The Solace of Bay Leaves

gave any details or mentioned a prior developer or competing plans.
“She’s got to have a website,” I said out loud. These days, every retail shop and service provider needs a website. Even doctors and lawyers. They’re the first thing we check when we want to do business with someone and if we don’t find one, we’re a tad suspicious.
Petrosian Properties, LLC’s website was attractive but basic. The homepage showed the building where she kept her office, a well kept redbrick on Nineteenth Avenue East, with the phone numbers and email addresses for the reception desk and property manager. A second page listed currently available spaces and invited interested persons to contact the property manager. Only a handful of offices and one retail space were listed, no apartments, and nothing in the buildings on Twenty-Fourth. There was no mention of the corner grocery project, not even a “Watch this page for future announcements!”
Google also linked me to the secretary of state’s business entity site, where I was assured that all the company’s papers were filed and its fees paid. I crossed my arms, thinking. The Spice Shop’s website is crucial to our business, allowing customers across the U.S. and Canada to place orders any time of day. It’s got tons of pictures and detailed descriptions of every spice and blend we carry, recipes, and the scoop on our boxed sets and Spice of the Month club. Plus hours, location, and contact info, and a map.
But—and this was the distinction—my business depends on the public. Hers didn’t. The efficient, no-nonsense site told me that Maddie felt comfortable with her business as it was. She wasn’t boasting about growth potential or investment opportunities, trying to make the company sound bigger and better. So why expand now? Why commit so much time and money to the new acquisitions and the corner grocery?
Maddie didn’t do anything without a good reason. What was it?
Though Byrd isn’t a common name, Google couldn’t help me without more information. I paired it with Montlake, construction, and development. Nothing. Byrd’s Nest produced only a couple of mentions in a real estate blog, but the links to further information were dead.
I backtracked to the business entity registry where I’d found Petrosian Properties, LLC. No Byrd’s Nest, with a Y. I tried the regular spelling.
“What?” I said, so loudly that Arf stopped chewing and raised his head. Bird’s Nest, LLC, with an I, had been registered a few months ago. The official representative was Jessica Somers, a name I had never heard, with an address in a Seattle suburb. It was a cute name; no wonder someone else had chosen it.
Next target: Neighbors United. Whoever was responsible for updating the website was behind on the task—the last event listed was a potluck at the community center three months ago. Barry Harmon, husband of the dog lover I’d met today, was board chair; I didn’t recognize any other names.
Back to flipping through screens. I looked at each of the available commercial rentals on Maddie’s website and half a dozen articles referencing the company. A pattern emerged. Maddie focused on projects much like the current one, rescuing buildings with a past and an uncertain future. Some projects involved a single building; others an entire block of two- and three-story structures, with storefronts on street level and offices above. They were scattered across the city.
Frank Thomas and the stylist had underscored the challenges in keeping buildings like these rented and maintained. But I knew, from my connection to the block in Beacon Hill where my new painter friend, Jamie Ackerman, and my former employee, Tory Finch, now lived, that it could be done. The right mix of tenants, the right attention to the needs of the neighborhood, and the right owner could make these classics profitable.
Figures Maddie would have the right touch.
My eyes blurred and I yawned. Put the iPad to sleep and climbed in bed, reaching for my novel. A chapter or two following the first woman solicitor in India as she trod behind walls where men could not go, asking questions no one else could ask, would be just the ticket to a good night’s sleep.
And maybe Perveen Mistry, Esquire, would give me a few ideas for my own investigation.
“I DON’T know anything about Maddie’s business,” Kristen said as we sat in the nook Tuesday morning sipping double mochas, her treat. “When we get together, we talk kid stuff. Books. Houses, since we both just survived top-to-bottom remodels. Or we gossip about girlfriends.”
The heat rose up my throat. She saw it.
“Yes, including you. She brags about your shop to everyone, you know. She thinks what you’ve done is terrific.”
Ha. More likely she was astonished that the classmate who dropped out of college after barely getting a passing grade in basic accounting had bought a business and hadn’t gone broke within a week. Although to be fair, she was always complimentary when she came in.
“Any news?” I said, pushing my less charitable thoughts to the back of my brain.
“No. I’m meeting Tim at the ICU this afternoon.” Most days, Kristen left at three. “She’s graduated to visitors from outside the family, if he puts them on the list.”
“Fingers crossed. If I’m right, Maddie bought that entire block in Montlake to keep it out of the hands of this Byrd guy. As if she didn’t trust him to handle the project properly.”
“Wouldn’t the permit process address that? I mean, the city’s got tight restrictions on what you can do and how long it takes. At least for residential properties, but commercial rehab can’t be any easier.”
“It could be. Money talks.” I drained the cup. “No, what I’m wondering is why she decided to focus on older buildings like these. Almost every project of hers that I found is one of these neighborhood blocks that conventional wisdom says aren’t good business.”
“Since when