Guilty as Cinnamon (29 page)

“You want a drink to wash down that tall tale?”

“Like that Negroni you poured me last week, to warn me to keep my mouth shut?”

“She's got it about right, doesn't she, Glassy?” Detective Tracy took a step closer. “You and Alex Howard are tied at the
hip. You've got to keep an eye on each other, or risk losing everything.”

“I don't know what you think we did way back when, but you can't prove any of it.”

“Oh, but we can, Mr. Glass,” Spencer said from her post at the end of the bar. “You of all people ought to know you can't trust someone you're paying to keep quiet. This Lynette, she saw the end of the gravy train and started singing. And you know how actresses love a spotlight and an audience.”

“Your trouble's getting deeper,” Tracy said. “Ms. Reece here figured out that when Tamara Langston asked you to join her new operation, you knew she was bound to discover the real reason you would never leave Alex Howard's company. Not out of loyalty—you don't have any, not really.”

Glassy's jaw tightened, and he rolled one shoulder back and forth. In the mirror, his fingers twitched.

“You got it wrong,” he said. “Alex is my best friend. He wouldn't know how to betray me.”

“You knew Tamara well enough,” I said, “to know she couldn't be bought. She'd started to unravel Patel's scheme of using her name and credit to prop up his failing business, and she asked you for advice. You made a big show of helping Alex shelter her, but you had to get rid of her.”

“What better way,” Tracy said, “than to force your way into the construction site and kill her there, to cast blame on Patel?”

“How would I do that? She died of some obscure pepper sold by your little storyteller here.” His glance darted nervously around the room.

“We called Big Al on our way here,” Spencer said. “We knew Howard had an account there, but he insisted he bought all his spices from Ms. Reece. Her records show a regular pattern of sales that supported his claim. Seems you've been buying ghost peppers in his name, supposedly
for your special hot Bloody Mary. Bought about a decade's worth in a few weeks.”

Tracy held up a pair of cuffs. “Scott Glass, we're here to arrest you for the murder of Tamara Langston, also known as Ashley Brown. Put your hands on the bar where we can see them—”

The mirror told me he was on the move. Glassy flung the bowl of lime juice at Tracy. He ducked, and it flew over his shoulder, clattering onto a table behind us. Glassy leaned across the bar and reached for me with his left hand, the mezzaluna glinting in his right. I twisted away, and his hand grazed the top of my head, the thick fingers scrabbling for my hair, too short to hold on to.

I grabbed a goblet from the top of the bar. Threw it at Glassy. He ducked. I grabbed another and another. Threw like the baseball player I was named for, spit and fire, salt and pepper.

The swinging doors to the kitchen opened. “Hey, I found another bag—”

“Stop right there,” the two cops shouted in unison, guns out.

The frozen bones crashed to the floor as the sous chef raised his hands.

“Down on the floor, you scumbag.” Gun in hand, Spencer dashed behind the bar. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the terrified sous drop to the ground. Spencer grabbed Glassy's wrist, and the knife clattered to the floor. Tracy joined her, gun trained on the big bartender, as his partner snapped on the cuffs.

My breath rattled my teeth, and I set the last goblet back on the bar. I slid off my stool and approached the sobbing sous.

“I didn't do anything,” he said, not yet grasping that the target of the operation was the man behind the bar. “I'm innocent.”

I reached out and helped him to his feet. “You're innocent, but he's guilty, guilty, guilty.”

Guilty as cinnamon
.

There's rosemary—that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember.

—Ophelia to Laertes,
Hamlet
, Act IV, Scene 5

Spencer and Tracy hauled Scotty Glass off to jail. I asked a patrol officer to drop me off at the Center. I had a little lady to find, and to thank.

The crew of Curry in a Hurry were hitching their wagon to a battered white pickup when I reached the lawn. Gone the crowds, the children, the music of a happy day. Gone, too, the sunshine, as a pale gray blanket rolled in off the Sound.

“I had no idea,” the blond woman said after I told her about Tamara-Ashley and Patel's elaborate schemes. She wrapped her arms around herself.

“If it's any consolation, at first I thought he'd killed her, but now we know Scotty Glass overpowered her and forced her to breathe a bag of ghost peppers.”

“You dodged a bullet,” a male employee said. He bent to plug in the trailer's lights, and I gave her a questioning look.

Shock and pain flooded the face so much like Tamara-Ashley's. “We were engaged. We—I just bought this food
truck. I'd planned to sign half of it over to him as a wedding present.”

“I'm so sorry. I was hoping to catch the little Indian woman who sits out front in the restaurant. The woman who played the tambura onstage.”

Her brow wrinkled. “No little Indian woman works for us.”

“She's tiny.” I held a hand below my chin. “Not five feet tall. Dark hair, pulled back. Wears a jeweled bindi, and every time I've seen her, she's worn a deep red sari. I assumed she was his grandmother.”

“He has no family,” the blonde said. “And I've never seen anyone like that in the restaurant.”

The other employee straightened. “Me, neither. I helped the musicians set up. It was just the three guys. They don't use a drone player.”

In a distant corner of my mind, a solo monk began to chant. Other voices joined him, melding together in harmony, and if I were a swearing woman, I would have sworn I heard a tambura join in.

*   *   *

“RUB
a little chile pepper into that scrape on your hand and it won't scar,” Sandra said, a twinkle in her dark eyes.

“You even think about pouring capsicum in my hard-earned wound and you'll be out on the street so fast your head will spin right off your neck.” The cuts and scrapes I'd gotten when Patel shoved me to the ground stung, but were nothing a fresh, fat cinnamon roll couldn't cure.

“You wouldn't dare. You couldn't run this firetrap without me.”

She had me there. “Patel's fiancée says he's deathly afraid of dogs. Got badly bit as a kid, teasing a neighbor's Doberman. That's what gave him the limp.”

“And the limp slowed him down enough for Arf to catch him?” Reed said.

“I had no idea Arf could run that fast.” The hero of the story lay beneath the table in the mixing nook working on a bone. Thanks to the sous, we had a year's supply to stash in the freezer. “Just don't mention any biblical brothers around him.”

Outside, the Market carpenters were repairing the burnt plaster. Our electrical system had been given the all clear. I'd get our new signs ordered. The herb seedlings were already selling well, as were the aprons and mugs bearing our logo, delivered this morning. I filled my mug with spice tea and raised it in a toast.

“Here's to the little lady in the sari, whoever—whatever—she may be.”

*   *   *

FRIDAY
morning, I stopped for coffee at the bakery at the top of the Hillclimb. “How did you know?” I asked the shy barista who'd left clues I hadn't understood on my coffee cup.

She pulled the steam arm, and it spit and hissed.

The counter girl handed me my change, and I dropped it in the tip jar. “Mouth shut, eyes open. That's her.”

I looked at my cup. No note this time. The barista had drawn a smiley face. I caught her eye and smiled back.

My crew and I got the shop ready for the day, then three of us piled in the Mustang and headed north.

“We're playing hooky,” Kristen sang, off-key. “Lookie, hooky, cookie.”

A killer, an arsonist, and a fraud-wreaking identity thief were behind bars. How could I not sing along? Mount Rainier dominated the skyline behind us, and Mount Baker towered in front, their glacial peaks sparkling. Girls on the road. Plus dog.

“Pepper, look.” Lunch had gone down easy—open-faced Dungeness crab salad sandwiches and glasses of Pinot Grigio on a deck overlooking Padilla Bay. We were ten feet inside the third junk slash antique shop of the day in Anacortes, not far from the Naval Air Station on Whidbey Island, when Kristen
grabbed my arm. Secondhand shops near military bases are jackpots for international prize hunters like us.

“Holy macaroni.” Electric, like the old one, and slightly larger. Brass exterior, ceramic insert. Not a crack to be seen.

“Not much call for those,” the shop owner said. “Too big. Came from a tea shop in Victoria. I can give you a good price. The Russians call it a samovar.”

And I called it perfect.

*   *   *

OUR
first customer Saturday morning was Danielle Bordeaux. “What a tangled mess. I knew I shouldn't have hired Melissa—Lynette to you—in the first place, but I never imagined a mistake fifteen years ago would lead to all this.”

“Funny, isn't it? We convince ourselves they'll work out, we can train them, yada yada yada, and those are always the hires that bite us in the bittersweet. Danielle, when you called Glassy last Friday, after I came into your place—”

“I thought he was covering for Alex,” she said. “That he knew Alex had killed Tamara. And I told him to stay away from you, or I'd take the gloves off.”

“You weren't afraid that Glassy would come after you?”

“He's been in my kitchen. He knows what I can do with a knife.” Her lips curved in a wry twist, and I almost laughed out loud.

“We're having a memorial service for Tamara at the restaurant next week,” she continued. Makeup hadn't covered the circles under her eyes. “I hope you'll come. I'm pulling the plug on Tamarack.”

“Did the building have electrical problems?”

“No. You were right. It was Patel. He got in through the shared access in the basement, to try to run Tamara off. Ashley, to him. She had a great idea, but the best concept won't fly without the right chef. And I'm losing my taste for growing the business.”

“If you change your mind, give me a call. I'm thinking of hanging out a new shingle: Pepper Reece, Spice Merchant and Ghostbuster.”

She left carrying a box of tea and a Spice Shop mug, on the house.

As always, the spring sunshine brought Seattleites out in droves, and we hustled all morning. I'd learned my lesson about hiring in desperation, but we desperately needed help.

“Cinnamon?” a woman said, reaching for a jar of our custom blend. “I always think of that as a fall spice.”

“It's a spice for all seasons. You can make do without Celtic salt and smoked salt, three kinds of paprika, and all those exotic chile peppers.” I'd debated long and hard whether to keep carrying ghost peppers, aka
bhut capsicum
, wondering if they were worth the trouble. But then I realized I was trying to make myself responsible for something that had nothing to do with me. I pictured the bumper sticker:
BHUT C
DOESN'T KILL PEOPL
E—PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE
. And I doubted Tamara would want me to banish them from our shelves. “But you can't make decent toast without cinnamon.”

Spencer and Tracy came in to give me an update. While they were there, Tag appeared, wearing off-duty jeans and a blue Henley.

“Sorry about your white sweater,” I said.

“A worthy sacrifice.” He gave me that heart-melting smile, but the air between us had changed, and I suspected I wouldn't be seeing as much of him in the future.

“All these years, I blamed you for losing a witness. Not only did you have nothing to do with it, she was under our noses the whole time.” Tracy extended his hand.

Tag took it, and they shook. “Thanks. But if I'd been quicker on the uptake back then, Tamara Langston—or Ashley Brown—might still be alive.”

“You're the one always telling me we aren't responsible for other people's choices,” I said.

“Speaking of choices,” Spencer said. “My daughter decided to be a nanny in Switzerland for a year. It's a great opportunity, but she could have learned a lot about retail from you.”

The compliment almost made up for the loss.

Sandra and I took advantage of a brief lull after lunch to polish our ideas for the Market's spring festival. The time I'd spent investigating had left us seriously behind.

“One more thing, boss.” An impish grin crossed Sandra's face. “We have a gift for you.”

She handed me a package wrapped in brown paper and kitchen twine. A teeny warning bell went off in my brain.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Private Investigating
. “Between this and the adventures of Brother Cadfael, I'm sure I'll learn everything I need to know. Thanks.”

“And this.” She drew a small item out of her apron pocket. A new watch battery.

“Thanks.” My phone buzzed, and I glanced down at the text. “Dinner and bowling?” it read. “This time, you choose the food.”

I texted Ben back. “Staff party at Zak's gig tonight. Join us?”

The reply was nearly instant. “It's a date!”

A nice, safe group date.

But I had one more question. “How old are you?”

A moment later, the reply: “The curse of a youthful face. Forty-one. Do you mind dating an older man?”

Turns out this don't-judge-a-book bit goes both ways. I decided to keep my age—and my misread of his—secret a little while longer.

Midafternoon, Reed stuck his head in the office to let me know there was a customer out front asking for me.

“Pepper. I came to apologize for all the trouble I've caused.”

“Thanks.” I couldn't say “no apology needed” and mean it, even if that was what Alex wanted to hear.

“Everything Glassy did was wrong, from paying off Melissa—Lynette—to silencing Tamara. But he was right
about one thing: We really were friends.” His throat seemed to collapse on the words, and every handsome feature radiated sadness and regret. “I realized pretty quickly after we met that you didn't know about the past—that for reasons of his own, your ex would never tell you. I'm far from perfect, but I'm not the man I was back then.”

I nodded. I'd known that. My judgment wasn't as flawed as I'd feared.

“I'm taking a break for a few months,” he continued. “Travel, try to figure out what matters to me, what's next.”

“What about the restaurants? All your employees?”

“Barbara—Ops—and my executive chefs will hold down the fort. We're taking over Tamarind, Patel's place, so those jobs are safe, too.” He held a shopping basket in one hand, a few bags of cinnamon sticks inside. “Help me choose gifts for my staff?”

“With pleasure.” We picked out cookbooks, pepper mills, salt cellars, and for a newlywed server, the heart-shaped espresso cups. Every employee got a package of cinnamon sticks and a jar of my favorite Puget Sound sea salt. (Despite my wisecrack that morning to the cinnamon buyer, I really do believe every kitchen needs honest-to-goodness genuine sea salt.)

I walked him outside, hopeful that the time away would be everything he wanted. There's a subtle difference between creating yourself, as we all do every day, and creating an image to live up to, as he had. He gave my cheek a good-bye kiss, and I turned back to my shop. Plucked a pot of rosemary off the rack and took a good whiff. A good addition to my deck garden.

“You're the owner, aren't you? Are you still hiring? My sister saw your sign.”

A pleasant alto caught my attention. The speaker was a woman about thirty, with smooth, dark skin and an engaging expression, her hair swept up in a lobster roll.

“It's my dream job,” she said. “Every life needs a little more spice, don't you think?”

“Pepper Reece.” I held out my hand.

She took it in both hers, a slim gold wedding ring glinting on the left. “Cayenne. Cayenne Cooper.”

As we headed inside, I reached out to the
HIRING
sign taped to the front window and tore it down.

*   *   *

AND
in the end, what do I believe about ghosts, be it
bhuts
like the ones Seetha saw and the little lady who appeared to me, or your standard American variety? I don't know—and it doesn't matter. Because the world—like the Market—is a strange and wonderful place, where anything is possible.