Read [SS01] Assault and Pepper for Free Online

spot and Tag’s partner carved ruts in the road dust with the fat tires of his mountain bike. Now navy-blue-clad EMTs tumbled out of the red Medic One ambulance that had clambered down Pine and idled noisily beside my shop. I hoped the parking brake held. The crew, two men and a woman, fell into a routine, tasks so well defined that they barely needed to speak to communicate.
    “What are you doing here?” I finally thought to ask. “And where’s your partner?”
    Tag jerked a thumb over his shoulder, and I turned to see Olerud, off the bike, notebook in hand, surrounded by half a dozen Market folks. “You know we work First Watch.”
    I faced my ex squarely. “But why the police, for an old man’s heart attack?”
    Eyes hidden by mirrored sunglasses, he shrugged one shoulder. “Control the crowd. Preserve the scene. Do whatever these guys need.” He cocked his helmeted head toward the EMTs. One knelt by the body, repacking a box of equipment, while the others unloaded a gurney.
    I glanced at the group gathered around Olerud. Misty, the baker, talked with her hands, but I couldn’t read her lips or fingers. Yvonne looked gray and weary, as always. Talk was, she’d had a hard life. Health problems and a divorce from her mechanic husband, before I knew her. The orchard girls, Angie and Sylvie Martinez, wrapped their arms around each other and concentrated on the good-looking officer. The new manager of the cheese shop—his name escaped me—folded his arms across his chest, brows furrowed. Behind him, the nurse listened attentively.
    “What I don’t get,” I said, “is how he got my tea. We don’t open for”—I peered at my Bazooka pink Kate Spade watch, one of my last splurges before losing my comfy salary—“oh, pooh. I should have been inside half an hour ago. Where are my keys?” I slid my bag off my shoulder and rummaged inside. They must have gotten tossed back into the depths when I saw Doc. I glanced reflexively at his body, still stretched out on my sidewalk, the EMTs standing guard. What were they waiting for?
    “There they are.” My key ring—silver-plated with OFF WE GO ! engraved on the fob, a birthday gift from my law firm boss, made ironic when we all got fired a few weeks later—lay on the ground next to the body. I took a step forward. Tag’s arm shot out and blocked me. I looked up, stunned. Behind him, an unmarked car inched down the cobbled hill and stopped at an angle, blocking the road. A white woman about my age, in a stylish but practical black pantsuit, climbed out the driver’s side and picked her way down the slope. Detective Cheryl Spencer probably had a closet full of nearly identical black suits. Her partner, Detective Michael Tracy, got out on the passenger side.
    The light sweat I’d worked up on my jaunt up the Market steps froze on my skin. In my years of marriage to a Seattle police officer, I’d met hundreds of officers and detectives. This long-running duo had racked up a great record, despite their contrasts—the tall slender blonde and her black male partner, inches shorter and verging on stocky. They’d heard the jokes about their last names, and no, they didn’t think it was funny.
    Homicide cops are like that.
    Tag’s attention shifted to Pike Place, where the black CSI van had parked. A woman waved in acknowledgment, then helped her partner unload their gear. A white van marked KING COUN TY MEDICAL EXAMINER arrived. A man got out and suited up.
    “You think this is a crime scene.” I glared at Tag in anger and disbelief. “On my doorstep.”
    He glared right back in his “Don’t question my authority” mode.
    “This is my shop.” I pointed at the door, my voice rising. “I must have dropped my keys when I checked on him. I’m going in and you are not stopping me.”
    “Pepper,” Tag said. He’d dropped his arm, but not the controlling tone. “We can’t touch anything, even your keys. We have to treat it as a crime scene until we know what