Free Killing Thyme by Leslie Budewitz Page B

teardrop shape. Or maybe it was a raindrop. “Original paint.”
    The jeweler turned back to me, her voice low. “You are going to investigate, aren’t you?” The customer held an earring to her face and consulted a mirror hanging on the pillar between stalls. I glanced at her reflection and saw her watching me, as if wondering what kind of fascinating mess she’d wandered into.
    â€œNothing to investigate. Whatever happened, it has nothing to do with the Market.” A premature conclusion, but I didn’t want the customer to leave with her tongue wagging.
    â€œI’ll take them.” She handed over the earrings and opened her purse. “They’re too fun. The perfect souvenir.”
    Now that’s what we like to hear.

Seven

    There’s no more exotic plant out there. It’s a member of the orchid family. It’s a hard plant to grow; from start to finish, it takes eight years to get a finished product.
    â€”Spice expert and merchant Patty Erd, on why vanilla is anything but “plain”
    â€œTell us again why you think Bonnie Clay’s real name is Peggy Manning,” Detective Spencer said. We were standing on the sidewalk alongside the shop. On my way back from the artists’ stalls, I’d detoured to pick up Turkish delight for the staff and seen the familiar unmarked car.
    â€œMy mother told me. They knew each other decades ago.”
    Spencer and Tracy wore matching skeptical looks on their polar-opposite faces. Though we were practically standing on the spot where I’d found a man dead last September, seeing Bonnie-Peggy dead had been a shock. Heaven help me if I ever get comfortable being in close proximity to murder.
    â€œDid you figure out how she died? Or who or why?” I said.
    Tracy’s eyes strayed to the white paper bag in my hand. “Let’s go in and sit down.”
    The shop’s spicy-sweet aroma—notes of cinnamon andchile punctuated with crystalized ginger and a hint of that spilled Italian blend—enveloped me.
Home
.
    Spencer poured tea. I set the treats on a tray and slid into the nook across from them for the familiar process of giving a formal statement.
    Familiar, but still full of squirm potential.
    â€œWe’re not quite clear,” Spencer said, “how you knew her. Or why you went down there.”
    My vision fixed on a spot on the butcher-block work top, I massaged my forehead. “You never saw her eyes. They had an intensity I can’t explain.”
    â€œAnd what does that have to do with the price of tea in China?” Sarcasm was among Tracy’s more obvious talents.
    â€œI met her on Wednesday. As an adult, anyway. I knew her eyes right away, but not her face, or her name.” I explained my mother’s arrival and our visit to Bonnie’s table in the North Arcade, when my mother identified her old friend. I did not mention the phone call I’d overheard outside the Pink Door or my mother’s obvious discomfort. Or about hearing her and Bonnie shouting. They would interview her before long; she could explain herself better than I could.
    â€œBut you remembered her eyes,” Spencer prompted. “From her visits to your childhood home.”
    â€œI always notice eyes,” I said. “We took a course once, when I worked in HR, on making a good first impression. The trainer suggested noticing a person’s eye color as a way to be sure you make eye contact.” Though apparently my interest in eyes—windows to the soul and all that—had started much earlier.
    â€œAnd so you left your shop on a busy summer day and drove all the way down to Beacon Hill to check on this woman you barely knew. Why?” Tracy wasn’t quite playing bad cop; call it dubious cop. He reached for a piece of candy, then stopped himself.
    â€œSummer weekends in the Market are huge for the artists,and she was psyched about it. So when she didn’t show