Guilty as Cinnamon

by Leslie Budewitz

  He pointed vaguely to the corner of the building. “Don’t know. Might justa been a junction box or your standard outlet.”

  “Any chance they led to a lighted sign outside?”

  He gave a quick shake of his head. He couldn’t tell. But it gave me an idea.

  I called Fabiola and told her my latest brainstorm.

  “I’ll let my sign guy know you’re coming,” she promised.

  “Great. I’ll swing by his shop this afternoon and talk design. Better to take a full-sized sketch to the Historic Commission than an idea they can’t visualize. Maybe we can get it approved and up before the spring festival.” I switched gears. “Fabe, how you doin’? With Tamara’s death, I mean.”

  “Funny how hard it’s hit me,” she said. “We were just getting to be friends, but I adored her passion. She was jazzed about creating a new restaurant, but it was more than that. She was creating something for herself.”

  Now that, I understood.

  * * *

  LOVE my shop, love my dog, and here I was, leaving them again. But the staff do the real work anyway.

  The industrial district south of downtown changes every time I go there. Some peeps call it SoDo, for South of the Dome—the old, gray Kingdome, long replaced by a sleek modern stadium with a retractable roof. Revisionists say it’s short for South of Downtown. Dumb nickname either way, but it seems to be sticking.

  I drove past the old Sears building, built by the railroad a century ago when catalogs ruled the day, to entice Sears to make Seattle its western shipping hub. We bought school clothes in the retail store eons ago. Now it’s Starbucks’s headquarters, the green mermaid peeping out over the clock tower. It’s great to see the old buildings reclaimed, though some of the losses make me sad. My favorite sushi place on Capitol Hill is in an old plumbing supply building—beautifully redone, but where did the pipes and drains and valves go? I admit, I felt a little unanchored when I heard that the nuts and bolts company was moving to the suburbs.

  Laurel’s right: I think too much.

  I turned off First Avenue South then made a right, creeping down the block while scanning for the sign maker’s address. Two highways plus railroad tracks make the area a bit of a maze. I tried to circle the block and promptly found myself in a dead end. I was backing up when I spotted Ashwani Patel. He aimed his clicker at his car, then limped down the street. I wondered where he’d gotten that limp—he wasn’t much older than I.

  On the seat beside me, the phone rang. I glanced at the caller’s name and frowned—why was Vinny calling me?

  That quickly, Patel had disappeared.

  “Oh, I know!” I parked the Mustang in the next block and scurried down the sidewalk. A well-known food broker—mainly dry goods, and some spices—occupied one of the old brick warehouses. If Patel wouldn’t talk to me in his restaurant, maybe I could corner him there.

  Score! There he was, opening the door to Big Al’s Imports.

  But what excuse could I give for being here that wouldn’t sound completely idiotic?

  I took a deep breath and opened the door. The man behind the counter, at least six-three and three hundred pounds, looked up.

  “Hi. Pepper Reece from Seattle Spice.” I held out my hand. “You must be Big Al. I was hoping we could chat about—oh, hi.” I greeted Patel as if seeing him for the first time. “I know you, from the Indian restaurant by the Center, right?”

  Patel didn’t say a word.

  I turned back to Al, donning my best look of wide-eyed innocence. “This may sound weird, Al. You heard what happened to Tamara Langston, the chef who was killed? Right next door to Mr. Patel.”

  “Sad business,” Al said.

  “Horrible. Anyway, the police took all my ghost chiles for chemical analysis. A couple of customers are begging for them, and my replacement stock hasn’t come in yet.” Of course not. I hadn’t placed an order. “If you have any on hand, could you sell me a few ounces? Full markup—I don’t expect any deals. That way, they get what they need without having to make an extra phone call or a trip down here . . .”

  Not bad for a complete fabrication, made up on the spot.

  “You mean, that way, you don’t have to send your customers to me and risk losing their business.” He gave me a knowing smile. “You’re in luck. By chance, I’d sold out when the police came knocking, but I got a new shipment this morning. Barely opened the boxes. Hang on.”

  He disappeared into the warehouse behind him.

  Leaving me alone with a glowering Ashwani Patel.

  “This is all such a tragedy,” I said. “Rest assured, I have no intention of interfering with your relationship with Al, but I know spice isn’t his main gig. So if there’s ever anything he can’t get for you, I hope you’ll give me a call.”

  His full lips pressed into a thin line. “Your predecessor closed that door.”

  News to me. “Things change. Hey, Saturday, I couldn’t help overhear the customer quizzing you about dishes with ghost peppers in them. Pretty tacky if you ask me. You have to wonder about people sometimes.”

  The look on his face said he wondered about me.

  I rattled on. “Must be rough, knowing a young woman lost her life right next door. Not to mention the impact on your business, after the ghouls lose interest. You know Alex Howard, don’t you? Do you think he killed her?”

  Patel fixed me with a disconcerting stare. “I have no idea what that man is capable of.”

  The door swung open, and Big Al tossed a sealed bag of innocent-looking peppers on the counter. “Sorry to take so long. Call from another damn reporter. They all want to talk about ghost chiles.”

  I laid cash on the counter. I didn’t really need the peppers, but I needed to find out where the killer could have bought them. “Next thing you know, people will say that building is haunted.” The little lady behind Patel’s take-out counter already had.

  For a dark-skinned man, Patel looked awfully pale.

  Time to split before things got even crazier. “Thanks, Al. I owe you.”

  I ran down the block and back to my car, then zipped up to the sign maker’s shop. We went over my sketch and specs, and he agreed to prepare a full-sized drawing. Back in my car, I called the Historical Commission to give them a heads-up. If I found evidence that the building had once had a lighted sign, we might be able get a new sign in place before the spring celebration in late April.

  Then I returned Vinny’s call. I rolled my eyes at the suggestion, but it wasn’t any crazier than the stunt I’d just pulled. And if it brought us closer to the truth, I was willing to try almost anything.

  Twenty-one

  Some sources claim that herbs and spices were used in the Middle Ages to make rotten meat edible. Others note that no amount of doctoring makes rotten meat safe—and no one who could afford spices would eat rotten meat. More likely, they say, that spicery dressed up the taste of salts and vinegars used to preserve food.

  I was staring at the groceries spread out on my kitchen counter, trying to remember what I’d had in mind, when my phone rang.

  “I’m out on bail, and I’m going nuts. Come over and let me make dinner.”

  Did I hate being summoned more than I loved letting one of the city’s finest chefs cook for me?

  Fifteen minutes later, Arf and I stepped off the elevator and into Alex Howard’s penthouse. That’s a word usually used for top floors of skyscrapers, but in this case, apartment and loft were too mundane. My first time here, I’d been seriously envious—effortless style, expensive taste, no detail spared. But then I realized it was the work of a chic and pricey decorator, and my envy vanished. Clearly, she’d understood what image he wanted to project. Alex wasn’t a guy to trudge from one furniture store to another or spend hours studying flooring samples. He was a guy who wanted someone—preferably a good-looking woman—to scout out the options
for him so he could say no, no, yes, yes, no, yes.

  Alex greeted me with a peck on the cheek and a glass of bubbly that made me forget all about Vinny’s rosé. The days inside had taken their toll—his cheeks had sunk, and underneath the beard stubble, his skin had gone ghostly.

  But jail food hadn’t ruined his taste buds—the aromas coming from his kitchen nearly made me swoon.

  “What is that heavenly smell?”

  “Pork loin. Hey, boy.” Alex rubbed Arf’s head and put a bowl of water and a plate of what looked like pâté on the entry’s slate floor.

  His kitchen couldn’t have been less like Laurel’s. Both photo-worthy, but in oh-so-different ways. This one was meant for show as much as for work. Cherry cabinets lined the back wall, uppers and lowers separated by a white marble work top veined in gray. Stainless steel everything, from the six-burner stove to the glass-front fridge and freezer and the built-in espresso maker.

  Guests gravitate naturally, as I did now, to tall chairs set along a high cherry bar, Alex’s work space on the other side. That way, he could show off his cooking skills without turning his back on his guests. His audience.

  “Grilled asparagus with chopped eggs, olive oil, and your spring blend—the fennel, garlic, and coriander combo. Whidbey Island mussels in garlic-parsley broth.” He pushed classic white dinnerware toward me. His voice teetered between frantic and exhausted, and beneath the short sleeves of his tight black T-shirt, the muscles in his upper arms quivered.

  “So, you got bail.” I speared a mussel and dropped the shells in a bowl. “Tell me what happened.”

  He paused, his stainless steel spoon frozen midair, his eyes shiny as black currant sauce. “It’s bizarre. You’re charged with the worst crime imaginable. Everything is surreal, like it’s happening to someone else, but the someone else is you. It’s all routine to the judge and the lawyers, and before you know it, it’s over. They took me back to the cell while Barbara posted my bail. They rushed the paperwork to get me out by five. Either they needed my bed for somebody else, or a clerk didn’t want to work overtime.” He reached for a tumbler of water, gripped it tight. “I swear, going outside was such a shock, I nearly hugged the closest tree.”

  Chefly instincts intact, he plucked a tray out of the wall oven, then arranged his olive popovers with herbed sour cream on a plate and placed it before me. Our eyes met briefly, and I wasn’t sure whether this dinner was my reward for helping him out or an attempt at seduction.

  Not in the bedroom, a sleek black-and-silver enclave with deep rose accents, but in the court of public opinion.

  Why was he trying so hard? To get me to tell him all I’d learned, or to promise to keep quiet?

  I sipped the wine, reminding myself to keep my wits. The night was young. I plucked a popper off the plate and held it up, like a communion host, before taking a bite. “Why did you call me, Alex?”

  He didn’t look up, busy slicing and dicing. “I needed a friend.”

  “Glassy’s your friend. And the Café’s closed on Mondays, so he’s free.”

  “You aren’t sick of my cooking.” His blade thwacked the cutting board, turning a large red shallot into teeny, tiny dice. But it wasn’t the sulfuric gasses making his eyes water. “Why arrest me when the real killer is still out there? Why are they trying to ruin me?”

  “Ruin you? Your restaurant is booming. And who are ‘they’?” I shifted on the barstool, my skin a little hot and twitchy.

  “Who do you think?” His eyes cleared, his voice sharp and honed. “Your pal Tracy.”

  “What? He’s not my pal. He can’t stand me.”

  “He and your ex, Officer Hot Wheels, would like nothing more than to put me behind bars and leave me there to rot.”

  I opened my mouth to ask what on earth he was talking about, but he’d turned his attention to the stove. Shallots flew into a hot pan. Butter popped and sizzled as the water and other compounds released in the heat and began the transformation into sauce. Alex was a picture of compact energy as he deglazed the pan and sprinkled in parsley and other magic ingredients. A part of me wanted to leave, to run away and have nothing more to do with this maddening, presumptuous genius. But my dog was happy and my mouth was watering.

  We sat at a cozy table for two next to the floor-to-ceiling windows. A better view than mine—higher up the hill, unimpeded by the Viaduct. It was almost like a date, except for the conscious effort I had to make to keep from thinking of it that way.

  “This is fabulous. Thank you.”

  Alex laid his fork down and gazed out the window. “I can’t believe she was going to leave. I had plans for her.”

  “People get to make their own plans, Alex. Even employees. Zak’s leaving for his dream job. I didn’t see it coming, and I can’t possibly replace him.” I leaned forward. “Life—and business—is just one long series of transitions.”

  He cocked his head, not hearing me, still seeing the future he’d envisioned. “In a year, tops, she could have taken over the Café. She would have been ready for any kitchen in my company.”

  “You’re missing the point, Alex. She wanted her own place. Like you did. Like Danielle Bordeaux and Laurel Halloran. Ashwani Patel and his wife. Bringing her vision to life.”

  He looked shocked, as if he hadn’t thought of it that way. “A mistake. I could have made her a star.”

  The Pinot Noir he’d poured, a reserve from the Willamette Valley, sparkled in the light as I swirled the glass. I’d never eaten Tamara’s cooking. When it came to food and fame, Alex might be right. But he still didn’t get that people value what they create themselves far more than the boxes other people make for them.

  I told him about Tariq hanging out near Tamarack on Wednesday afternoon. “It takes a good fifteen to twenty minutes to get downtown from there. If your time clock is right, he could have come and gone before she called Danielle. Or maybe he caught her moments later. Hard to see him as a killer, but I can’t rule him out.”

  The moody dinner light picked out the pulsing in his temples. His nostrils flared. “The lying little creep. Ditches prep and waltzes in late, without a second thought.” His words stabbed the air between us. “He is dead. The scrawny punk is—”

  He spotted the horror on my face, my hands gripping the arms of the chair.

  “I don’t mean it, Pepper. You know I don’t mean it.”

  Less than a week ago, he’d threatened a woman I’d found dead barely twenty-four hours later. And now he was threatening the chief suspect.

  I’d told Ben we use phrases like that all the time, and they aren’t threats. But now . . .

  Tariq’s lies bothered Alex more than the possibility that the young cook had killed Tamara.

  And that bothered me way too much to stay for dessert.

  * * *

  HAD I just fled dinner with a killer? I stalked down the street, dog beside me, muttering unkind thoughts. Had I talked myself into believing Alex not guilty, despite the evidence to the contrary, because we had a history together, short and checkered as it was? Or because if Alex had killed Tamara with bhut C, I’d supplied the murder weapon?

  More than I wanted to save my shop’s reputation, more than I wanted to be a part of the Market, providing jobs and spices, more even than I wanted to prove to Tag and my parents and everyone else that I was capable of creating something that mattered, I wanted to believe myself a good judge of people.

  And I had blown it.

  I’d nearly been seduced by perfect asparagus and a good Pinot.

  “Dang it, Pepper, you are an idiot sometimes. You think you’ve got life figured out, but you can’t see when a guy you know is a big-time user is trying to use you. You aren’t even able—”

  Arf barked once, sharply. I tensed and looked around. Nothing. “What is it, boy?” I bent to see the world from his height, if not through his eyes. “You
were hoping for more pâté? Sorry.”

  But rotten as I felt, we couldn’t go home and sleep it off quite yet. We had an appointment.

  * * *

  “YOU brought the dog?” Vinny’s friend Hal asked. Hal had a high forehead and a pointy chin, and in the blue-white rays of the streetlamp outside my shop, his head resembled a lightbulb.

  “’Course she brought the dog,” Vinny said. “They see things we don’t.”

  “Some ghosts don’t like dogs.” Hal opened a hard black plastic case and withdrew a box, dials and gauges covering the top. “Gimme a minute to tune the equipment.”

  “If the ghost don’t like dogs, then that’s a clue to who he is.” Vinny sounded exasperated. “You oughtta know that. You wrote the book on ghosts.”

  I’d met Hal once before. My former employee Tory and some friends had opened an art studio and gallery in Pioneer Square, and when she and Zak invited me to a pre-Halloween ghost tour of the area, I’d gone along for fun. The author of several books on Seattle’s ghosts, Hal was shorter than both Vinny and me, with frizzy white hair and wild eyes. But while he shared Vinny’s enthusiasm for the unseen, he lacked the boy-out-of-Brooklyn accent.

  “What is that thing, anyway?” I said.

  “An electrospectrograph,” Hal replied, and I could have sworn he said electrospooktrograph. “It detects the radiographic waves that ghosts emit.”

  “You should see this thing upstairs in Butterworth’s. It goes ballistic,” Vinny said.

  I’m a relatively normal woman, so why am I standing outside my shop at midnight with two men who are so absolutely not normal? Vinny’d had me fooled for years. Give me a good spiel and deal on wine and I lose all good sense.

  Convince me you can solve an unsolvable crime and the real trouble starts.

  I unlocked the door to the shop.

  “What’s that red light?” Vinny’s words tumbled out like ice cubes in an old freezer.

  Weird. We always turn the apothecary lamp off when we close—it’s a fire hazard—but the red silk shade glowed in the corner.