Twenty-Three

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

— Langston Hughes, “April Rain Song”

I SAT IN THE SAAB OUTSIDE MADDIE’S OFFICE. MY BACK WAS stiff from the wingback chair, which as I’d predicted, had not been as comfy as it looked. Jess hadn’t thought the police terribly interested in Maddie’s real estate dealings, but I suspected her fear and anxiety were skewing her perceptions. Surely they’d trained their radar on Jake Byrd.

He wouldn’t have been the first person to leap from losing out on a business deal to murder. He had to have spent a small fortune putting together a proposal, preparing the drawings, and all the other doodah, even if it was preliminary. A hundred thou? More? I had no idea how much his gamble might have cost him.

If this was Byrd’s first big project, as Jess thought, what had prompted it? A career change, a step up in the world, a move into the big time? Hopes dashed, money lost, pride wounded.

It would sting; of course it would. And I understood the urge for revenge, the urge to scream and yell and throw things. I had fallen prey to those urges myself, in days better forgotten.

But attempted murder? Why would it have made sense to take a shot at the woman who’d outmaneuvered him? Or to have killed Pat, with the same gun. If he had—that didn’t seem smart. Had a second shooter set him up?

In the law firm days, I had heard trial lawyers say that people get more riled up about disputes over real property than over personal injury claims. It defied logic, but they swore it’s true. Losing the safety and security of one’s home, a place you had saved for and gone into debt for, evoked more tears and sleepless nights than whiplash from a rear-ender.

But this hadn’t been Byrd’s home. And why would he have gone after Patrick Halloran? Yes, Pat had been active in the community group, but so had many others who were now alive and well. And Byrd likely would have acquired both the property and the necessary permits, had Maddie not intervened.

I picked up my phone and called Detective Tracy. Voice mail. I didn’t leave a message; what would I say?

My back was still talking. That’s what I got for skipping yoga. I put the car in gear and turned onto Nineteenth. A new deli had taken over the space on the opposite end of the block from Maddie’s office. Ages ago, as the Surrogate Hostess, it had been the heart of the community, serving strong coffee and warm cinnamon rolls. In the seventh and eighth grade, after my family moved out of Grace House, Kristen and I had often stopped in after school. I couldn’t picture Maddie in the group of girls at the long pine tables, but she must have been there. It was great to see the place buzzing.

I turned the corner and slowed in front of St. Joseph’s, a graceful white stucco church with a tower that pierced the pale gray sky. Very 1930s Art Deco. The anchor of the neighborhood in my childhood, though I wondered how many of my old friends and classmates could afford to live around here now.

Seeing our graduation photograph on Maddie’s shelves had shaken me. If I had a copy, it was slapped in an album now buried in a box in my basement storage unit. Clearly I had not remembered Maddie as central to our lives—Kristen’s and mine—the way she’d thought about us.

And that made me feel terrible.

BOXES filled the entry of the shabby two-story converted clapboard, a house turned law office. Paint cans and drop cloths were stacked in one corner.

“We found the perfect space. Modern, clean. Parking,” Amanda Wagner told me, a copy of the Washington Court Rules in her hand.

“Is Justin moving with you?” Justin Chapman, whose actions had helped destroy the law firm where Amanda and her husband had been young lawyers and where I’d learned the HR trade. He and I had met again this past August, after his wife’s murder. I hadn’t liked him any better then than I had years ago.

“No. He found an office share—not sure where. Figures, we give notice and the landlord decides to upgrade this place. New paint, carpet. Oh, well.” She stashed the book in an open box. “Sit, while I still have an extra chair.”

I told her about my long friendship with Maddie Petrosian and that I understood she’d worked on the deal for Maddie’s purchase of the corner grocery.

“Horrible news about the shooting,” Amanda said. “Sounds like she’s recovering, though. I can talk about the deal, but nothing privileged, you understand.”

I did.

“Mehmet—Mehmet Barut—was a crusty old guy, but I liked him,” she said. “He owned that grocery practically forever. Since 1970, I think. He ran the place himself until two or three years ago. When he hit eighty-five, his kids got after him to sell, but it was hard for him to let go. It gave him financial stability after he and his family immigrated.”

Mehmet Barut. M.B. Or, to the neighborhood kids, Emby. “From Turkey?”

Amanda nodded and went on. “He agreed to give Jake Byrd an option, but he was reluctant to actually sell. Then we got another offer. By then, Mehmet was quite ill and had moved down to Portland to live with his daughter. Byrd couldn’t match the second offer, so the kids convinced him to take the higher one. He agreed, but died before signing the contract. The kids—they’re in their fifties—debated whether to sign or not, so the probate took some time. Got it wrapped up a few weeks ago.”

“What was their concern?”

“By then, we’d discovered that Maddie Petrosian was behind the entity making the second offer. The daughter knew Mehmet had refused previous offers from the Petrosians, so she hesitated.” Amanda reached for a stainless steel water bottle. “Sure I can’t get you anything? We’re packing the coffee maker last so we can unpack it first.”

“Smart, but no, thanks.”

“Maddie’s father had pestered Mehmet to sell, and he didn’t like that. Called him a pushy Armenian, out to pull one over on a Turk. But the son lives in Seattle. He’d been to the community meetings, and he knew the neighborhood didn’t like Byrd’s plan.”

“That’s for sure,” I said.

“The son thought Maddie had the experience to do things right. The neighbors liked her plan and it met city requirements, with a façade consistent with the rest of the block and a grocery on street level.” Amanda took a long drink, then continued. “Nothing like packing to kick up dust. Seeing her plans tipped the scales. They knew Mehmet cared deeply about the neighborhood. He’d been part of it for decades. They trusted Maddie to follow through and not go all high-end condo, even if her grocery sells more fancy wine than Twinkies.”

Maddie did love fine wine, but I suspected she was not above selling Twinkies.

“And they figured he’d have enjoyed scoring a small fortune off the Petrosians, way more than Byrd could put on the table,” Amanda continued.

“Might ease their minds to know the Petrosians weren’t after the property because they wanted to outplay a Turk. I believe it once belonged to their family, decades before Barut bought it from someone else.” My guess was Barut knew the history, and let the old nationalist animosity get in the way of helping a family regain its legacy. Nothing else explained Maddie’s willingness to trick him.

“If it was so important, why’d they ever sell?”

“Dunno.” I stood. “Thanks a million. Good luck with the move.”

I pointed my creaky old Saab toward downtown. Maddie’s scheme hadn’t been so underhanded at all. Smart. Shrewd. She’d found a way to get what she wanted. Family trait, though in this instance, she’d succeeded where her father had not.

But Amanda had asked a good question. I intended to get the answer.

BACK in the Market, on foot, I slowed when I got to the Asian grocery, wondering if the woman in the photo with Joe Huang might be working. I had no good excuse to talk to her. But thinking about the shop and its possible connection to Huang, and his possible connection to Patrick Halloran, over the last few days had made me crave cold sesame noodles with a hot stir-fry. That’s just how my mind works.

But every plan—and a recipe is a plan—needs a few essential ingredients.

The old lady was not on front door duty, so my ankles were saved their ritual nipping. I found the egg noodles and chili-garlic paste, but wasn’t sure I had enough sesame oil on hand. I was staring at the shelf, pondering toasted or regular, organic or inorganic, cute bottle or ho-hum, when a woman spoke to me.

“May I help you? Sesame oil is very good.”

No mistaking her. She was the woman in the photo—small, dark-haired, maybe thirty. “Can’t make up my mind—too many options. For sesame noodles and a stir-fry.”

“This is my favorite.” She was several inches shorter than I, about five-two, and the top shelf was a stretch, but she reached for a shapely brown bottle with a white label, the name written vertically in Asian characters. “Plain is good. Toasted is better.”

Toasted would have more flavor, ideal for drizzling on top. Plain would tolerate the heat of cooking better, without picking up a scorched taste or setting off my smoke alarm. “I’ll take them both.”

“What else do you need?” she asked as I followed her to the counter. “Sesame seeds? Soy sauce? Tamari?” Though her grammar was correct, her inflection was off, suggesting she was born abroad and had learned English as an adult.

“Mama!” a small voice interjected. The woman and I turned to see a small girl, who bowed her head, then raised it and spoke. Her purple jacket hung open, the pink backpack dangling from one hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Hello, there,” I said. The child in the photo, the child I had seen in the back hall with the old lady. Then I heard shuffling feet and glanced toward the back of the shop in time to see the old lady peeling off a coat as she disappeared into the office. “Do you go to the Market preschool? Does your grandmother meet you after school?”

The girl nodded, turning shy.

“I run the spice shop down the street,” I told her.

“Oh, where Arf stays,” she said. “The dog who used to live with Sam.”

“That’s right,” I replied, surprised, though I shouldn’t have been. Sam had been a fixture in the Market, and Arf his faithful companion. The dog had more friends here than I did.

The woman rang up my purchases. I handed her a twenty and as she fished in the drawer for change, my eyes drifted to the photographs on the wall behind her. Family pictures, as in Maddie’s office. But the one that stood out was a group of two dozen men and women, all ages and ethnicities, united by their dress-up clothes and beaming smiles. In the middle stood a former lawyer from my old firm who’d been appointed a federal judge ten years ago, in her black robe. She was beaming, too.

The woman followed my gaze and pointed to her younger self, standing beside an older couple. I recognized the old lady right away. “The day we became citizens,” she said, and grinned. “The whole family.”

I grinned back, then glanced at the photo again. No Joe Huang. “Your husband, too?”

Her smile wavered, and she did not answer my question. “Lily is a citizen times two. She was born later, here.” She reached for my tote, but I dug inside for a collapsible bag to hold my shopping. By “times two,” I assumed she meant that Lily was a citizen both because she’d been born here and because her mother had been naturalized. Did that also imply that her father was not a citizen?

Is this what we’ve come to, I wondered, that immigrants feel obliged to explain their status to a virtual stranger?

“She’s a delight,” I told her mother. “Bring her down for spice tea and to pet the dog. You’re both welcome, anytime.”

Outside, I stopped at the produce stall, then found a nice flank steak at the butcher. Back in my shop, I greeted my dog and staff, and dealt with a few office matters before closing. The giant sunflowers I’d bought last weekend were looking bedraggled, and I tossed them in the compost bin, reminding myself to pick up a fresh bouquet in the morning. We wouldn’t have too many more chances.

Then I took my dog and my full shopping bag home. I sliced the beef and marinated it with soy sauce and chili-garlic paste, adding a good glug of sesame oil from each bottle. Made the noodles. Popped the cork on an Oregon pinot noir, and let the first sip roll down the back of my throat, fruity and earthy, the perfect taste for the season.

I turned on the pregame show, volume low, so I wouldn’t miss the first pitch. My grandfather Reece had nicknamed me for his favorite ballplayer, the fiery St. Louis Cardinal Pepper Martin. He’d given me the love of baseball, too, and though he’d been gone many years, I enjoy thinking of him when I watch a game.

Much the way soccer united Gabe and Pat Halloran, despite Pat’s death. I suspected the corner grocery had the same effect for Maddie’s father, David Petrosian, reminding him of the grandfather who’d stood so proudly with his produce and his delivery truck. Maddie’s determination to honor the family legacy made sense, when I thought of it that way.

I plopped on the couch, the dog at my feet, and texted Nate about the day. Home Saturday, he answered. Can’t wait! I replied.

I was still smiling at the phone when it rang. No name or number, but I had a feeling.

“You didn’t leave me a message,” Detective Tracy said.

“You’re a detective. I knew you’d figure out who called.”

“But the question is why.”

I told him what I’d learned at Maddie’s office, and my theory about her buying up the other properties in order to finance the purchase of the corner property. I could hear him making notes. So much for getting my dinner ready before the first pitch—the lineups were being announced.

“We copied the hard drive of their computer system,” he said. “Going over it bit by bit. You learned a lot more from that receptionist than we did.”

Take cookies. “She’s upset, but she wants to help. And you didn’t have the album. I presume you’re looking at Jake Byrd.”

Tracy grunted. “Again. He and the alibi I can’t prove or disprove, despite half the force crawling all over it.”

Which crime was he talking about? Didn’t matter, I supposed. Not my circus.

“Even so, I don’t know what Byrd would have to do with Patrick Halloran’s death,” I said. “Maddie had tried to buy the property, but lost out to Byrd, so no reason for Pat or Neighbors United to be worried about her. She didn’t start buying up the block until after Pat died. That’s the only link between them. That, and a love of soccer.”

“What?” Tracy said sharply. The home team was taking the field. I talked fast.

“Her husband, Tim Peterson, works for the Sounders. Gabe Halloran played soccer in high school and now plays for Notre Dame. Pat played as a kid and coached Gabe until high school.” But it was too faint a connection to mean a thing.

We hung up just as the pitcher went into his windup.

Strike one.

Broccoli beef cooks fast, and by the time we got to the second inning, scoreless, I had a plate of the fragrant combo paired with a healthy dose of deliciously seasoned noodles. Baseball, good food and wine, and a soft rain falling outside. My sweetie on his way home, my dog happy with a bone.

All should have been well with the world, but it was not. Maddie had a long road to recovery. A neighborhood was anxious. A killer was on the loose. And Laurel was bearing a burden I could hardly fathom.

No, all was not right. But I was going to do everything I could to change that.

Tomorrow.