[SS01] Assault and Pepper

by Leslie Budewitz

  And Spencer and Tracy headed for my door.

  Nine

  You are the salt of the earth, but if salt have lost its savor, it is good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot.

  —Matthew 5:13

  “They arrested her,” Reed repeated. “I can’t believe they arrested her.”

  We huddled together in the middle of the shop while Spencer told Tory she was under arrest for Doc’s murder and Tracy snapped on the handcuffs. Tory still wore her black Spice Shop apron.

  “I’ll call Eric,” Kristen called out. “He’ll know what to do.”

  Tory shook her head no.

  “Why not?” Kristen turned to me, eyes wide, worried voice rising. “Why doesn’t she want a lawyer? She didn’t kill him. Why would she kill him?”

  “Call him anyway,” I said, watching Tory. “She isn’t thinking straight.”

  With her perfect calm and salt-of-the-earth self-possession, Tory always seemed to know exactly what she was doing and saying. But now? It was all too strange.

  “Don’t you want your purse?” Tracy asked. Tory shook her head no, hard, emphatically. Did she glance at me briefly, or did I just imagine it?

  The uniformed patrol officers took Tory by the upper arm and led their prisoner out the front door. I glimpsed them tuck her in the waiting car, firmly but not unkindly.

  A gaggle of cruise shippers had been in the shop when the police arrived, and they stood, agape. Oh, the wonders of the evil city, to report to the women in the bridge club and the church choir back home in Iowa or Indiana or another distant utopia. A few clutched bags of lavender or Puget Sound sea salt.

  Spencer gestured. “You have customers, Pepper.”

  In other words, show’s over, get back to business. But I was not so easily distracted. “Where are you taking her?”

  “She’s in good hands.”

  I gripped my elbows to keep from shaking. “What are you charging her with? She didn’t kill Doc. She couldn’t have killed Doc.”

  “Boss.” Sandra touched my arm and tilted her head almost imperceptibly toward the customers.

  I didn’t care what they heard or saw, what gossip they shared back home. I only cared about Tory.

  But Sandra was right. I breathed deeply and put on my pleasant HR face. “So sorry about the disruption. All just a mistake, I’m sure. Sandra will be happy to help you make your purchases and”—I scanned the tables quickly before spotting the obvious choice—“please accept a box of our custom blend Spice Shop tea bags, with our compliments. A tasty souvenir from your sojourn in Seattle.”

  “Keep the tourists happy,” the instructor in my business training class had said. A variation on the old adage “The customer is always right.” Still true. Even in a crisis.

  Especially in a crisis.

  “Don’t give them those,” Tracy said. I looked at him quizzically, and he took the box.

  Sandra led the customers toward the front counter, spinning tales of the Market’s history. She had a nearly endless supply of such patter, some true, some questionable, and all entertaining. Reed skittled forward to help out.

  Kristen emerged from the back room. “Eric says he’ll send an associate with criminal defense experience, to make sure they don’t pressure her to talk.”

  Good luck getting Tory Finch to tell you anything she doesn’t want to.

  I nodded numbly. Zak had already left for the day. Their relationship was a mystery. Would she call him? Should I? Later, I decided, when I knew more. No reason to worry him on his way to a gig when he’d be powerless to help.

  Of course, if she didn’t want a lawyer, she might not want a friend, either.

  Too bad, sister. You work for me, you got me in your life. I’m done being kept at a distance. Deal with it.

  I held the door, that bland smile glued on my face, and handed each of the half-dozen tourists a business card. “Take a right at the corner and head up to the alley, then take a left and keep going till you reach the Pink Door. Get a table outdoors on the rooftop. Tell them Pepper sent you, and I’ll buy the first glass of wine.”

  “The pink door?” said a balding man, a good-sized belly stretching his red-and-white-striped polo shirt.

  “There’s no sign, but you’ll know it the moment you see it.”

  A deeply tanned woman sporting a cap of snowy white hair put a hand on my arm. “Don’t worry. It will all work out.”

  My throat tightened and my smile wavered. I bobbed my head and locked the door behind them.

  Tory? But why?

  I flipped our sign to CLOSED. “Why? Why arrest her?” I marched across the room toward the mixing nook, where Tracy had corralled my staff. He stood outside the nook, next to the samovar. “Why would Tory Finch kill a homeless old man living on the streets? Why would she kill anyone?”

  Tracy shrugged. “The usual reasons. Some grudge she’s nursed all these years.”

  I squinted. “What are you talking about? He just showed up last week.”

  “Wouldn’t let her stay out with friends. Kept her from seeing some guy. Took away her TV privileges when she was eight and wouldn’t eat her beets.” He returned my hard stare with a look of studied disbelief. “You didn’t know?”

  “Didn’t know what?” A small eddy began to churn in my gut.

  Tracy’s lips curved smugly. Whatever was coming, I wasn’t going to like it.

  “He was her father.”

  • • •

  THERE are moments when a new piece of knowledge unlocks a door. Makes all the puzzle pieces snap into place and reveals the picture on the cover of the box. Like when I caught Tag with his girlfriend and understood in a flash that everything I had done to save my marriage had been a fool’s errand, and that I had to leave to save myself.

  This was not one of those moments.

  The four of us stared at Tracy in silence.

  “Her father?” Kristen said. “Her father lives on the street? Did he follow her to Seattle? Was he trying to get money from her, or a place to live?”

  An almost microscopic twitch on Tracy’s face said shut up and let him ask the questions.

  “She’s always nice to street people,” Reed said.

  “She grew up here,” I said. While Tory kept her private life private, I did know that much. Earlier this summer, a customer had recognized her, and they chatted for a while, the other woman telling me they’d been classmates at Lakeside, an exclusive private school in Seattle’s North End.

  So not only had Doc probably not been homeless, he had probably been well off. Once upon a time, anyway. At least now I knew why he’d been so determined to stake out our corner. But why stalk his own daughter? What had he wanted from her? What had she refused to give?

  As a cop’s ex-wife, I realized they might not know yet. And they would reveal only what they thought was necessary to get information from us.

  Two could play that game. I sure as heck wasn’t going to tell them anything they could use against Tory unless I had to. She may have kept her distance; heck, she may have kept Lake Washington between us. But nobody works in HR as long as I did without developing an almost psychic sense of intuition.

  One thing I knew for sure about Tory Finch: She would not involve anyone else in her problems. Wasn’t the corollary that she would not blame anyone else for them?

  And isn’t murder the ultimate blame game?

  “What evidence do you have?” I said, just as Reed spoke up. “How did he die?”

  “Ah, see, now that’s the interesting thing,” Tracy said.

  Here it comes, I thought. Fishing. I folded my arms and leaned against the nook’s pony wall, determined not to rise to the bait.

  “See, he was poisoned.”

  One of my employees gasped.

  I knew what was coming bef
ore he said it. I knew now why the detectives had been drawn to the samovar like a hungry dog to a butcher’s back door, and why Tracy wouldn’t let me give away our signature product.

  “With a cup of your tea.”

  Ten

  It burns, it stings, it turns you into a virtual dragon! Yet thousands of YouTube users post videos of themselves taking the ever-popular, ever-stupid Cinnamon Challenge, a pointless attempt to swallow a tablespoon of cinnamon in 60 seconds without water. Don’t be an idiot. Just say no.

  Detective Michael Tracy slid a long white envelope out of the inside pocket of his sport coat and handed it to me.

  In old B movies, starlets recoil from a subpoena or warrant, extended by an unseen hand, as if they could avoid legal process by treating the thing like a diamondback ready to strike. I’d listened to lawyers in the lunch room recount tales of witnesses who refused to touch dangerous papers, and Tag had once had to tase a suspect who tried to avoid arrest by setting fire to his house and running out the back door.

  At the moment, I sympathized with the starlets and the suspect.

  If the papers Detective Tracy handed me were any indication, I was “the possessor of premises believed to contain or harbor evidence of a crime, e.g., murder in the first degree, e.g., causing the death of one Damien Finch, street name ‘Doc,’ with premeditated intent.”

  I felt like swearing. Tracy had gotten a warrant to search my shop for evidence of murder. Premeditated murder. Intent to kill.

  “How’d you find out his name?”

  “His wallet.”

  Duh.

  First-degree murder. Accidental poisonings do happen, but if it’s truly an accident, it isn’t usually murder, is it? Manslaughter, if the circumstances make it a crime, and a terrible, horrible, regret-to-your-dying-day mistake if they don’t.

  What about a spice wizard who poisons her father’s tea?

  “Evidence of poison, the means to poison, or intent to poison or otherwise harm,” I read. Was it getting cold in here?

  “If you tell me what poison you suspect,” I said, running through my mental list of potentially toxic spices, “we could speed up your search. I mean, overdosing on nutmeg can send you on a bad trip, but it won’t cause any real harm. And some folks are sensitive to cinnamon or mustard, but even a megadose would only give them a serious stomachache. If they managed to choke it down.”

  “No, I don’t think I can share that information,” Tracy said dryly. “Ms. Piniella, if you’d be so kind, unlock the front door and allow my officers in.” A minute or two later, officers guarded our doors, and a small cadre of detectives and patrol officers wearing rubber gloves stuck their noses in every corner of our business. They climbed the ladder and poked and prodded our jars and bags and boxes while the four of us fidgeted in the mixing nook.

  Tracy told me I could leave, but I didn’t budge. Then he suggested the others head home. Either he didn’t anticipate further questions for them, or he was willing to postpone the quiz in exchange for fewer eyes on the search. But Kristen had looped her arm through mine and refused to go, and the others chimed in that they were staying, too.

  Now my employees leaned forward in their seats in the nook, radiating a blend of anger and determination, watching every move the detectives made. Retail keeps you sharp-eyed.

  “Do you store spices anywhere else?” Tracy asked me.

  “Yes and no. We blend and bag our tea every week at a certified facility in SoDo.” South of the Dome—the long-gone Kingdome. “The tea and spices we use are shipped directly there. Everything else comes here.”

  “Does Ms. Finch have access to that facility?”

  “No. Ms. Piniella and I take turns supervising production.” I gave him the name and address of the place. Jane had used it for years. “Once it’s blended and bagged, we keep it here.” I gestured toward my ancient Chinese apothecary, bought long before I imagined owning a spice shop. It still emits faint whiffs of jasmine and ginger. But its open drawers hold tea strainers and infusers, the upper shelves designed for a Buddha figure now displaying teapots and mugs. Plastic bags of bulk tea and boxes of individual tea bags fill the lower shelves.

  The nineteenth-century piece had belonged to an elderly widower on our block, and I’d admired it for years. After his death, his daughter said he’d wanted me to have it. Tag had groused—“What do you want with that piece of junk?”—but I’d insisted, and he and the old man’s son-in-law had gingerly carted it to our house.

  It seemed life had been preparing me for the unforeseen.

  I followed Spencer and Tracy to my office, a glorified broom closet. Two people barely fit, so I leaned against the door frame, arms crossed, observing the search.

  Don’t you block my line of sight, I told Tracy silently. This is my life you’re pawing over and don’t you forget it.

  A heavily varnished remnant of chipboard had been wedged between the walls to make a desk out of two dented black file cabinets, the shelves above crammed with reference books, food mags, and catalogs.

  Many spices and herbs are imported, and it isn’t always possible to buy directly from the grower. For some exotic varieties, especially those suited only to remote climates or harvested in countries where export is difficult, suppliers hold the key.

  And while paper catalogs might be going the way of dinosaurs, like those old fossils, they have their uses—besides propping up a rickety table leg. To some of my commercial customers, no website will ever convey as much as a picture they can hold in their hands. Others like to take a catalog back to their kitchen to browse during slack moments.

  Happily, the shelves were reasonably well organized, and it took Spencer almost no time to conclude they held nothing relevant to Doc’s murder or Tory’s arrest.

  “She use the computer?”

  Holy moly. Would they, could they?

  “No reason she would.” Tory had no responsibilities involving the computer and I’d never seen her on it, though I left it on during the day. She wasn’t the type to sneak a peek at Facebook or Twitter when she should be working.

  The last thirty-six hours intimated that I didn’t really know what type she was.

  “No,” I repeated, shaking my head slightly. My business depended on that computer. And yes, I had a backup system, and our iPad cash register could function on its own, but having the hard drive seized would be a major PITA.

  Tracy looked skeptical, but then, he usually does.

  Spencer sat in my chair and riffled through my file drawers. I’d started my own filing system when I bought the business, and true to my HR roots, the files were all clearly labeled and organized.

  “Supplier records, and leasing info and correspondence with the PDA in the top left drawer,” I said. “Financial records in the bottom.”

  Spencer flipped while I peered over Tracy’s shoulder. I detected a faint odor of a particular chile. “Thai for lunch,” I said. “You eat in the Market, or that place down by SPD Headquarters?”

  His dark cheeks flushed slightly and his eyelids twitched, as if to say, “How the heck . . .”

  “This drawer is locked.” Spencer tugged at the handle of the bottom right drawer.

  “Of course it’s locked. Those are personnel files. No one has access to them but me.”

  “Pepper,” Tracy said firmly, “the warrant.”

  “The warrant does not specify confidential personnel information, and there is no reason to believe those files have any relevance to your investigation.” I tried to channel the lawyers I’d worked with. The good ones.

  “Everything related to Ms. Finch is relevant. We have a witness.”

  “I don’t care if you have six witnesses. You go back and get another warrant. I’ve got an obligation to protect those files until a court tells me otherwise.” I’d be violating the law myself if I handed them over voluntarily. T
ory had no access to that drawer and it was hard to imagine how anything in a personnel file might relate to a charge of premeditated murder. It’s not like anyone writes on their job application that they intend to kill their father at some future date, on the employer’s doorstep.

  I felt that old pain in my jaw. The sharp stabbing that said this might not be the most comfortable time to stand up for myself.

  But I was through backing down. I met Tracy’s cold glare with one of my own.

  “We’ll just do that then,” he said as Spencer said, “She’s right, Mike.” He looked annoyed.

  My jaw replied with a spasm.

  Tracy scanned the office one more time. “Where did Ms. Finch keep her personal belongings?”

  Apparently I took too long to respond. Apparently Tracy no longer trusted me, if he ever had.

  “Her purse,” he said, voice and eyes snapping like a peevish turtle.

  How I longed to draw the line. To tell him no and mean it. To tell him no and believe I could get away with it, without facing charges of obstruction.

  But the warrant gave them the right to search anywhere that they might find evidence of the crime or motive. And that included Tory’s bag, stashed in our staff-only bathroom. I edged past Tracy into the tiny room and opened the cabinet above the toilet. The brown leather shoulder strap of Tory’s olive green messenger bag flopped out.

  “That one,” I said.

  Tracy stretched to loop a finger through one of the leather tabs on the front pockets and the bag came tumbling down. He caught it mid fall, but the main zipper was open and stuff went flying. He swore loudly and clapped the thing shut, capturing her sketchbook before it slid out.