He straightened and raised a hand. I returned the greeting and walked on.
I walked past the port offices and the headquarters of the big seafood companies, closed for the weekend. Past the terminals, their big metal doors shut, where men and a few women repaired engines, rebuilt hydraulics, and sold parts. Past smaller buildings, dark for the day, that reeked of fish and grease, saltwater and sweat. It was not an unpleasant smell. It smelled like good, hard, honest work.
I walked past all kinds of boats equipped with all kinds of nets for catching all kinds of fish. Bonnie had feared being trapped. Caught. Did she mean by the mysterious Hannah and the troublesome sublease, or something else?
Or someone else.
I had no reason to think Bonnie’s predicament related to the past, except for my mother’s odd behavior. She claimed not to know anything about Bonnie’s present life, and yet, she had been worried enough to call someone with a warning.
Someone from back then. Who knew them both and knew their secret.
I stopped abruptly.
If Bonnie had been killed because of a secret from the past, was my mother in danger, too?
Arf fixated on a child preparing to toss a french fry to a mallard. I reminded him who was leader of the pack. “Sit, Arf. Stay.”
The child tossed, the duck swam, the child clapped. Her father picked her up and carried her past us. “Doggie!” Arf stayed put. I never have figured out where my dog learned his excellent manners, or his unusual response to certain commands. Ever since he’d taken down a bad guy at the Seattle Center fountain in April, I’d been watching my words around him, wondering if another unexpected combination would set him in motion.
Was it coincidence that Bonnie and my mother had reappeared in Seattle at the same time? Bonnie had been back here a few months. I squinted, remembering. She’d expressed surprise, last Wednesday in the Market, at my mother’s presence. So how had she known my mother had moved to Central America?
A dozen or more Friday night partygoers had known them both. But I’d picked up no clues that Bonnie had been in touch with any of them.
“Coincidence means you don’t trust the Universe,” my mother had said.
Clearly, my mother was not telling me everything. She’s a grown-up. She has the right to decide for herself what you need to know and what you don’t.
But I’m a grown-up, too, and I have the right to ask questions.
“Humans, Arf. What are we going to do about them?” My companion retained his gentlemanly silence.
I stepped around a cluster of young boys eyeing a super-duper modern vessel, no doubt boasting all the latest techno-hoorah. Hey, if that’s what it takes to get the next generation out on the high seas . . .
So who had my mother called? Not my dad or Kristen’s father, out of reach in the Queen Charlotte Islands.
I thought back to the party. Faces I hadn’t seen in years, names I barely remembered. A couple who’d been instrumental, along with our parents, in setting up Jimmy’s Pantry, the free meals program. The first yoga teacher on Capitol Hill, who’d held classes in our third-floor ballroom. The women who’d been my mother’s compatriots at the Montessori school and day care. Terry Stinson, who’d had a finger in every pie, a hand in every project.
Wasn’t it odd to go back to a city you’d lived in once and not reach out to your old friends?
Maybe not, if you’d been gone a very long time, as Bonnie had been.
Or if those friendships had ended badly.
The fisherman stood when we neared his boat the second time, and I had the sense he’d been waiting for us.
“Pretty lady on a pretty day.”
I like to think I’m not easily flattered, but I stopped anyway. Next to the net, a tangled heap of rope and seaweed, lay a crumpled crab pot. “You’re a netter, right, not a crabber?”
“This pot came up in my morning catch. It’s a ghost trap. Thousands of nets and pots get lost in storms every year. Or they get cut loose when another boat runs across the line. But they’re still fishing. This one snared an old float.” He plucked a small green glass ball out of the mess and tossed it to me. He gestured toward a larger glass float caged in a rope and tied to the dock post, next to an old creel. “You never know what you’ll find.”
“Ghost traps? I’ve never heard of them.”
“They can be a big problem. Care to come aboard?” He made a sweeping gesture, and I noticed the boat’s name. Thalassa. The goddess of the sea.
It was tempting. “Uh, thanks. I need to get going.”
He picked up a corner of the tangled net, his green-eyed gaze on me. “Another time, then. I’m here most Sundays.”
If Kristen were here right now, she’d say, “Go fish.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” Because as much as I love boats and crab and handsome men with hard-earned muscles, my dog and I had places to go and snooping to do.
* * *
Kristen’s front door was locked. I rang the bell, and Mariah let me in.
“Mom’s kinda freaked out.” She stooped to bury her face in Arf’s neck.
I raised my eyebrows. The woman who’d gone toe-to-toe with a neighbor who threatened to call the cops last year when she let Mariah, then eleven, and her ten-year-old cousin walk to the grocery store alone? Who’d orchestrated dozens of contractors and their crews and faced hordes of city inspectors without losing her temper once?
The woman who, daily, kept me in line?
“Oh, Pepper, it’s you.” Kristen piled her hair on top of her head and fastened it with a binder clip. A hank immediately fell loose, but she didn’t take notice. I followed her to the kitchen, where she poured two glasses of lavender limeade. She set a bowl of water on the floor for Arf and took the seat next to mine at the island.
“I’d add a jigger of tequila if I didn’t have to take Mariah to a birthday party in an hour.” She did a half swivel on her stool, and I glanced down, surprised to see a chip in the polish on one big toe. The Ice Queen was melting.
“So do they think they know who broke in?” I took a sip. Tart, sweet, and—I say this with all honesty, even though I created the recipe myself—surprising.
“That’s just it. There’s no evidence of a break-in.”
I pictured myself peering in the windows of Bonnie’s studio. I’d left fingerprints on the window frame and sill, and footprints in the dew-damp ground below. But a gloved burglar, someone with a plan, could have left no trace.
Kristen plucked one of Laurel’s lemon thyme cookies off a tray. “Detective Tracy thinks I mislaid it, or that one of the girls took it and doesn’t want to ’fess up. What Spencer thinks, I don’t know. That woman keeps a stone face better than a marble statue.”
“But how could its disappearance possibly be related to Bonnie’s murder?”
She sighed. “I can’t believe she’s dead.”
“Me, neither.” I took a cookie. “Let’s go over it all. When did you take it off, when did you last see it, when did you notice it missing?”
“I took it off during the party, but what time, I don’t know. Me and my big mouth. I had to make sure everybody knew what we’d found.”
“Natural reaction. We were celebrating the house, after all. And the house gave you the bracelet.” I scrunched my face, thinking. “Did you take it off before or after you gave the tour?”
She cocked her head a moment. “During. I slipped into the bedroom and laid it on our dresser.”
Had someone seen her and sneaked back to help themselves?
“Nothing else is missing, right? So it has to be someone who knew about it, and who knew you’d taken it off. A burglar wouldn’t come in, go upstairs, and take nothing else.”
“That’s what Eric thinks. ‘What’s the point of installing a security system,’ he said, but—”
“But
if that’s what happened, no security system would have made a difference. Who went on the tour?”
“Lena, Cayenne, Bonnie.” She ticked them off on her fingers, then named half a dozen others. Some I knew and some I didn’t.
“And Sharon, right? What about her kids?” A soft snore caught my attention, and I glanced down at Arf, stretched out on the floor, feet twitching as if he were running in his sleep. “I think I saw her go in with you.”
“Yeah, but I’m not sure she toured the whole house. She never saw the place in its before condition, and I don’t think she cares much about design. She’s one of those moms who’s all kids, all the time. That reminds me, Detective Tracy wanted to know the name, address, and parents of every kid here, like being a kid made them automatically larcenous. Like they would care about diamonds and sapphires.”
“They would know the bracelet was valuable. Cops have to cast a wide net. This early, they don’t know what’s going to be important.”
Her shoulders sank in an “I hate to admit you’re right” gesture. “He made me feel kinda stupid. I didn’t think I had to keep tabs on who went inside, and I didn’t mind if someone went upstairs alone. I didn’t expect my friends to steal from me.”
As recent conversations with my mother proved, even our nearest and dearest can hide a secret or two.
“Okay, so let’s think about this from the other direction. That bracelet is unique. The thief can’t just pawn it. Did he—or she—know you had it and plan to take it? Or did they snatch it up on impulse? Who knew about it before the party?”
“No one, except Eric and the girls. My sisters.” She refilled our glasses. “I asked my dad where it came from when we found it, but he didn’t have a clue.”
I cooled my hands on my frosty glass. “You have a lot of old family photos. Does the bracelet show up in any of those?”
“Scary, how much you think like Detective Tracy.” Kristen pointed to the albums open on her breakfast table. “Nothing yet. There’s no other family to ask. We did take pictures after we found it and cleaned it up—Eric insisted, for insurance—so maybe the most we can hope for is that it shows up in some secondhand shop. I mean, I don’t know its history, but I want it back.”
I flipped idly through an album, stopping at a shot of Kristen and me sitting on the front porch. “What do you remember about Bonnie Clay? Or Peggy Manning. And Terry—were they friends?”
“They were all friends. A community.”
“Until they weren’t.”
“Meaning what?” Kristen’s voice took on an unfamiliar edge.
“Meaning Bonnie shows up and my mother clams up. That makes me think something happened that she doesn’t want me to know about.”
“No law says she has to tell you everything.”
“No, but if it relates to Bonnie’s murder—”
“Hey, I gotta change and go.” Kristen gestured toward her bare feet, her cutoff sweatpants, and her Disneyland T-shirt. Any other mother would have no trouble wearing that outfit to drop off a kid, but not her.
Two shakes later, my dog and I stood on Kristen’s front porch. The dead bolt snapped shut behind us.
“Tossed out on our ears, Arf.” I tightened his leash, and we started down the steps. “Musta been something I said.”
Ten
Now home to a fish market, a creamery, produce stalls, and apartments, the Sanitary Market, built in 1910, got its name from being the only building where horse-drawn carts were not allowed.
—Market history, City of Seattle website
“Boy, am I glad to see you.”
The day the deal closed, the Spice Shop felt like home. It still does. I am more myself here than almost anywhere, except in the loft or at the rail of a Puget Sound ferry in a stiff breeze.
But while I appreciated Cayenne’s enthusiastic welcome, I suspected it was chased by a problem.
“That customer,” she said. “He’s—weird, but I can’t put my finger on it.”
Late thirties, wearing cargo pants and a loose shirt. His pockets appeared to lay flat, not hiding any merchandise. His left elbow jiggled in a hyperactive way.
Oh, the things you learn in retail.
“Go to bed, Arf.” The dog obeyed, and I crossed the room quickly. There wasn’t much to shoplift—spice grinders, boxes of tea, tins of our custom blends—but any theft hits the bottom line. “Hi. What can I help you find?”
The customer practically jumped out of his worn brown deck shoes and let out a squeal that made me want to grab the WD-40. “Oh, I—umm.” He glanced from me to the jar-lined shelves, then back. “Umm, you sell spice, right?”
I nodded.
“What about—” His gaze darted around the shop, landing briefly on Cayenne, who watched him as though she had her finger ready to call the police, then on the couple browsing cookbooks. His voice dropped, so low I had to lean in. “What about marijuana? I mean, it’s legal in this state, right? Not that you would sell it, but who does?”
There’s a first time for every question. “Both medicinal and recreational marijuana are legal in Washington,” I said, “but they can’t be sold within a thousand feet of any place intended for children, meaning schools, libraries, parks, and playgrounds.”
He tilted his head in a question, dark hair flopping over one eye. He needed to visit the Market barbershop, Down Under.
“There’s a preschool and a park in the Market,” I said. “But if you’re after a taste of Seattle, our tea will give you a pleasant glow. It’s a blend of spicy and mellow. Not exactly a high, but quite nice.” I held out a box.
He took it in both hands, studying the label and our saltshaker logo.
To my surprise, he bought three boxes. “For my mother and sisters,” he told Cayenne before wandering out. The moment the door shut behind him, we started giggling.
“Remember the Walmart lesson,” I told her. “The best way to prevent shoplifting is to greet every customer.”
Reed came in, bearing two iced coffees. Other than the pot-seeker, my staff had the shop well in hand. They didn’t need me. I suppressed a pout and headed for my office to do a little research.
Okay, call it snooping.
Like any good HR manager in the modern world, I’d developed a few skills for checking out potential employees online—all perfectly legal. Call it self-defense after a handful of self-inflicted hiring failures.
Time to apply those methods to this case.
Searching two names doubled the work and the frustration. Neither Bonnie nor Peggy had a Facebook account, Twitter handle, or website. That was a puzzle. Most artists I know set up a public portal, for curious browsers who find them by serendipity. Or tourists who get home to news of a grandbaby on the way and wouldn’t those adorable stuffed critters they saw in the Market be just the thing?
I checked all the usual suspects: Etsy, Pinterest, Instagram.
Big fat zeros, all around.
Either Bonnie wasn’t market-savvy or she hadn’t gotten around to it.
Or, she didn’t want to be found.
For fun, I searched myself, under both my names. Nothing under the legal one, thank heavens. Good news only for Pepper Reece, including the terrific profile Ben had written of me when he first came to town.
I sat back, arms crossed. What else? With no idea where she’d lived all those years away from Seattle, or under what name, I had no clue where to start the hunt.
But I knew who to call. Though I didn’t know what my mother saw in Ben’s stars, and I understood her warning not to let myself be used for a story, he was a good guy. And he had research skills.
“Hey, you busy? I need a little help from my favorite investigative reporter.”
“Ha. That’s a glorified label for a news grunt, but I’ll take it. What’s up?”
I explained.
“Meet
you at the loft in, say, thirty minutes?” he said, and I agreed.
On my way out, I asked my staff their Sunday evening plans.
“Family dinner,” Reed said. “The one day a week my mom cooks Chinese.”
“Going to my grandpa’s house,” Cayenne said. “We tend his garden and cook up a storm. The leftovers last him all week. There’s been trouble in his neighborhood, and my mom’s worried. But he’s too stubborn to move.”
“He’s lucky to have you close by.”
Arf and I strolled down Pike Place to my favorite produce stand for greens and tomatoes. We ducked into the Sanitary Market—happily, no longer strictly an animal-free zone—and grabbed peppery Genoa salami and mild, slightly sweet provolone dolce, and a chunk of Parmesan. Backtracked for another box of Turkish delight. Those things are addictive.
Across Pike Place in the artists’ stalls, I caught my friend the jewelry maker in a good mood after a big sale.
“You said Bonnie was worried about her sublease and having to move again. Were the problems with a woman named Hannah Hart?”
“Honestly, Pepper, if she mentioned the name, it escapes me now.” She pinned a pair of earrings onto a gap in her display board. “Got my eye out for a piece of a car like you drive.”
“Nightmist Blue.”
And then I had—well, not a brainstorm. A slight ripple in the weather. Arf and I trotted over the Desimone Bridge, pausing to toss a couple of dollars in the violin case of an all-women trio. How the bass player coaxed music from an upside-down plastic bucket, I could not fathom. In a quiet spot overlooking the construction site for the new Market Front, I fished in my bag for my phone. Tory Finch wasn’t one to gossip, but I’d crossed a few lines for my former employee last fall, and she knew it. Besides, if I asked too much, she’d say so.
“Painter. Muralist,” Tory answered without hesitation. “Let me see what I can find out.”
Killing Thyme Page 9
