Guilty as Cinnamon

by Leslie Budewitz

He snorted. “Yeah, Chef’s full of promises. Everybody in this business is full of promises.” His tone told me what he thought of those promises.

  “I’ll get right to the point. You went to the construction site to talk to Tamara last Wednesday afternoon. Why?”

  The barista set his triple shot in front of him. He grunted in thanks and wrapped his hands around the small white cup, never taking his glower off me. “I wanted answers. Why did she let Danielle cut me out of our plan? Why didn’t she have the balls to tell me?”

  Because chefs are full of promises. Because she had her own plans and they mattered more to her than you did.

  “So when you asked her, what did she say?” I watched him over the rim of my own double mocha.

  Pain replaced the bluster. Relieved of kitchen duty, he hadn’t shaved today, and a shadow softened his jawline. “That she realized when she watched me cook for Danielle that I didn’t measure up after all. That I needed to decide whether to work harder or waste my talent.”

  A little blunt for my HR brain, but she’d gotten her point across.

  He met my gaze. “I know what you’re thinking. Yeah, I was pissed. But I didn’t kill her. When I figured out she was planning to leave, I talked her into letting me go with her because I wanted to work with her. I still did. Swear to God, she was alive when I left.”

  I wanted to believe him. He was calm enough now, but everyone described him as a hothead. “Last Friday, out on the sidewalk, Glassy gave you a tongue-lashing. A warning.”

  He squinted, shaking his head slightly. “Beats me. It was like he thinks I know something, might try something. But what?”

  His confusion seemed genuine, and it complicated the picture. “Any of the dishes you were responsible for use ghost chiles?”

  “No. Heck, you got to be in Chef’s inner circle to get access. He all but locks ’em up. Like we might grab the jar by mistake and turn the lobster bisque into fireball soup.”

  That’s what everyone else said. Alas, it put me no closer to finding out who’d used my peppers to kill.

  The monkey-in-a-coffee-cup logo grinned down at me. “So who did kill her, Tariq?”

  “Chef,” he said. “Who else?”

  And that was the question.

  * * *

  “SHOOT. Were we meeting today? My watch has been acting up.” I glanced at my wrist. Right. More like my brain was acting up, the result of interference by electrospooktrographic waves.

  Ben gestured at the photographer crouched in front of the Chinese apothecary, snapping away. “We came downtown to shoot another story and took a chance that you’d be here.”

  “Give me a moment to freshen up.” I dashed to the washroom. No fix for the bags under my eyes. While my uniform wasn’t stylish, it was clean and spoke “Spice Shop.” The Mariners cap? I’d sneak in a reference to being named for a famous ballplayer and my family’s love for the game.

  “Don’t worry, you look great,” Kristen said when I emerged. “Natural blush is always best.”

  Smarty-pants.

  While Ben interviewed my staff, the photographer directed me to pose first in the nook, then beside the apothecary, assisting a customer. Next, I pretended to serve tea from the cracked samovar we’d left out for atmosphere. He got a sweet shot of Arf poking his nose out from behind the counter.

  After the photographer left, Ben and I sat in the nook. I’d given interviews before, and nothing he asked was new—how I came to own the shop, what we offered, spice trends—but I always appreciate opportunities to expand our audience.

  “What’s your real name?” he said after I explained the origin of my nickname.

  “That’s for me to know, and you to never find out.”

  “I love a challenge.” He closed his notebook. “So, we just came from a press conference Alex Howard held. He and his lawyers made statements and took a few questions. He’s adamant about his innocence.”

  “Blaming the police for railroading him, wasting time they could be using to track the real killer?”

  “You’ve talked to him, too.” Ben’s tone was wry.

  “Maybe he’s right. He’s an easy target—the boss who fired the victim and threatened her. But what if someone’s using that as cover? Someone else with reason to want her out of the way. Oh pooh.” I frowned, squirming on the hard bench.

  “This still makes you uncomfortable,” he said. “Mixing work with pleasure.”

  I knew what he meant—I wouldn’t deny feeling some chemistry between us. But it was more than that. Investigating Alex, being warned off by Tag, and now being charmed by Ben—it was all too confusing.

  His blue eyes locked on mine. “Like I said Saturday, I’d like to spend a little time together.”

  Maybe we could. Maybe kindness makes a man more attractive. And maybe the only way to learn to trust my judgment again was to dive in.

  Ben tucked his notebook in his pocket and started to slide out of the booth. I reached out and grabbed his wrist. Pulled him closer and kissed him.

  Twenty-three

  Job named a daughter Keziah, possibly after the Hebrew word for cassia, the cinnamon-like spice much valued in ancient times. One biblical scholar says the name came to symbolize female equality, since Job left all three daughters an inheritance in a time when that was rare.

  —Paul J. Achtemeier, HarperCollins Bible Dictionary

  “I’m not calling him stupid or dishonest, and I’m not saying he’s always late,” the woman on the other end of the line said of Red Dreads. “But he can’t make change, and he can’t read a clock.”

  “Bummer. I appreciate your honesty.”

  “Hey, I know how frustrating it is when no one says anything more than ‘yes, he worked here.’ Good luck.”

  Hiring, along with almost everything else in my life, was becoming a lost cause. I blamed my bad attitude on the late-night ghost hunting, a pastime more akin to Don Quixote tilting at windmills than Jessica Fletcher digging up dirt.

  Arf rested his chin on my knee. How do dogs always seem to know when their humans need comfort?

  “Boss.” Sandra stuck her head in the office. “TV news wants to interview you.”

  My hair might be hopeless, but the publicity might help with hiring.

  “One measure of heat in food is Scoville heat units, which quantify the concentration of capsaicin—the compound that creates the sensation of heat. Another test measures pungency. Neither is precise,” I told the reporter a few minutes later, camera rolling. “Seed lineage, climate, even the soil all make a difference. Ancho chiles score relatively low, at 3,000 units. In comparison, jalapeños clock in at 25,000. Ghost chiles can reach one million Scoville heat units.”

  The reporter blanched, and the customers clustered nearby gasped in unison.

  “How do they kill?” The reporter stuck the microphone an inch from my nose.

  “You’ll need to talk to a toxicologist for that. We’re strictly culinary here.”

  “Do you have samples we can try?” The camera panned the Spice of the Month display and the tea cart. The cracked samovar was getting an atmospheric workout.

  “Sorry. I’m out.” I did have the bag from Big Al’s, but I sure as hemlock wasn’t going to risk disaster with the cameras rolling. And I didn’t want to give anyone ideas. No doubt the reporter had been at Alex Howard’s press conference, too, and was working her way down a witness list similar to Ben’s. Figures—I wear a ball cap and wind up in two photo shoots. “By the way, we are hiring. Must love food, retail, and the Market.”

  The Historical Commission rep came in, holding the door for the departing TV crew. I steeled myself for more hoop-te-doodle.

  “No approval without historical evidence of a lighted sign. If it were up to me,” he said, shaking his head to suggest he was on my side. I wasn’t convinced.

  Since non
e of the pictures I’d found so far showed a lighted sign, my last recourse was a dusty afternoon in the County Archives, poring over old photographs.

  Thinking of lights made me think of the electrical danger we’d been in. Danielle had said Tamara was poking around in the new space because it had electrical problems. Now we had electrical problems.

  Did that mean whoever left the note knew about our weird wiring and Tamara’s discovery? What if both were the work not of the same ghost but of the same prankster?

  Someone who wanted me to investigate and who wanted to scare me.

  It was working.

  * * *

  THE Archives weren’t as old and dusty as I’d expected, but they weren’t exactly comfy, either. Nearly two hours later, after flipping through files stuffed with photos of the Market, enduring countless paper cuts, and going half blind over microfiche, I uncramped myself and let out a long sigh. Sore muscles and dry eyes don’t matter if you find what you’re looking for.

  But I hadn’t. Not one shot showed a lighted sign outside my building.

  Halfway down the courthouse’s wide, marble-tiled hallway, I paused to flex my cranky knee. A few feet away, a man in a navy suit sat on a long oak bench next to an elderly woman wearing a mint green coat dress and heels of a style I hadn’t seen in decades. He cleared his throat, his tone too low to overhear, and pointed to her left hand. Her fingers shook as she slid off her wedding rings and handed them to him, their eyes not meeting. A debtor exam, where a lawyer representing a client with a judgment to collect literally takes the valuables off the borrower’s hands.

  I wanted to disappear, my only consolation the knowledge that both of them were too focused, and too embarrassed, to notice me. But the sight gave me an idea.

  In the Clerk’s Office, I pulled up the civil litigation records. (I knew from experience that they weren’t online.) No collections suits under Ashwani Patel’s name or Tamarind’s. Good—I wasn’t sure I wanted to do business with him, but at least we could clear that hurdle.

  As I made my way out of the building, it wasn’t Cadfael’s words that came to mind but those of another fictional sleuth. What about the dog in the nighttime, Mr. Holmes asked Dr. Watson. The dog who didn’t bark.

  Ashwani Patel, everyone said, had married another cook. They’d run the restaurant together until she left him.

  But his name appeared nowhere in the court records. No petition for divorce and no decree.

  * * *

  I left the building, head down, thinking, and ran smack into Detective Spencer. She wore another of her stylish-but-sturdy black suits. Her sidekick was nowhere in sight.

  She held out her hand. “Thanks for alerting me about Zu Wang. Union rep from the Symphony brought her in. She didn’t know much, but every bit we can learn about the victim helps.”

  “I suppose you talked with all the restaurant staff, too.”

  “They’re not so easy to run down. Some of them don’t like the police.” One corner of her lip turned up. “Doesn’t help when Howard fires them.”

  “You mean Tariq Rose,” I said. “He thought he and Tamara were starting the new place together. When Alex fired Tamara, Tariq realized she’d moved ahead without him. I spilled the beans, after getting Alex to promise he wouldn’t let Tariq go. But he changed his mind.”

  Spencer cocked her head and gave a low whistle. I’ve always wished I could do that. “Kind of a hard case, isn’t he? Howard, I mean. But what you’re saying about Rose complicates things . . .”

  “Right. Makes him a suspect, too. Detective, I don’t suppose you can tell me whether CSU linked any prints on the electrical stuff in my building to the ghost note and the mysterious job application?”

  She eyed me closely before speaking. “I couldn’t really say. But you know, sometimes they make a tentative match, but the prints aren’t in the database.”

  We were standing outside the courthouse. There was no reason for me to feel out of breath. Except that she was telling me without telling me that I’d been right about a connection. And ghosts don’t leave fingerprints. “So they can’t put a name to them. Sometimes they find the same prints at two different scenes, right? Like maybe an attempted arson and . . .”

  “And a murder scene. Yeah, that happens, too. Hey, I wanted to ask about that job opening. Part-time, full-time?”

  “SPD not treating you right, Detective?”

  She smiled. “My daughter, Tessa. Loves food, loves the Market. I wish she’d go back and finish that degree, but until then, she needs a job.”

  “Degree? You can’t be old enough for a college-age daughter.”

  “She’s twenty-four. I finished high school one week, had a baby the next. Applied to the department on her second birthday, the first day I was old enough. Needed a good job to support her on my own.”

  We were the same age but had led such different lives. “Not always easy for a woman to navigate a course through a sea of difficult men.”

  Her demeanor remained placid, but if my eyes didn’t deceive me, a shadow crossed her face.

  “I’ll have Tessa get in touch. Thank you, Pepper.” She turned and walked away, heels rapping on the sidewalk, leaving me wondering what chord I’d unwittingly struck.

  * * *

  I slipped into the next building lobby, sat on a bench, and brought up the County Recorder’s website on my phone. If Patel had been married in Washington State, there ought to be a record, though I didn’t know how far I’d get with his name alone.

  Far enough. The “length of search” indicator on the website said it took 2.7 seconds to find that Ashwani Patel and Ashley Brown had been married five years ago this past February 14.

  I sat and pondered. Married. Disappeared. Of course, she could have divorced him in another state.

  Why did I think it mattered?

  WWCD? What would Cadfael do?

  * * *

  GHOSTS aside, spaces can hold emotions, and I knew something was wrong the moment I walked into the Spice Shop. I swung behind the counter to pet Arf, then grabbed the first available employee.

  “What now?”

  “It’s on your desk.” Sandra’s chin quivered. “Came right after you left. A customer said someone outside asked her to deliver it.”

  She followed me to the back room, clutching her elbows. Seeing her flustered worried me more than the note itself.

  Murder most foul, as in the best it is. But this most foul, strange and unnatural.

  I sank into my chair. Fragments flew around my brain, not quite connecting. “Send Reed in.”

  “Hamlet,” he said a few minutes later. “It’s from the scene where his father’s ghost appears to tell him what looked like an accidental death was really murder.”

  “But we know Tamara’s death was murder,” I said. “Not even the police doubt it. So why is our ghost—our prankster, or note-ster—so insistent?”

  But my History major, English minor employee had no idea. Neither did the others. “Maybe I should stick around another week or two,” Zak said, straightening to his full height as though his size would stop the danger. It hadn’t so far.

  “Thank you.” I touched his arm. “That’s sweet, but it’s time for you to move on with your life. And we’ll be fine.”

  I retreated to my office, pondering the meaning of the notes. I’d interpreted the first as a push to investigate Tamara’s death. The second was almost a shove.

  Who wanted me to investigate, but didn’t dare say so directly? Who cared about Tamara—and justice—enough to prod me from the shadows?

  Tariq? Another employee? But while her coworkers had expressed sadness, I’d detected no deep, personal grief. And though one or two sounded willing to believe Alex guilty, no one gave off vigilante vibes.

  I called Spencer to report the Hamlet note. She promised to send an officer ASAP.
<
br />   Meanwhile, I had a coincidence to probe. I dialed another number.

  “Thanks for taking my call. I’ll be quick. You told me the Tamarack space had electrical problems. Can you be more specific?”

  “Lights going on and off,” Danielle replied. “A fan that ran backward. A curious smell, like burnt cinnamon.”

  Other than the smell, it sounded a lot like what we’d experienced. “Tamara ever say anything about Ashwani Patel?”

  She hesitated. “He—didn’t want us to lease the space. Mucked up his plans for expansion. Pipe dream, if you ask me. His food is too traditional for the modern urban palate.”

  “But Indian food’s hugely popular.” At least, judging by how well our curries and garam masala sell, not to mention turmeric, cardamom, and even bhut C.

  “Your modern foodie doesn’t want to step out in the evening to eat the same samosas or curries over rice that she can get at any food truck. She wants sautéed arugula and spinach with paneer and roasted cashews. She wants Indian food with a Pacific Northwest accent—seared halibut with black chickpeas and a yam curry.”

  Talking to chefs always makes me hungry.

  “Updated classics,” she continued. “A little familiarity, a little adventure. If you’re going to commit to pricey real estate in the heart of the city, you’ve got to satisfy those eaters.”

  As Tamara had hoped to do. “She ever mention ghosts? Or a tiny Indian woman who works for Patel? Elderly. Wears a sari and a bindi—the dot on the forehead.”

  “Ghosts? That old rumor. I’m sure Patel spread it himself,” she said with a wry laugh. “I stopped by his place a couple of times to give him updates, assure him we’d be good neighbors. But I never saw a woman like that.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I said. “One more question. What do you know about his ex-wife, Ashley?”

  She was silent, no doubt thinking. “I heard she left town, ages ago. Sorry, but I’ve got to run. If I think of anything else, I’ll let you know.”

  I thanked her and hung up. A hot, sour sensation dripped down the back of my throat and grabbed at my chest.