Guilty as Cinnamon

by Leslie Budewitz

  Me, too. “Do you know if he went in the building, if he talked to her?”

  “By that point, a parade coulda passed by without me noticing.”

  “For the dog,” the other stylist said, coming around the counter and holding out a small bone-shaped cookie. “If that’s okay.”

  Like anyone could ever look in Arf’s eyes and say no.

  * * *

  MY stomach rumbled. I hadn’t eaten since the rugelach this morning. And Laurel and I had missed our chance earlier in the week for Indian.

  You’d think that, working with spices all day, I’d be immune to the smell. But the aroma in Tamarind, Ashwani Patel’s restaurant, evoked India, at least in my imagination. Indian spicery is so much more than curry, itself a blend of half a dozen spices or more. I detected ginger, mustard, cardamom, chile, and a hint of cinnamon.

  Purple velvet chairs lined the entry, and a nubby deep orange silk covered the walls. The hostess stand was unattended. A glass-front case held desserts for those who wanted to take a sweet bite home, for after the concert or ballet.

  I peered behind an ornate screen, gold scrollwork painted on a deep red ground, into the empty dining room. Heavy curtains lined the walls in rich colors that conjured a bygone era. I pictured women in elegant saris and men in Nehru jackets. But this being Seattle, a man in a tie would be considered dressed up. And the clientele would cross all cultures.

  “Get that dog out of here.”

  The command cracked the air and startled me. I’d been too caught up in fantasies of East meets West to notice the man in white limping rapidly toward me.

  I held out my hand. “Ashwani Patel? Pepper Reece. We met the other night, when—when the tragedy occurred next door. I was hoping you’d have a moment to chat.”

  “No dogs.” Fever spread across his high forehead, his skin the color of toasted cumin seeds, rich brown with a saffron undertone. (I just can’t help describing colors in spice terms.) He came to a halt, six feet away. “I don’t care who you are or why you’re here. This is a restaurant. No dogs.”

  Though he had no accent—American born, or at least American raised—he shoved the words out, one after the other, as if hurrying me along.

  Arf resisted my initial tug, looking over his shoulder at the man who’d barked at us. I led him to the door, glancing at Patel. “Can you pop outside for a chat?”

  Patel’s eyes narrowed in answer.

  I tied Arf’s leash to the bench where I could keep an eye on him through the glass of the wood-frame door. Inside, Patel stood behind the hostess stand, his features stern.

  “Sorry,” I said. “In the Market, half the shops have dogs, and I forget sometimes he can’t go everywhere with me. I’m the woman who found Tamara Langston. She was a customer and a friend. I just feel involved, you know? And I wanted to extend my sympathy.” Babbling isn’t my usual style, but it seemed like good cover.

  “So sad,” he said, shaking his head slightly. “Very sad. Young woman, so promising. I only wish we’d heard or seen something, but we were hustling, getting ready for the evening.”

  “Lovely decor. Judging from the front of the building, I’m guessing your restaurant and the space next door were one big space, divided at some point.”

  Before he could reply, the door opened and a sixtyish man with a bulging belly walked in. Patel’s eyebrows rose, and his lips parted slightly. I turned my attention to the desserts, recognizing gulab jamun, the fried balls served in a saffron-infused syrup, creamy rice puddings studded with pistachios and raisins, a dusting of cardamom on top, and sweet, milky dumplings stuffed with coconut and spices.

  The new arrival picked a menu out of the basket on the counter. “We like the heat. You serve any dishes with those ghost chiles we’ve been hearing about?”

  So much for secrecy.

  “Nothing right now.” Patel took the menu from the man’s hand. I couldn’t blame him—I’d felt no rush to replenish after the police seized my stock. But they were a staple of much Indian cuisine, and as popular as they were wicked.

  “What do you recommend instead?” The persistent diner gestured toward the menu in Patel’s hand, and the two began conversing about various dishes.

  A tiny woman in a deep red sari, her black hair pulled back tightly and a bright red bindi on her forehead, peered at me from behind the display case. I started—I hadn’t noticed her, sitting on a stool in the corner. Patel’s mother or grandmother?

  “There’s been a bhut hanging around,” she said, her accent strong and rhythmic, her eyes intent on mine.

  I leaned closer to hear her better. “A boot?” Images of cowboy boots, ski boots, and knee-high black leather boots with stiletto heels sashayed into my mind’s eye.

  “You can tell it isn’t alive,” she continued, her voice laden with awe. “Their feet face backward. They float. They always wear white.”

  Her meaning dawned on me. “Where did you see it?”

  “Oh, around.” The stack of gold bangles on her arm tinkled as she waved one hand. “Here and there.”

  Her hand stopped midair, palm up, fingers pointing toward the north wall. Toward Tamarack.

  The two men stared at me, wide-eyed. Impossible to tell how much they had heard. I looked back at the woman on her corner stool, a satisfied expression on her face. “Thank you,” I said to her, and to Patel, “and you. I’ll be back for dinner soon.”

  The door opened, and Ben Bradley walked in.

  “Hey.” I took his arm. “You found me.”

  He gave me a goofy grin and let me lead him out. I glanced over my shoulder to the woman in the sari. She flopped her hand from one side to the other and mouthed the words “here—and there.”

  Sixteen

  Meet me at the Needle, Nellie. Meet me at the Fair.

  The Monorail will take you, Nellie, and I’ll meet you there.

  —parody of “Meet Me in St. Louis,” sung by John Raitt at the opening ceremonies of the Seattle World’s Fair, April 21, 1962

  Bless the man. He waited until we’d crossed the street and gotten lost in the Saturday throng headed to Seattle Center before dropping his arm—keeping hold of the hand not looped through the leash—and turning to me, eyebrows raised.

  “Thanks for the save,” I said. “After yesterday . . .”

  “Don’t give it another thought,” he said. “I hope you and your sidekick got more out of the neighbors than I did. Running into you’s the best luck I’ve had all day.”

  I let my tote slip off my shoulder as an excuse to drop his hand and hitched the bag back into place. “Did you hear the man in the restaurant quizzing Patel about his hottest dishes? From his reaction, I’m guessing it wasn’t the first time today. The ghost chile genie must be out of the bag.”

  Ben pulled me out of foot traffic and handed me the morning paper. Below the fold, small head shots of Tamara and Alex marked the latest account:

  INVESTIGATION CONTINUES IN MURDER OF CHEF

  Below that,

  INDIAN SPICE SUSPECTED

  The headlines sucked me in. “According to a source close to the suspect,” I read, “the victim is believed to have died after ingesting a dangerous, exotic pepper.” The words scorched my eyeballs, and flames licked my throat as I tried to speak. “That—that’s what those messages were about. They—they think I’m the source.”

  I’d been too busy following my nose—and too annoyed with Seattle’s Finest—to respond to Tracy’s message telling me we had an urgent matter to discuss or to Tag’s text saying, What do you think you’re doing?

  There’s a certain kind of silence that gets your attention. “You thought so, too,” I said. “Why would I do that? I’d be implicating my own product.”

  The corners of his lips twitched downward, and it took him a moment to look me in the eye. “To make it look like you had nothing to h
ide? Or to get out in front of the gossip.”

  “That’s crazy. Tracy said he knows I didn’t kill her.”

  “So whoever leaked it either wanted to cast blame on you, or didn’t know the cops had ruled you out,” he said. “Who does that leave?”

  “No idea. Obviously, Alex had access to bhut C, but so did other people. And it’s kind of a ridiculous murder weapon.” Not something you carry around. And not something you plan to use. That made this a crime of opportunity.

  A crime of anger. Rage. Fury.

  Since we were obviously following the same path, maybe it did make sense to join forces. “I don’t know the official working theory, but one good guess is that the killer forced her to breathe in the peppers. The throat and lungs become inflamed, and the person can’t breathe.”

  “Holy cow,” Ben said.

  Crowds surged past us. Ben pointed toward the Center entrance. “Let’s go in, take our minds off murder for a while.”

  We wound around the north side of Key Arena and through a corridor of lush, fragrant shrubbery, then paused at the stone rim of the International Fountain.

  “Wow. Coolest wading pool ever,” Ben said as we watched streams of water spike from a silver dome to the rhythms of Duke Ellington.

  “It used to be filled with sharp, white rocks—you couldn’t play in it like kids do now.” I gestured toward the shallow, paver-lined bowl that held the fountain. On the first warm weekend of spring, the water beckoned, and dozens of kids, toddlers to teenagers, had responded. They edged close to the dome, then shrieked and darted back as the water erupted. The music changed to Beethoven’s Ninth. I swizzled my hands in the air. “My dad likes to stand here and pretend he’s conducting.”

  “Kane!” A few feet away from us, a woman called to a boy of about six kicking a shiny blue ball through the water. Beside her, a man pushed a stroller back and forth, a pink stuffed animal strung on a white ribbon signaling a girl on board.

  Beside me, Arf barked loudly, once.

  “Kane, be careful! You’re splashing people!”

  Arf barked a second time.

  “Arf! Hush!” His bright eyes focused on the child, hips forward, one front paw raised, ready to break into a run. I tugged at his leash. “What is wrong with you? You don’t bark at children.”

  He poked my knee with his nose, then rubbed his muzzle on my leg, stopped, and looked up at me.

  “That was weird.” I looped the leash through my hand, shortening it. Arf turned his big head as we moved on, watching Kane whirl his arms, trying to catch the falling water. “He’s never done anything like that. He hardly ever barks.”

  Over beer and fish tacos in the enclosed area outside the food court, Ben asked me about the Center. “Seems like there’s always something going on.”

  “Concerts, art fairs, international festivals, you name it. Built for the World’s Fair in ’62. You can see the Space Age theme in the architecture. Key Arena’s a flying saucer, the Science Center’s got those futuristic white arches, and, of course, the Space Needle. The newest addition is the Chihuly Glass House—that will blow your mind.” From our table, we could see the crowds surge past. Kane and his parents headed into the Armory, the boy carrying the blue ball, his sister’s pink-shod foot sticking out of the stroller.

  Ben listened as I shared memories of events at the Center: My first trip to the ballet—The Nutcracker. High school graduation in the old Mercer Arena, damaged by the earthquake and still closed. Folklife and Bumbershoot, the sprawling art and music festivals that bookend the summer. I even confessed my first kiss, on the roller coaster in the long-vanished Fun Forest.

  The man was surprisingly good company, lacking the self-absorbed arrogance of other recent male companions. Plus, my dog liked him.

  Ben brought up the murder first. “Can’t blame Patel for being hypersensitive after what happened. Especially when people get all bloodthirsty over ghost chiles and people like you and me come snooping around.”

  “I wasn’t snoop—” Heat rose in my face, and not from the midday beer. “I found her. I know what it’s like to deal with all the looky-loos when a dead body shows up. At least he doesn’t have crime scene tape blocking his front door.” Ben tilted his head, questioning, and I told him about my prior brush with murder.

  “Then there’s Howard,” Ben said. “I stopped in for a drink last night with my editor. Howard’s in jail, on murder charges, and the place was jammed.”

  So that had been him. And his boss. I hoped my cheeks didn’t betray me.

  “Charges haven’t been filed yet. But it seems inevitable.” Even I, no defender of Alex Howard but a defender of truth, justice, and the American way, had started to think he might be guilty.

  I fed Arf the tail end of my taco. Kane and his family emerged from the Armory, each working on an ice cream cone. Regret is a waste of time, but I couldn’t deny feeling a teeny bit left out. By the time Tag pronounced himself ready for kids, the batteries on my biological clock had run down. Then he’d decided to recharge himself elsewhere.

  After our divorce, my mother had confessed surprise that Tag and I lasted as long as we had. Not, she’d hastened to add, that she’d foreseen infidelity. “You two never seemed to fit.”

  And yet, Kristen had a point. We couldn’t seem to stay away from each other—or move on. When I discovered his affair—he swore there had been just the one—I’d briefly considered leaving Seattle. But where would I have gone?

  Besides, when our marriage ended, I’d had a job I loved. So I stayed and bought the loft. Poured everything I had into building it out and jazzing it up.

  Then lost the job.

  But Seattle is my home. I hadn’t felt restless. I hadn’t heard the siren call of other lands.

  “Do you believe in ghosts?” I asked as we scooted back our chairs.

  “I don’t know. There’s a lot going on that we can’t see.”

  The Ninth was reaching the finale as we neared the fountain, and the “Ode to Joy” sent plumes of water gushing into the air, soaking anyone not quick enough to dash out of reach.

  When the music and the cheering stopped, he was the first to speak. “Pepper, you’re smart, and you know the people involved. I’d like your help with this investigation, without feeling like we’re sources or rivals for information. I’m serious about that feature story and—well, I want to see more of you. Personally, I mean. We can go bowling, or come back here to the Glass House.”

  “Bowling?” I laughed.

  Few features in a man are more attractive than a willingness to admit he’s interested.

  Too young? Too soon to tell.

  “Yes,” I said. “To all of it.” We circled back toward the entrance, making plans for an interview and photographs next week at the shop. And maybe bowling.

  “Kane!” Ahead of us, out of sight, the mother shouted, shrill, terrified. “Kane!”

  “KANE, NO!” The father, his shout louder, deeper, just as frightened.

  The leash ripped through my fingers as Arf shot toward the commotion, weaving through the crowd. I tore off after him, not seeing him, not knowing what he was running to. Ben surged past me, both of us shoving our way forward, yelling Arf’s name. Pounding footsteps, more shouts, a bark, a screech.

  Silence.

  Ben flung out an arm to stop me from tumbling off the curb onto First Avenue North. Not five feet away, in the middle of the asphalt, Kane’s father threw his arms around the boy, snatching him up, the small feet windmilling as the driver of the Volvo got out of his car, eyes wild, hands clutching the top of his head.

  “Where did he come from?” the driver said, adrenaline thinning his voice. “What was he doing?”

  Across the street, the blue ball hit the far curb, bounced twice, and came to rest.

  Amid the chaos stood my dog. He barked again.

&nbs
p; “The dog ran after the boy,” someone said. “He pushed the boy aside and saved him.” A few feet away in her stroller, Kane’s sister cried.

  My knees gave way, and I sank to the sidewalk. Arf bounded into my outstretched arms. “Good dog. Bad dog. I just got you.” I blubbered into a furry ear damp with my tears. “I can’t lose you.” He touched his nose to mine, and we embraced, my dog and I, my brave, panting, slobbery dog.

  * * *

  THAT after-the-fact fear had me rattled. The what-ifs—what if Arf hadn’t been there, what if he and the boy had been hit—kicked in and kicked my butt. I drove home still shaking.

  Still wondering why my dog had gone racing after a child he did not know to protect the boy from a danger he could not see. Where had he learned that?

  I parked the car, and my dog and I trekked up Western. I needed to wash the adrenaline sting out of my mouth. And Arf needed serious treats.

  Definitely an elevator day. I punched the button and glanced up the Hillclimb steps, the steps we weren’t taking. Seven metal figures, each sculpture holding a white globe light, climb the walls, dance on the stair rails, and otherwise challenge our sense of up, down, sky, and ground.

  Mine had been challenged enough today, thank you.

  The elevator creaked its way up, and I replayed what I’d learned that morning. I’d struck out with Tamara’s neighbors. Even if I knew the names of her former employers, I couldn’t call up and say, “So sorry, she’s dead—tell me about her.” The police had the advantage there. So did Brother Cadfael and Sister Frevisse. They didn’t always know the victim or suspects, but cloaked in credibility by their vows, they had little trouble getting people to talk. My job in HR had given me a similar semblance of safety.

  In the outside world, such trust is harder to come by.