The Solace of Bay Leaves

highway to a tunnel under downtown, the area was transforming again, from the city’s back alley to its front yard.
And it was the perfect home for me.
All I needed at the moment was a good book. A year ago, I’d found a box of historical mysteries my parents had stashed in my storage locker and gotten hooked. I’d read my way through the Brother Cadfael series by Ellis Peters, and a former law firm staffer now working at the Mystery Bookshop had fed my growing addiction with the Sister Fidelma and Dame Frevisse mysteries. I’d stumbled across the Crispin Guest Medieval Mysteries by Jeri Westerson on my own, and was nearing the end of the first, Veil of Lies, when I heard a clicking noise and sat bolt upright, heart racing.
And rolled my eyes at myself. The moody mystery, dicey lock, and gloomy weather had me spooked at the sound of my Nate unlocking the door.
I greeted the canine with a pat on the head and the human with a long, deep kiss.
“Mmm,” Nate said, and came back for seconds.
“What time is it?” I asked a little while later. “Dog walk?”
“No need. I think he sniffed every tree in Discovery Park, then he chased Aaron’s kids around their back yard. He peed before we came up.”
Over wine, I gave Nate the short version of our failed attempt to see Maddie. I told him about the man we’d seen at the door, the one who might or might not be FBI. I downplayed that speculation. My suspicions could easily have been my imagination. Fear and anxiety can mess with the mind.
Lordy, can they.
But I kept my mouth shut about my encounter with Officer Kimberly Clark. You have to be judicious, talking about past relationships. Besides, I’d had enough embarrassment for the day.
He filled me in on the visit with Aaron, a former crew member on the Seward brothers’ Alaska boat, whom I hadn’t met yet. “He’s liking life off the water,” Nate summed up, “and it’s liking him. Though I talked him into making the trip up to the San Juans with me this week.”
Was there a message in his tone? Nate was forty-four, a year older than I. Hardly an ancient mariner. He’d spent his adult life fishing. If he was thinking of giving it up, he hadn’t said, or hinted at what he might do instead. But life had changed for both of us since Arf and I took a stroll along Fisherman’s Terminal last June, and I had a hunch the changes were just beginning.
“Sounds like you had a great time. Clearly Arf approved.” I sank to the floor to rub my dog’s belly, and his happy sounds gave way to a soft snore. “I’m glad you’ll have an extra pair of hands on board.”
“Their house is a few blocks from my old place. Aaron said it’s back on the market.” Nate’s ex, a nurse, had kept the house for a while, until she remarried and moved. We hadn’t met, though I’d met her sister last summer when Nate called her for info that helped identify the weapon in a murder case. I could only imagine the mix of emotions I’d feel if Tag sold our former home.
“Do you want to own a house again?” Arf would love a yard. I stood.
“Maybe. Someday.” He wrapped his arms around me. “Every phase of life has its own places. Right now”—he gave the side of my neck a tickling kiss and I suppressed an involuntary giggle— “this is the place.”
“Can’t beat this view,” I said, and gazed out the windows at the lights along the waterfront. I’d never have been able to afford this view had it been here when I bought the loft.
He nudged me toward the bedroom. “I had a slightly different view in mind.”
I definitely approved.

Ten
In northern India, a floating wholesale market operates every morning on Dal Lake in Srinigar, where men paddling low wooden boats buy and sell produce for small shops, restaurants, and hotels.
MONDAY DAWNED, DRV FOR THE MOMENT. NATE HEADED out on a parts run, so the boat would be ready for his trip in search of the wily coho. I was glad Aaron had agreed to join him. No job is perfectly safe, a lesson I’d learned as a police officer’s wife. But commercial fishing involves dangers that would reduce most of us land-lubbers to puddles of salty tears.
I tried not to dwell on that as Arf and I climbed the Market steps. No gym membership needed when you live and work downtown. The rain and Maddie’s shooting had combined to create a mental murk that called for strong medicine, so I bypassed my usual morning stop and headed for Three Girls Bakery, whose sign proclaims it a “luncheonette.” The oldest continuously operating business in the Market, it was also the first business in the city licensed to a woman, back in 1912. No fancy cappuccino or decaf caramel macchiato here—drip coffee reigns. The mere scent of the stuff fired up my appetite, so I ordered a breakfast sandwich and perched on a stool at the back counter to sip my cuppa joe while I waited.
“Speak of the devil,” Misty, the head baker, called. Her long braid swayed as she reached into a glass jar for a house-baked dog treat. I broke the treat in two and gave Arf half. “We were just talking about you. Over the weekend, a customer asked about you—did we know you, where did you work?”
My eyes narrowed and my spine tensed. Special Agent Greer, or her mysterious partner? “Male or female?”
“Lemme check.” She returned with a woman who handed me my breakfast in a white paper bag. I repeated my questions.
“Well, yes,” she said. “I don’t mean to be a smart-ass, but I couldn’t tell, which is