Between a Wok and a Dead Place: A Spice Shop Mystery

Contrary to its soft, vulnerable appearance and quiet personality, the Rabbit is confident and strong, always moving toward its goal, regardless of criticism and obstacles. Though careful and attentive to detail, the Rabbit often spices things up in surprising ways.

—The Year of the Rabbit, in Chinese astrology

“TRY ONE OF THESE, PEPPER,” MY MOTHER LENA SAID, POINTING at the fat, transparent steamed dumplings, her souvenir teacup tipping at a dangerous angle. “Shrimp, with ginger and scallions. Divine.”

The short, dark-haired woman running the booth plucked a perfectly pleated morsel from a bamboo steamer and set it on my plate. Behind her, an elderly woman slid another steamer onto the table. Lifted the lid and released a warm, heavenly fragrance.

If you’ve ever been to a cocktail party where you’ve had to juggle your wine glass, a too-small napkin, and a plate of appetizers, all while avoiding elbows, trying to hear and be heard above the music, and nodding when introductions are made because you can’t possibly free a hand, you’ve got an idea what the food walk during the Lunar New Year celebration in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District is like. What Seattleites call “the CID,” spelling out each letter. But for that dumpling, I’d brave it all. I stuck my bamboo chopsticks in my pocket to reduce the risk of putting out an eye—my own or a stranger’s—and took the dumpling with my fingers.

“Har gow,” the woman said. “Best in the city.” A vinyl banner in the back of the booth, accented by a string of small red lanterns, repeated the claim, attributed to the Seattle Times food critic. Though I didn’t agree with all the critic’s reviews, her raves about my spice shop in Pike Place Market convinced me of her good taste. One bite and I knew she’d nailed it.

“Total yum,” I said. She rewarded my praise with another morsel. I held up my phone. “Selfie with dumplings. Lean in.” My friend Seetha, in her puffy white coat, bumped shoulders with my mother while I, several inches taller with short spiky hair that exaggerates the effect, stood in back and snaked my arm between them to snap a couple of shots. Three dark heads, three happy faces.

“I always thought dim sum meant dumplings,” Seetha said. “But they’ve got all kinds of things.”

“Dim sum is a broad term.” Our host wore a white chef’s jacket, the name of her restaurant embroidered in red, in English and Chinese, over the left breast, and gestured to the array of dishes on the cloth-covered table with a graceful hand. “Dumplings, yes, but also rolls, small buns, cakes, and other dishes. And the tea. Always tea.”

I took a sip of mine. Green, scented with jasmine, perfect for the overcast January day. A good beginning for the Year of the Rabbit, though the new year didn’t officially start until tomorrow. Saturday afternoon was the better choice for a food walk and art fair, followed by an evening parade. My spice shop sells a similar blend, not quite as smooth, and I wondered where they got theirs. We supply herbs and spices to hundreds of the city’s restaurants and food producers, from a crepe cart to a fourth-generation butcher known for his sausage and salami to an internationally renowned chef’s empire, but I’d only managed a small inroad in the CID. Hadn’t tried very hard. Many of the restaurateurs in this part of the city, just south of Pioneer Square and the business district, have long relationships with other suppliers. They guard their sources like the bronze lions and dragons guard the gates of the Forbidden City.

“Traditionally served at brunch, but these days,” our doyenne of dumplings continued, the rest of her explanation lost in a cacophony of sound. Barely ten feet from us, in front of the ceremonial gate that was as tall as some of the nearby buildings, a man dressed in red and black banged on a barrel-shaped drum. On either side of him, musicians clanged cymbals small and large. A trio of four-legged lion dancers prowled the urban jungle, two in yellow and one in red. Everyone in the crowd packing the street stopped to watch. The man carrying the giant head of the red lion swung it from side to side, then up and down, to the steady beat of the drum, while the man in back controlled the cape-like body. For a moment, I forgot the lions weren’t real. Not that they were particularly realistic. Not at all. Stylized, puppet-like, their red, yellow, and black eyes the size of saucers, the yellow-bearded tongues painted to match. Long furry fringe hung from the cape and wound around the men’s pant legs, swaying with their movements.

The beat grew more pronounced. The man in the back end of the red lion scooped the front man up on his shoulders, holding tight as the mounted dancer swooped low, pretending to charge a small child who shrieked in delight. The dancer leapt back to the ground and the men resumed their intricate footwork.

Then a team of dancers swarmed around them, more modestly dressed in red and yellow pants and T-shirts. Each held a small lion head with a long tail that swept down his back. As the two-man teams had done, they swayed and swung, stomping their feet like the kings of the jungle whose spirits they were meant to invoke, lifting the heads high above their own and waving them in the air before pulling them back down over their faces.

“Oliver!” Seetha cried, and though I couldn’t imagine how he could hear her over the bang of the drum and the din of the crowd, the dancer nearest us stepped closer. Lifted the head of his costume and bowed to her, his long yellow and red tail sweeping the pavement. I caught the quickest glimpse of jet-black hair and dark eyes before he clapped the lion mask back in place and the troupe moved on.

“That’s him? That’s your mystery man?” I said. “That’s why you were so keen on coming.” The flush on Seetha’s brown cheeks answered for her.

“The lions dance to bring good luck and fortune,” the dim sum woman said, an impish smile on her face. Behind her, the old woman muttered something in Chinese, then bent and turned away.

The street dancers were a preview to tonight’s parade, though we didn’t plan to stay that long. The festivities in the CID are the biggest and best attended in the city, fitting for the heart of Seattle’s Asian community, but celebrations would be held all over town during the next two weeks. Even in Ballard, the historically Scandinavian neighborhood near Fisherman’s Terminal. And it wasn’t all furry frivolity. Art exhibits, cooking classes, and lectures on the history of Pan-Asian Seattle filled the calendar. Fundraisers abounded, from sequined galas to 5Ks. My former employee Matt and his girlfriend were taking part in tomorrow’s Rabbit Run, raising money for a community health center, and they’d hit up my shop for a healthy pledge.

Me, I was in it for the food and the friends, and the bright colors and sounds and energy that kept me from missing my guy, Nate Seward. Ha. As if anything could. But at least keeping busy kept me from obsessing over the danger he faced every day, fishing the icy waters of the North Pacific off Alaska.

My mother handed Seetha and me small paper plates of treats nestled in red paper cups.

“I’ve got dessert for your dad, if we can find him,” she said, scanning the crowd. “There he is.” She nodded toward my father, Chuck Reece, on the far side of the street. As she says, a tall spouse is useful in a crowd, especially a man who likes to wander off by himself. I get both my height and my curiosity from him.

I bit into a sesame ball, warm and crunchy on the outside, sweet and smooth inside. Finished it off. Wrapped the rest in my napkin and tucked them in my tote bag for later. Teacups in hand, we wound our way through the throng to watch a well-organized group of children, mostly Asian but not all, in red pants and shirts demonstrate martial arts moves.

My father, over six feet with a full head of dark hair despite being past seventy, stood beside a woman who did not reach his shoulder. Her gray and black hair was streaked with the same regal purple as her puffy parka, and both matched her pronged metal cane.

“Lena!” The two women embraced. “And this must be Pepper. I haven’t seen you since—well, whenever it was, you were shorter than I. Now even my granddaughter towers over me.”

I’d hit five feet in the fourth grade and reached my current five-seven at fourteen. No wonder I didn’t recognize Aki Ohno, though I’d heard the name many times.

My mother introduced Seetha, then explained. “We met Aki and Ernie ages ago, when we were setting up the free meals kitchen at the cathedral. They’d created a similar program down here and were so helpful. That led to several joint projects.” She put a hand on the older woman’s arm. “We were so sorry to hear about Ernie, and to miss his funeral. He was a wonderful man.”

Now I remembered. My parents moved to Costa Rica a few years ago and my brother handles their finances. They’d asked him to make a contribution in Ernie Ohno’s memory last winter, to an emergency housing fund for elders, and he’d mentioned it to me.

“We’re moving back now,” my mother said. “Part-time. Snowbirds. House-hunting, so if you hear of anything . . .”

Aki gestured toward the stage. “Good to see the younger generation continuing the traditions.”

We turned our attention back to the demonstration. Two girls, fourteen or fifteen, dressed in white, red scarves at their throats, wielded swords with the confidence of a chef slicing a tomato. They lunged, pointed, parried, and poked. Terrific, and a little terrifying. Though neither blade touched the other girl, it was not hard to imagine either of them lopping the head off an enemy in a moonlit alley, or taking down a trio of attackers, like Tom Cruise’s character in The Last Samurai. Aki’s cane made small movements in her hand, as if it harbored a secret desire to be a fearsome sword but had been cast a different fate, helping a little old lady make her way through the streets.

I glanced at my watch, a pink Kate Spade splurge from a few years back. “We’ve got to run. Seetha and I are meeting Reed and his family in Maynard Alley to watch his sister’s dance troupe. You two coming?” I asked my parents.

“We’ll stay here,” my mother said, and looped her arm through Aki’s. “Reconnect with our old friend.”

After a round of “nice to meet yous” and “good to see yous,” Seetha and I took off. I opened my mouth to quiz her about Oliver when a familiar figure whizzed by on a bicycle.

My ex-husband, a Seattle police officer on the bike patrol. “Yep. Picking up an extra shift, I imagine. The bikes make it easier to work the crowds when it’s this congested.”

Everywhere, the festivities continued. We passed a booth with the largest wok I’d ever seen, clouds of ginger-scented steam filling the air. At the next corner, a Filipino dance troupe performed— bare-footed, bare-chested men playing shells and marimbas. We passed food trucks and booths selling jewelry and art. Everywhere, the rabbit ruled. Rabbits flew on brightly colored flags. They perched on tables and filled window displays. And stuffed rabbits endured the sweaty clutches of small children.

I knew where we needed to be, but the crowds and the street closures blocked our path. Reed Locke is a college student who’s worked in the Spice Shop since high school, long before I bought it. His dad’s acupuncture clinic is one of the few medical offices left in the Market, and Reed grew up prowling the Market’s nooks and crannies. He works afternoons at our warehouse and production facility and weekends in the shop, which means I don’t see him as much as I’d like. Business was slow this time of year, so I’d readily agreed when he asked for the afternoon off to cheer his sister on. The Locke family is one of the oldest and largest Chinese families in the city, and his grandfather had long been a mainstay in the Locke family association, though family, in that sense, meant a cultural connection rather than blood ties, defined by a shared name and region of origin in China.

But though I’m a Seattle native and make occasional deliveries in the neighborhood, the CID is a bit of a maze. Within minutes, we were standing at the entrance of a narrow alley, the four- and five-story buildings on either side plunging it deep into shade though the sun wouldn’t set for another hour. The CID and adjacent Pioneer Square were shaped by the Great Fire of 1889 and the regrades, a mind-boggling early-twentieth-century engineering campaign that sheared off tops of hills and filled in low spots. In some blocks, streets were lowered, creating a new ground floor, while in others, streets were elevated. The resulting labyrinth led to the city’s ever-popular Underground Tour, a mash-up of fact and fiction. There were plenty of hills left, enough to make you wonder why the white settlers who came here in the 1850s ever imagined it a livable place. Some alleys had functioned like streets well into the 1960s. Thanks to a recent reclamation project in the two neighborhoods, Nord, Maynard, and Canton Alleys bustled once again.

But this alley had none of their charms. Dark, the brick cobble grease-stained, garbage and recycling bins obstructing any traffic that might have dared enter.

“Let’s go back,” Seetha said, and started to turn. I was about to join her when a flash of light caught my eye. Low, almost at ground level—on, off, on, off. And a muffled sound, like a door clanging shut. I waited, but no more lights and no more sounds. A rat shot out from beneath a garbage bin. I stifled a shriek and quickly followed Seetha to the sidewalk, where the red lantern streetlights were coming on.

The crowded sidewalks and well-lit store fronts were a welcome relief. More red lanterns had been hung on wires crossing the street, bright and festive.

“Now I know where we are. That tea shop is one of my customers.” I pointed. We hadn’t gone far when a door at the top of a short flight of steps burst open and a woman emerged.

“Roxanne?” I’d never seen her look anything but perfectly polished, whether she wore a stylish pantsuit, a summer sun dress, or as now, jeans and a turtleneck. Running shoes. No coat. She was breathless, her eyes unfocused, her thick brown hair falling out of its twist.