“Nothing to investigate. Whatever happened, it has nothing to do with the Market.” A premature conclusion, but I didn’t want the customer to leave with her tongue wagging.
“I’ll take them.” She handed over the earrings and opened her purse. “They’re too fun. The perfect souvenir.”
Now that’s what we like to hear.
Seven
There’s no more exotic plant out there. It’s a member of the orchid family. It’s a hard plant to grow; from start to finish, it takes eight years to get a finished product.
—Spice expert and merchant Patty Erd, on why vanilla is anything but “plain”
“Tell us again why you think Bonnie Clay’s real name is Peggy Manning,” Detective Spencer said. We were standing on the sidewalk alongside the shop. On my way back from the artists’ stalls, I’d detoured to pick up Turkish delight for the staff and seen the familiar unmarked car.
“My mother told me. They knew each other decades ago.”
Spencer and Tracy wore matching skeptical looks on their polar-opposite faces. Though we were practically standing on the spot where I’d found a man dead last September, seeing Bonnie-Peggy dead had been a shock. Heaven help me if I ever get comfortable being in close proximity to murder.
“Did you figure out how she died? Or who or why?” I said.
Tracy’s eyes strayed to the white paper bag in my hand. “Let’s go in and sit down.”
The shop’s spicy-sweet aroma—notes of cinnamon and chile punctuated with crystalized ginger and a hint of that spilled Italian blend—enveloped me. Home.
Spencer poured tea. I set the treats on a tray and slid into the nook across from them for the familiar process of giving a formal statement.
Familiar, but still full of squirm potential.
“We’re not quite clear,” Spencer said, “how you knew her. Or why you went down there.”
My vision fixed on a spot on the butcher-block work top, I massaged my forehead. “You never saw her eyes. They had an intensity I can’t explain.”
“And what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?” Sarcasm was among Tracy’s more obvious talents.
“I met her on Wednesday. As an adult, anyway. I knew her eyes right away, but not her face, or her name.” I explained my mother’s arrival and our visit to Bonnie’s table in the North Arcade, when my mother identified her old friend. I did not mention the phone call I’d overheard outside the Pink Door or my mother’s obvious discomfort. Or about hearing her and Bonnie shouting. They would interview her before long; she could explain herself better than I could.
“But you remembered her eyes,” Spencer prompted. “From her visits to your childhood home.”
“I always notice eyes,” I said. “We took a course once, when I worked in HR, on making a good first impression. The trainer suggested noticing a person’s eye color as a way to be sure you make eye contact.” Though apparently my interest in eyes—windows to the soul and all that—had started much earlier.
“And so you left your shop on a busy summer day and drove all the way down to Beacon Hill to check on this woman you barely knew. Why?” Tracy wasn’t quite playing bad cop; call it dubious cop. He reached for a piece of candy, then stopped himself.
“Summer weekends in the Market are huge for the artists, and she was psyched about it. So when she didn’t show up, I called. And when Josh said there was trouble, I ran down.”
“Of course,” Tracy said. “Who wouldn’t?”
I didn’t know how to explain that it had been more than instinct, more than a hunch, that convinced me something had gone terribly wrong.
It was those eyes.
“Pepper? I hate to disturb you, but it’s Kristen. Again. She says it’s urgent, and I figured, well . . .” Cayenne held the phone against her chest, glancing from me to the detectives and back.
Ugh. Bad timing. I thanked her and took the phone. “I’ve been trying to reach you. I’m so sorry you had to hear—”
There is no getting a word in edgewise on Kristen Hoffman Gardiner.
I listened. Frowned. “What do you mean, it’s gone? Are you sure that’s where you left it?” She was sure. “Our detective friends are here right now. Make the report, and they’ll pass it on to whoever.”
I handed Tracy the phone. He listened intently and started scribbling. I filled Spencer in. “Kristen lives on Capitol Hill in a house her great-greats built in 1895. The house we grew up in. They just did an attic-to-cellar remodel, and she found a fabulous diamond and sapphire bracelet. She wore it for a few hours last night, but it was heavy and got in her way, so she took it off and left it on her dresser. Now it’s vanished.”
One eyebrow rose slightly, a sign of the wheels turning in Detective Spencer’s brain.
We both looked at Tracy, still on the phone. “And you think this is linked to Bonnie Clay’s murder?”
Tracy and I have our moments. He and Tag have their moments. Those moments had become less unpleasant since revelations a few months ago cast new light on an old conflict. And though I have done my share of griping and grumbling about Detective Michael Tracy, I have never thought him cruel, callous, or incompetent.
But he had stepped in it big-time. And his gaffe had been my fault.
“She didn’t know?” Spencer whispered to me. Fingers over my lips, I shook my head. I should have made her slow down, stop, and listen long enough to tell her the news Tracy was repeating now.
“I don’t know whether there’s a connection,” he said. “After Detective Spencer and I finish down here, we’ll come interview you and your family. Meanwhile, I’m going to call this in and send up the burglary squad and the CSU. Any photos?”
I grubbed in my apron for my cell phone and started scrolling.
“While you’re waiting, please make a list of all party guests, their addresses, and their phone numbers.” He listened. “Mrs. Gardiner, I’m not accusing your guests of theft. The sooner we can rule them out, the sooner we can find the real culprit.”
He handed me back the shop phone and nodded toward the cell phone Spencer and I were studying. “Party pictures? Send them to us.”
“I don’t see any showing the bracelet,” I said.
“Send them anyway. So we can confirm who was present when, and match names to faces.”
“You think there’s a connection.” They didn’t actually shrug. They didn’t have to. Two major crimes touching the same group of people in less than eighteen hours?
Doesn’t take a degree in criminal justice to make that link.
“Baby Beluga, in the deep blue sea. Swim so wild and swim so free!” The lyrics, punctuated by giggles, spilled from a trio of unlikely sources whom I recognized before they tumbled into sight: my mother and her grandchildren.
“Hey, Aunt Pepper. We went to the Aquarium.” She’d stopped singing, but my twelve-year-old niece swayed to the music in her head as she leaned in to kiss me. Her ten-year-old brother reached over the back of the booth to wrap his slim brown arms around my neck.
“Glad you aren’t too old for that.”
“Never!” Two young voices rang out. My niece added, “Grandma loved it as much as we did.”
My mother glanced from me to the detectives and back. Though she had never met them, they carried a somber air that had wiped the carefree joy off her face.
“If you promise not to tell your mother,” I said, “I’ll spring for ice cream.”
My niece held out her hand while I pulled cash out of my apron pocket. “I don’t know why you’re bribing us,” she said, “but I’m happy to help.”
“Let’s get doughnuts! Baby Beluga doughnuts,” her brother said as they headed for the door. “And go Down Under to the Magic Shop.”
“You’re the baby,” my niece said. “Can we take Arf?”
“Yes, but no treats for h
im,” I said. She hooked up his leash, and the chime rattled against the glass as the front door shut behind them.
I wasn’t sure how my sister-in-law would feel about me letting them wander the Market alone. With any luck, she’d never know.
“What’s going on, Pepper? Do these people have something to do with the messages you left?”
The messages you didn’t answer. But she’d been busy with the kids. I gestured for her to sit and made the introductions. “The detectives are here because this morning—I’m sorry, Mom. No easy way to say this. Bonnie is dead.”
She stared at me, her face shockingly still. Finally, she said, “You’d better tell me the whole story.”
I did. She listened without visible reaction. I finished with the jewelry maker’s comment that Bonnie was worried about moving again, and my mother lowered her gaze.
After a long moment, she turned to Spencer and Tracy. “Peggy—I can’t get used to thinking of her as Bonnie—and I met in college. We even shared an apartment for a while, with Ellen—Kristen’s mother. The year the girls were born, we formed a household, a peace and justice community. Peggy was part of the group—on the fringes. But we made different choices, and until this week, I hadn’t seen her in thirty years.”
“She went to the party at the Gardiner home,” Spencer said.
“Kristen invited her, and I’m glad. That house was home base for some important friendships. Movements were hatched there that changed this city, in small but significant ways.” She reached out to touch my arm. “Children were raised there who are still changing this city, in small but significant ways. It was a house with open doors and open arms.”
“And yet, your daughter claims not to remember anything about her. Except her eyes,” Tracy said.
“Detective, do you remember all your parents’ friends from when you were twelve?”
“Point taken,” Tracy replied. “On another note, a valuable bracelet seems to have gone missing from the Gardiners’ house. Did you see Kristen wearing it last night?”
“What? It’s missing? Did someone break in?” She whipped around to face me. “Kristen and Eric? The girls?”
“Everyone’s fine,” I said.
She let out a breath. “No, Detective. I heard her mention it, but I didn’t see it. A family piece, I presume. You may have gathered, Kristen comes from an old Seattle family. Moneyed, at one point. Not that money prevented tragedy. Ellen died of breast cancer, five years ago.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Reece,” Spencer said. “We can all hope the bracelet turns up in the house. If not, we’ll find it. Now, if you don’t mind, we have a few questions for you about Ms. Clay. Or Ms. Manning.”
A voice ripped through the shop. “She called to order the thirty-six jar set with all the spices and the spinning wire display rack, and you told her I wasn’t registered. I was your first bride. Your owner signed me up herself at the Bridal Fair at the Convention Center.”
The high-pitched complaints came from a tall blonde in a black silk tank, tight white capris, and platform sandals. One wooden heel made a loud clap on our plank floor as she stomped her foot.
“Excuse me.” I slid out of the booth and sped to the registry. “I’m Pepper Reece. Nice to see you again.” Bridezilla ignored my outstretched hand. “I’m afraid we don’t carry any racks like that. Let’s see what you registered for.”
I peered at the computer screen. Reed had brought up her page, featuring an airbrushed engagement photo of the happy couple with their names and wedding date. Two more weeks. I gave Reed a quick nod to let him know I had this. Visibly relieved, he fled.
“Are you calling my maid of honor a liar?” Her heel thumped the floor again.
“Have a seat,” I told Bridezilla, then scrolled through the items she’d selected. “The closest we have to what you’re describing is a twenty-four jar starter set with a wall-mounted rack—”
“I chose the free-standing chrome rack. And no starter sets.” She spat out the phrase as if she’d found an earwig in her coffee. She reminded me of those first-time home buyers on TV who insist on commercial-grade appliances and granite countertops, and who can’t believe the audacity of their agent in showing them a home without a master suite and a jetted tub.
My jaw began to throb. I clicked to another screen. “A revolving rack like this? We can order a thirty-two or a forty, if you have the counter space.” Hard to imagine her knowing what to do with forty spices, but I was letting my irritation influence my judgment. Maybe her fiancé was a serious cook. Heaven knows, he was going to need a good hobby, married to her. And he might want to keep the sharp knives well hidden.
“Our kitchen is spacious. Custom natural marble countertops. Order the forty-jar rack. My maid of honor will call you.” She snatched the printout from my hand, and stomped out.
Difficult customers are the cost of doing business. While I was occupied, the detectives had finished questioning my mother and left. I updated Bridezilla’s entry and placed the order, then plucked a rosewater-flavored square off the tray. The fruit and sugar melted in my mouth.
Time to attend to the business of selling spice. My mother emerged from the back room, face drawn, eyes wary. At one point, she and Sandra huddled in the nook, deep in conversation. My mother reached across the table and laid her hand over Sandra’s. Then she spoke, and Sandra slid her hand out and covered my mother’s.
I swallowed hard. It’s never easy to watch grief, especially a grief whose edges and contours you don’t understand.
And then the door flew open, and my mother and I rushed to wipe all sugary traces off the kids’ faces and clothing to protect ourselves from their mother’s wrath.
Ah, life. In all its messy glory.
Eight
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings—
And why the sea is boiling hot—
And whether pigs have wings.”
—Lewis Carroll, “The Walrus and the Carpenter”
“These vegan hot dogs aren’t actually all that bad.”
My mother saved me the trouble of giving Ben a deadly look. I have no problem with a vegan diet. Or with vegetarians, pescetarians, flexitarians, or I’ll-eat-anything-atarians.
I have a problem with trying to disguise one food as another. A carrot–soy–oat flour stick will never be a kosher dog, no matter how good the mustard, pickles, and sauerkraut on top.
“We all have so much more energy since we started eating right.” My sister-in-law began stacking plates, and the kids and Carl exchanged not-so-guilty smirks. They are a close family, and Carl adores Andrea, who is not as wicked as I make her out to be. Just a touch self-righteous.
But a mini doughnut or two never hurt anybody.
“Grandma, I’m sorry your friend died.” My nephew wrapped his arms around my mother. She squeezed him back, then he sank to the ground next to me and draped an arm over Arf. Carl’s house, on Queen Anne Hill, is a variation of the classic Seattle Box, smaller and newer than Kristen’s. They’re on the remodel-as-you-go plan, meaning projects get done when they have the money and Carl has the time. At the moment, new bathroom fixtures crowded the second-floor hall, waiting for the plumber to give them the go-ahead on ripping out the kids-and-guest bath.
Carl pushed his chair back from the patio table—not easy to do on slate pavers—and stretched his long legs. My mother says he’s named for Carl Bernstein, while my father insists he’s named for Carl Yastrzemski, the famed Red Sox left-fielder. In truth, the firstborn male Reece has been given some version of Charles for generations, a tradition even my sister-in-law could not change.
“I don’t remember her,” he said. “Did she live in Grace House? What was I, eight or nine when we moved?”
My niece stuck her head out the back door and called to her brother to come help get dessert ready. Boy and dog groaned as the boy stood, then shuffled inside.
My mother plucked a tiny leaf out of her wineglass. “You were nine and Pepper twelve. Peggy never lived at the house. That crowd thought owning houses too establishment. They hopped around, living in places other people owned.”
“Did we camp at a farm with some of them once?” A wisp of memory teased me.
“On Orcas Island, yes. They were caretaking for an older couple one summer. Peggy, Roger, Terry—I don’t remember who else. They stayed in the guest room a few times, after Debate Night.”
Debate Night had been adults-only conversations about politics and economics and who knows what else. We kids had been sent to the basement for Video Night, so rare in our TV-free household that it seemed like a treat, not banishment. Kristen liked to sneak up the stairs and sit on the top step, behind the door, to listen, but I was usually more interested in the movie. Some things hadn’t changed.
“Roger.” I squinted, trying to remember.
“So why’d she leave?” Ben asked.
Mom waved a hand vaguely. “Who knows? Seattle’s always drawn people searching for the pot of gold, and when it isn’t here, they drift away.”
“What drew you to the Emerald City?” Carl asked Ben.
“I came for the job.” The fabric and metal chair squeaked as Ben leaned back. “It was time to leave Austin.”
“You mentioned jobs in Phoenix and Sacramento,” my mother said. “And you were born in Chicago, though you need to find out the time of day so I can run your chart.”
His full lips curved. “Itchy feet.”
We were opposites that way. Was that the reason I’d been holding back on our relationship?
“Seattle’s a great city. Love the culture. But it isn’t necessarily the easiest place to make friends.” He winked at me. “Some exceptions apply.”
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