The Solace of Bay Leaves

Such a contrast to the sleek glass and metal structures nearby. Minutes later, we reached my building.
“Musta been a great night,” our driver said as Nate held the door for me, “from the way you two are dressed. Get some rest.” Had we been in last night’s clothes for any other reason, I’d have laughed along with him.
Inside, we reclaimed Arf from my neighbor. “He’s been walked and fed,” Glenn said with a wink. “Don’t let him tell you otherwise.”
Arf is a courtly gentleman, an Airedale terrier about five years old. But when it comes to food and treats, he’ll lie with his big brown eyes. “Don’t worry. I’m on to his tricks. Thanks again.”
“I don’t suppose you can take the dog,” I said to Nate once we were in the loft. It’s classic industrial style, a mix of redbrick, old wood, and twelve-foot-high windows, and I adore it. “Today will be crazy, not to mention wet.”
“Wish I could, but I’ll be on the boat all day, working on the engine, if I’m going to go fishing next week.”
“Seems like you’re always working on something or other.” I hung Laurel’s coat on a hook by the door and sat to peel off my boots.
“Because something or other is always breaking. It’s like farming. You wanta grow wheat or apples, but you’ve got to be a mechanic, too.”
“And a philosopher.” I swatted him on his adorable backside and headed for the shower.
As the hot water warmed me, I thought about Laurel and Patrick. About the devastation untimely death leaves behind. I’d thought it was discovering a body on my doorstep thirteen months ago that set me to a life of crime, as my mother puts it. But maybe I’d started down that path earlier. Maybe it was the inevitable result of my childhood in a communal house that wore its motto, PRAY FOR PEACE AND WORK FOR JUSTICE, on the bumper sticker of the van used to pick up day-old doughnuts and bruised bananas and put them to good use in a free meal program. Of being hauled to this rally and that parade by parents who met during an antiwar protest, he a tall vet wearing his Army jacket, she the hippie chick he rescued from an oncoming truck.
Or maybe it was the example of Brother Cadfael, the crime-solving medieval monk in the books by Ellis Peters. A man whose very life blended work and prayer as easily as he blended tonics and teas for the community he served. He grew herbs, I sold spice. Though I was no monk, that was for sure.
I pulled on my shop uniform—stretchy black pants and a black T-shirt with our logo, a shaker spilling salt into the ocean. Nate took his turn in the shower, then I snapped Arf into his rain jacket, and the three of us descended to the parking garage and piled into my ancient Saab, Nate at the wheel.
“I know you love the Mustang,” Nate said, “but this is a better car for driving hills in the rain.” The dark blue 1967 Mustang was my father’s baby, handed over to me when my parents left for Costa Rica and now in dry dock for the winter.
He pulled up to the curb at First and Pike. I gave him a kiss, then another.
“Stay safe, you maniac boat mechanic.”
“And you, crazy spice queen.”
A moment later, my dog and I stood on the corner, he in his yellow slicker, me in my red coat and red-plaid rain boots, looking across First Avenue at the entrance to Pike Place Market. My happy place.
Wondering why on earth Special Agent Meg Greer was standing on the opposite corner, staring at me.

Four
More than fifty years ago, according to the Seattle Times, a thief fled from Pike Place Market into the Great Northern railway tunnel and was never seen again.
THE LIGHTS CHANGED AND FOOT TRAFFIC SURGED INTO THE all-way intersection. By the time Arf and I crossed, Greer had vanished. Had I imagined her? Had she slipped into the Atrium, the corner building anchored by the Italian grocer? Or disappeared down one of the Market’s many passages and back alleys?
It was nearly eight thirty and the bakeries and coffee counters were beacons of light in the gloom. Or more precisely, beacons of caffeine and sugar. Stores with doors, like mine, were still closed, but the cobbles on the main thoroughfare, the L-shaped Pike Place, glistened as trucks and vans made their deliveries. At the daystalls, men and women in rain gear unloaded buckets of flowers and crates of produce. The drizzle dampened the sounds of the Market, but not its energy.
But the coffee I’d downed at the houseboat had worn off, and as my caffeine levels plunged, so did my mood.
I started coming to the Market as a kid, tagging along on my mother’s weekly shopping trips. The sample cups of tea at the Spice Shop were as much a treat as the mini doughnuts we picked up from the Daily Dozen.
Even so, when I stumbled over my husband and a parking enforcement officer practically plugging each other’s meters in a downtown restaurant, just before scandal destroyed the law firm where I worked and took my HR job with it, all within months of my fortieth birthday, I never expected to find solace in bay leaves.
But crazy as it sounded at the time, buying Seattle Spice may have been the smartest thing I ever did.
Today, though . . . Despite the bustle in the streets and my determination to sound upbeat when Nate asked about the rain, I worried. Saturday is our busiest day, but locals might stay home if the drops turned to torrents. Tourists could shop or stroll through the city’s museums instead of getting drenched down here. Every food tour guide had a Plan B