SpiceLines

At exactly 7:23 Christmas morning, I murdered the dwarf. His misshapen body was splayed across St. Peter’s glittering mosaic floor, and when I put my knee into his chest and pressed down hard, his breastbone cracked--just like a chicken’s when you’re smashing it with the heel of your hand before rubbing it with garlic and black pepper paste and tossing it on the grill. But as the cartilage snapped, his red-rimmed eyes glared into mine with malevolent glee. He leered , pulling thick lips back from stained yellow teeth, and the nostrils of his broad nose flared. A drop of blood trickled down the side of this mouth. And then, quite horribly, he giggled.

Because, you see, he wasn’t dead. Oh, the priest was dead all right. His black-robed figure was sprawled across the steps in front of the altar, a limp white hand turned palm up to the heavens. Just as I sprinted up the aisle,the dwarf had slipped a thin knife between his ribs, as easily as if he were slicing Kobe beef. It was too late for the priest. Now the hideous creature under my knee would not die. His chest had caved in, but he was still snickering mirthlessly, mocking my frantic attempts to crush him.

So I put my hands around his thick neck and squeezed. His larynx cracked, his face turned red and still he laughed. I squeezed harder. His glare became more malevolent as his face began to swell and take on the purplish hue of the plums I had baked into a tart just the day before. Somewhere a disembodied choir began to sing. The last thought that went through my head was, “I’m killing my husband…”

Then I awoke. It was 7:23 AM. But it was not Christmas and I was not in Rome. There was no dwarf. I was alone…and that was the problem.

The pale oak floors felt cool and smooth beneath my bare feet as I crept downstairs. The house was silent. But as I passed the gilded pier mirror, my heart leapt. There was an unfamiliar woman, puffy-eyed, spikes of red hair sticking up wildly, one pearl earning dangling askew. Green silk pajamas wet, not with blood, but with sweat and maybe a few tears. There had been a fight all right, but my wounds were psychic. I had not a scratch, not a bruise. The murderous dwarf was nowhere in sight. Just the latest bourbon-induced figment since Marco had …what exactly? Vanished? Disappeared? Left with no forwarding address?

I walked into the kitchen. The early morning sun streamed through the windows. The walls and cabinets were dazzlingly white. They nearly vibrated in the light. I shivered. It was cold and I was chilled right to the bone. I couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that I had actually murdered someone. I could still feel the glare of those malevolent red eyes as I… The dwarf seemed so real, so…fleshy….

I clicked the heat on. A moment later there was a distant whoosh and warm air flooded into the room. My head ached. Suddenly I was craving tea. No, not just tea. A cup of chai, spicy, hot and sweet. I turned on the flame under the kettle. Then I went to the pantry and flipped on the overhead light.

The pantry is the one place that truly belongs to me. Every other room in this perfect house is cool and severe, but in this narrow space, with its floor to ceiling shelves built to my design, there is a rich disorder which makes me smile. To Marco it was it was a mess, but, in fact, each item has its place. That’s why, standing in the doorway, I knew instantly that something was askew.

I scanned the shelves. On the left, jars of rice: basmati, of course, but also arborio, bomba, jasmine and red rice from Bhutan. Boxes of pasta, some made in a monastery overlooking the Adriatic, including, I couldn’t help but notice, strozzapreti, those cunning little rolls with a twist at one end known as “strangle the priest”. Precious oils from Huilerie LeBlanc in Paris: walnut, pine nut, olive, almond. Vinegars: white balsamic, 60-year old-balsamic, red wine, Spanish sherry and homemade pineapple vinegar from Oaxaca. Jars of mustard, bottles of fish and soy sauces, cans of coconut milk and tomato paste.

In the center, Mexican plates hand-painted with fruit and birds, their glaze so full of lead that I dare not eat even a piece of toast off them. Red and black lacquer trays, a Victorian silver teapot, a pale bamboo ladle for a Japanese tea ceremony, cobalt tea glasses from Morocco, a neat row of boxes holding all 90 issues of Saveur.

To the right—well, that’s where the trouble was.

Editor's note: Claire's journal entries will be posted weekly, usually on Wednesday--if she lives up to her part of the bargain. The first entry, Claire's Dream, was posted on February 1, 2006.

To the right were the spices.

They are not what you might expect. Certainly not the dusty bottles of grey pepper and brownish thyme that sit forlornly on the shelves at your local supermarket, nor the musty mystery spices with yellowing labels that lie moldering in the back of your kitchen cabinet.

No, my spices are the stuff of dreams. They are alive with flavor. And they have powers that supermarket kings can’t even begin to imagine. Smokey pasilla chiles make Oaxacan mole sing. Whole nutmegs, so delicious grated on buttery potatoes, are narcotic when eaten to excess. Anise-like fennel seeds, chewed after a meal, sweeten the breath.

Open a jar and inhale. One breath will conjure up a spice trail that spans continents and centuries. Fragrant brown curls of bark cast invisible lines into the past, reeling in ancient Ceylonese kingdoms forested with wild cinnamon trees and Portuguese invaders who shipped 110,000 kilos a year back to Lisbon. Here are sealed pots of pungent black peppercorns, buried for a millennium under desert sands covering a long-vanished Egyptian port (only to be dug up by a team of Delaware archaeologists who lacked the curiosity or courage to crunch even one between their teeth). There is that one-armed reprobate, Pierre Poivre, smuggling slips of nutmeg and clove from the Moluccas to Ile de France—today’s Mauritius—sticking a French finger in the eye of the Dutch monopoly. Spices spin tales of blood and intrigue, brutish war and the greed that makes for odd bedfellows, and there is nothing nice about them except for their intoxicating taste and smell.

Sometimes I come into the pantry and start opening jars, sniffing what’s inside, getting weak-kneed with pleasure. There are 58 jars, stacked four deep on three shelves, so that’s a whole afternoon of guilty fun. The jars are different sizes, some small and squat, some tall and slope-shouldered. But they are all blue, all old and all have dull grey zinc tops. I spent two years collecting them, rummaging through every stinking, mildewed junk shop within a forty-mile radius. A very few are pale blue, hand blown with air bubbles trapped for eternity – or until they break. Others are frankly turquoise and have a seam running around the sides—that means they are newer and came out of mold. All of them give me enormous delight.

But I digress.

I began to pull out the jars I would need for chai. Black extra-bold (trade lingo for super-sized) peppercorns from India, Moroccan coriander seeds, fresh green cardamom pods, papery quills of true cinnamon from Sri Lanka. And Assam tea, black, from India…

And there it was, the little thing that had been biting at me ever since I stepped into the pantry. There was a hole, something out of place, not in any place at all. The engraved silver tea caddy with the faded mauve velvet lining was gone.

The tears that I’d been holding back for days burst forth. And then the phone on the wall rang, so loudly and unexpectedly that I dropped the jar in my hand. Shards of blue glass shattered across the pale floor and hundreds of round black peppercorns rolled underfoot. As I turned to the phone, my eye caught a small scroll of white paper amongst the debris. I bent to pick it up.

Editor's note: Claire's journal entries are posted weekly, usually on Wednesdays. Her previous entry, "Claire Finds Trouble in the Pantry," was posted on February 8, 2006.

“Here. Drink this. Now.”

I took the proffered glass and smiled.

I was in Lala’s kitchen, and even before I took a sip of her fiery Tequila Maria, the world was looking rosier.

Lala is my closest friend. For seven years we were inseparable, doing all the things that 8- to 13-year-old co-conspirators do when they are bent on taking the world by storm: sneaking Bacardi and Coke in the woods behind her grandmother’s swimming pool, hiding out in the school lavatory putting on frosted pink lipstick and black eyeliner, teasing the baby alligators in the Menger Hotel lobby. Then the world fell in, I moved away, and we didn’t see each other for 22 years.

I was in New York when I met Marco and came to this small southern college town. And who is the first person I meet at the first party I go to? Lala, of course. There she was, standing under the porch light, plumper, with crinkly laugh lines and shorter hair, but still with that tawny skin and the gold-flecked eyes she inherited from her Canary Island forbears. I’ve got red hair, violet eyes and a complexion that on a good day you could call creamy. We make quite a pair.

“OK, let’s think.” Lala sat down with a legal pad, a black Pilot Precise extra-fine-point roller pen, and a look of concentration. This is how she writes her new age “step” books. You know, Inside Out: 7 Steps to Self-Transformation or Hidden Treasure: 10 Steps to Finding the Buddha in Your Marriage. Naturally they are all best sellers.

“OK, let’s do,” I said. I took a sip of the Tequila Maria and leaned back in the creaky kitchen chair. The alcohol hit me like a velvet hammer. I was feeling warm and a little fuzzy. Lala’s kitchen is cluttered with books, paintings and pre-Columbian artifacts. Most of them are fakes, of course, but it’s a comfortable lair. I’ve always thought her house was more like an explorer’s than our own sleek glass-walled domicile.

“So he’s been gone how long?”

“Well, six days counting today.” I could see her writing a big “6".

“Did you have a fight?”

“We never fight. Sometimes I wish we did. No, I woke up on Tuesday and he just wasn’t there.”

I thought back to Monday night. We had made love for the first time in weeks and Marco's eyes had glittered strangely in the fire light. His hands had been urgent, even rough, as they moved across my breasts and between my legs. I shivered a little, remembering.

Lala was writing “WHY?” with a big question mark. “Hasn’t he been trying to get back to South America?”

“Well, yeah, but expedition money’s dried up.” I sat up. “Look, he missed my birthday. He’s never done that before. Last year when he was in Peru—“

She interrupted, “Are you sure he even knew it was your birthday? Sometimes he’s so, you know, absent-minded.” Lala casually twirled a strand of her hair. Now she was getting to the heart of the matter: Marco's neglectful behaviour. Still I felt like I had to defend him.

“You mean like when he’s getting ready to take off? He’s not really absent-minded. He’s just already out there in the jungle.”

I scooped up some guacamole. The kitchen smelled of fried tortillas and garlic. Lala is a great believer in the curative power of comfort food. As am I. For us, that’s Tex-Mex: guacamole, mashed with garlic, salt and lime, homemade tortilla chips and tomato salsa with a lot of onion, cilantro and Serrano peppers. If you’re doing the full cure, you also have to have chicken tacos, Mexican restaurant rice and frijoles refritos, but we were doing the short version.

I continued. “He’s thinking about his gear, how many days between villages, where there’s drinkable water, how he’s going to carry the specimen boxes. He’s already gone, mentally. This time, he was just…gone.”

There was a rustling across the room. I turned. Lala’s husband, Jack, had been sprawled half-asleep on the couch in the bay window. Now he was stirring. Jack is short, pear-shaped and his clothes are always rumpled. He looks like a cute aging teddy bear--until he smiles. Then you realize he has the razor grin of a hungry barracuda sneaking up on a school of plump little shrimp. Jack is the divorce lawyer you go to when you want to gut your spouse.

“Claire. What about money? Have you checked your bank accounts?” he asked impatiently.

“Um, no.”

“For Chrissake. What’s wrong with you? You’re not a fool. Did you look in the closets? Did he take his clothes? What about about his car—is it there or is it not?

“The Carrera’s gone. I can’t tell about the clothes.” My eyes began to sting.

“Stop it, Jack,” Lala said sharply.

“Look, there’s something else weird. My silver tea caddy is gone.

Lala pursed her lips. That means she’s thinking. “Is that even connected? Why would he take it?”

“Well I don’t know. After we got together, he spent a lot of time trying to figure out the writing on it, but he never got anywhere. Maybe someone else took it. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Hmmm. A missing tea box. A missing husband.” She arched one eyebrow and looked at me appraisingly. “The question is, which one do you want back?”

Editor's Note: SpiceTales is posted weekly, usually on Wednesday. The last installment, "SpiceTales: A Clue in the Peppercorns?" was posted on February 15, 2006.

“Which one do you want back?”

Only Lala would ask a question like that, I thought furiously as I accelerated through a stop sign. It was getting dark and I had drunk enough of her tequila to feel that the mundane issues like traffic signals were beneath me. Even so, my heart lurched when, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted an black and white police car, lights off but motor running, in a deserted parking lot.

“Calm,” I murmured, gently easing my foot off the pedal as I glided past him. It was dusk and the light was fading, but I could see his head swivel, eyes following the green Alfa, debating whether or not to pounce. If he turned on the siren, he’d have to climb out of his warm Crown Victoria into the frigid winter air. I willed myself into invisibility. He yawned and looked the other way. I drove on.

Which one do you want?

Invisibility is a neat trick if you can manage it. It’s about erasing yourself from the scene. All the great photojournalists know this instinctively. Capa or Eisenstadt could put a camera right in your face and snap the shutter, barely rippling the surface of your attention. And ninjas, of course--they’ve slit your throat before you’ve even noticed they’re in the room.

These days everyone wants the spotlight and there’s not much demand for invisibility. But it’s useful if you’re eluding a snappish, whippet-thin editor steaming towards you at a cocktail party when you’ve missed too many deadlines and have quite answering her e-mails. Clear your mind but stay alert. Move slowly. Fade into the background. It helps to wear black, especially in New York or Milan.

Which one?

The moon was rising through the trees as I turned onto Datura Way. The bare branches swayed in the wind, as if they were rattling the orb in a cage. I didn’t like going down there at night. There are no street lights, and the road curves sharply into the darkened woods. But I was buoyed by too much drink and a surge of determination. I’d been paralyzed for the last five days. Now I would act.

As soon as I pulled into Marco’s parking place and turned off the ignition, my resolve faded. It was the damn place. By day the Pallman Institute is exquisite, all soaring glass, weathered steel and rare woods, set in a clearing in the one of the few remaining patches of old growth forest. By night, though, it is unsettling. Softly illumined like a prismatic lantern, it becomes an eerie glass-walled display case and you're the specimen on view to anyone lurking in the darkness.

Which?

Don’t be ridiculous, I told myself. Out of the car. Up the steps two at time. Swipe the card fast. Glass door swings opens. I’m inside. Door closes behind me with a soft click. Now for the stairs. The pale treads are lit in a way that they seem to float in the air. I ascend--there is no other word for it--past the panoramic black and white photo mural of the snowcapped Andes. I'm on the second floor, surrounded by an expanse of glass. “Roof of the world,” Max had crowed, his big hand resting on my shoulder. Was it really four years ago?

I practically ran across the bridge—more of Max’s quasi-wilderness—to the office wing. Somewhere there was a low electrical hum, but I couldn’t identify it. I flew down the darkened hall--and stopped short.

The door of Marco’s office was ajar. A sliver of light extended across the floor like a slim gold wand. My heart began to thud as I pushed the door open and—I shrieked before I could stop myself. There was that blasted head leering at me. But that wasn’t all—

“Claire,” said a familiar silken voice. "Come in."

My eyes were riveted on the head. Its sightless eyes, flaring nostrils and blackened skin were horrible, but it was the grinning mouth, sewn shut with strands of coarse thread that dangled from the thin lips, that pulled the scream from my throat. I’d seen it a hundred times, of course, and every time I had to quell a surge of fear. I knew there was a vengeful spirit in there, dying to get out.

Its nickname was Ignacio and it was a gift from Aloycious Underwood, who was now smiling at me as he ever so casually spun around in the chair, even as the forefinger of his right hand moved to the mouse. The computer screen blinked and a triple-tiered Amazonian waterfall began to flow. A flute sounded a long warbling note. Bastard. What was he up to?

To say that Aloycious Underwood is an evil genius is like saying that Nero was a naughty boy. He was the most brilliant and ruthless of Richard Schultes’ students at Harvard, that intergalactic crew that included Andrew Weil and all the daredevil plant explorers. Max Pallman was one of them. He made a fortune in drugs—the medicinal kind—and started the institute as a plush home base for the ethnobotany gang when they weren’t off imbibing hallucinogenic potions and dancing with shamans in the Amazon.

Schultes started it all, of course. Starting in the 1940’s, he spent decades in Columbia researching the way indigenous tribes used medicinal plants. More than 120 plant species and two million acres of rain forest are named after him. But the thing I really liked about Schultes was that the only food he carried were cans of Boston baked beans and instant coffee. I imagined him feasting on beans and insect grubs with the local shaman, then washing it all down with some magic potion.

Well, Schultes is gone, Max is losing his mind, and guess who’s in charge? We had disliked each other from the moment we’d met. It took a while but I finally realized that I had intruded into sacred territory, a strange land inhabited by mentor and mentee, advisor and former student. It had its own coded language and unspoken rituals of shared experience. Girls were not invited, especially girls who write cookbooks and prefer hot showers and 600 thread count sheets to poisonous toads and cups of ayahuasca.

“Claire! Darling! Come in,” he purred. 'You look like you’ve seen the walking dead.”

That’s you, buster. I smiled sweetly. “You surprised me, Al. I didn’t think anyone was here.”

“Oh?” Al raised a skeptical eyebrow and his eyes lazily took me in. “You look…well, ravishing. If I didn’t know better I’d think you had an…assignation.” He smiled, but there was no warmth in his cold green eyes. Those little pauses are like twists of the knife in your back.

“Oh, right. An assignation--with Ignacio.” I tried to laugh, but as the tequila began to wear off, so did the bravado I’d felt earlier. I could see my reflection in the window behind him. I had dressed carefully before going to Lala’s, on the premise that a pretense of sartorial togetherness would cover my fractured psyche. But there was my red hair sticking up, pale skin shiny, white silk shirt—was it unbuttoned? I couldn’t tell—black leather jacket hanging open, jeans. I looked down at my Emma Hope pumps—was that a silk thread unraveling from the embroidered lily? Just great.

Al laughed too, but his gaze was cool and level. “Well if not meeting Ignacio, what are you doing here?”

The lie came smoothly out of my mouth. “Oh, Marco asked me to pick up some files. He’s trying to finish that report he’s been working on. ”

One eyebrow arched. ‘Is he indeed?” I was struck suddenly by how much Al looked like a cat. Blond hair slicked back, his face is oddly triangular, with wide cheekbones tapering to a narrow pointed chin. His eyes are large and heavy-lidded. Was it a trick of the light or were his pupils severely contracted, mere vertical slits behind his horn rimmed glasses?

“So, actually Al, what are you doing here?”

“Oh, nothing really. Just looking for that paper he gave at the conference last year. I can’t find my copy and I’m working on a lecture.” Very smooth, Al. The Institute had only printed a thousand copies of Marco’s study of the Jivaro and their death rituals. The likelihood of not being able to find a copy was slim.

We sat for a moment, each willing the other to leave. Then he yawned a fake yawn and stood up.

“Well, I’ll leave you to it, Claire.” He walked to the door and turned. “Oh, and have Marco call me tomorrow.” He smiled mockingly and slipped into the hall.

It was clear that he didn’t believe my little lie, but I didn’t care. That bastard knows something, I thought as I bent over the computer. I clicked on the waterfall and a list of documents appeared. I was searching for one file, the one he kept under the secret name. I moved the cursor down the list. It wasn’t there.

So what had happened to it? Marco must have moved it—or was it Al? Who else knew about the file?

At that moment my cell phone warbled. I looked at the screen. The number was familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

“Hello?” I realized I was practically shouting.

“Claire? This is Linda Marks. I’ve been trying to reach you all afternoon.”

Linda lives in the dilapidated white farmhouse down the road. She’s with the police.

“The thing is, there’s a car in the Ennis, outside Hillwood. We need to talk.”

Editor's Note: Claire has returned after an absence of nearly two months. Quite frankly, I had given up on her. But she has her reasons, not that she would condescend to share them with me. To pick up the thread of her story, see her last entry, SpiceTales: A Shrunken Head and an Old Enemy.

If I hadn’t seen a lurid glow through the skeletal trees, I would have sped past. I braked hard and the Alfa skidded on the slick pavement just as I started across the two lane bridge spanning the Ennis River.

I backed up slowly—believe me when I say this stretch of Highway 70 is deserted at 11 o’clock on a cold, wet winter night—until I found the gravel road on the left. I had been looking for a small, nearly invisible sign that read “Shady Green--Canoe Launch,” letters chiseled into a stick of wood nailed to a loblolly pine. A heavy chain was lying on the ground and I drove over it, tires crunching in the deep gravel.

The road ended in a small dirt parking lot. A hundred feet to my left was a towering electrical grid, a few lights winking against the dark sky. To my right a cluster of people were standing on a rocky bank that sloped steeply down to the river. A big portable spotlight was aimed at a low dam, really just a concrete barricade, with foamy water rushing swiftly through the sluice.

A fine cold mist was falling. My fingers tried to find the zipper on my black leather jacket, but I couldn’t make them work. As I walked toward the group, a figure came towards me. It was Linda. “Claire,” she said quietly and touched my arm. I noticed that she was wearing a blue parka with a lift ticket attached to the zipper and muddy rubber boots. Her nose was red with cold. “I’m fine.” I said. “It’s not him,” I said.

As we neared the river bank, the cluster of strangers parted, their faces curious. Wedged up against the dam, there was a car, nose down in the swirling water. It was almost entirely submerged. Only the tail was visible. Black. Rear tires crusted with mud. License plate JZY 1427. Time came to a shuddering stop. Everything telescoped. I saw it all from a great distance.

“Bring it up,” said a man’s voice. The tow truck rumbled, then emitted a screeching hydraulic whine. A heavy steel cable, hooked under the rear axle of the drowned car, began to retract. The car lurched, then swung loose and was dragged backwards slowly up onto the rocky bank. It was the Porsche. Muddy water was gushing out of the windows and doors. Irrationally I thought about the beautiful champagne leather seats, the pierced ball of amber, the maps, the black journal in which he jotted meticulous notes—a sodden ruin now.

I started forward. “Wait,” said Linda. We had all seen the same thing: a dark figure slumped against the window. A state trooper shone his flashlight inside, then tried the door. It was jammed and he had to pull hard. It jerked open and he stumbled back, then bent down. Something large and unwieldy had fallen out of the car. After a moment he stood up and came over to us.

“Mrs….Polo?” The trooper’s drawl was carefully neutral, but his red-rimmed eyes were sizing me up. I nodded. “The license plate of this car is registered to Marco Nicolo Polo. Is he your husband?” I nodded again. “Can you give me a description?”

“He’s--” my voice was cracking. The words tumbled out: ‘He’s 38--his hair is brown—dark--he has a small scar on his—“ I broke away and ran to the car on legs that were suddenly wobbling.

There was a body lying half out of the driver’s seat, face turned up to the night sky. My breath came out in a rush. The features were still recognizable. The heavy eyebrows, the prominent acquiline nose, the full lips, pale hair plastered across his forehead.

It was Max. I noticed, almost incidentally, that there was a gaping hole in his left temple.

I was suddenly ravenous.

It was 2:47 AM and tears were running down my cheeks. But I wasn’t sure if it was the guajillo chiles, sizzling in the hot oil, releasing fiery capsaicin molecules into the air that were making my eyes red and watery…

…or the disjointed images that kept swirling through my head. The dented wrecker pulling the drowned Porsche up the muddy bank, the dark shape slumped against the window, Max’s face white and swollen, a hole in his left temple.

“One hundred grams of guajillo chiles.” I could hear Maria’s firm voice: “Buy good quality chles at the market. Don’t let that thief sell you the dried up dirty ones,” she glared at me sternly. “They must be clean and supple. Fry them gently one at a time and don’t let them burn.”

You’re wondering, of course, what I was doing in the kitchen at this ungodly hour. after being grilled by the police for hours. My husband was missing, his car was found in the river with a dead body inside, and now he was suspected of murdering his old friend Max.

Well, I was upset. And when I’m upset, I eat. But before I eat, I cook. That calms me down. When Marco disappeared, I was working on a job for Gastronome. They’d paid a certain drunken, coke-snorting, addle-brained chef, who can’t get a job cooking but whose name still resonates with their readers, to ride the bus around Mexico on $60 a day and report on all the great cheap food and fabulous cooks he found along the way.

“One medium onion, sliced thin, five cloves of garlic, sliced thin, fried in the same oil as the chiles until golden….”

But the chef couldn’t write—from the looks of his disgustingly stained, scrawled notes, he couldn’t even hold a pen--so my ex-editor, Jeanette, forgiving my defection to the third world (gastronomically speaking), emailed: “Get me 2,000 words and six edible recipes by the end of the week and I’ll run your piece on prickly pears in October.” I didn’t reply. An hour later she texted me, “Plus $2,500.” I waited. The phone rang, “Plus a byline on this one. Come on, Claire. We’re going to press on Wednesday.”

So that would be that would be why I was making manchamanteles—also known as “tablecloth stainer”—at three in the morning.

“Soak the chiles in hot water until they soften and pull them to pieces. Put them in the blender with a stick of cinnamon…” I went to the pantry and pulled out the pale blue jar of Ceylon cinnamon. I opened the top and breathed in the sweet, warm fragrance…

Marco. In the week since he had disappeared, I had been angry and then scared; I had pushed him far to the back of my mind. But as I inhaled the scent of cinnamon, a slow heat began to spread through my body. The crook of his shoulder had the same warm, woody, faintly sweet smell and it sent my mind spinning back…

A cool April evening two years ago: I was floating down the grand marble staircase at the joint Gastronome-Explorers Society affair. Elephant steak was on the menu, and waiters were circulating with plates of chapulines fried grasshoppers from Oaxaca and tiny puff pastry squares topped with ragout of roasted Peruvian guinea pig…

Heads were turning. I was wearing my mother’s vintage Giorgio Sant’Angelo evening coat. It’s sixties’ rock star glam: handstitched orange and cream velvet patchwork, inset with bronze metallic stars, edged from neck to toe in purple ostrich feathers. In a sea of New York noir (“Black is the new black,” Vogue intoned that year) you could say that I was rather visible. Which made what happened next a near disaster.

“…and four blackened tomatoes…” I turned the heat up under the comal and began to sear the plum tomatoes.

I missed the bottom step. I was airborne, heading feet first towards the circular reflecting pool, when a hand grasped my arm and another caught me firmly around the waist and a deep voice murmured, ‘Steady on…’ in an accent I couldn’t place. And when I turned my head I was looking into a pair of brilliant blue eyes, cool and amused, but not unkind…

“Blend the chiles, cinnamon and charred tomatoes with some chicken stock.” The roar of the blender was almost deafening. I looked at the chunky mixture whirling in the jar. As it broke down and became smooth, it took on the color of coagulating blood.

Marco couldn’t have killed Max. Something horrible had happened in that desolate parking lot, but I knew that he couldn’t have murdered the old man. He was remote, undependable, driven, infuriating. But he wasn’t a killer. Was he?

“Now add two pears, two apples, two peaches, three cups of pineapple, cut in large dice...” I picked up the knife and began to chop the fruit.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flickering light outside.

My heart began to pound. I kept chopping, slowly, methodically.

The light flared again. It was rising up into the trees.

The knife slipped and I gashed my finger. Blood began to ooze into the fruit.

Who was there?

Very slowly and very carefully, I put down the knife. Without taking my eyes off the darkness beyond the house, I wrapped my bleeding finger in the soft blue and white striped Turkish cotton dishtowel lying on the couner. A red splotch spread through the fibers. The cut was deep.

The lights in the kitchen were blazing. I was exposed to anyone who was watching silently in the woods. The entire backside of this house is glass, soaring two stories into the air. In the morning, the sun filters through the trees, in summer creating a patchwork of green and gold. Even now, in winter, the bare branches gleam, backlit by the pale rays of the sun. As much as I hate this house, I have to admit it’s breathtaking.

But at night I had the uneasy feeling of being an insect trapped under a water glass.

I casually turned toward the Wolf range and flicked off the flame. The chile puree bubbled for a few seconds, then subsided. There was a rich peppery tang in the air. I was ravenous. Too bad I had bled into the pineapple.

I drifted into the front hall. All my senses were heightened. I could feel my finger throbbing, feel the cool polished floor and then the coarseness of the kilim beneath my bare feet, hear the tiny squeak of the floorboards as I darted to the stairs.

The light flickered again, now level with the second story. Someone had slithered up the steps in the giant oak and was in Marco’s study. Naturally It was a glass enclosed tree house perched at the end of a narrow cantilevered bridge that extended from the deck outside our bedroom, across the strip of velvety grass—a concession to my traditional urges--into the woods. It was a high flying sanctuary where my remote and mysterious husband, direct descendant of Marco Polo—yes, that one--had spent long hours intently studying the antiquarian manuscripts and maps that regularly arrived in the mail.

I’m not a fearful person. I’ve ridden with deranged Russian cab drivers, dodged bricks falling from the sky, stared down a pack of snarling King Charles spaniels—and that’s just on Fifth Avenue. But now I was really frightened. Marco might have come back to retrieve something. But why would he sneak through the woods? Wouldn’t he just use his key to open the door? I would have welcomed him back with open arms, no matter what he had done. No, it had to be someone else, someone I might not want to meet in the dark. One murder had occurred. I didn’t want to be the second.

I slipped up the shadowy stairs, turning once, then twice until I reached the landing on the second floor. I took a deep breath. It was cold. Had I left a window open? I paused, listening hard, but heard only the tiny creaks of the house as it breathed in and out.

I ran into darkened bedroom, flung open the walk-in closet—a concession to my ex-urban life---and found the thick, black, cable knit cashmere sweater I had left lying on the floor the night before—was it only 24 hours ago?—in my drunken stupor. I pulled it on over my thin silk blouse and instantly felt warmer. I stepped into my black Merrells, fleece-lined, with silent rubber soles. Now the playing field was level—I was invisible.

Silently I unlocked the sliding glass door that opened onto the upper deck and stepped outside. The shock of icy air set my nerves tingling. I could see the faintest light behind the wooden shutters in the tree house. The deck was wet and a fine mist was falling. I crept slowly out onto the bridge. It swayed slightly under my weight. I took a step forward and the metal cables groaned. I waited. I had to decide. I could run back to the house, lock the door, and call the police who had, coincidentally, issued an all points bulletin for my husband and would be more than delighted to apprehend him on his home turf.

Or I could see if he had come back. I took another step forward. The bridge was wet and slippery, just wide enough for one person, and I held tightly to the metal cables on either side. There was no moon, and I inched forward in total blackness. It was many minutes before I found myself, more by touch than sight, at the door of the tree house. There was a pale gleam of light where the shutters didn’t quite meet the doorframe. I put my eye to the gap.

Books and papers were strewn over the floor. OK, I told myself. It was now or never. Almost dizzy with fright, I grasped the metal handle of the door and opened it.

I saw—and blackness descended over me.

Pain. Sharp. Like an ax cleaving my skull. I lay silently, keeping my eyes closed. An icy draft raised goose bumps on my left side. Where was I? A walk-in freezer? A vision of a pale, long-haired Canadian lynx coat floated into my head. It was hanging in a closet somewhere far away. Light as a cloud, but so warm.

I was not only cold, but intensely uncomfortable. I was lying on my back. So why were my legs bent under me? Strange. Gingerly I straightened my top leg and lowered my hip to the floor. A sudden surge of nausea made me stop. I tried to breathe through it, but the pounding in my head was vicious, like a croquet mallet slamming a stake into the ground.

Something was wrong. I couldn’t feel my other leg. Fearfully, I slid my right hand down to where it should be. I touched fabric. Something smooth, with a little ridge, maybe a seam. All right. It was there but completely numb. I grasped my thigh and pulled it out from under me. As I did so, it began to tingle and burn. It must have buckled under the weight of my body--

Had I fallen? Another image surfaced. It was dark and bitterly cold. I had my eye to the glowing crack in the shutters. I could see papers all over the floor. In fact, I was lying on them now. Every time I moved they crackled. But why was I on the floor?

I had opened the door of the tree house and there was the scent of night blooming jasmine…and now I was lying on some papers and my head was splitting open. Odd. It was winter. Everything was dead or dormant. How had that exotic fragrance—

I forced my eyes open. All I could see was a diffuse light. I squeezed my eyes shut and blinked. It was morning, I guessed, since the light seemed to be coming through the shutters. I blinked again.

It looked as if there had been an earthquake. Books were jumbled on the shelves; some had fallen to the floor, others were lying open, face down, with broken spines. The floor was a morass of papers and clippings and hand-jotted notes. File boxes were tossed helter skelter. The old maps of the subcontinent had been ripped off the walls, their frames and glass shattered, backs sliced open…

It was then that I heard the floorboards creak ever so slightly. Someone was in the room with me. I froze, afraid to move even a centimeter. Whoever it was had been waiting, silently, watching me. I shivered and it had nothing to do with the cold. I held my breath.

There was a book lying on the floor by my hand. Carefully I stretched out my fingers to grasp it. I could slam it into…

The floor creaked again, closer to me. Through half-closed eyes I could see jeans and scuffed suede boots. Round toes. It had to be a man. I could hear him breathing, smell something clove-like…

“You’re back,” said a quiet voice. Male. Deep, with a familiar timbre. It almost sounded like Marco.

I opened my eyes.

It was Marco.

Except it wasn’t.

(Editor’s Note: Apologies to those who have wondered about Claire’s absence. She took another holiday—well, I call it a holiday, though naturally I am the last to know when or where she goes—and only resurfaced today. Neither threats nor cajolery make the slightest difference. She is really the most irritating person.

Well, enough of that: The last time we heard from her, Claire was lying on the floor of Marco’s aerie, having lost consciousness—we don’t know how--while spying on a mysterious treetop prowler on a cold winter night—the same night in which Marco’s mentor Max was found murdered in Marco’s Porsche, which the police removed from the river—oh, I can’t go on. You’ll just have to read the previous installments…)

I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. The face hovering over me was intimately familiar: cropped hair, the color of dark roasted espresso, café au lait skin, a devastatingly handsome face, down to the cleft in the chin and chiseled cheekbones. Full lips, with a slight curl that could be mistaken for a smirk. Brilliant blue eyes…

I tried to raise my head. “Easy. You’ve had a nasty fall. Don’t move if it hurts.” His voice was reassuring, warm, mellifluous. So why did I suddenly feel warning prickles running up my spine?

I forced myself to sit up even though my head was throbbing and touched the back of my skull. Well, no wonder it hurt. There was a lump the size of the proverbial goose egg. My hair was stiff, probably with dried blood. Another surge of nausea welled up in my throat and I broke out in a cold sweat. Great. Now I’m going to throw up in front of—

“Who are you?” I blurted out.

He laughed easily and sat back on his heels. “Smart girl. Not everyone can tell us apart. Marco said you would know right away.”

“Sorry,” I squinted at him. “I’m not following. You’re—who are you?”

“I’m Maffeo, Claire. Marco’s twin. “ He narrowed his eyes and looked at me intently.

“Oh, right...Maffeo. It’s my head...I guess I'm all mixed up.” I had been married to Marco for four years and never, ever was there a whisper, a hint, even a glimmer that he had a brother, much less an identical twin brother.

“He’s the older actually, by 28 minutes and 17 seconds…at least that’s what our mother always said.” Maffeo looked at me quizzically, crinkling the corners of his eyes just the way that Marco did. “He did tell you about me, didn’t he?”

My mind was racing. What should I do? Admit that I didn’t have a clue, or play along? I decided to be evasive. “I’m going to stand up now,” I said.

He grasped my hand and pulled me to my feet. His skin was soft and smooth. Marco’s palms were calloused, an explorer’s hands, and I had found that oddly appealing at times. I took a wobbly step and sat down in the worn leather library chair.

“So, Maffeo,” I began, peering at shambles of Marco’s study. “Did you do this?”

“God, no, Claire,” he said, surprised. “Marco called me and said he needed my help, so I came. I got here a couple of hours ago. I kept ringing the doorbell, but nobody answered. Then I came around back and saw the light, so I climbed up and found you unconscious and--what is this place?”

“It’s where Marco worked. Works,” I corrected myself. Why was I using past tense? “He said he needed help? When was that?”

“Last week. I’m still jet-lagged--probably last Monday. I was on a boat in the Moluccas with a bunch of Portuguese divers. Had to finish the tour, catch the Twin Otter back to Ternate, get to Jakarta, then Singapore, L.A. and here. I’ve been traveling for 52 hours.”

I looked at Maffeo more closely. His eyes were bloodshot and he was unshaven. He appeared tired. Maybe his story was true. Maybe he had come all the way from Indonesia to help Marco. As if he knew what I was thinking, he pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes, put one in his mouth and struck a match. A sweet, spicy fragrance filled the air, a scent I hadn’t smelled since our honeymoon in Bali.

“Incense!” I said to Marco, as we stepped into the sleek marble lobby of the Jakarta airport. I was so happy be in the land of white pepper and nutmeg that I could hardly control myself. “Kreteks,” he laughed. “Clove cigarettes. Everyone smokes them here. You can always tell—all the men have holes in their silk shirts. The cloves crackle and pop when they get hot and burn holes in their clothes.”

Monday. That was the day before Marco disappeared. I woke up on Tuesday and he was gone.

“What exactly did he say to you?” I asked.

“Hard to remember.” He rubbed his hand over his close-cropped hair, exactly the way Marco would do when he was thinking. It was strange, like looking at a mirror image of the man I’d been living with, yet knowing it was off kilter.

“ I was on the boat with these divers and one of them was having a rough go—first dive and all. My mobile rang, it was my brother and he said something about trouble. It was going to take two of us to handle it.” He took a drag on the kretek and looked around at the ripped books and smashed frames “I’d call this trouble."

“And you just got on a plane and came here?” I asked. “After not seeing him for—for how long?”

“Look, I don’t expect you to understand this, but we’re close. We don’t have to—“ He broke off angrily. I knew that quick flash of anger—I’d seen it a hundred times. “Look, I came to help. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on. Where is Marco?”

Suddenly I knew what was bothering me. Maffeo was Marco’s mirror image. There was a scar on his left cheek, not the right. But like Marco’s it was crescent-shaped. Marco told me he came by his scar years ago when an intoxicated curandero mistook him for a black dog, who, as everyone in Mexico knows, is the way the devil disguises himself when he’s up to his tricks.

So how did Matteo get the same scar on the opposite cheek?

I was soaking in the bathtub as the winter light filtered through the bare-limbed trees. Only a wall of glass separated me from the woods and the bridge that led to Marco’s treetop study. Ordinarily I adore lying in the white, spoon-shaped tub, gazing at the forest and the sky. But today I was disturbed.

It was so quiet I could hear the tiny bubbles foaming around my knees. I had lit a candle—La Candela Profumato al Melograno di Santa Maria Novella—and the air smelled like powder, incense and honey. It was a saintly fragrance that reminded me of the ancient church where we were married. The Oficina Pharmaceutica of Santa Maria Novella is nearly 800 years old, and Italian families have been lighting the thick, pomegranete-scented candles for centuries in hopes of good fortune, something I could use right now.

I was alone. Maffeo, my husband’s mirror image, the mysterious twin he had never bothered to mention in four years of marriage, the brother who was sitting in the chair opposite me when I opened my eyes this morning, was sleeping. At least, he had been breathing deeply and slowly, with a slight guttural snore, when I listened at the door of the guest room at the far end of the house. Even so, I had locked myself into the bathroom before stripping off my bloodied cashmere sweater and jeans.

I closed my eyes and sank deeper into the steamy water. With my fingertips I touched the back of my head. There was a lump where I had been bashed and my red hair was sticky with dried blood. But the headache was gone—thanks to a double dose of painkiller—and I could begin to think about what had happened.

Images surfaced, then disappeared. I let them come and go. The apoplectic dwarf, Lala handing me a spicy Tequila Maria, Al Underwood’s catlike eyes, the Porsche rising from the floodlit river, Max’s wet white face, Marco's books and maps tumbled across the floor of the tree house, the odd scent of jasmine, darkness…

My mind hit the rewind button. Marco’s books had been tossed around like trash and the maps ripped out of their frames. All of them, as if the intruder had gone on a rampage. Had he--or she--found what he was looking for? Or did he wreck the study in because “it” was not there? If I knew what "It" was, I might be able to figure out who had hit me over the head.

I splashed warm water on my face and tried to picture the bookshelves as they had been. On the top shelf were Marco’s journals, wrapped in brown paper, ordered chronologically, 29 of them covering the last 20 years: expeditions in South America, Central Asia, the Himalayas, plant research, the family project he was always working on. Everything that had filtered through his mind had been recorded meticulously in heavy black ink.

Then there were his research texts: scores of books, explorers’ memoirs, monographs, a well thumbed copy of the Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Plants, first editions of Shultes’ works. Like the journals they had been tossed helter skelter. Naturally Marco knew exactly where each book belonged, but how would I know if something had been taken?

I picked up the soap and absentmindedly turned it over in my hands. And there was the glass bookcase with the antique books, the ones about his namesake, the first Marco Polo, the Venetian trader, traveler, explorer, the author of The Description of the World, a book of marvels supposedly written while he was imprisoned in Genoa in 1298.

The original manuscript had vanished. Various copies, maybe 150 of them, are scattered around the world, in rare book rooms of museums, in locked bank vaults, in obscure private collections. No two are alike: the priests and scholars who copied the original embroidered the traveler's tale, adding a little here, subtracting a little there, until it was almost impossible to separate the fact from the fiction.

At least that’s what Marco said. Was he obsessed with his ancestor? Maybe. Packages would arrive every now and then from rare book dealers. He would disappear, then call me a few days later from Mongolia or Kandy or Cochin. At home he pored over those books, taking meticulous notes, coming to bed when dawn was breaking. They were old, some from the 18th and 19th centuries, beautifully bound in leather, with gold stamped titles, but they weren’t very valuable, he’d insisted, only to him and to his “research.” (Though I did see a bill for $9,500 tucked into one of them…)

The water was suddenly cold. I stood up and stepped out of the tub, wrapping myself in a white Turkish towel. I knew what I had to do: I had to go back across the bridge to the tree house, I had to sort through the mess, I had to figure out what was missing. Then I had to talk to Lala. I had to…. What I really had to do was sleep. The thought of all that activity was making me tired.

I stepped into the green silk pajamas I had worn the night before. I buttoned them up, and as I turned to the door, my arm brushed the pocket. There was something inside. My fingers touched a small, rolled up piece of paper. It was the paper that I had found on the floor after I’d broken the pepper jar. I must have slipped it into my pocket and forgotten it.

I unrolled the paper and read…

Claire,

I know you will find this because you love peppercorns more than anyone I know. But I don’t know when you will get to the bottom of the jar. So forgive me for choosing this curious way of communicating with you. A lot of bad things are happening. I want you to be safe--no one but you would look amongst the Special Extra Bold Indian Black…

I’m going to see Max tonight in hopes that he can sort things out. I don’t want to involve you, so the less you know the better. Let’s just say that there is something strange afoot at the Institute. Unless I resolve the—situation--I will have to leave for awhile. If you don’t hear from me within the week, meet me for coffee on the day you tumbled into my arms—you know the one—in the place you love the best.

In the meantime, be careful. Not everyone wishes you well, sadly, because you’re my wife. I could name names, but at this point, I’m not sure myself.

There’s a file on my computer at the Institute. I’ll try to remove it, but if I don’t, well, it’s up to you. You know the one, but I’ve changed the name. My old uncle passed there while enroute to his new post in China.

As I write this, you’re sleeping and the firelight is flickering across your shoulder blades. Your hair is the color of Balas rubies. I want to kiss you goodbye, but it’s better that you not wake.

I’ve never loved you more.

M.

Editor's Note: To see how Claire came to read Marco's message, go to her previous post, Claire Takes a Bath, and Finds a Forgotten Clue.

“Claire!”

I could hear Lala’s voice calling up the stairs. I shoved Marco’s note back into my pocket and pulled the green silk robe over my pajamas. I looked in the mirror and saw a stranger: ghostly skin, red-rimmed eyes, hair sticking up wetly. My hands were trembling.

“Claire? It’s Lala! Are you up there?

I ran my fingers through my hair and half stumbled down the hall to the spiral stairs. I could feel the smooth oak under my bare feet and cool bronze as my fingers skimmed the banister, but my legs were shaking violently. Marco. What had he done?

Lala was at the bottom of the stairs, peering up. My oldest friend had an odd look on her face—anxious and wary—and as she pushed back the fur lined hood of her parka, I could see shadows under her gold-flecked eyes.

She flung her arms around me. “My God, Claire. You look like hell. What are you doing in your pajamas? Where have you been? I’ve been calling and calling! It’s all over the news! What is going on?”

I inhaled Lala’s scent—a powdery trace of Je Reviens mingled with—was it toast? It was her own smell, warm and comforting. Something burst inside me.

“Oh Lala, it’s so horrible—“ I began. I could feel the tears coming to my eyes. Stop it, I told myself. You will not cry. I sat down on the bottom stair step and began to sniffle.

“You don’t mean—Marco didn’t—“ She stopped short.

“Kill Max? I don’t think so, but—Oh, Lala, they found his body in the Porsche and it was in the river and there was a bullet hole—and I don’t know where Marco is and—“ A big tear slid down my cheek. I licked it away with my tongue. It was salty. “And then I found this—“

I thrust the small tightly scrolled piece of paper at Lala. She perused it, frowning slightly as she got to the end.

She pursed her lips. I could see a dozen questions forming in her mind. “Where did you get this?” she asked sharply.

My voice quavered: “I broke a jar of pepper yesterday and it was there on the floor with the glass and the peppercorns. The phone rang and I just stuck in my pocket. I forgot about it and then I found it again a few minutes ago. He must have written it the night he disappeared.“

“There’s a lot of strange stuff here. It’s like he was writing in code. What is the day you tumbled into his arms and the place you love the best? And his old uncle? And what the heck are Balas rubies?”

I wiped my eyes. “Do you have a Kleenex?” Lala pulled a pale blue tissue out of her pocket. I blew my nose. “I’m hungry.” I stood up and padded down the hall to the kitchen.

Not everyone wishes you well… Could he have meant Lala, my oldest and dearest friend, the one who knows all my secrets? Maybe I was too quick to show her Marco’s note. Could I trust her? Could I not? Because if I couldn’t, there was no one. Miserably, I felt a hard cold knot of suspicion twisting inside me. I was becoming a paranoiac.

Lala followed me down the hall, taking off her parka. “Claire, stop doing that!” I turned. “Doing what?” She glared at me. “You know what. Avoiding the matter at hand. That is so typical. Whenever you don’t want to face something, you start cooking.”

It’s true. I always cook when I’m upset. Or when I’m trying to duck some unpleasantness, like a deadline, or the memory of a dead man, or the possibility that my husband is a murderer. I cook when I don’t know what to do next.

There is something reassuring about kitchen rituals. You can feel quite productive even when you are procrastinating up a storm. Dicing onions with a sharp blade, pulverizing garlic in a mortar and pestle, toasting long pepper and cumin seed, inhaling their warm fragrance, sizzling them together in oil, pouring in homemade chicken stock and waiting for it to come to a bubble—well, before you know it, you’ve made an Indonesian Cauliflower Soup. You can lose yourself in the cutting, pounding and toasting, and kill (bad choice of words) an hour—and then you get to sit down and eat something delicious.

“Claire,” Lala said firmly. “You have to let me help you.” I stood there, wavering.

Then, from behind us, came a voice. “Did I hear something about food?”