Death in Four Courses: A Key West Food Critic Mystery (27 page)

I continued to jabber—all the thoughts I’d had in the back of my mind over the weekend tumbling out in their full embarrassing glory. “And that’s probably part of why I feel so much pressure about my job at
Key Zest
—besides the fact that Ava Faulkner is dying to fire me. I started feeling like this would be a huge opportunity to make something of myself. It seemed absolutely critical to come out of this weekend with a big story.”

The more I talked, the calmer I felt. But my nose had begun to run and beads of sweat were popping out on my forehead: I was baking in the rising heat. And it wasn’t only me. Cory stripped off her blazer and rolled up her shirtsleeves. “My God, it’s getting hotter and hotter.”

I rolled my neck in circles, listening to the cartilage click. The third time around, I stopped to gaze at the ceiling of our cage. “What are the chances we could push one of those panels out and climb into the shaft?” I asked. “I don’t think we dropped too far from the kitchen level.”

“Not good,” said Cory. “But we can try.” She narrowed her eyes and looked me over, head to toe. “I suspect I’ve got a few pounds on you, so I’ll be the ballast.”

First we tried Cory on hands and knees as a step stool—but I was too short to reach the ceiling and too worried about cracking one of her vertebrae to put my entire weight on her. Then she crouched down and encouraged me to stand on her shoulders. After several tries, we collapsed on the floor in a panting heap.

“What if I hold my hands like so”—she demonstrated clasping them—“and boost you up onto the handrail? Maybe then you can reach.”

With her help, I balanced on the railing and managed to pop out one of the mirrored ceiling panels. She hoisted me up another six inches and I grabbed a metal bar in the shaft. Wishing I’d spent more time—any time really—at the gym, I duck-walked up the wall and dragged myself into the dim space.

“What do you see?” Cory called.

“It’s pretty dark. Some cables and a sort of winch. The town house kitchen’s only a couple of feet up, but the outside elevator door’s shut.”

“You’ll have to force it,” she said. “But hurry up and get out of there. If this thing starts up again, you could get crushed.”

“Thanks for that good news,” I muttered, and shuffled across the beam toward the sliver of light marking the exit, imploring myself to keep my mind only on what I was doing. I inched my fingers into the crack and pressed until the doors snapped open. Then I
shimmied up and scrambled out onto the maple parquet floor, butt first.

Olivia Nethercut was waiting by the opening to the shaft, a bottle of red wine cocked in her fist.

“Oh my God, you scared me to death,” I yelped, clutching my pounding chest.

She kicked at my knees. “One step forward and you and your mother are dead,” she said.

Cory’s voice floated up from the shaft. “What’s going on? Get me out of here, please.”

Olivia waggled the wine bottle like a baseball bat and kicked me in the side this time. “Get back in the shaft,” she hissed. “Or your mother is a goner. And that nosy real estate agent too.”

I curled into a hangdog ball, pretending I’d given up, but trying to figure out how to take her on. What was the point of pushing me back into the shaft? She probably hoped to crush me as Cory had warned could happen.

I took a deep breath and then sprang up and lurched forward. “You’ve done enough damage this weekend,” I shrieked as I barreled into her legs and knocked her down. I pinned her to the floor with a menacing growl. “Now what the hell did you do with my mother?”

Olivia began to thrash about like a trapped animal. I was losing control. I threw myself away from her, scrabbling to my feet and grabbing the bottle of pinot. “Where is my mother?” I said through gritted teeth, waggling the wine. “Ten seconds or I knock you cold.”

She got to her feet and took off running, tearing out of
the kitchen and down the hall, and then down a back stairwell I hadn’t noticed on Cory’s tour. I tore after her, clattering down the stairs. When she reached the bottom, she burst out into the empty garage, grabbed a metal shovel hanging on the wall, and came toward me, swinging. The shovel glanced off my shoulder and I winced and dropped the wine. The bottle shattered on the cement. With one final surge of adrenaline, I barreled into her midsection, wrestled the shovel away from her, and slammed it into her temple. She crumpled.

I punched 911 into my phone and bolted from the garage to get enough service bars so the call could go through.

Two police cars raced up moments later, sirens blaring and lights swirling. I waved them over and Officer Torrence tumbled out of the first vehicle with the female cop who’d interviewed me Thursday night, followed by two other officers I didn’t know. “Olivia Nethercut is lying in that garage. I knocked her out.”

“Get an ambulance,” Torrence instructed one of the cops, then drew his gun and started over to the gaping door.

“I hope I didn’t hurt her badly. It was me or her,” I called. “I’m almost certain she was involved in the murder of Yoshe King. And Cory Held is trapped in the elevator. And my mother”—I sniffled back some tears and looked helplessly after them—“is still missing.”

Then a third cruiser swerved into the parking lot and Detective Bransford and another cop leaped out. Just seeing his solid form, I felt weak with relief. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked.

The relief drained away. Speechless, I just shook my head and pointed to the condo.

“You stay put,” he told me firmly. As if I would rush in after them.

Fifteen minutes later, Olivia was loaded onto a stretcher and carried out to the ambulance, woozy and handcuffed but still spitting vitriol. One of the policemen came outside to wave me in.

I bounded through the garage, into the condominium, and up the stairs to the kitchen level of the apartment. Cory was just struggling out of the elevator compartment, red-faced and drenched with sweat, not at all her usual immaculate self.

“Thank goodness,” she said. “I thought I was going to melt.” She strode over to the fancy digital heat control panel on the kitchen wall and switched it off. “She had it pushed up as high as it would go. Maybe she was planning to leave us in the elevator and hope we died of hyperthermia.”

A muffled banging noise came from the direction of the pantry. Bransford and Torrence drew their guns again and approached cautiously.

“Is there a key to this door?” Bransford asked Cory.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have access to it.”

Torrence instructed the lady cop to retrieve a pry bar from their cruiser. She returned shortly and they winched the door open. Inside, my mother lay on her side, wide-eyed, trussed like an enormous turkey, her face red and sweaty, her mouth stuffed with a red potholder.

While the police untied her and the detective helped her
to a chair near the counter, I rushed to get her a glass of water.

“Thank God you found me,” she croaked as soon as the potholder was removed and she’d taken a sip. “I had the worst choking feeling—like I’d swallowed the Sahara. But then I calmed myself down by thinking about what I’d cook if I lived here. Isn’t this the most amazing apartment?”

“I had the same thoughts,” I told her, ignoring the puzzled looks of the cops. “I was imagining the parties we could throw on that deck overlooking the whole island.” I reached for her hands, rubbing the circulation back into her wrists.

Then she hugged me hard and took a long drink of water. “Oh, I’m so glad to see you! I heard you earlier, but I was afraid I’d make things worse with Olivia if I made noise. But then when I heard the men’s voices, I figured it was safe to kick the walls so you’d know I was here.”

“You’re one smart cookie,” I said. “I’m so sorry about the alimony—”

She put a finger to her lips, cutting me off. “Enough said. I asked him to stop paying me when you left for college—I should have told you. Anyway, I know you didn’t mean it—the weekend’s been a little bit stressful.” And then she grinned. “But kind of fun.”

I shook my head in amazement—my claustrophobic, helpless mother had come a long way. “Mom, this is Cory Held. She’s a real estate agent who works in the office below mine. She got us into this condo.”

Mom embraced her too. “Thank you, thank you. If my daughter decides to stay on in Key West
and find her own place, we’d love to have your help. I could spot the down payment,” she added. “Though you’ve got a sweet deal with Miss Gloria.”

“Never mind that, Mrs. Snow,” Bransford broke in. “Exactly what happened here?”

She fixed a stern look on him. “As you probably know, Hayley and I were trying to understand whether it could be true that that lovely Yoshe King killed herself. Not to mention why our dear friend Eric is in jail.” A horrified look slid over her face. “Before I go on, how about calling the Sheriff’s Department and telling those people to let him out?”

“We’ll take care of that, Mrs. Snow,” said Bransford. “Please go on.”

“You wouldn’t have any way of knowing this, but I took a lot of photos this weekend—I was so excited to be attending the conference with my daughter. While I was waiting to meet Hayley for lunch, I ran through the whole lot. Honestly, after Thursday night, no one looked like they were having much fun. But then I came across a shot of Yoshe and Olivia, who looked positively grim. And I remembered that Olivia told us she’d flown into Marathon rather than Key West. Why would she do that, unless she had use of a private plane? And she’s a writer: Where in the world would she get the money to hire a jet? I started thinking about her foundation and I got a funny feeling that maybe she was using public funds in an unethical way … so I asked my friend Sam to look into it.”

“A funny feeling,” said Bransford, glowering at me. “You two are very much alike, aren’t you?”

“Yes. Aren’t I lucky?” Mom reached over to stroke my hair, now grinning so hard, I couldn’t help smiling along with her.

“And then?” Bransford asked.

“Then I stopped in the conference bookstore. Olivia was there, holding court with her fans. When she left the building and hailed a cab, I followed all the way here on my scooter and hid it in the bushes. But she must have figured out I was onto her. A middle-aged woman wobbling down the road on a pink motorbike will tend to catch your attention.”

Mom looked sheepish as she explained how Olivia had ducked into the vestibule of the Steamplant Condominiums but left the door propped open. “When I came in, she leaped out from the shadows—scared me half to death—and pretended she had a gun. Of course, if I’d called you people as I properly should have”—she pressed her hands together and bowed at Bransford and then Torrence—“this never would have happened. On the other hand, would you have listened to more theories from me?”

Miss Gloria had borrowed a folding table from the Renharts for our impromptu dinner party and even sweet-talked Mr. Renhart into setting it up outside on her deck. A dozen tea lights flickered on the white lace tablecloth, disguising the few stains that had collected over the years of use and showing off her antique silver flatware, which she had buffed to gleaming for the occasion.

Eric, Bill, and Mrs. Altman had arrived fifteen minutes earlier and settled onto the deck chairs with glasses of white wine. Eric had been released from the
jail in time to go with Bill to the airport to pick up his mother. Mrs. Altman was doing her best to be cheerful, but she looked bleary and exhausted and wouldn’t let go of Eric’s hand. Every so often she reached up to stroke him from shoulder to elbow, as if he were an enormous housecat.

“Where do you keep the Ritz crackers?” my mother called from the galley.

“Be right back,” I told our guests.

Mom was kneading meat loaf in a red pottery bowl in Miss Gloria’s galley kitchen. I found a sleeve of crackers tucked away in one of the cabinets and put them on the counter.

She dumped them into my food processor and whirred them into crumbs. “There’s no point in trying to make this dish low-fat or otherwise too healthy,” she explained to Connie as she added the crumbs to the meat. “You serve it once in a while, it makes your man happy, end of story. So skip the ground turkey and the quinoa. You need ground beef, some pork if you want to be fancy, plus chopped onion, carrots, and green pepper, cracker crumbs, a few tablespoons of Lipton’s Onion Soup mix, half a jar of Bone Suckin’ barbecue sauce. And an egg to bind it all together.” She shaped the red mass into an oval, tucked it into an oblong glass pan, slathered more sauce on top, and shunted it into the oven. “If you girls could get started on the mashed potatoes, I’ll go freshen up.”

Connie looked up from the notes she was taking at the kitchen table.
From Janet Snow’s Kitchen
was written
across the top of the note card. “This is an old family recipe, right?” Connie asked.

“Hayley discovered this one,” my mother said. “I never did much care for my own mother’s meat loaf.” She winked and left the kitchen.

“Don’t you dare tell her,” I whispered. “It’s my stepmother’s recipe. One of the few edible things she can make.”

Connie crossed out
Janet
and penciled in
Stepmom’s meat loaf.
We burst into giggles and then began washing and peeling the sack of potatoes. When we were finished, I dropped them into a pot of simmering water and set the timer. We went back out to the porch to join the others. Connie’s fiancé, Ray, arrived and Miss Gloria introduced him to everyone. A popping noise echoed from the galley.

“A toast to the future bride and groom!” called my mother. She bustled out from the kitchen with a fizzing bottle of champagne and offered it around the table. She held up her glass. “May your life together be bursting with love, laughter, and good food!”

“Thanks so much,” said Connie shyly.

Mom fingered Ray’s ponytail and smiled at Connie. “With any luck, he’ll get a haircut before the wedding.” And then she took the seat across from Eric. “Now tell us what happened this weekend.”