Death in Four Courses: A Key West Food Critic Mystery (9 page)

“I wonder who else at the party might have used the restroom about then?” Mom asked. “Of course Hayley wouldn’t have known if anyone was in the men’s room. Have you thought of that?” she asked the detective, then added quickly, “Of course you’ve probably thought of everything.” She smiled and touched the back of his hand. “None of the ladies that I was talking with while I waited for Hayley left the table. We were too busy drinking and gabbing and taking pictures of everything. I bet I got mug shots of everyone at that party!” She turned to look at me, serious again. “But didn’t Bill say something about Eric going over to get one of the fancy drinks they were making near that end of the property? Maybe he saw something that would be helpful.”

“I wasn’t there, remember? But I’m sure he would have mentioned it,” I said. “I thought he had a migraine anyway—would he have been drinking alcohol with a headache?” The waiter reappeared and added the croquettes and two more dishes to the array on our table.

“Rock ’n’ roll,” said the waiter. “How’s everyone doing?”

“Fine,” said Nate gruffly. The waiter backed away.

“We had lunch with two of the conference panelists,” my mother told Nate. “One of them happened to be Sigrid Gustafson. Hayley asked them all about Jonah Barrows—what people thought of him and how
the conference might have been different if he was alive.”

“He didn’t suffer fools,” I said. “And you’re bound to get some when you put people onstage and encourage them to hawk their work in front of a big audience.”

“Hayley thinks maybe one of the writers had a secret—something they were afraid Jonah might have revealed.”

Nathan frowned and took a sip of beer.

“I’m sure he’s thought of that,” I said. “Mind if I try your potatoes?”

He pushed the plate closer to me. “Go ahead.”

I sawed off half of a fried potato patty, dropped a dollop of sour cream and green onions on top, and bit into it. Creamy, crunchy, with the right jolt of heat.

“But I’d prefer that you leave the interviews to my department,” he added.

I finished swallowing the bite of potato and laid the empty fork on my plate. “I’m assigned to the conference as a writer.
Key Zest
is paying me to be there and they paid my registration fee, which was hefty. I’ve been told to write a piece on the life and work of Jonah Barrows. Which would be difficult to do without talking to the people who knew him.” I didn’t add that I’d be fired if I didn’t produce something brilliant, because I was afraid I’d cry.

“He didn’t mean it like that, honey,” said Mom. “Did you, Nathan?”

Bransford and I glared slitted dagger eyes at each other—as close to fighting as we could have gotten in a
nice restaurant when we didn’t know each other well to begin with. And didn’t want to draw attention to ourselves and had my mother poised to meddle. This was the first night that suited both of our calendars and it looked like Jonah Barrows’s corpse—and my mother, still very much alive—would spoil the whole thing.

After we’d plowed through most of the dishes, the waiter stopped by again and cleared some of the plates onto a tray. “How about dessert, folks? We have some utterly amazing choices!”

“No, thank you,” said Bransford.

“Of course,” I said at the same time.

The spacey waiter’s hand froze above his pad.

“Suppose we order something for the table?” my mother suggested, her head buried in the menu. “How about the chocolate crepes and the bread pudding?” She flashed a dazzling smile, closed the menu, and handed it back.

As the waiter left, Nate’s phone buzzed. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at it, frowning again. “I hate to do this, but I have to get to the station. I’ll call you a cab. Say half an hour from now? I don’t like to have you walking home this time of night in this neighborhood.”

“We’ll be fine,” I said firmly. “We need the exercise after all this dinner—and finishing your part of the dessert too.”

Nate got to his feet, grumbling and pulling his wallet from his back pocket. He threw three fifty-dollar bills and a twenty on the table. “I think that will cover it. You’ll let me know if it doesn’t?”

I couldn’t let him pay; Wally would have heart failure. But Nate would never accept the money later—it could only get more awkward.

“Thanks, but I’ll put it on my credit card,” I said, beaming foolishly and pushing the money back in his direction. “I have an expense account that I’m required to use to keep the reviews on the up-and-up.”

“I thought I asked you to dinner,” he said.

“You did and thanks so much anyway, but the magazine really needs to keep the boundaries clean. If it appears in any way that the reviews were skewed, we lose all our credibility. And quite possibly our advertisers as well.” I squinted and shrugged. “I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear. You can get it next time? When I’m not on the clock?” I doubted there would be a next time, the way this evening had gone.

“Fine,” he said, shuffling the bills back into his wallet. He ducked his head in my mother’s direction. “Janet, it was a pleasure to meet you. I’ll call you,” he added to me. But not, I thought, like he meant it. I watched him leave, wondering how something that had seemed so full of promise could have ended up falling so flat.

Mom gripped my wrist, her eyes wide with excitement. “Hayley, isn’t that Olivia Nethercut who just came in? I know you were disappointed about your conversation getting cut off the other night. Here’s your chance to talk with her. I’m sure she hasn’t eaten here before. You could tell her what we enjoyed.”

“We enjoyed all of it,” I said, looking at the silverware and napkins and crumbs littering the table.
“Besides, she doesn’t want random people bothering her while she eats. And dessert will be here any minute.”

“Well, I’m going over, then,” said Mom as she pushed her chair away from the table. “It’s only polite to say hello. And it’s not like she’s some kind of rock star or top-level politician who needs to guard her privacy.”

What choice did I have but to follow?

“Ms. Nethercut,” Mom gushed when she reached her table. “I’m Janet Snow and this is my daughter, Hayley.” She pulled me forward. “We’re both attending the food writing seminar and we just loved your panel discussion today.”

“Thank you. I’m delighted to be part of the conference,” said Olivia. Her polite smile, I thought, did not invite further conversation. And she did not introduce us to the woman sharing her table, who was busy thumbing through messages on her smartphone.

“I arrived just in the nick of time on Thursday—any later and I would have missed Jonah Barrows,” my mother burbled. “My gosh, even the airport in Key West is adorable.”

Olivia nodded without enthusiasm. “I flew into Marathon this time.”

“Have you eaten here before?” Mom asked. “We just loved the trio of hummus. Though actually the croquettes were my favorites—these light little patties of crusty mashed potatoes with a tiny bite of hot pepper. They quenched the fire with a dollop of sour cream and chopped green onions in exactly the right way. Hayley’s boyfriend ordered those—such a guy thing—but we
were all crazy about them. He’s a detective with the local police department and just adorable.”

I gritted my teeth to keep from correcting the boyfriend comment. Olivia Nethercut would not care about the status of my relationship, which after tonight hovered near ground zero. Better to jump on the food bandwagon and then steer Mom away as quickly as possible.

“The pita bread with the trio of dips was the best we’ve had outside of Athens,” I said. Mom flashed me a grateful smile. “They put tons of lemon in the plain hummus, while the red pepper version was just the right spicy.”

“Hayley’s the food critic for
Key Zest
magazine,” my mother announced to Olivia and her dinner partner.

“I’m sorry to say I haven’t heard of that one,” said Olivia.

Although she had heard of it—when I’d introduced myself the night before. But who could blame her for losing that fact in the discovery of the murder that followed?

“Local rag,” I said before my mother could inform her it rivaled the
New York Times.

Across the room, I noticed the waiter delivering the dessert we’d ordered to our table. “I would love to talk to you at some point over the weekend if you’re available,” I said to Olivia. “I’m doing stories on some of the folks here at the conference. What would be the best way to get in touch with you?”

She took an elegant ivory card from a small black
satin bag and handed it over. “Text or e-mail—I’ll get either.”

“Wonderful!” I said, running a finger over the raised printing. “I’ll be calling. We hope you enjoy your dinner.” I gripped Mom’s elbow and steered her back across the room.

“You see?” Mom said as she slid into her seat and unfolded her napkin. “You just need to put yourself forward a little more. Now you’ve got an interview with a hotshot.”

“She didn’t really agree to anything,” I said, though I did feel a hopeful glimmer of possibility as I tucked Olivia’s card into my worn leather wallet.

My mother divided the desserts between our plates and spooned in a bite of the bread pudding, studded with enormous, fresh blueberries and garnished with vanilla ice cream.

“This is outstanding,” she said. “And I don’t even care for bread pudding. Would you say that a critic should always order the restaurant’s specials?”

I sighed. “I suppose. If that’s what they’re steering people toward, you ought to taste it, right?” But I had little appetite for either the bread pudding or the chocolate crepes, too wound up about both the conversation with one of my foodie idols and the evening with Bransford. Beginnings were hard—whether it was a relationship or the dream job you were desperate to succeed at. Endings were worse.

As we started our walk back to Bill and Eric’s house, I deflected Mom’s suggestion about a second go-around of dessert at the Better Than Sex Restaurant
by pointing out that both of us had been forced to unhook the top buttons of our pants during dinner. After the detective left, of course.

We walked the length of Duval Street instead, Mom marveling at the young black boys playing a keyboard and singing at the top of their lungs who reminded her of the Jackson Five in their heyday. We cut away from the crowded bustle of Duval and headed into the residential neighborhood where my friends lived. It was after ten by the time we arrived at Eric and Bill’s small cottage. We let ourselves in, surprised that all the lights were blazing. Toby the wonder dog threw all his fifteen pounds of wiry dog flesh at our knees, yapping with outrage.

“I’m home,” Mom warbled cheerfully. “Is everybody decent? Hayley’s here too. Dinner was amazing. Killer croquettes and the most stunning hummus. And oh, we actually talked with Olivia Nethercut. And Hayley’s Nate is just adorable.”

“He’s not ‘my Nate,’” I grumbled.

No one answered.

We walked through the kitchen to the open-air seating that overlooked the garden. Bill was pacing by the fan palms in the backyard, yelling into his cell phone.

“I don’t need a lawyer tomorrow. I need one now!”

Bill slammed the phone back into its receiver and sank onto the couch, burying his face in his hands. Toby leaped up onto the cushion beside him and tried to lick between his fingers.

“What’s happened?” I asked. “Why do you need a lawyer?”

He explained in a hoarse whisper that three cops had arrived at the house earlier.

“For what?” Mom and I asked in unison.

“They wanted Eric to come to the station.” He glanced up at us, struggling to hold back the tremor in his voice. “To be questioned about the murder of Jonah Barrows.”

Mom and I exchanged horrified glances.

“Your boyfriend was one of them,” he added, and I winced. Bransford had left dinner with us to pick up Eric and hadn’t mentioned it? Not that I’d expect to get the update on every detail of his police business, but good gravy, he knew Eric was one of my best pals. Surely he could have given me a heads-up. It was hard to see how dating a cop in a tight-knit community was going to work out, no matter how cute he was.

“They dropped him off five minutes ago,” Bill said, his voice so tight it almost broke. “He went directly to our bedroom and closed himself in.”

“So, what were they questioning him about?” I asked.

“He wouldn’t tell me
anything
,” Bill said. “But I’ve never seen him look so bad.”

“He withdrew like that when his dad died,” Mom said. “That was such a shock. They all took it hard. Because of the unfinished business about the divorce, I suppose. If you don’t get these things sorted out at the time they happen, they fester. Eric barely spoke to his mom when he came home for the funeral.”

“But he’s a grown man now,” I said, feeling a little impatient with Mom’s amateur analysis. “This behavior makes no sense.”

Mom nodded and planted herself on the couch next to Bill, circled one arm around him, and reached for his hand, ignoring Toby’s warning growl. “He probably needs a little time alone to digest what happened. That’s all.”

Bill straightened his slumped shoulders. “But doesn’t
he understand that I’m worried sick too? It’s not just him anymore.”

“What can we do?” Mom asked, patting his knee. “How can we help?”

“I can call Detective Hotshot and find out what the hell’s going on. That’s what I can do.” I pulled my phone out of my purse and punched in Bransford’s number, which shunted me right to voice mail. “He is so not my boyfriend,” I muttered while his “away from my desk” message played.

“It’s Hayley Snow,” I said after the beep. “I’m concerned about my friend Eric Altman. I’m at his house now. Could you kindly call me when you get a chance?”

“Say something nice about the date,” Mom fussed from across the room. “She didn’t even let him pay,” she told Bill.

“Dinner was lovely,” I choked out, rolling my eyes and deciding not to explain to my mother
again
that professional ethics demanded that I expense the meal. I slid the phone into my purse and went over to take a seat across from Bill and Mom. “Did Eric even know Jonah?”