Guilty as Cinnamon

by Leslie Budewitz

  “Right. The article about Blue Poppy exclaimed over her deft touch, and said she combined Indian spices with French pastry sensibility. And Jane called Patel’s food bland and overcooked but raved about Ashley’s baking. That was years ago, but Jane thinks she might have set him off.”

  “A man who will hit a woman is only looking for an excuse,” Alex said.

  I shuddered, knowing he was right. “A lot of women don’t report abuse. Even if she had, it would have been as Ashley Brown, so the detectives wouldn’t connect her to Tamara. Or Tamara to Patel.”

  He fixed me an intent stare, an I-need-you-to-understand stare. “I admit, I lost it when I discovered she’d decided to leave. I’d gone out on a limb for her. My whole organization had. And she didn’t bother to tell me.”

  “Maybe she wanted to protect you.”

  He jerked his head back, his eyes hooded in disbelief.

  “Maybe she finally felt strong enough personally and professionally—as a full-service chef, not just a pastry cook—to do what she really wanted. To challenge him,” I continued. Laurel had often lamented that women with chefly ambitions get shunted onto the pastry track, which never garners the same respect as meat or fish. “Maybe she wanted to get all her ducks in a row before telling you, so that you couldn’t stop her. So he couldn’t stop her.”

  “But why go to Danielle?” An unfamiliar note of hurt crept into his voice. “If she wanted to prove that she could survive his abuse and come back stronger, why not let me open up next to him, with her at the stove?”

  “Because she wanted to do this on her own. You didn’t want a partner. I don’t mean this as criticism, Alex, but every restaurant you run is all you.” He opened his mouth to protest, but I held up a hand. “Yes, you’ve got your long-trusted managers—Ops upstairs, your front of the house manager, Glassy at the bar. You treat them well and trust them to be professionals. But it’s always your world. Tamara wanted to create her restaurant.” I remembered her standing in my shop, talking flavors and sketching ideas for presentation. I remembered her lying on the floor of the unfinished space. “She needed financial support and experience behind her. Danielle could provide that. But she trusted Tamara’s vision. She didn’t need to take over.”

  Alex set his cup on the floor. Elbows on his knees, he rested his forehead on his arms. When he sat up, his eyes were filled with sadness and, perhaps, if I weren’t imagining things, a hint of regret. “I’m an SOB sometimes, aren’t I?”

  I smiled, but without humor. “Meanwhile, Patel was continuing his spendthrift ways, running up bills his restaurant couldn’t pay, setting up fake corporations and using her name. Any idea whether she knew?”

  “She never said.” He sat upright, leaned back, and crossed his arms. “Patel’s not the first guy to play the corporate name game, but sooner or later, they get you. Some little thing trips you up. A waiter gripes to the labor department about the house keeping the tips, or a cook bitches about no bathroom breaks, and ka-boom. You think he killed her?”

  I stood and took a few steps before answering. “I’ve spent enough time around lawyers to argue both sides of that. If he truly didn’t know she was still around until she showed up with plans for a hot new restaurant next door—”

  “One that would have put him out of business,” Alex said, “by being a hundred times better.”

  “—then seeing her would have been like seeing a ghost.” Is that what the old woman meant when she’d hinted at a bhut?

  Alex angled in the chair to face me. “He got enraged, confronted her, and things got out of hand. I always heard he had a volcanic temper.”

  I gave him the look the kettle gave the pot.

  He colored, understanding. “Beyond the heat of the kitchen. That’s part stress, part showmanship. I mean real anger. Violent anger.”

  “Or he planned to kill her, to stop her.” I paced under the watchful eye of a hand-carved raven mask, a Northwest tribal totem. “But that doesn’t explain the choice of weapon. And, I’m thinking out loud here, but if he was relying on her credit and reputation to stay afloat financially—”

  “Right,” Alex said. “Why kill the cash cow?”

  “Or the credit cow. But maybe that didn’t matter. It was Tamara Langston who died, not Ashley Brown. Common name, easy to fool people.” I stopped and faced him. “Ah. That’s it. What if she tumbled to his scheme and threatened to expose him?”

  “I’ll ask around. Talk to my suppliers and see what they know about Patel. See if they’d heard from her.”

  “Careful. Word might leak back to him and tick him off,” I said.

  “Good.” Alex rose. “If he thinks people are onto him, he might get scared and make a mistake.”

  “Alex, the cops think I told the reporters that she was killed with bhut C. It was you, wasn’t it? Through your staff.”

  His eyes flicked almost imperceptibly at the door. Ops.

  “Why? Didn’t you think that would make them focus on me?”

  “No.” He sounded surprised. “You would never betray confidential details. I thought that would make them look elsewhere, try to figure out who else had inside info.” His voice took on a rare tenderness. “It was the only way I could think of to clear you from suspicion.”

  Sure as sugar, I hadn’t expected that.

  * * *

  “PEPPER.” The sound of my name penetrated my mental fog as I neared the Spice Shop.

  Knock me over with a feather. “Danielle. What brings you down here?” Heaven help me, my first thought sprang from my business brain, wondering if we still had a chance to become her supplier. My second thought, mercifully, came from my empathic brain, which told business brain to shut up.

  “Can we talk?” In her dark pants and stacked heels, her teal raincoat open, she looked at first glance like any other well-moneyed woman on a mission, but it didn’t take long to detect the worry in her hazel eyes.

  A few minutes later, after I’d checked in with my staff, we settled at a table on the main floor of Lowell’s, overlooking the Great Wheel on Pier 57.

  “This place never changes,” she said. “How long’s it been here—fifty years? Sixty?”

  The waitress, who could have been an original employee, slid steaming mugs in front of us and whipped her order pad out of her apron pocket. Snooping had made me ravenous. “Two eggs over easy, hash browns, and toast. With butter and cinnamon sugar.”

  “Cinnamon toast,” Danielle said. “Sounds heavenly.”

  While patience is not my middle name—nor my first, though they start with the same letter—waiting was getting easier. When someone is dying to talk to you, give them space and you’ll learn the most astonishing things.

  Danielle’s jaw moved as she wet her lips, then turned her attention to the black leather bag on the chair beside her.

  It was as if the dead had come back to life. On the table between us lay Tamara’s bright green notebook. Who knew what secrets lay etched on its ivory pages?

  “She left it in my office last week. Wednesday morning, a few hours before . . .” She swallowed hard and reached for her coffee. “I found it this morning. At first, I assumed she’d left it by accident, but if she knew someone was after her . . .”

  Hard to believe it had been a full week since Tamara’s death. “Did you call the police?”

  She pursed her lips, her eyes downcast. “I—I should, I know, but I wanted to tell you first.”

  I pulled a napkin out of the stainless steel dispenser, covered my fingers, and drew the notebook toward me. Inside the cover, Tamara had written her name and the address in Wallingford. One by one, I turned the pages with the napkin. Notes for recipes, lists of ingredients, flavor combinations. Black chickpeas, citrus-cilantro dressing? one read. She’d made sketches for how to plate an entrée—the relationship of garnish to sauce to filet of halibut. A graceful pen
cil drawing showed a cocktail glass next to the words lime—wedgy, not too thick.

  A fat section held tasting notes from restaurants she’d visited, each entry dated and detailed. From the classic Metropolitan Grill and the Dahlia Lounge to the quirky Oddfellows Café. Specialty spots like Salumi, serving the best cured meats around, and her favorite cupcake shops.

  Alex may have worked hard to keep Tamara-Ashley undercover, but she’d ventured far and wide in her search for the flavors of the city. All, I knew, with the aim of bringing her own vision to life. Or to the plate, which to a chef is the same thing.

  Our breakfasts appeared, and the wordless waitress topped off our coffee. I kept turning pages. Finally, I found what I hadn’t realized I’d been searching for: proof that Tamara had figured out what Patel was doing to her. To Ashley.

  But she wasn’t Ashley anymore. She had made herself into someone new.

  I studied the lists of vendors, dates, and collections claims until the aroma of cinnamon toast finally got to me. I pushed the notebook aside. Picked up a slice, but before the first bite, asked two questions. “Did you know who she was? And why she was so insistent on opening next to Tamarind?” Surely, the similarity of names—Tamarind, Tamara, Tamarack—betrayed her plan, no doubt sparked by the Ashwani-Ashley coincidence.

  “Not at first.” She paused, thinking, then appeared to make a decision. “Not until I talked to Glassy.”

  “Glassy?” I said around a bite of toast. “Alex’s bar manager? She wanted to hire him away and you told her to stay away from him.”

  She reached for the notebook. I shot out a hand and grabbed her wrist. Pushed the napkin dispenser across the table. She covered her fingers, then flipped to a page I hadn’t seen. Across the top, Tamara had written two names, connected by an arrow that went both directions. And above the arrow, she’d placed a question mark.

  She’d been asking about the connection between Alex and Glassy.

  I picked up my fork and pointed the tines at her. “Spill.”

  I ate. She talked. We drank more coffee. People came and went around us, and she talked.

  And when she was through, I understood more than I ever had about people I thought I knew and people I’d just met.

  But I had serious questions about people I thought I knew very well.

  Twenty-seven

  Monastic gardens were not simply places in which to toil, to grow plants, and to dispel idleness, “the enemy of the soul”: they were also secluded open-air temples in which to celebrate and worship the Creator, and a daily reminder of the mortality of all living things in which God may be glorified.

  —Rob Talbot and Robin Whiteman, Brother Cadfael’s Herb Garden

  In my kidhood, when our family and Kristen’s lived together in the house her great-grandparents built, the house my father still calls “the group home,” a poster on the wall in the third-floor meditation room said, DON’T JUST DO SOMETHING. SIT THERE.

  I honestly did not know what to do after Danielle left. But the lunch crowd was beginning to arrive, and I couldn’t just sit there.

  Outside the restaurant, the North Arcade bustled, the foot traffic driven under cover by a middling rain. So much for my plan to walk until a real plan occurred to me.

  Instead, I headed Down Under. First to the bookstore—I spread my business around—to see if the singing bookseller had taken in any spice references I had to have or any medieval mysteries I hadn’t read. He hadn’t.

  I pressed my nose to the window—metaphorically speaking—of a painter’s studio, closed for lunch. Poked through a couple of clothing shops—cute stuff, perfect for spring, but I wasn’t in a spring mood. Stood on the ramp, not knowing whether to go up or down, wanting nothing more than my dog, a blankie, and a good cry.

  This was the first time in memory that roaming the Market had not cheered me up.

  “Pepper! I was hoping you’d swing by.”

  Holy marjoroly. I was so not in the mood for Mary Jean the Chatty Chocolatier. But I was trapped.

  And dang, were her chocolates good. Turned out to be exceptionally pleasant to perch on a comfy stool in the corner of her shop, rich, cocoa-y scents swirling around me, nibbling a chocolate honey truffle. Damp customers drifted in and out as she described her philosophy of chocolate and her products.

  “Pepper owns Seattle Spice Shop, up on Pike Place,” she said. “Freshest spices and best selection in the city. She works with the police on murder cases! We’re plotting deliciosity.” She practically rubbed her hands together.

  A cloud lifted. How could it not, in the presence of such exuberance?

  I might not know what Brother Cadfael would do, but it was clear that when it came to blending chocolate and spice, Mary Jean and I were on the same page.

  * * *

  I spent the next hour in my shop, fielding questions, helping Zak pack orders for mailing, and tackling a million other projects. Do not go into retail if you can’t multitask. Then I closeted myself in the back office to make phone calls and ask questions. As I’d learned in HR, and again when Ops gave me info on Tariq, if you ask nicely, people will tell you almost anything.

  But now it was time to follow Cadfael’s lead and take my discoveries and my doubts to the law.

  Detective Cheryl Spencer and I might never develop the camaraderie the old monk and young Sheriff Hugh Beringar shared, but no matter. What mattered was that she would listen and take me seriously.

  “Yes,” Spencer said, closing the homicide detectives’ office door on the buzz and chatter of SPD HQ. “Ms. Wang did mention a notebook. Lime green, spiral bound. Detective Tracy took a CSU crew back to the house to search again.”

  Thank God for small favors. I pushed a brown paper bag across the scarred but tidy desk, a picture of her daughter its only personal accessory. Spencer peered inside, shot me a glance, then tugged on disposable gloves. Slid out the notebook, swathed in napkins. Tilted her head in a suppose-you-tell-me-what-this-is-all-about look.

  “In trying to build a case against Tariq Rose, I may have stumbled over the truth. Open the notebook to”—I gestured and she flipped a few more pages—“right there.”

  She took a minute to read. “Okay. Clear as mud.”

  “Does the name Ashley Brown mean anything to you? Or Ashwani Patel?”

  She frowned. “Brown, no. Patel owns the Indian restaurant next to the construction site where Tamara Langston was killed. We interviewed him. Nothing useful.”

  “Patel came to Seattle about ten years ago, from San Jose. Handsome, big personality, mildly exotic. Bounced around a handful of restaurants. Competent, but nothing special.” I paused to unearth a water bottle from my tote and took a long swig. “Unlike Ashley Brown. Young, blond, just shy of pretty. Pastry chef in a joint where Patel worked the line.”

  “You said this had to do with the Langston murder.” Spencer lowered her chin and leaned back in her chair. It creaked.

  “Patience, Detective. And requisition a squirt or two of WD-40.”

  She suppressed a smile.

  “They got married. They quit their jobs to start an Indian take-out joint on Madison called the Blue Poppy.” I laid a folder on her desk and opened it to a printout of the blog post Callie had found, along with two other photos of Ashley that she’d dug up this morning. “They were ahead of their time. The Capitol Hill renaissance hadn’t reached that stretch. Roadwork blocked access to their entrance for months. They’d sunk all their cash into the place and didn’t have the cushion to ride it out. Common problem in business, often fatal.”

  “I don’t remember it. How was the food?”

  “Closed before I got there, but I hear it was hit-and-miss.” Her dishes hit; his missed. “They regrouped and tried again, farther north. Place called Mantra. Takeout plus dinner service. Classic Indian fare.”

  “How’d it do?” She picked up a trave
l mug emblazoned GOD FOUND THE STRONGEST WOMEN AND MADE THEM COPS, and took a sip of tea. My tea—I recognized the sharp orange scent mellowed by a hint of allspice.

  “Better, by all accounts. But by those same accounts, their relationship was going downhill. He was an abusive bully. At first, she stood up to him. But it got worse, and he wore her down. Beat her up.”

  Spencer flicked her eyes toward her computer. “I don’t suppose I’ll find any reports.”

  “Could be helpful, if you do.” I took another swig of water, knowing I was about to ask Spencer to take a leap of faith and do the investigation I couldn’t, to confirm the tapestry I’d woven out of fact, rumor, logic, and innuendo. “A former employee I talked to this morning told me Ashley received a small inheritance from an aunt. They used it to make one more run, and opened Tamarind.”

  Spencer set her cup down and reached for a three-ring binder labeled with a case number. “Patel’s place. We questioned the whole staff, but I don’t remember her.”

  I reached for my file, open on the desk, and slid the photos of Ashley Brown aside. Underneath lay the newspaper photo. Spencer leaned in for a closer look.

  And let out a long, low whistle.

  “She disappeared a little over two years ago. He told everyone they’d split and she’d left town.” I relayed Jane’s story of seeing Patel light into Ashley outside the Spice Shop, towering over her, fists looming. “At first, I thought he might have killed her and hidden her body in the walls between his restaurant and the space next door. Then he got the crazy little lady who works for him to spread stories about bhuts—”

  “Boots?”

  “Hindi for ‘ghosts.’ Same word as in ghost peppers, bhut capsicum,” I said. At that, Spencer gave up all effort at self-control. She twirled her eyes and wagged her head like this was making her crazy.