[SS01] Assault and Pepper

by Leslie Budewitz

  “Ah, the patients. Why bring them to you and not her father?”

  A less-than-sunny look crossed his face. “My partner . . .” he began, “was a complicated man.”

  Family trait.

  “Dr. Finch,” he continued, touching his forefingers to his lower lip and glancing down, “was on leave from his practice.”

  Oh. “That must have been hard on you. Doubling your workload.”

  “Temporarily, yes. But that’s what partners do.”

  Dump on each other, or help each other out? Again, Griffey spoke in a tone of controlled sympathy. Perfectly appropriate. So why did I suspect the good doctor of using bedside manner as a cover-up?

  “Why take a leave?” I asked. “And why hang out in the Market, tailing his daughter?”

  “Ms. Reece.” Dr. Griffey sat up, hands flat on his gleaming desktop. “I get the distinct impression that you’re fishing for dirt on Dr. Finch. You’ll have to do it elsewhere.”

  One more try. “What will happen to the practice now that he’s gone? Now that it’s all your responsibility?”

  The rosy spots that gave him his boyish appearance darkened into ragged red splotches, and he stood. His pale hands trembled. “That’s none of your business. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  In other words, my HR brain said as I made my way back to the waiting room, Dr. Griffey was mightily peeved—and not just because I had dared to question whether his partner had been murdered by his own daughter.

  “. . . if you hear of anything. ’Cause I’m afraid I’m going to be looking real soon.” The receptionist spotted me and reached for her ear to click off her headset. “Gotta go. Bye.”

  “Thanks, Stephanie,” I said, crossing the empty room and heading out. So much for the double workload. One doctor dead, the other anxious. No patients in sight and the receptionist job hunting.

  “So old Doc Finch croaked, leaving Griffey on his own.”

  I glanced around the lobby to see who’d spoken. To my surprise, it was the elderly man I’d met on my way in.

  “You’re too healthy to need either of ’em,” he said, patting the space beside him on the padded bench.

  I sat. “You’re back. Were you Dr. Finch’s patient? Sad news.”

  “They sent me across the street for lab work. These doctors. They all want tests, tests, tests. Line their pockets with tests. Griffey had me come in at the crack of dawn last week, Wednesday, if I recollect, and he wasn’t even here. Breezed in midmorning. I ought to send him a bill.”

  Last Wednesday? Had Dr. Griffey perhaps detoured to the Market before work? Tailing his own partner, for reasons nefarious or otherwise?

  The old man waved a gnarled hand at the cardiologists’ door. “Finch was even worse. Never imagined I’d outlive the SOB.”

  “I never met him.” Not as a doctor anyway.

  He snorted. “Lucky for you. Wonder if the new guy will be any good.”

  So many threads to follow. I felt like a spider with flies in every corner of the web. “They’ve found a new doctor so soon? Dr. Finch just passed away last week.”

  “Word is, he’d already decided to retire and brought in his own replacement. Caused quite a stir in there, I heard.” He clucked. “I saw him walking around with Finch. Tall, thin guy. Young—well, he wouldn’t look young to you.”

  I frowned. The man I’d seen earlier, the one who kissed Marianne’s cheek?

  “Finch liked riling folks up. Bet I wouldn’t have any heart trouble if he hadn’t been my heart doctor.” His laugh caught in his throat and turned to a cough.

  “Are you okay? I’ll get Dr. Grif—” I started to rise, but he yanked me back down, his grip surprisingly strong.

  “It only hurts when I laugh,” he said, eyes dancing at the punch line to the old joke. “Finch burned through partners and staff like Congress burns through the billions. I thought Griffey could handle him. Don’t be fooled by the Boy Scout look—he’s a sly one, Griffey is. Not as wily as Finch, though, I’ll venture.”

  “Mr. Franklin?” The receptionist stood in the doorway. “The lab called in your results. Dr. Griffey will see you now.”

  “You take care, young lady,” Mr. Franklin said as I stood, unsure how to help. He wrapped his fingers around the handles of his walker, gave a mighty shove, and creaked to his feet, then used a toe to unlatch the wheel lock. “Don’t fool around with your heart.”

  Twenty-one

  Unsure about an old spice? Don’t make up for age by doubling up. The lighter volatile oils in a spice deteriorate faster than the darker or lower notes, throwing off the balance and creating sharp, potentially bitter flavors. Replace it instead.

  “She was supposed to meet me outside the clinic,” I told the cabbie. “But I can’t find her anywhere. Did you run her home already?”

  “Where to, miss?” The driver’s lilting tones spoke of Jamaica, and I wondered whether he’d braved these hills in a Pacific Northwest winter yet.

  I gave an exaggerated sigh and lounged against the cracked vinyl upholstery. “She went home, right? To North Beach? The woman in the red suit. My aunt. She seems fine, but she’d forget her head if it wasn’t screwed on.” I knew the address, but couldn’t be sure that’s where Marianne had gone. “Not screwed on too tight, if you know what I mean.”

  He grinned at me in the rearview mirror and pulled away from the curb. “She all right, Miz Finch is.”

  Uh-oh. He knew her. Tred carefully. “Well, with Uncle Damien gone, we’re all pretty worried. And now my cousin’s been charged with killing him. It’s such a mess.”

  He merged slickly into the northbound traffic on I-5, no mean feat. We squeezed through the downtown congestion and picked up speed.

  I sighed again. “Uncle Damien wasn’t easy to get along with. He hasn’t—hadn’t—spoken to my dad in years.” True enough. They weren’t related. Not even acquainted, far as I knew.

  “Families,” he said. “They kill you with love sometimes.” He flashed bright teeth in the mirror, a joyless smile.

  We exited the freeway at Eighty-fifth and headed west toward the Sound. What was I doing, taking a cab all the way up here to confront Marianne Finch? At best, a woman wracked with anger and grief. At worst, a killer.

  On the dashboard, next to a placard reading ROBBIE, the electronic meter’s green lights ticked away. Heading into danger, not to mention blowing every penny in my pocket.

  I breathed in deeply, slowly, channeling the yoga teachers from my childhood home: Inhale strength, exhale flexibility.

  “Good clinic. Good doctors, nice patients. Your cousin, I see her sometimes when I wait.” He watched me watch him. “She not come for a while. Not since.” He slowed and turned right.

  “Not since what?”

  “Big yelling. Her and Doctor, before I took him home. He didn’t like to drive, not since months.” He flicked another glance at me, and appeared to make a decision. “Young doctor—Griffey. He pull Dr. Finch away, inside. Your cousin, she sit on the curb, so sad. I give her a lozenge.” He dipped long fingers into a cup holder stuffed with individually wrapped throat lozenges and held one out to me. Lemon and eucalyptus. “She say thanks, but she never cry.”

  We turned left, then right again, each street narrower than the last, then left into a dead end. My head spun, all sense of direction gone. Robbie looped to a stop in front of a sloping lawn leading to a Tudor faced in red brick and fieldstone, the front door and window trim painted a bright, cheery red. A magical woodland surrounded the house.

  “She a tough one, that girl,” he said.

  But I didn’t reply. I had seen this place before. In Tory’s painting.

  • • •

  “YOU’D better come in and explain yourself,” Marianne Finch said, her suit and heels the same shade as the door. Striking features, but makeup couldn’t hide the puffi
ness around her eyes.

  “I’m Pepper Reece, owner of Seattle Spice, in the Market. Where your daughter works.”

  “I know who you are,” she said. “And Tory’s my stepdaughter. But I raised her from age thirteen.”

  Her heels clicked on the stone entry, making a hollow sound when she crossed the dining room floor, oak inlaid with mahogany. I followed slowly, each step confirming my impression of a storybook house. Plaster walls, coved ceilings, iron stair rails and sconces that looked hand-forged. In the kitchen, a showpiece of cherry cabinets and hand-painted tile, Marianne gathered cups and began making tea.

  I gazed out the mullioned French doors on a backyard straight from the pages of Fine Gardening.

  “We’ll sit outside,” Marianne said, toeing off her heels and stepping into a pair of blue garden clogs waiting by the door. She picked up the tray and I followed her out to the patio, paved with the same stone as the entry.

  The deep border of flowering shrubs and perennials winding along the edge of the woods instantly captivated me. Hydrangeas, hostas, and flowers I couldn’t name but had seen in the Market bloomed bright against a backdrop of native trees—evergreens strung with red vine maple and dotted with golden birch. In the far corner, a grapevine thick with dark purple fruit climbed a cedar trellis.

  I turned a few degrees and the horizon fell away, leaving only water and mountains, the sky, the sun, the Sound.

  “I suppose I shouldn’t talk to you,” Marianne said. “Or at least not turn my back on my teacup.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss. It must have been quite a shock.” I took the wrought iron chair across from her and accepted a white porcelain cup, the style a perennial favorite at Sur la Table.

  Her gaze dropped and her mouth tightened. Her left cheek twitched.

  The familiar aroma of spice tea filled my nostrils. “You haven’t been in the shop in months. How did you get our tea?”

  She pinched her lips together. “My husband forbade me from going to the Spice Shop, or to his daughter’s apartment. So we met for lunch. She brought me spices, in unmarked bags, and tea.”

  “He didn’t recognize the smell?”

  “Oh, I never drank it around him. He’d have thrown it out on the spot.”

  “I understand,” I said, though I didn’t. “I had a strong-willed husband myself. Your husband’s first wife died when Tory was a child?”

  A shadow crossed her face. “Pancreatic cancer. A dreadful way to go.”

  “You knew her?” A surprise.

  “Carolyn was my best friend. We lived two doors apart. Not on this street. Damien and I wanted a home of our own.”

  “You’ve got the touch. This garden is paradise.”

  She shook her head. “All Damien’s doing. He hired out the hard jobs—surgeons need to protect their hands. But he designed it, and chose all the plants himself. He could spend hours prowling through nurseries.” She stuck out a foot in the too-big garden clog. His.

  So Tory’s creative talents came from her father.

  “Big house,” I said. “Did you raise your children here, too?”

  “My boys were grown by then. One’s an architect, one’s a doctor. They were glad to see me happy, and not alone. It was hard on Tory, though. I think . . .” Her tone softened and her gaze seemed to fall inward. “We married five months after Carolyn died. We’d been friends for so long that it felt natural to us. But Tory couldn’t see that. In a strange way, a child’s way, I think she saw our quick marriage as a reason to blame her father and me for her mother’s death. I’ve often wondered whether we should have anticipated that, and waited a little longer.”

  “So she resented you for taking her mother’s place.”

  She cradled her cup, not drinking, and nodded. “They were very close. Carolyn had the biggest heart. She taught Tory generosity—they worked on school food drives, volunteered with Toys for Tots, you name it. I tried to continue that. And now, she’s accused of murder. I don’t know what to think . . .” Her voice trailed off.

  “Tory is passionate about painting. Why did your husband oppose her plan to become an artist?”

  She sighed. “You must understand. He adored her. She was all he had. He only wanted what was best for her.”

  We sometimes break our own rules to help other people. The way I’d interjected myself into Tory’s personal life while resisting Tag’s protectiveness. At least now that she’d consented to my involvement, I could acquit myself of meddling. “Isn’t that her decision?”

  “Do you have children? No? Then you don’t have a clue, and you don’t have the right to question me.”

  “Maybe not, but isn’t the point to raise independent beings who make their own decisions?” To stand back and get out of the way.

  “It’s complicated,” she said.

  Why did everyone in this family keep telling me that?

  Her gaze drifted off, unseeing. A squirrel dashed across the patio, a pinecone in his mouth. Somewhere in the neighborhood, a lawn mower roared. I drank in the afternoon glow, one eye on Marianne.

  “I don’t know what Ken Griffey told you.” She raised the cup to her lips, then set it down without drinking. “But my husband was trying to make everything right while he still had time.”

  While he still had time . . . Old Mr. Franklin’s comment about Finch retiring had nagged at me. Finch didn’t seem like the kind of man to retire voluntarily at sixty-four. A hard-driving man could only putter so long, even in a garden like this.

  I hazarded a giant leap. “Your husband was ill, wasn’t he?”

  She stood and stretched a manicured hand toward a tall, green-glazed planter. Touched a geranium the same shade as her nails and suit, long fingers caressing the petals. “Damien did not believe he was wrong in how he had treated his family.” Her full red lips twitched wryly. “Damien never believed he was wrong. But he did not want to die unreconciled.”

  “How much time did he have?”

  “Not long. Pancreatic cancer. By a sad twist of fate, the same disease that killed Carolyn.” Her eyes moistened.

  “Tory knew, didn’t she?” That’s what she’d meant, by asking what would be the point of killing him. Everyone knew but me. And Spencer and Tracy?

  “He came up with that crazy disguise—to watch her, gauge the right time to talk to her. I thought it was silly, but he was as stubborn as she was. He should have told her when he was diagnosed, early this summer. Withholding the news made things worse. He was still treating her like a child.”

  “She brought street people to the clinic,” I said. “Did he treat them, at her request? Or refuse?” He didn’t seem like a pro bono kind of guy.

  “I don’t know about that.” Marianne focused on her own tangled grief. “I encouraged him to talk with her, for both their sakes. Now I wonder what I’ve done. Did I send him to his death? I thought I knew the girl, but now . . .”

  “Mrs. Finch—Marianne. I’ve been to the jail. Twice. Tory didn’t kill him.”

  “You can’t be sure.” Her voice cut the air.

  “Think about it.” I set my cup on the table and leaned forward, elbows on my thighs. “Poison is either a complete accident—using peanut oil in a stir-fry, not knowing the other person’s allergic—”

  “He’d done so much for her. Paints, brushes, canvas. Private lessons. But he wanted her to be practical, to be able to support herself.”

  “—or it’s deliberate. The killer plans the crime. Unearths a toxic substance, finds something to put it in, makes sure the target gets it. That’s what happened here. Your husband was the victim of a deliberate crime. Tory, the girl you raised. Carolyn’s daughter. The girl with the big heart and an artist’s soul. Do you honestly believe she could do such a terrible thing?”

  Marianne Finch sank slowly into her chair, gripping its arms.

  “Wh
oever killed him didn’t know he was dying,” I said. The same logic applied to the widow. Unless there was some other reason, something else she gained. Freedom from his demands? Money? What if his legacy to Tory was large, and Marianne framed Tory to deprive her? The thought made my brain hurt. “Marianne, your husband loved this house. Why is only your name on the title?”

  She looked surprised. “Nearly everything is in my name, for liability reasons. It’s a common practice for doctors. People file lawsuits over anything these days. You’ve got to protect yourself from your own business.”

  “Did your husband have disputes with business partners?”

  “That was all resolved,” she said, glancing away quickly. Too quickly?

  “Had your husband already found someone to replace him?”

  “It wasn’t final, but yes. And it was the right thing to do. That’s what I was discussing with Ken this afternoon.” She exhaled. “Pepper, my husband was stubborn, but he loved his daughter. He grew up in poverty. He watched the struggle kill his mother. Everything he ever did was to save his only child from that fate.”

  Even the dead have motives the living can’t guess.

  “Did he provide for her in his will?”

  “No. What little he officially owned went to me, except a life insurance policy that benefitted her. She didn’t know about it. He’d made very clear that if she didn’t follow his wishes, she would get nothing, but in the end, he provided for her. He was demanding, but not heartless.” Recognition crept across her sad, pretty face. “The detectives may theorize that she killed him for the money, but she didn’t think she was getting any. Even if she’d wanted it, which I don’t believe. And she wouldn’t kill for revenge—not if she knew he was dying. So if you’re right about the poison . . .”

  Time for me to leave. Past time, if the deepening lines in Marianne Finch’s face were any indication.

  I stood. “Please visit Tory. She needs to understand she’s not in this alone.”

  Leaving Marianne Finch to puzzle out her grief and confusion, I circled through the side yard. Flat turtle-shaped pavers led past a row of dogwoods, a few pale yellow blooms clinging to their branches. A six-foot-high wrought iron gate with a moonlike disk of cast glass in its center opened to the front yard. One hand on the latch, I paused to gaze out at the sparkling waters of Puget Sound. Deep, cold, treacherous, and soothing, all at once.