Twenty-four

Columbus didn’t find all the spices—or gold—he originally claimed, but one spice he did find, the aji, or chile pepper, proved so popular, and so easily grown in so many parts of the world, that it has traveled even further than he did.

“A lightly smoked paprika,” I told the customer planning her first paella party, “recreates the traditional flavor of cooking over an open wood fire. Combine it with Hungarian paprika and a sweet Spanish variety, plus a hint of rosemary, to give the stock a rich, full flavor. And the saffron threads—”

The door opened, and in walked Officer Hot Wheels.

“I’m only here to collect the evidence,” Tag said, the glasses still on.

“It’s a full sheet of paper,” I said, acutely aware that my customer had gone silent. “Won’t it get crushed?”

“I know how to transport evidence, Pepper.” He glared at me. “It will be perfectly safe.”

“Let’s see if we can finish up that list.” Kristen swooped in to rescue my customer. “Oh, this will be divine,” I heard her say as I led Tag to my office. “And you’ve already got your fish . . .”

Hands gloved, Tag inspected the note, the letters thick, black, and ominous, and slid it and the envelope into separate plastic bags. “Who handled these?”

“Sandra touched the note. She and the customer touched the envelope.”

He shot me a dark look. “Not you?”

“No. When she realized what it was, she left them both on the desk and told me about it when I came in.” The bitter taste returned to my mouth, and I swallowed hard. “Tag, I am so tired of this. We finally managed to get to the point where we could talk without every conversation turning into a battle, and now—”

He snatched off the glasses, grabbed my shoulders, and kissed me. Hard.

And heaven help me, I kissed him back.

After a long, long moment, we unlocked lips. I tried to step away, but the door and Tag’s arms kept me within kissing distance. “Pepper, you don’t know how much I wish I could turn time back.”

I put my hands on his chest, his warm, broad chest. “It’s not going to happen, Tag. We need to move on.”

“Why? Why can’t we give it another try?”

Because maybe we never should have been together. Because I’d finally managed to erase the black mark I’d felt on my forehead ever since I’d stumbled over him and Miss Meter Maid in the darkened corner of a trendy hotspot on my way to the restroom.

Because I like my new life. I like who I am on my own.

Arf nosed my leg. “My dog needs to pee. Let me get his leash and we’ll walk out with you.”

Tag tucked the evidence into his bike bag, and we headed up Pine, stopping to let Arf do his business in an alley. A hint of sunshine made faint shadows of us on the sidewalk. My heart was thumping, and not from the uphill climb. I was a bit ashamed of myself for questioning him on the evidence transport; he’s a good cop and I know it.

“Tag, I know you don’t like me asking questions about cases, but—”

“I don’t want you in danger.” A slight tremble betrayed his emotion.

“—it’s about Tamarack, the restaurant Tamara Langston was working on. Where she was killed.” I went on as if he hadn’t spoken, gesturing as we walked. “The man who runs the Indian place next door, Ashwani Patel. Apparently, he’d planned to rent the space himself, and was pretty resentful.”

“How do you know this?”

“Danielle Bordeaux. Patel and his wife started the restaurant. When they split, she disappeared. Left town.”

“You’re the one in favor of moving on.”

I ignored the barb. “Last Saturday, I stopped in, and the moment I introduced myself, he got all hostile. Then a strange thing happened while he was talking to a customer.”

“Wait, go back.” Tag rolled the bike forward slowly. “Too many cooks. You’re saying that Tamara, the victim, was opening her new place with Danielle Bordeaux? The restaurant owner? Howard used to work for her. Did Patel work for her, too?”

“Alex worked for Danielle? I didn’t know that. He started the Café a good ten years ago. She mentioned knowing Patel but didn’t say they’d ever worked together.”

He tilted his head, one eye winking shut, a habit I found oddly sweet. “What if Tamara wasn’t the target? What if the killer was after Danielle?”

“There’s no mistaking one for the other. Danielle’s a good five or six inches taller, twenty years older. Both blondes, but that’s it. Tamara spent a lot of time at the site. Planning, envisioning. And scoping out the electrical problems. Danielle dropped in occasionally.” She could have been the target—but that still raised the question why.

“What electrical problems?”

I told him what I knew. “But the strangest thing happened when I stopped in Patel’s last weekend. This tiny, ancient Indian lady sits behind the takeout counter. Her sari’s the same shade as the walls. You’d hardly notice her. She told me there was a ghost hanging around, a bhut, and pointed next door.” I stopped, grabbing his arm and forcing him to face me. “A bhut, Tag. It’s the same word as in bhut capsicum, the ghost peppers that killed Tamara.”

“Oh, c’mon, Pepper. Vinny doesn’t have you believing all this ghost stuff now, does he?”

“Tag, you’re not listening. This isn’t about ghosts. She was trying to tell me something. About Tamara’s death. I think she wanted me to focus on the ghost peppers.”

“You’re not making sense.”

Maybe not, not yet. But I knew there was a connection. Patel told the customer he’d taken ghost chiles off the menu, and I had to admit, he could have been at Big Al’s to pick up anything, not necessarily to restock bhut C after using his supply to kill his next-door neighbor. And anyway, why would he have attacked Tamara?

Some connection I couldn’t quite grasp . . .

“You want to take Vinny and Hal to Tamarack and see what we can find?” Tag’s tease interrupted my musing.

I laughed. “Not a bad idea.”

Tag’s big hand encircled my upper arm. “Yes, it is. It’s a terrible idea. Anything that brings you in close contact with a suspected killer or takes you back to the murder scene, at midnight or in broad daylight, is a terrible idea.” He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, tightening his grip and stepping closer. My throat clamped shut, certain he was about to kiss me again.

Talk about a terrible idea.

*   *   *

MOVIE Night is the Best. Idea. Ever.

Most weeks, anyway. Usually, I adore gathering for girls-night-in to eat, chat, and watch a movie. Or just eat and chat.

But recent events had thrown me off-kilter, and what had seemed like a plan when I shopped the Market and plucked spices off the shelves now resembled one of those cook’s challenges on TV, where contestants are given three ingredients, a pantry, and half an hour to stun the judges. In a good way.

“Stress is simply unfocused energy.” Alex’s kitchen mantra appeared unbidden in my brain. “Focus on creating flavor.”

Gad. As if things weren’t crazy enough—I was channeling Alex Howard.

Well, no matter what else you might say about him, the man can seriously cook.

First up, a champagne Negroni. Tag’s mother believes no refrigerator is properly stocked without at least one bottle of champagne. You don’t need a trust fund or a second mortgage to follow that rule—there are some decent sparkling wines under fifteen dollars. I pulled one out of the meat cooler, uncrimped the wire cage, then put one hand on the cork and twisted the bottle.

Voilà! A satisfying pop. I poured the Campari, sweet vermouth, and champagne over rocks and added an orange twist. One sip and I felt like a master chef. Or bartender. I stuck the bottle in the ice bucket and set out glasses and ingredients for Negronis and Cosmopolitans.

How had Danielle described her ideal diner? Modern, urban, with a taste for international.

That’s me all over.

Inspired by my recent restaurant visits, the menu was all appetizers. Last night, I’d roasted almonds and cashews with garam masala and amchur—dried mango powder—for the Indian touch. I set bowls of fragrant nuts out in the living room. “Don’t touch,” I told Arf, curled on his bed with a chew toy. “Or you’ll be sad.”

He barely glanced up. That’s how much the males in my life listen to me.

Next, swaying to the strains of another new discovery, the Portland Cello Project, I chopped fresh chives and mint from my deck garden and blended them with goat cheese. Mixed crab cakes and a carrot and red cabbage slaw. For fun, I popped open a jar of the apricot-currant chutney Laurel and I had made last fall. The downstairs door bell sounded, and I pressed the button to buzz in my friends.

“So that’s how you stay in shape,” Seetha said. “You run up and down these stairs every day.”

“And hike up to the Market and walk the dog,” I said. Kristen slipped him a liver chew. She knows how to handle men.

Surveying the bounty on my counter almost made me drool. Laurel brought a bowl of Ripe’s Greek salad. Seetha unpacked a colorful fruit salad with a honey-lime poppy seed dressing.

“Dang, I love friends who can cook.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Kristen said, raising her Cosmopolitan in a toast. “And to Tamara. Murder sucks.”

My eyes stung, and not from the spicy food.

“What’s the movie tonight?” Laurel asked, sinking into my red leather chair, a champagne Negroni in one hand, nuts in the other, and my dog at her feet.

“I can’t decide between The Lunchbox and rewatching Chinatown.”

“Egad, you are in a mood,” she said.

“‘You’ve got a nasty reputation, Mr. Gittes. I like that in a man.’” Kristen’s imitation of John Huston as Noah Cross set me laughing so hard I started coughing.

“Might be a good night to stream Pride and Prejudice,” Seetha said. Jane Austen, our go-to when nothing else seems right.

My phone signaled a text. “’Scuse me.” I took my phone and drink to the kitchen, where I scrolled through Callie’s message. Holy cow.

“Speaking of nasty reputations,” I said, rejoining the group and scooping up a few spiced nuts. “What do any of you know about Ashwani Patel or Ashley Brown? His wife, or ex-wife. The more I poked around, the more curious I got, so I called Callie this afternoon. She finally finished her rush and had time to do some research. That text was from her. There’s no paper trail—well, electronic trail—of Ashley after she left him, two years ago.”

“What are you saying, Pepper? That something happened to her?” Seetha said from the couch.

That same vapory chill I’d felt so often in the last week washed through me now. “No reason to think that, but it’s like she just—vanished.”

“Better have some of this goat cheese before it vanishes.” Kristen smeared the herbed goat cheese on a garlic crostini.

“Callie find any family?” Laurel asked.

“The curse of a common name.” Not a problem for any of us.

“I met him once. A year ago, right after I moved here,” Seetha said, a hint of her Boston upbringing in her voice. “A neighbor invited us over. You know, they’re both Indian—fix them up. The blind date—the American version of the arranged marriage.”

“Don’t dis it,” Kristen said. “That’s how I met Eric.”

“And how I met Tag, so draw your own conclusions. Tell us more about him.”

Seetha shook her head, her shiny black hair brushing her shoulders. “Nothing to tell. I never saw him again. The subject of his ex-wife never came up.”

“Did he talk about expanding his restaurant?”

“Oh yes. He talked and talked.” She sipped her cocktail, remembering. “He said he had some money coming, and then he would expand. I got the impression there might be problems, but he was so full of himself—honestly, I didn’t care enough to ask questions.”

That creased my brow. It fit what Danielle had said—that she and Tamara had come between Patel and his plans. I itched to claw through the documents Callie had sent.

“Seetha, what do know about bhuts? Indian ghosts.”

I heard the ice hit the table and the glass crack as it struck the floor before I saw what had happened.

“Oh cra—” Seetha unfolded herself and stood, the cranberry red of her drink sliding down her jersey tunic and dark pants. “Pepper, your couch. Your rug. I am so sorry.”

Ever the mom, Kristen dashed to the kitchen for a damp cloth. She dabbed at the red rivulets running down Seetha’s hands and ankles—cranberry-tinted gin, not blood—then I led her to the bathroom. Flicked on the light and we locked eyes in the mirror.

Neither of us said it, but she was white as a ghost. I found a dark-colored towel for her and left her alone.

In the living room, Kristen and Laurel had already sponged most of the spill from the caramel-colored couch and the rug. Not everything in my place is the product of a day-off treasure hunt. I’d spotted the kilim in the bargain pile at a local branch of an import chain when I swung by to check out their spice blends.

We slid the couch back and wiped the floorboards. Then we each made ourselves another drink and settled back to wait.

Seetha emerged a few minutes later. Laurel raised her glass in question, and she wrinkled her nose. “I think I’ve done enough damage for the night.”

“Don’t give it another thought. We’re more concerned about you.”

She sighed and sank back into the couch. “I told you about my grandmother, right? The one in India who faked a heart attack to lure my mother back home?”

Laurel filled in. “She expected your mom to stay in Delhi and raise you kids there, leaving your father and her career behind, but the ruse didn’t work. Then years later, when she did get sick, your mother almost didn’t believe her.”

Seetha nodded. “After my grandmother died, my mother started seeing bhuts in our house. In Cambridge, Massachusetts. Where my grandmother had never been, in a country she refused to visit.”

For a moment, the oxygen seemed to leave the room.

“I started seeing them, too.” The confession drew her back in time, and she stared at the unlit fireplace in the corner. “Ever since, they’ve come and gone. Nothing for months, a year or two, and then, there one is. What triggers them, or what they want from me, I don’t know.”

A less benevolent version of the medieval chants that play in my head?

“And now?” I said, not entirely sure I wanted to hear the answer. “When did this one appear? What does it look like?”

“Like they all look. They’re white and they float.” Her voice floated, too, as though it had lost its connection to her body and was drifting around the room, searching for a place to land. “Some of them carry a scent or a sound.”

I pictured the ghosts we made as kids, wadding up a white Kleenex to make the head, then draping another over it and tying a string around the neck. Drawing eyes and a mouth with black and red markers.

“It started Wednesday,” she said, looking me straight on. “Last Wednesday, and nearly every night since.”

The scent of hot oil grabbed my attention, and I jumped up, stifling a yelp. Laurel stood at the stove, frying crab cakes. I cradled my throat in the vee of one hand and breathed out and in, out and in.

We migrated to the kitchen and set out slaw, chutney, and salads, none of us wanting to venture far from Seetha’s side.

It couldn’t be coincidence that her bhut had first appeared the night a woman had died in a building next to an Indian restaurant. But Seetha had never met the woman, and she’d never been to the restaurant, although she had met the owner. I’d found the body, but was Seetha’s connection to me strong enough for the bhut to bother her?

Maybe so. Maybe they picked her because she believed and I didn’t.

Or at least, I didn’t used to.