Seventeen

Spring rolls are traditionally served at New Year’s, the start of spring in the lunar calendar, and often stacked to look like bars of gold.

I WOKE UP THINKING ABOUT BRUCE LEE AND THE ATTACK ON Roxanne. Who wanted her to stop—and stop what? As threats go, “Leave the past alone” was annoyingly nonspecific.

It had to be connected to the woman who’d warned us off outside the hotel. Who was she? I’d been her target that day. And now? Would the man who’d gone after Roxanne come after me?

My parents were keeping Arf for the day. One more benefit of having them close by. I decided to check out the doggy daycare on my way to work.

I walked up Union, pausing at the entrance to the old INS building. Any clues to the mystery of the letter writer’s wife were long remodeled away.

The doghouse—not its real name—was easy to find. The paw prints painted on the pavers led me, like any good dog would, right to the front door.

Where Yolande, the Market’s leasing manager, crouched beside a black-and-white French bulldog sporting a red collar.

“Be a good boy, Corker.” She kissed the top of his head. “Mama will be back before you know it.”

“What a cutie,” I said. “I didn’t know you had a dog.”

“Oh, hi, Pepper.” We both watched as the staffer took Corker’s leash and led him inside, the dog trotting happily toward a day with his puppy pals. “I used to bring him to the office, but I’m out and about so much, it wasn’t fair to him.”

Exactly what I’d begun to think. “You’re happy with the place, then?”

We walked up the alley, Yolande giving me the scoop. “Best part is, I can drop in whenever I’m close, except during naptime. Theirs, not mine. I’ve been training a new employee while getting the new commercial tenants on board, and what I wouldn’t give for a nap some days. This afternoon, I’m giving a tour to a group interested in combining residential and retail space, as we’ve done in the Market. It’s a challenge, especially when you’re talking about a historic building.”

“What about one that isn’t listed on the historic register, but has an interesting past?”

“Depends. If it’s in a designated historic district, any major change has to go through the city. A redevelopment proposal can spark an outcry. Property rights versus preservation of a building with significance to the community. Passions can run high.”

That, I knew. Emotions had flared in Montlake last fall, when residents thought a proposal out of sync with the neighborhood. And a plan a year or two back to demolish a historic theater a stone’s throw from the Market had galvanized preservationists, music lovers, and downtown advocates alike.

“I got a tour of an old hotel in the CID the other day. It was like time travel, back to 1930.”

“Oh, you must mean the Gold Rush,” Yolande said. We’d passed the Gum Wall, too early for the throng of visitors who came to stick their chewed-up wads of Double Bubble to the pointillist display. Now we stopped outside her office. “The building is solid, though nothing special. Good potential for affordable or subsidized housing. Market-rate units, not so much.”

“Why? Not enough room for amenities like a pool or parking?” Or a rooftop garden.

“That, and the size and location. No views. I used to consult on this stuff, before I came to the Market, so I know a lot of people, and there’s talk that a group of investors made an offer but got rebuffed. No, I don’t know who and I wouldn’t tell you if I did.” Another staffer arrived for work and held the door for her. “Think about the doggy daycare. You could take Arf in for a few hours and try it out. I bet he’d love it.”

I climbed the hidden steps up to Pike Place. Yolande had cut me off before I could ask more questions. She knew me well.

The Wus had several options. Renovate. Redevelop, a euphemism for scraping and replacing the existing buildings. Or sell.

I’d been assuming they’d decide as a family, but Abigail owned the building. Would she take Bobby’s and Oliver’s views into account? What if they didn’t agree?

Keith Chang worried that any major change would mean the end of his family’s business. Did the other tenants share those fears? How did the pharmacy and the dead man play into it all?

Little mysteries everywhere.

VANESSA had the day off—she’d told me she was going to spend the day with her feet up, her nose in a book, and a cup of spice tea close by—but the staff regulars were all on hand.

“What do you think?” Cayenne asked, as I took a bite of a biscuity baby quiche she’d made in a muffin tin, using smoked cheddar, ham, and chopped broccoli. And a healthy sprinkling of a mixed pepper and spice blend we’d created last fall.

“I think I want another. You’ve got a future customer favorite here.”

I boxed up a pair of baby quiches and after we opened, carried them across the cobbles to Sandy Lynn.

“I admit,” the cheese monger said, one bite in, “I’ve never seen the point of a crustless quiche. But this is terrific. It’s like the crust is crumbled up inside.”

“Any recipes we create using your products and ours will be credited to both shops.” I made air quotes. “‘Brought to you by Say Cheese! and Seattle Spice, in the Market.’ We’ll post them online and print up copies, and you can do the same. If we use a specific spice or blend, we can provide jars for you to sell. We don’t have a cooler, so we’ll send people to you for the cheese.”

“That’s perfect,” she said. “Pepper, you asked me why I wanted to open my shop in the Market. This is why.”

I said my goodbyes and stepped back into the fray of the Main Arcade. A gaggle of shoppers surged past me to the stairs leading to Down Under, a warm and cozy refuge on a drizzly day. I watched them descend and reach the wide hall, thinking about the surprising ties that seemed to bind everyone in the city to the Market.

And marching briskly down the hall, toward the far exit, Bobby Wu. Was it him? It had to be him. That black leather jacket. The hair and the walk.

I couldn’t catch him. Didn’t think I wanted to. What would I say? “Your family owns an amazing old hotel. A priceless pharmacy. There was a dead man in your basement. Don’t you care?”

Not likely to get the most heart-warming response, was I?

So I switched gears and trotted down the steps in search of information. A Market fixture since its founding in the early 1960s, the comic book shop claims to be the oldest in the country. But no musty stacks of faded comics rummaged from attics or moldy storage sheds here. It was a riot of clean, well-organized color, its wire spinners and wooden shelves portals to worlds beyond this one, accessible through old-style comics and modern graphic novels. Dave Hudson and his staff were your travel guides.

Midmorning on a drizzly weekday in January, I was the only customer. Weekends, the place would be packed. I stopped to admire a rotating display case of early Wonder Woman memorabilia. Behind the counter, a staffer was sorting a cardboard box of comics while another unpacked a shipment of Baby Yoda dolls.

Not my enchilada, intriguing as it all was. I did remember dropping in a few times when my mother and Carl and I made our weekly trips to the Market. Carl went through a comic book phase, as many kids do, before settling his interests elsewhere. At Christmas, he and Mom brought Charlie down here in search of the latest volume in the Wings of Fire series of graphic novels. They’d found it, and a couple of classics Carl bought for himself.

“And they say there are no coincidences,” Dave boomed as he emerged from the backroom. “First you and I were talking about Bobby Wu, then he shows up. Not five minutes later, you walk in.”

I fessed up. “I spotted Bobby speed-walking toward the steps and figured he might have been here. Any chance you can say why?”

The law may not recognize a customer-shopkeeper privilege, but some shopkeepers do. Fortunately, Dave was not so persnickety.

“He’s looking to sell a few things. I’ve got no need for any of it, but I promised to call a couple of my collectors. Guys with bucks.”

“Can I ask, what are we talking about? What kind of money?”

Dave straightened a stack of jigsaw puzzles and picked up a card deck that wasn’t where it belonged. “Depends on condition. Bobby says mint. And he does know his stuff. Problem is, everything he wants to sell is a partial. One series might bring a couple thousand, another four or five. He’s missing a couple of the early volumes, though he thinks he can find them. If he does, twenty-five grand, easy. Forty, to the right buyer.”

“Yikes. No wonder so many guys curse their mothers for tossing their collections.”

“If it weren’t for those mothers, nothing in here would be worth very much.”

A customer entered, aiming for Dave, and I stepped back to give them space. Retail is the biz, after all. I glanced up at the high ceiling, dripping with all manner of space craft, and almost backed into a box of lightsabers. The customer now safely directed to the young adult section, Dave returned to me.

“Like I said, Bobby’s got some good stuff, but that’s not enough to build a successful business.” He opened his arms and gestured. “Let’s just say, I have every advantage and I’ve made the most of it.”

“That you have. Location, location, location. Your theory, Dave, on the appeal of the comic book? Or the graphic novel?”

“On a physical level, they’re fun, especially for those who are more visual or have trouble reading. They help kids visualize. They come every month, so they give you something to look forward to. And the superhero—well, ordinary people can be superheroes. You can see yourself in them, even if you don’t see yourself in the world around you.”

“Sounds pretty powerful, put that way.”

“You’re going to ask if Bobby told me why he’s selling.” The big man folded his arms across his chest. “He did not. And I did not ask.”

Oops. Guilty. I gave him an apologetic smile. Must be important, though, if Bobby was going beyond his own clientele and approaching other dealers.

We talked about the traffic task force. Dave had been taking the temperature of his neighbors, as I had of mine, in the short time since the meeting.

“Lost in the talk about car counts and delivery hours is what set off that whole clusterfrack last Sunday,” he said. “The problem you stumbled into.”

“Shoplifting.” I could still picture that smashed pineapple, so grateful it hadn’t been a human head or foot. Market security did a good job, but they couldn’t be everywhere.

Dave pointed a beefy finger to a model of the starship Enterprise, hanging above the cash register. “Got me some sophisticated spyware. And some very sharp-eyed clerks. But even Darth Vadar”—he nodded to the life-size statue guarding the front door—“can’t stop ’em all.”

“Truth. We get our share. Hey, thanks for the intel.”

“Any time. Tell that ex of yours, he ever wants to sell his Stars Wars figures I can get him a pretty penny.”

“Ha,” I replied. “Pretty sure it’s in his will, he wants to be buried with them.”

I’D BEEN BACK in the shop less than a minute when Roxanne called.

“They’re gone,” she said.

I waited.

She blew out a breath so noisy it almost knocked the cell phone out of my hand. “I went to police headquarters, gave my statement, and answered the detectives’ questions. Told them everything. Gave them copies of the letters and Dr. Locke’s notes, and told them what he told you. I’m afraid the police will pay him a visit.”

“I’ll give Ron a heads-up.”

“Then we went down to the Gold Rush. I’ve never ridden in a police car before. It’s not as exciting as I thought it would be.”

I could have told her that.

“I took them upstairs,” she continued. “Opened the side drawer on the waterfall dressing table, where I found the box. It was gone.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely certain. They talked about a warrant, but me saying the letters are missing isn’t evidence of a crime. And there’s no reason to connect them to the murder. I don’t know what they’re going to do.”

“Without the letters,” I said, “we may never know what happened to Fong’s wife or the doctor. Or who was staying in that room and why she had the letters. If she did.”

“As a historian, I always want the originals, and I hope they surface. But I have the next best thing. I scanned them all with my phone, not just the ones I sent Reed.”

“You’re brilliant.”

“That’s what Detective Spencer said. Detective Tracy grunted.” Figures. “Any signs of a break-in? Forced entry? Anything else missing?”

“None. The detectives went over all that. They made me look at all the cabinets, on the landing and downstairs. All the artwork, the old musical instruments hanging on the walls. Even the furniture. But the first thing I do on any project is take pictures, so we compared what’s there now to my first day on the job. Not a ginger jar or an erhu out of place.”

Whoever took the box hadn’t known Roxanne photographed everything. Or didn’t realize she’d found the box.

“They asked me again who had keys to the hotel,” she continued. “I know they’re intelligent people, but I find I have to repeat myself a lot with them.”

“They’re paid to be suspicious,” I said. But of who? Beyond the Wu family. Roxanne herself?

I found myself repeating Nate’s words from last weekend.

Careful, Pepper. Careful.