Killing Thyme (9 page)

I stared. I had never heard the story in this much detail.

“Two months later, I married him.” My mother picked up her fork. “Don't let this beautiful food get cold.”

“So how did you decide to establish your group?” Laurel asked. “What was it called?”

My mother's sharp-eyed glance ricocheted between us. “Something smells fishy here, and it isn't in the water or on our plates. Did my daughter put you up to poking into my past?”

“Lena, she wants to help you.”

“I am not in any trouble.”

“Mom.” I leaned forward. “You argued in public with a woman you thought was dead. And three days later, she was found dead. That is the definition of trouble.”

“It was nothing. Old tensions we needed to get out of our system.”

“The homicide detectives won't see it that way,” I said. Her expression told me I was right, that witnesses had reported their argument, and her explanation had not satisfied the police.

“And how do you know so much about what homicide detectives think?” she snapped.

“Thirteen years as a cop's wife.” I speared a potato and held it up. “And two murders solved on my own. Not to mention a few miscellaneous crimes.”

Her small, lovely face twisted, but she kept herself from crying. “I don't want you to get involved.”

I hadn't planned on it. I'd planned the opposite. Until last night, when it became so clear that my mother did not want to talk about Bonnie-Peggy, alive or dead. Not that I thought for one eenie weenie moment that she had anything to do with the murder.

But what about the person on the other end of the phone?

I wanted to push her. But it didn't feel fair. And I didn't feel ready. So I followed my mother's example.

I changed the subject.

“Gad, Laurel, I almost forgot to tell you. Nancy Adolfo
came into the shop yesterday. Unannounced. Told me she'd made an appointment and my staff forgot to tell me. Sandra was livid.”

Laurel followed my lead. “That's her MO.” She explained about the new critic while my mother and I ate.

“Sounds like she doesn't realize that people in the food business actually talk to each other,” my mother said. “Eventually, she'll destroy her own credibility. Oh, what bliss, sitting here with you two on this gorgeous day. I love Costa Rica. Your father is so happy there. But”—she gestured toward the water, the sailboats lined up along the docks, the commercial fishing vessels moored beyond. “I miss all this.”

Was she thinking of coming back to Seattle?
First hint I'd had. What did Dad think of that? You never know your parents the way you think you do, but I was absolutely sure they were solid. When I'd left Tag, I'd asked my mother to tell me honestly if she'd ever considered divorce. “Divorce, no,” she'd replied. “Murder, yes, but divorce, no.”

The old joke didn't seem so funny right now.

“What about your volunteer work? With the kids?” I asked. Her Hungarian immigrant father had been so furious at her elopement—and no, I wasn't on the way—that he'd refused any more help with college tuition, saying she was her husband's responsibility now. She'd followed her dream anyway, opening a Montessori school and finishing her degree years later. With help, if I'd picked up on the clues right, not from her father, but from her mother, who'd wanted her daughters to have the opportunities she hadn't had.

“Oh, it's so much fun.” Her face lit up. “The little ones are such a delight.”

“Good thing you boned up on your Spanish before the move.”

“And the parents all want to practice their English!” She cackled. “But children are children, in any language.”

“Mom, yesterday, when you were in the shop—”

“Pepper, can't we please stop talking about it?”

“No, not about Bonnie. Sandra and I keep meaning to talk, but we haven't had time.” The fib was the easiest way to get my mother to reveal a confidence. “Did she tell you what's going on? Is she ill?” My stomach started to roil.

“No. It's Paul. From the pain, they think it could be prostate cancer. They're running tests.”

Holy moly
. I sat back, mouth over my hand. “Ohmygosh. I had no idea.”

Sandra is the rock the Seattle Spice Shop stands on. And Paul—the husband she calls Mr. Right, to distinguish him from her first, Mr. Oh-So-Wrong—is her rock.

If either shifted, we'd all be shaken. As if the tectonic plates that underlie the Pacific Northwest did the shimmy, the fox-trot, and the Charleston all at once.

But what hit me in the gut was that Sandra hadn't told me herself.

“Lena, are you coming to Flick Chicks on Tuesday?” Laurel asked later as we headed for the parking lot. “It's Kristen's week.”

“We'll see.” They air-kissed good-bye, and my mother unlocked Carl's white SUV. I couldn't help remembering Mr. Adams's description of the vehicle he'd seen race away Friday night.

“I thought you might bring Ben along this morning,” she said, hand on the door.

“Sunday morning is girl time,” I replied.

“He's a good man, but even without seeing a chart . . . Well, don't let him push you into investigating because he wants a big story.”

As I'd feared when we met, during another unfortunate incident. “That worries me, too. Is his job kismet, making us a good match, or coincidence?”

She climbed into the SUV, a tiny woman in a big rig. “There are no coincidences, Pepper. Everything happens
for a spiritual purpose. Your soul knows what experiences it needs for growth. To raise your vibration and cultivate a deeper meaning.”

“Mom, where do you get this stuff? It's like you're talking Greek.”

She switched on the ignition. “Oh, honey. This language is much older than Greek. Chalking things up to coincidence means you don't trust the Universe.”

Arf's leash in hand, I waved as she drove away. I trust the Universe. It's people I wonder about.

Under the wide and starry sky

Dig the grave and let me lie.

Glad did I live and gladly die. . . .

“Here he lies where he longed to be,

Home is the sailor, home from the sea . . .”

—Robert Louis Stevenson, “Requiem”

I think best on my feet, and my dog never says no to a walk, so we wandered back to the waterfront. Despite its trendy restaurants, Fishermen's Terminal is a working marina, owned by the Port of Seattle, and home to the North Pacific fishing fleet. A medley of human, bird, and mechanical sounds played around us: laughter and shouted greetings, the squawks of pigeons and seagulls, the cranks, creaks, and squeals of ocean-going gear. An engine stuttered, then caught hold, punching a stinky blue-gray cloud of smoke into the air.

Two men rolled a cart of silvery fish to the seafood market, doing a brisk business late on this sparkling morning.

A shiny new sailboat motored past, its engine barely purring, headed for the Sound in search of wind.

So much for my view of myself as caring and honest—big-hearted, in Detective Spencer's words. So caring, I didn't have a clue what was going on with my assistant manager until I lied to my mother to find out.

At least I'd never hidden behind any pretense of minding my own business. In HR, we learned to never pry, but to spot potential problems and figure out the best ways to address them. My mother, alas, was resisting my efforts to help her solve those problems, and I feared she was about to run headlong into a bigger problem: our friendly homicide detectives' need for a suspect.

Some people say you can't help those who don't help themselves, but I've never believed it. My childhood had taught me otherwise.

I stepped around a young couple, arms around each other's waists as they exchanged murmurs and kisses.

Why had Bonnie-Peggy come back to Seattle? I wasn't sure what to call her, the two names hopelessly intertwined in my mind. My mother had not seen her in eons. Bonnie had told the photographer in the Market that she'd been on the move for thirty years.

Had she meant that figure literally? People often round up to the next decade when they recount time.

Was it a coincidence that our family had moved out of Grace House thirty years ago?

My mother didn't believe in coincidence.

I paused to watch a fortyish man crouched on the deck of a blue-and-white gill netter, distinguished by its cabin-forward profile and the giant reel mounted on the deck. He appeared to be working on a badly tangled net.

Near the entrance to the Terminal stands a statue I've always loved, the Ancient Mariner in a wide-brimmed yellow hat and a slicker, cut like a nineteenth-century frock coat, his long beard and broad mustache iron gray. This was a modern fisherman, clean-shaven, in brown canvas work
pants and a white T-shirt that showed his biceps and pecs quite nicely.

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.”