The Solace of Bay Leaves

sliced prosciutto, marinated asparagus, and fresh mozzarella, all from the Market. Found some crackers and perched on a bar stool to eat my Italian snack and sip my English tea. Perfect.
The unlatched door had me rethinking my assumptions about other things as well. What if the man outside the hospital was just a man sneaking a cigarette outside a hospital? The FBI hardly needed a man at the door—and hospitals have many doors—if the SPD had an officer outside a patient’s room. If they did—I didn’t know that, either. Even if he was the same man Laurel had seen downtown, so what? Despite my misgivings about coincidence, Seattle’s not so big that you can’t run into the same person in more than one place.
My blood had begun to warm and my blood sugar to rise, clearing my head. I clicked on my iPad. I knew Pat only through Laurel’s stories and the yearly updates the news media ran. For the next hour, I followed the trail Patrick Halloran had left behind. We all leave one, I suppose, but the trails a federal prosecutor and community activist leaves can wend, wind, criss, cross, jump off, meander, and dead-end. As Laurel had said, the investigation was multi-pronged, probing his cases, the neighbors, known burglars, and more. At one point, I grabbed the notebook where I jot ideas for the shop and recipes—the closest paper—and began scribbling. Names, arrows, question marks—the result looked like a map drawn by a blind woman.
In other words, it led me nowhere. Except to the conclusion that for a guy everyone seemed to love and admire, Patrick Halloran sure had a lot of potential enemies.
Time to shake off my murderous musings and get busy. The Flick Chicks were meeting Tuesday at Kristen’s. This week’s movie was Tampopo, a noodle Western, the menu a soup exchange. It’s a ritual I relish. Once or twice during the cooler seasons, each of us brings enough soup to share. After dinner, we divvy up the leftovers. For one stint in the kitchen, you end up with four varieties to freeze for a day when you’re in the mood to eat soup but not in the mood to make it. Only once have two of us brought the same dish—tomato, if I recall correctly, and you can almost never have too much tomato soup.
Tomato soup would hit the spot right now—a cup and a grilled cheese sandwich are my definition of comfort food. Instead, I’d planned a carrot soup redolent with toasted pecans and spices. It’s a Spice Shop fave, in part for the spices—duh—but also because it’s easy, quick, and doesn’t require much shopping. The only thing you might not have in your pantry—and why not; it’s so flexible— is a can of coconut milk. I’ve learned to keep a couple cans on hand and stash what I don’t use in the freezer.
First, though, music to chop, stir, and simmer by. I cued up a jazzy playlist, heavy on local musicians—Quincy Jones, Ernestine Anderson, Bill Frisell, and of course, Diane Schuur, since we’d missed her performance Friday night. Jazz has a long history in Seattle, dating back to the clubs on Jackson Street where Jelly Roll Morton played in 1919 and where Ray Charles hit the scene thirty years later.
I danced my way back to the kitchen, swaying to the warm notes and phrases of Frisell’s jazz guitar. Strange, though, not to have my canine companion underfoot.
I took a bag of focaccia dough out of the fridge and turned on the oven, then started the soup. If I’m making soup for one or two, I don’t bother with a recipe, but I’ve learned the hard way that when making a double batch, it pays to pay attention. I brought up a copy, then lined out the ingredients on the counter. The habit amuses my mother, Lena, who cooks by instinct, but I’d adopted it after grabbing the garlic instead of the ginger while baking cookies. The dangers of alphabetizing the spices—and yes, she laughs at that, too.
I melted butter in a large stock pot and threw in chopped onion and garlic. Scrubbed the carrots I’d nabbed from a farm stall, then sliced them with the food processor. Thought about Laurel and Patrick and Maddie.
Was there some connection other than the tenuous link of the proposed development? If Laurel knew, she’d have told me.
I tossed the pecans into a hot pan, eyes and sniffer on alert. Maybe—and here I swung back to the theory of Smoking Man as FBI agent—the cops were watching both Maddie and Laurel for exactly that reason. Hoping a connection they had never suspected would emerge.
What was the character on that old show, The X-Files? Cigarette Smoking Man, the mysterious government agent who sometimes helped Fox Mulder and sometimes frustrated him.
Great. An alien conspiracy. That’s all we needed.
I did wonder if the FBI was watching me, as a woman connected to both victims. Although I’d never met Pat—I only knew his wife. Widow. What about Kristen, who was helping Tim with the kids?
No need to worry. Kristen is far more sensible than I. If she saw anyone lurking around her home and family, she’d call the cops in a nanosecond.
I shook the pan. A fragrant aroma was beginning to perfume the air.
The cops and agents would do everything they could to trace the gun, but that was an iffy proposition. I slid the pecans onto the butcher block counter to cool and added the spices to the hot pan.
Tag had been right about one thing: I could trust Mike Tracy to do his job. What about Meg Greer, with her new perspective?
If a new perspective was needed, I’d give them mine. Tracy had as much as invited it.
Let them rehash the old investigations—they had the resources and the badges. I turned off the heat and poured the toasted spices