’d promised to be straight with me. I wasn’t convinced he knew how. I’d have to stay alert, keep all my wits about me.

  Besides, I had a spoon in this pot of stew. If Tamara had been killed with chiles, they could have been mine. The sample I’d given her was too small to cause harm, but Alex had bought them from me for ages. So had dozens of other chefs and commercial food producers. I’d scanned the sales records we’d compiled for the detectives, but no names jumped out at me. I’d need to cross-reference the list with Tamara’s own contacts.

  Or I could leave that task to Spencer and Tracy, who had resources I lacked.

  One thing I knew for sure: If my shop and I had any involvement, no matter how inadvertent, no one would work harder to absolve and protect us than I. Detective Tracy had assured me last fall that the cops don’t want to blame innocent people—and I believe him; I was married to one for thirteen years—but they don’t always mind if we get knocked over and stomped on in the chase.

  And I owed it to my employees to keep the shop alive and well. Except for Kristen, they needed these jobs, and they loved the place as much as I did. It had been my saving grace after the year from hell—when my marriage fell apart and my job disappeared, collateral damage when the law firm where I’d worked for more than a decade dissolved in a scandal of embezzlement, court-ordered sanctions, and criminal charges.

  I owed it to the shop itself, and to the Market. Jane had seized the opportunity to create the shop when the Market was in crisis. More than a few businesses started back then had since disappeared, victims of changing times and a changing city. The Spice Shop had hung on, despite growing competition. Unlike the few bad apples at the law firm who’d taken the rest of us down with them, I believe a thriving business is a trust. We owe its success to our customers and employees, and to the community that embraces us.

  People who meet me for the first time assume I’m named for my job. My grandfather gave me the nickname nearly forty years ago, but I take the coincidence as proof that I was meant to run the place. That it was entrusted to me.

  So I would take the case, such as it was. For Alex and Tamara, for myself and the shop. In the spirit of Cadfael and Sister Frevisse.

  I opened the door, paper cup in hand, and instantly stepped back. But sometimes even an instant is too long.

  Street cops are like grade school teachers. Eyes in the back of their heads. Olerud, Tag’s partner, braked his bike on the corner of First and Cherry, while Tag circled round in the street and stopped. The drizzle didn’t seem to faze him.

  No point standing inside pretending I wasn’t about to leave or that I hadn’t seen him spot me. The sooner I talked to him, the sooner I could get on with—whatever.

  “Thanks for the Mariners tickets,” I said. “They had a great time, despite the loss.”

  “Damn Yankees,” he said.

  Also like your third grade teacher, cops can make you squirm by their presence. Like you have to ’fess up, even if you weren’t about to throw a spitball. If kids still throw spitballs.

  “Needed a warm-up on my way to the mystery bookshop. Slow morning, so I snuck out.”

  He eyed me skeptically. “Thought you had a big project—records to compile for that warrant.”

  “Don’t you treat me like a suspect, Thomas Allen Buhner.” I am one of the few people who know his real name. But then, he knows mine.

  He had the grace—or sense—to color. That was confession enough for me. I did my best to stay steady on the slick, steep sidewalk as I sashayed twenty feet downhill to the bookshop.

  “Give me the next in the series,” I told Jen. “And tell me when he’s gone.”

  She shot a glance out the window, grinned, and headed for the historicals, talking as she went. “Ever notice how many deaths in the Middle Ages were by poison? Glad that’s out of favor. These days, our criminals just shoot each other.” She stepped behind the counter to ring up my purchase. “I sent you a job prospect, by the way.”

  “Thanks. I’d rather hire you.”

  “No dice.” The phone started ringing. She handed me the book and spoke before picking up the receiver. “Coast is clear.”

  The Outlaw’s Tale tucked in my tote, I scooted across the street to Fabiola’s building, a solid redbrick and limestone structure built after the Great Fire of 1889 destroyed twenty-nine square city blocks of wooden buildings. When disaster struck again, in the form of the 2001 Nisqually earthquake that damaged dozens of downtown buildings beyond repair, she and a squadron of other dislocated artists had settled here.

  And though I hadn’t planned on popping in to see her, we had a sign issue to work out.

  Some women wear their mood on their faces. Fabiola’s outfit gave her away. Her dark hair, threaded with glitter extensions that looked like Christmas tinsel, hung loose, and if it had been combed today, she’d tugged away all evidence. Her white menswear shirt was misbuttoned, and one leg of her boyfriend jeans had come uncuffed.

  Worse, no heels in sight and her flamingo pink toenail polish was chipped.

  “I’ve lost clients before,” she said, staring at me from her wheeled metal stool, “but not like this.”

  Sketches for a logo, a draft menu, even a mock-up of a cocktail coaster for Tamarack lay scattered across her white worktable. “Oh, Fabe. I didn’t know you knew her.”

  Her hands flew to her cheeks as if of their own accord. “Pepper, I’m an idiot. Whining to you, when you found her.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. Not the discovery—that would always haunt me—but that Fabiola’s emotions were so raw that she hadn’t considered mine.

  “I do Danielle’s graphics, so she sent Tamara to me.” Her long fingers fanned out over the designs. “She wanted a tree—not exactly hip, but I came up with this great leaf shape. Then I discovered tamaracks have light green needles. I remembered that found object artist you introduced me to last fall, and tried a tree made of forks. We were refining it when . . .”

  I hooked a foot around the leg of an empty stool, rolled it toward me, and sat. “Wonder why she didn’t take her idea to Alex and suggest a new restaurant within his empire.”

  “You said it: his empire. Any restaurant he had a piece of would always be his.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  “Gutsy. Determined. Incredibly passionate about food. She’d been planning her own place for a long time, and she knew what she wanted, but not how to bring it to life on
paper. Working with her was kinda like working with you—lots of trial and error until it clicked, and then watch out.” She threw her hands in the air like a geyser.

  “Commission said no to my sign. No saltshaker shapes, no lights.”

  “Oh geez.” The Fabiola geyser sank back into the earth. “I’m about out of ideas.”

  And in a week of strange things, that was the strangest of all.

  Ten

  L’arzento va dove e il piper. (Silver goes where the pepper is.)

  —Piero Zen, Venetian ambassador to Constantinople, 1530, quoted in Charles Corn, The Scents of Eden: A History of the Spice Trade

  I strolled up First Ave, drinking in the rain-rinsed air and midmorning calm. Fabiola had gleaned few details about Tamara’s personal life. Their friendship had been too new. But the pain of loss does not run a logical course, and the effect of the murder on Fabiola made me more determined to find the killer. Not just to save my good name, but for Tamara. For justice.

  How did one kill with ghost peppers? Who would ever conjure up such a thing? I mean, I sell them, I pack them—I know the pain. Intentionally inflict it on someone else? Never.

  I wrapped my arms around myself. Poor Tamara, dead so young. Her dream so close, destroyed.

  Is there anything more inspiring than a passionate woman? A woman who throws heart, mind, and body into everything she does, whether it’s Fabiola with her brilliant designs and crazy outfits, or the contemplative and fictional Sister Frevisse cocooned in her woolens and wimple. Seems to me the world needs more women like that. Too often, it squelches them.

  Or outright kills them.

  Half a block from the Market entrance at Pike, inspiration struck, and I stayed the course on First.

  Even in my brief time in the spice biz, I’d witnessed fads and trends. Medicinal queries and purchases had exploded. While I don’t mind selling turmeric in bulk to a woman I suspect is using it for her blood pressure and not her curry, I send customers seeking medical advice to Ron Locke or the herb-and-incense shop in the Economy Market.

  Another trend: more African and Indian spices. It’s gratifying when immigrant customers believe we’ve got the freshest, highest quality ingredients for their ethnic dishes, like the Lebanese chef at the Middle Eastern restaurant on the Hillclimb who buys his sumac and Aleppo pepper from me. (After the incident last fall, he offered me free falafel for life. It’s a sin to refuse generosity, so I begged him for the recipe instead.)

  On one of her recent forays into Seattle, Jane had eyed the jars we’d added since my takeover. “Used to be I sold more cinnamon, vanilla, and oregano than anything else. Kosher salt was exotic. Now it’s pink salt, truffle salt, flake salt. And all the peppers—the hotter, the better.” She was right about that. Foodies talk about Scoville units like they get what that means. Heck, even I barely know.

  But I know ghost peppers burn up the charts. So who had mustered the creative cruelty needed to kill with them?

  “Five minutes. I promise.” I held up my hand, fingers extended. Dr. Ron Locke’s clinic manager rolled her eyes and pointed toward his office. When my employee Reed’s dad, a veteran acupuncturist and font of arcane medical knowledge, gets going, five minutes easily becomes ten or twenty, leaving his staff to placate impatient patients.

  Across the book-and-paper-strewn desk, Ron raised his eyebrows at my questions, but his expression quickly turned serious. “This is about the customer you found. So sorry, Pepper.”

  I described what I’d seen at the building site. Ron swiveled his chair toward a bookcase and hooked one brown forefinger on the gold-lettered spine of a fat blue volume. Flip, flip, flip. “Could make a powder into an aerosol for ease of delivery,” he mused.

  “Like bear spray.”

  “Exactly. That would cause temporary blinding, or chemical burns. You said no visible injuries, but her eyes were swollen and she’d been reaching out.”

  Or clawing for air.

  Flip, flip, flip. “There’s a kind of mushroom that expands when ground,” he said. “Maybe the peppers emit a toxic substance when they’re cut.”

  “No. Alex and I chopped a few dried peppers and extracted the capsicum in oil. The pieces softened as they rehydrated—or re-oiledrated—but nothing happened when we chopped them.”

  He held one finger in the air, putting me on pause, while the other raced down the page. Then he snapped the book shut. “My best guess is the autopsy revealed an inflammatory response in the lungs, sending the ME searching for other evidence that a hostile substance had entered the lungs. They may have found residue in her throat and lungs. Or particles trapped in the nose hairs—their function is to filter the air we breathe. Then they examined those particles by microscope and determined they were capsicum of some sort.”

  “How could they tell it’s the ghost pepper?”

  “I doubt they’d have a plant DNA analysis completed already, so it may be an educated guess. They’d ask what kind of capsicum would trigger an immediate immune response, severe enough to kill. Fluid fills up the lungs. It’s essentially asphyxiation.”

  Uggh. Maybe I wouldn’t replenish my stock after all.

  And I certainly wasn’t going to eat hot Thai curry anytime soon.

  At the sound of my footsteps entering the shop, Arf barked once—a rare sound, the canine equivalent of “Where have you been? I missed you.” I crouched behind the counter, giving him a good rub and an air-kiss. The employees take charge of him in my absence, and he’s as fond of them as they are of him, but he clearly considers me his best bud. Besides, dogs have their needy moments, too.

  “I could never work here.” A chubby black woman with flawless skin pointed to the HIRING sign. “Just walking in makes me hungry.”

  “Occupational hazard,” I admitted. One more reason to run around chasing a killer—exercise.

  “But my sister would love it. And she’s looking.”

  I handed her my card.

  Kristen emerged from the back room, her nose turned up in distaste. “I’ve called everywhere. No replacement samovar.”

  “So we buy a big stainless coffee urn and fake it.”

  She fixed me a determined glare. “I am not giving up.”

  I sent Reed off to make a copy of the sales records we’d compiled, and retreated to the office to review the payroll and sign checks. Slipped Lynette’s into an envelope. Hesitated, then added a note card sporting the shop’s saltshaker logo. Thank you for your work. Wishing you all the best in your future endeavors. Better a boring cliché than a glowing fib—you never know what a disgruntled ex-employee will tell the unemployment office.

  Losing Zak, on the other hand, set off a good pout. No one else on staff is tall enough to dust the chandeliers, even with the rolling ladder.

  Time for a task I’d put off long enough. Over a day-old croissant and a bruised banana lunch—easy on the tummy, a little unsettled after Ron’s hypothesis of death by bhut C—I studied the shop’s tax return. Decent numbers. No room for emergencies—or for a staffing screwup. Your average employee doesn’t have a clue about the costs of hiring. Hard costs like advertising, fees to headhunters and job services, expenses for uniforms and equipment. But the biggie is the cost of time and stress. All those hours recruiting, interviewing, and training. The time the rest of your staff spends picking up the slack and helping the newbie get up to speed.

  And in my shop, wasted product when she measures out blue poppy seed instead of white or fenugreek when the customer wanted fennel. Staff take mistakes home, but it’s money lost.

  I still steam at the memory of the legal secretary who accepted the law firm opening I’d offered her only to quit a week later when the local FBI office made her the offer she’d been waiting for. When the personnel specialist called for a reference a week after she’d left me in the lurch, I answered the standard question “Would you rehire?”
honestly.

  Or as honestly as I could without swearing.

  After a string of support staff mishaps, the law firm administrator had brought in a consultant to help us improve hiring and retention. One presentation focused on first impressions, teaching “Seven Ways to Make Those Seven Seconds Count.” So at one fifty-seven that afternoon, when I was cleaning up a spill by the tea cart and Jen’s applicant walked in for our two o’clock interview, I adjusted my attitude, straightened my posture, smiled, practiced my eyebrow flash, and leaned forward, extending my hand.

  That’s six, I know. You can’t accomplish the seventh step—making eye contact—alone.

  And she wasn’t having it. We’d been taught to improve our eye contact by making a habit of noticing the eye color of everyone we meet. Eyelids lowered, she touched my fingers lightly, as though my hygiene wasn’t up to snuff. Mud brown, I finally decided as we finished our brief tour of the shop and settled into the nook for a chat.

  You can’t just say, “I don’t think this is the job for you.” It’s bad karma. Plus they might surprise you.

  Not this woman. She brushed sugar—or spice—off the bench before smoothing her pencil skirt and sitting, her spine not touching the seat back. Unusual posture for a woman not yet thirty. She ignored the tea Reed placed in front of her and trained her eyes on the table, barely moving a facial muscle as she answered my questions. She asked none of her own. An interview ought to be a conversation—about the business, the job duties, the applicant’s experience and her goals. There’s a certain degree of puffing involved, both interviewer and interviewee emphasizing the upside. If you’ve developed a reasonable amount of emotional intuition, though, you’ll learn what you need to know. You may not find out that she’s a single mother with dicey childcare—the law says you don’t get to ask. She may not discover that you’ve had a revolving door the last few months; it’s none of her business. But you get a feeling.

  “So, tell me what you like to cook,” I said. “Your favorite recipes.”