“I’ll let her know you’re here,” she replied and reached for the phone. “We’re closed to the public on Mondays.”
Which explained why no one else was around. The front doors remained closed, and a heat wave of anxiety rose in my chest. I should have called when Aimee didn’t show for yoga, or checked in when I passed her building.
I heard the heels rapping across the marble floor at the same time as a warm voice called my name. “Pepper?”
A striking woman in her mid-thirties approached, one hand extended. If that’s what Nate’s ex-wife looked like, I could never compete. I’d swapped my shop uniform for a black skirt and a stretchy fuchsia T-shirt, but a dressy look for the Market felt like rags in these hallowed halls.
“Roxanne Davidson,” she said, her dark brown eyes showing genuine pleasure. She had the elegance of Katherine Hepburn but without the haughty impatience, and the friendly appeal of Donna Reed in It’s a Wonderful Life. Unlike me, sweaty, fumbly Meg Ryan in You’ve Got Mail, only brunette. “So good to meet you. Nate raves about you.”
“And about you.” The doors remained firmly shut. I rummaged in my tote. “My friend was supposed to meet me here. She’s got the chopstick. Let me give her a call—she must be running late.”
But Aimee didn’t answer, and my sense of dread grew. “Do you mind waiting, Nan?” Roxanne asked. Then, to me, “We should show Nan this mysterious object. She knows as much about Asian art as I do.”
“Hardly,” Nan replied. “After twenty years in the development office, I know the donors and the experts, but that doesn’t make me one myself.”
“Let me show you a few things while we’re waiting.” Roxanne told Nan where to find us, then led me through a series of interconnected rooms. Though the museum fascinated me, today I was intrigued by my guide. Her stacked heels made her nearly as tall as I, and her wide-legged navy pants whispered as we walked. The collarless jacket, fastened with a large black button, had a peplum that softened the lines, a matching shell underneath. I almost expected a string of pearls. Instead, a carved red pendant hung in the vee of her breasts. It reminded me of Melissa Kwan’s red pendants.
“Can you tell me about your pendant?”
“Chinese red jade. Jade, you may know, simply means stone, but the green version is so popular that many people don’t realize it comes in other colors. Or that it’s actually a mineral.” She fingered the stone with her right hand. Despite her elegance, she wore no nail polish. In her left hand, she carried a small object.
“There are two varieties,” she continued. “Nephrite and jadeite. This is jadeite, far less common. I bought it in China. It may have been a court necklace, although it’s hard to tell with pieces you buy on the street there, even in the far provinces. The merchants are selling the story, not the truth.”
“That’s retail,” I said with a knowing smile, and Roxanne Davidson smiled back.
We’d reached a long, narrow exhibit room lit by pendants hung from the high ceiling. She approached a glass case.
“From your description, it sounds like what your friend has—”
At the sound of footsteps, she broke off.
“You made it,” I said as Aimee joined us.
“I’m so sorry.” Her dark blond hair tumbled out of her topknot and her hands went every which way as she tried to decide whether to rescue it or shake Roxanne’s hand. I made introductions, and Aimee withdrew the chopstick, wrapped in the World’s Fair souvenir handkerchief, from her bag.
Roxanne set the hankie and chopstick on top of the glass case, alongside the object she’d been carrying. A magnifier of some kind—what were those things called?
“Intriguing piece. Beautiful silver work.” She held the chop-stick up to the light, gave the empty hollow on the end a good look, then picked up the magnifier, freeing the lens with a flick of the wrist. “Let’s see what the loupe shows us.”
Loupe. That was it.
A vein in Aimee’s temple throbbed, and she was breathing quickly. Had something happened, or was she that anxious to hear what the curator would say?
“Are you okay?” I whispered, and she nodded.
“Curious,” Roxanne said. “The silver is worked in a classic twist pattern, but see how it’s been mended on this side? Perhaps in an effort to keep the stone in place. Not a professional job. And it fell out anyway. Not surprising—it means these were well-used.”
“Jade?” I asked, recalling what she’d said about stone.
“Possibly. Or glass. Cabochon cut—round on top, flat on the bottom. The Chinese have made glass for centuries.” Roxanne gestured to a wall-mounted display. “Our eighteenth-century glass snuff bottles are a favorite with visitors and we’ve got an extensive collection of Peking glass vases and beads—layered glass carved to reveal the colors beneath.”
She slipped a red elastic coil off her wrist and unlocked the case, then took a pair of white gloves out of her pants pocket. Gloved, she drew out a small silver box, about four inches by six, studded with oval stones that even my untrained eye knew were not jade.
“As I told Nate, this chopstick may be part of a trousse set. Before we look at an example, I want you to see this box. The Chinese were expert silversmiths, especially later in the Qing dynasty. This is an earlier piece, probably about the same age as yours.” On the sides of the box, several stones had been set in silver, in the same twist as on the chopstick.
“Those are agates, aren’t they?” Aimee asked.
“Good eye,” Roxanne said. “They’re trade beads from India. The Chinese and Indians were trade partners for centuries, primarily along the Silk Road. Here, we’ve got a carnelian agate, a green moss agate, and a banded agate.” Though the carnelian was a lovely dark red-orange, the green moss was my favorite, its variegated color deep and mysterious.
“May I?” I held up my phone and Roxanne nodded. I snapped a few pictures of chopstick and box.
She returned the box to the display case and drew out a sheath, about a foot long. “This is an unusual example of a trousse set, but it gives you the idea. The sheath is bamboo, coated with shark skin. The chopsticks are ivory. They slide in here”—she pointed—“and the knife alongside them. Typical steel knife. This allowed the wearer to carry his own utensils and cut meat from the bone in the traditional way.”
Roxanne showed us how the pieces fit together. I snapped more photos.
“Intact sets aren’t common, but not rare, either.” She replaced the set and locked the display case. “I’ve never seen one in silver. Yours is most likely late Qing Dynasty, either Mongol or Manchu.”
“Which is when?” I asked. I could no more tell the Qing Dynasty from the Cretaceous Dynasty. Or the Crustacean Dynasty.
“Mid-eighteenth to late-nineteenth century. I’d date your piece at roughly 1750 to 1900. I could be more precise if I saw the complete set.” She led us out of the exhibit room. “I’m curious how you came across it. Do you have the other pieces?”
“I run a vintage shop on Eastlake,” Aimee said. “Pepper and I found the chopstick on the floor while we were looking at a tansu I took on consignment. It may have been in the chest—we don’t know.”
“And you’ve checked with the tansu’s owner?” Roxanne asked, reasonably.
“Would the knife be sharp enough to pierce someone’s chest?” Aimee blurted out. Roxanne stopped and stared.
“I don’t think Nate told you why we want to know about the piece,” I said. “The tansu belonged to a woman who worked for Aimee. She was killed in the shop a week ago. Stabbed. The weapon hasn’t been found. We have no reason to think it was the knife that went with this chopstick, but . . .”
“Ohhh,” Roxanne said. “I read about that in the paper. They didn’t say much about the weapon, and I didn’t make the connection. How awful. I’m so sorry. And yes, certainly, a knife like that could kill, sharpened or not.”
Beside me, Aimee gasped.
“Any way to estimate the value?” I asked. What
had Joelle, or the thief, hoped to gain?
“By itself, the chopstick isn’t worth much. It’s merely a curiosity. If the sheath and the knife handle are also silver, eight hundred to two thousand? That’s a guess. More if it’s on the older side, and if it’s decorated with agates or glass. Always helpful to have a provenance. This piece could tell quite a story.”
Aimee blanched. “May I use your women’s room before we leave?”
We’d reached the lobby. Roxanne pointed down the hall, then paused near the reception desk, where Nan sat proofreading a document.
“What was the victim’s name?” Roxanne asked. “The paper said, but I’ve forgotten.”
“Joelle Chapman. I take it you didn’t know her.” She shook her head. “Or a woman named Melissa Kwan? Both designers who specialized in an Asian look.”
Nan looked up. “You wouldn’t have known them, Roxanne, but I did. They worked for Steen Jorgensen.”
“How did you know Steen?” I asked Nan.
“Over the years, he donated quite a few important objects. I visited his shop and met Chapman and Kwan. Chapman had a small collection herself, and we discussed it, but it wasn’t anything the museum would want. Mr. Jorgensen was kind enough to remember the museum in his will.”
As Aimee had mentioned.
“Oh, is that—” Roxanne stopped herself and glanced at Nan, who nodded. “Apparently there are some conditional bequests that could affect what’s available to the museum, though that’s minor. The real problem is a shirttail relative who thinks he should have inherited the money designated for us and is threatening to sue.”
The back of my neck prickled.
“Speaking of Nate.” Which we weren’t, but as Roxanne spoke, she drifted away from the desk, out of Nan’s hearing. I followed, though I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to have this conversation. Roxanne was educated and elegant. I was neither. Odds were that her sister was more like her than me. “He’s a catch, for the right woman.”
Was that a warning in her tone? “It says a lot that you’re all still friends.”
“He and I, yes. He and my sister, not so much. She’s—” Roxanne hesitated. “I don’t know whether Nate didn’t want to change, or didn’t want to be pushed to change. But it added up to the same thing.”
Ahh. “You mean his work.”
“Though it’s obvious from the way he talks that he’s crazy about you.”
Aimee’s footsteps clacked along the hallway toward us. I dug in my tote for the bag from A Global Touch and handed it to Roxanne. “A token of our thanks.”
She unwrapped the scarf, the gold threads shimmering. “Oh, my. This is exquisite. Thank you.” She smiled warmly, and held out a hand to Aimee. “I’d love to see your shop.”
“I—we haven’t reopened yet. Maybe mid-week,” Aimee said. “Truth is, I haven’t decided. It feels—disrespectful.”
“You know, the ancients devised all kinds of cleansing rituals for honoring the dead while reclaiming spaces after an untimely death. I could send you some research.”
Aimee thanked Roxanne for that and the info on trousse sets, then we stepped outside. It couldn’t have been more than a few degrees warmer than when I’d arrived forty-five minutes earlier, but after the cool interior of the museum, it felt like diving into the fire.
“I never would have thought of bringing her a gift,” Aimee said as we walked down the steps.
“Lucky accident. It suited her better than me.” No point telling her how I’d gotten the scarf. “I called to make sure I hadn’t given you the wrong time. Delete the message.”
“Oh, no. It was just—” She broke off. “Somebody came by the shop at the last minute. It—it’s handled.”
“Good. So,” I said, “would Justin know if that trousse set belonged to Joelle?”
“I was afraid you were going to say that. His office isn’t far. I’ll drive.” Aimee held up her keys and clicked open a white Prius.
As she started the car, I watched her from the edge of my eye. Her skin was pale, her breath shallow. Rattled by that surprise visitor, or by what we’d learned from Roxanne?
I thought about the light I’d seen upstairs. “You are staying in your apartment, aren’t you?”
“I—I have to.”
“Because of Tony?”
“I want him to know he can always come home. That it’s our home. If I didn’t . . .”
“You’re afraid that if you don’t make a home for him, he’ll go back on the streets and you won’t be able to help him. Like you did when he stole from your boss, Steen Jorgensen.”
She shot me a sideways glance. “Detective Tracy told you about that? He doesn’t trust me, but if he knows about the past, he should.”
“I figured it out.” No reason to tell her I had an inside source. “You were brave, and loving. I am absolutely certain Tony knows you acted for his own good. And it worked out, didn’t it?”
“Ha.” She let out a short, sharp sound. “You mean the money, don’t you?”
I cocked my head, puzzled. “The bequest from Steen? You have to earn that, according to his will. Unless you think that because Tony stole to buy drugs before, he did it again, and killed Joelle in the process.”
“Not the bequest.” She parked next to a small office building a block off Broadway. “The bonus money. I earned it. I socked it away and used it to start the shop.”
I frowned. “From the hotel project, you mean? The one you and Melissa did? But her son got sick and she had to quit.”
“Right.” She gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles white against the black vinyl. “She thought I should have given half of it to her, even though she didn’t do ten percent of the work. Five, at most. I felt terrible for her—who wouldn’t? But I earned that money. I had dreams, too.”
“The bonus was a thank you. Steen knew you’d turned your brother in for the theft, didn’t he?”
She nodded. “No one knew her son was sick,” she said, her voice trembling. “Melissa didn’t tell anybody. She was too afraid she’d get fired. The irony was, Steen thought she was unreliable and doing a poor job, and fired her anyway.”
Oh. Did Cayenne share that same fear, that neither the law nor I would help her?
Aimee’s hands slipped to her lap. “When Steen found out, he paid her deductible and offered her job back, but by then, her son was really sick—the drugs weren’t working and she needed to be with him.”
“But this isn’t bringing us any closer to figuring out what happened to Joelle. You’re worried that Tony was involved.” Although he’d sworn to me, yesterday in Pioneer Square, that he would never hurt his sister or her friends. And I believed him. Or at least, I believed that he believed that. But what we think about our intentions, and what we do, can be two different stories.
“I don’t know what to think about Tony,” she said. “You heard her—Roxanne. That set is valuable.”
I reached over and took her hand. “Aimee, when Joelle was killed, you’d run out on an errand. Where did you go?”
“To find Tony.” She choked back a sob. “He hadn’t come home the night before and I was so worried. He’d been having a rough time, with the drug cravings and his old crowd.”
“Let’s go see what Justin says. Maybe this is all a mistake. Maybe he’ll recognize the chopstick and clear up the mystery.”
Maybe he’d confess to killing his wife and we could call Detective Tracy and end this nightmare. I opened the car door and got a heat wave smack in the face.
And maybe it would rain.
Twenty-Five
The botanical name for sage is Salvia, from the Latin salvere, to save or heal. Sage tea was popular in England long before black tea, and modern brew pubs are reviving the ancient tradition of sage ale.
OH, HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN.
Not that there was anything wrong with the two-story converted house, but some buildings wear their age better than others. It was perfectly serviceable, if you didn’t mi
nd the flaking concrete steps or the dented black metal mailbox hanging next to the door, its painted trim more trim than paint.
Beside the door hung a brass plaque reading EMERALD CITY LANDLORD-TENANT LEGAL SERVICES, followed by two names. I recognized them as those of a young couple who’d met and married as associates at the old law firm. No doubt they’d been thrilled to land such prestigious jobs, only to have the dream crash around them.
In part because of the man named on a smaller plaque below theirs. A fellow tenant, not a partner. Taken in out of pity, I suspected, and to help with the rent.
I sympathized with their plight—they’d been bubbly and idealistic. And commercial rents were as obscene as residential rates. But as I stepped over the threshold on to the grimy gray carpet, I thought they ought to use their legal skills to pry some repair work out of their own landlord.
“Mr. Chapman, please,” I told the receptionist, a young woman whose blond pixie bore streaks ranging from cotton candy pink to deep maroon. Her bright eyes widened, giving me the impression that Justin didn’t have many visitors. I wondered how his new gig was working out. After all that had happened, who would trust him?
“No appointment, sorry. We were in the neighborhood and thought we’d make a quick condolence call.” Quick, yes. I had a shop to run, after all. Plus I was supposed to meet with Cayenne this afternoon, and I did not want to be late or frazzled. And Aimee didn’t want to be here at all.
Two minutes later, Justin strode down the hall, adjusting the knot of his tie. His greeting bore none of the warm welcome Roxanne Davidson had extended. His handshake was perfunctory, his eyes guarded. Not that I blamed him, unlikely visitors that we were. He gestured, and as I passed the front desk, I noticed the receptionist keeping an interested eye on us even while her fingers clicked her keyboard.
The Germans have a word—Schadenfreude—for that peculiar sensation of satisfaction in another’s misfortune. (The Germans have a word for everything, don’t they?) Not that I felt it.
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