Death With All the Trimmings: A Key West Food Critic Mystery (20 page)

“What kinds of changes did you notice in the food?” I asked.

Leo approached the table to show the wine bottle to Paul, who nodded briskly. Then the waiter opened the bottle, poured a taste for Paul to approve, and filled our glasses.
“Bonne santé,”
said Leo as he whisked away the empty cocktail glasses.

I was careening toward a whopper headache tomorrow, but I sipped the wine, anyway. This was way too much fun to stop.

“A couple of the items on his menu were oversalted,” Paul continued. “The fish was overcooked, and Margaret even felt that the bouillabaisse tasted the tiniest bit fishy.”

“You know what I mean,” Margaret added. “Fish is fish, but fresh fish is vastly different from sea creatures who have lingered a day too long in the cooler.”

“The restaurant was rather well-known for offering an unusual special any day you visited. At least one or two new dishes a week,” Paul said. “But the last time we dined there was absolutely nothing new. We asked our waiter about specials and he said no, Chef was concentrating on the standards.”

“More like worn standbys.” Margaret laughed. “Like the old moccasins I can’t get my husband to throw away.” She winked at her husband.

“I was literally appalled by some of the dishes I sampled. I was going to give it another shot,” he added, “because of their history. I hated to publish a critical
review. After all, maybe I’d caught them on a particularly rough day. But then this tragedy happened.”

“And that’s what gave him the idea of coming here,” said Margaret. “We could pay tribute to Juan Carlos at the same time we tried his wife’s new restaurant. We managed to get a flight at the very last minute. I have never turned down a trip to the tropics. But we’ve gone on too long,” she said, placing a manicured hand on my wrist. “Do tell us about your job.”

If I hadn’t been so far into a big glass of Spanish white after two brain-numbing martinis, I would not have told the truth. As it was, I spilled everything, from how I’d followed a man to Key West and how quickly that relationship soured to how that led to my dream come true—my job as food critic at
Key Zest
.

“But now,” I said glumly, “it looks like my run is over. One of the co-owners of the magazine has invited some investors and they want to revamp everything. Including firing staff and soliciting ads from the restaurants where we do our reviews.”

“But that’s completely unprofessional,” Margaret exclaimed.

“I think so.” I shrugged. “Of course, this is a small town and I can’t expect to be anonymous the way you are,” I said to Paul.

“In most cases, anyway.” He broke into a wide grin. “Your man Leo was onto us the moment we sat down.”

“Oh it wasn’t just that,” I said grinning back at him. “We knew you were coming yesterday. You’ve got a leak somewhere in your system.”

“Probably one of these transplanted New Yorkers working in the kitchen,” said Margaret. “They all stay in touch, working their fingers on their phones like deranged monkeys. But enough about the famous critic.
Why can’t you keep your job and work with the new investors?”

“The owner can’t stand me,” I admitted. “If she manages to raise enough money to buy out my boss—or buy his silence—I’m finished.”

“That’s too bad,” said Paul. “I bet you’ll find something else. This is a goofy business, anyway, eating for a living.”

My heart plummeted. Had I really imagined that the
New York Times
restaurant critic would magically rescue me from my disastrous life?

Then the food began to arrive at the table and it was hard to remain depressed. Who could maintain glum spirits in the face of a perfect Caesar salad or a yellowtail snapper pan-fried in butter and garnished with crispy scallions and julienned carrots and a whisker of ginger? Who could feel sad in the presence of shrimp and grits starring local Key West pinks?

Paul dictated notes into his iPhone as he ate, and I overheard phrases such as “fresh and sweetly crisp” and “animated and lush, with a lingering burn.” And then the idea came to me for the perfect article about this night in Edel’s restaurant: a day in the life of the
New York Times
restaurant critic. I could talk about the food, but the food as seen through his eyes. And his life, bounding from one meal to the next, seldom at home with his own family, almost always eating more than he should. A meta review. If
Key Zest
didn’t wish to print it, someone else surely would. I explained the concept to Paul and he didn’t say no. So I pushed ahead, feeling absolutely gleeful and trying not to let that show.

“I’ll text or e-mail you this week with a draft.”

“Don’t feel obligated to show me what you write,”
he said. “Most publications don’t want their subjects’ input. They tend to want all the juicy stuff removed.” We exchanged contact information as Leo returned to the table.

He cleared the plates and ran through the dessert options.

“Anything’s fine with me,” I said to Paul. “I so enjoy watching you work—seeing what you choose and why you choose it.”

“As I’m sure you know,” he said, “my selections can’t just be about me and my tastes. Or even Margaret’s.” He chuckled and reached across the table to squeeze her hand. “I’m always thinking about my relationship to food—as in, Do I need comfort today or am I feeling adventurous?—because that affects the mind-set I carry into a meal. And then I try to set my own feelings aside and imagine how my readers might be approaching the restaurant.”

After a few words about seeing dessert as the meal closer—the last opportunity a chef has to make memories—Paul chose the key lime parfait, lime-scented pastry cream layered with buttery graham crackers and accented with raspberries, plus the standard key lime pie and a chocolate layer cake.

“Who is this monster boss of yours, by the way?” asked Margaret, while we sipped coffee and waited for dessert to be served. “Is he someone local?”

“Actually not—a New Yorker. And it’s a she, not a he.” I snickered. “Though maybe ‘it’ is a better description. Ava Faulkner.”

Paul’s eyes widened and he looked at his wife. “Not the same Ava Faulkner who used to work at
Brilliance Magazine
with Edel?”

“If there’s a god somewhere, there wouldn’t be two women with that name.” I laughed again and the
dessert arrived. The Woolstons declared the key lime parfait to be sinfully rich, the chocolate cake worthy of a grandmother, and the pie serviceable.

After the dessert plates had been scraped clean and the bottle of wine emptied, we left the restaurant, stuffed and woozy with food and wine. I walked Paul and Margaret out to the dock and said good-bye. Once they were out of sight, I returned to the kitchen. Every staff person stopped what she or he was doing and turned to stare at me.

“Well?” asked Glenn. “You’re killing us here. What did he think?”

“He loved everything,” I said, cracking a wide smile. I’d tell Edel about the key lime pie another time. The kitchen broke into a madhouse of whistles and cheers, except for Edel, who looked shocked.

“I’ll never get used to this part,” said Edel when I went over to hug her. “It feels so stressful. And it’s always a crapshoot.”

“Not the way you cook,” I said. “You are brilliant.”

For a heart that is open, room can always be made for new cookware.

—Jenn McKinlay

I left the restaurant feeling wobbly and exhausted, and decided that I’d be better off walking home than negotiating even the back streets by scooter. In the busy preholiday season, the cops would be patrolling in full force and I did not need a DUI on my record.

As I reached Eaton Street, my mother called.

“How was the opening night?”

My earlier annoyance with her evaporated in the glow of the moment. “Glorious! You won’t believe this. I actually had dinner with Paul Woolston and his wife.” My words tumbled out as I explained how this had happened and how much they loved Edel’s food and my idea for the new article.

“What fun! I’m so glad you had the chance to meet them. You sound a little tipsy,” Mom added. “Are you okay to drive?”

“Don’t worry. I’m walking. It’s not that far and the night air will do me good. But tell me about the
wedding and the Scarlett O’Hara cupcakes. Was everyone happy?”

“It was a magical night. The bride was delighted with the way her party turned out,” Mom said. But she sounded a little sad. “We’ve got another one tomorrow and more after that. This island is a virtual wedding machine—three-quarters of them are second time around: the triumph of hope over reality.”

“Oh you don’t mean that,” I said.

But she had no comment.

“What about your arm? Have the police made any progress identifying the shooter?”

I scrolled through my text messages before answering. Miss Gloria was hitting the hay early. And Danielle wondered if I’d heard anything new about our jobs. But no phone calls from the police and nothing from Wally.

“I’ll call Torrence tomorrow,” I said, “and report back to you.” As soon as I hung up, the phone rang again. The name W
OOLSTON
flashed on the screen.

“Hello?” I asked, breathless, sure he was calling to weasel out of my article.

“It’s Paul Woolston. We enjoyed our dinner together very much. Margaret suggested I call you and she was right as usual.” He chuckled. “Just one more word about Ava Faulkner. Don’t get in the middle of anything with her. We’ve known her a long time. Keep your distance, even if it means your job.” He cleared his throat. “That’s all.” And he hung up before I could ask anything more. Not that there was more to ask—I’d known all along that she was bad news.

I finished the trek home in silence, absorbing the sounds of night in the city—sirens blaring in the distance, snatches of rock bands from the harbor, and the traffic whooshing over the bridge on Palm Avenue and
out to Roosevelt Boulevard. A barking dog, a crowing rooster with a confused time clock, a flock of birds uttering mournful cries.

By the time I reached Tarpon Pier, I was tired and a little achy from the day’s activities, but just the right kind of sleepy. As Miss Gloria had warned me, only the outside light on our deck was on, along with a small nightlight in the kitchen. I boarded the houseboat, hearing Schnootie woof a few desultory barks from inside the Renharts’ cabin. I headed directly to the bathroom to wash my face, brush my teeth, and pop two more Advil, then got into pajamas. After plugging in my phone and turning off the ringer, I climbed into my bunk, where Evinrude and Sparky were curled up, already sleeping. Sparky woke and began to pace across my chest, purring and meowing.

“Shhhh,” I whispered, rubbing his head. “We’re all beat tonight.” Within minutes, I faded into sleep.

About an hour later, I bolted upright, wide awake, uncertain what had woken me. If I’d heard a noise outside while sleeping, it was quiet now. If I’d had a bad dream, I could no longer remember a snatch of it. I wrestled to straighten the bedcovers and stroked Evinrude until he rumbled, but finally had to admit I wasn’t returning to sleep easily. I got up, used the bathroom, and shuffled into the kitchen to consider a snack. I wished I’d brought a serving of the key lime parfait home. But how could I even be thinking of food, as much as I’d consumed over the night?

Sparky wove around one of my legs and then the other, crying his most piteous meow. I dropped a few kibbles into his bowl—hush money—and noticed that Miss Gloria’s enormous tin of black pepper—the one her son in Michigan had sent as an early gag gift for Christmas—was missing from the counter. Then I saw
the black powder tossed across the white linoleum and the canister itself kicked to the little hallway that led to our back deck, where Miss Gloria kept her houseplants. Cat footprints tracked the pepper to my bedroom door and Miss Gloria’s. No wonder Sparky was unhappy, if he’d been licking pepper off his paws.

I flipped on the overhead light, ready to comfort the cat and clean up the mess. But I noticed more things out of place: the wooden chair tipped over in the living room and a braided throw rug tangled up in a heap. Now feeling worried rather than just annoyed and perplexed, my heart rate lurched higher. I hurried over to Miss Gloria’s door and tapped on it. The door swung open. My roommate was not in bed. Though from the condition of the rumpled bedclothes, she had been at some point this evening.

“Miss Gloria? Miss G?” I called. No answer.

I trotted to the back porch—perhaps she’d slipped out there, seeking a dose of night air or a look at the brilliant swath of stars that I’d noticed walking home. And then perhaps she’d fallen into a deep sleep. But the chairs were empty. Had I missed her snoozing on the front deck in our one comfy recliner? I tripped back through the houseboat, both cats on my heels. That chair was empty, too. I grabbed my phone, switched it on, and called her number. Straight to voice mail. Now I was really worried.

I seized the yellow rain slicker hanging on a peg by the door, pulled it over my pj’s, leaped onto the dock, and dashed to the Renharts’ boat. Schnootie began to bark in earnest. Mrs. Renhart stumbled to the door, sleep in her eyes, the barking dog in her arms.

“Have you seen Miss Gloria?” I asked, my voice trembling.

“Earlier this evening. She was tippling a little glass
of wine on the deck.” Schnootie licked Mrs. Renhart’s chin.

“She’s missing,” I croaked.

Schnootie woofed.

“Did she have plans to go out?” Mrs. Renhart asked.

I shook my head.

“Did you check the Laundromat?” she asked. “Sometimes if I can’t sleep I’ll go down the end of the dock and wash my clothes. Believe me, there’s no competition for machines in the middle of the night. And watching the clothes go round and round is better than a sleeping pill.”

“I doubt it. She did laundry early this morning.” But I spun around and jumped from their boat to the dock. “Wait. I’ll go with you,” Mrs. Renhart said. She snapped a leash on the schnauzer, slipped into a pair of orange gardening clogs, and clumped along with me to the laundry building at the edge of the parking lot.

I held my breath. What were the chances of Miss Gloria doing the whites at two in the morning? Not good. But my mood sank even lower when her absence was confirmed.

“I’m calling the cops,” I said, already dialing as we headed back to my houseboat. The dispatcher took my information and promised she’d send a patrol car right over. Within minutes, two police cars with lights flashing pulled into the lot. Lieutenant Torrence and a young woman I didn’t recognize emerged from the vehicles, and jogged down to where we waited.

I hugged Torrence, feeling grateful and relieved, and explained the problem.

“Did she say she was going out?” he asked.

“No, she specifically told me she was going to bed early.”

“Schnootie and I saw her earlier, maybe around
eight,” Mrs. Renhart inserted. “I’m Schnootie,” she added in a high-pitched voice, waving the dog’s paw at the cops.

“Let’s take a look around,” said Torrence, ignoring the dog introduction. He and the woman officer switched on their torches and swept around the outside of the boat. They found nothing.

“Show me her room,” he said.

Schnootie had begun to bray like a donkey and struggle to get out of Mrs. Renhart’s arms. “We’d better wait outside,” said Mrs. Renhart, finally seeming to absorb the hostile glances from the young cop. “Schnootie is so sensitive. If anyone’s feeling distressed, she starts to feel anxious, too.”

She kissed the top of the dog’s head and they retreated to the deck while I led the cops to Miss Gloria’s cabin and showed them the bed with its rumpled sheets and quilt. “Her cat was sleeping on my bed when I arrived around eleven, which should have alarmed me. But I’m embarrassed to say I’d had a couple of martinis at dinner and I wasn’t as sharp as I should have been.” I pressed my hands to my cheeks to keep from crying.

“Any friends she might have gone out to visit?” Torrence asked.

“It’s two in the morning,” I said, suppressing an accusatory wail. He was trying to help. I took a deep breath. “She’s close to eighty. She has plenty of friends but she doesn’t have an active nightlife. Not after ten p.m., anyway.”

“Could there be a man friend?” asked the young cop. “Perhaps someone she hasn’t mentioned to you?”

I glowered. “Absolutely not.”

“Take a look around the room,” Torrence suggested gently. “Without touching anything, if possible. Tell us
if anything’s missing. Anything that seems a little off. And what she might be wearing.”

So I crept around her bed and opened the door to her little closet. “Her robe is here.” I pointed to a fuzzy yellow chenille shape that hung on a hook in the closet. “But only one bunny slipper. She wears them every night. I can’t imagine why she’d go out with only one.” Staring down at the nubby ears and pink whiskers, I felt like weeping. Things were getting worse and worse.

“What else?” asked the lady cop.

So I inspected the nightstand, where a cozy mystery starring a psychologist with a talking cat lay open, facedown. I tugged my sleeve down over my fingers and opened the drawer. “Her purse is here.”

The policewoman donned purple gloves and began to flip through Miss Gloria’s bag, reporting aloud what she found. “License, library card, Medicare card, family pictures, and two hundred in twenty-dollar bills.”

Dropping to my knees to look under the nightstand, in the light of Torrence’s powerful beam, I saw a glint. Miss Gloria’s glasses were there, the wire rims bent and one lens shattered. Now I felt literally sick. She simply didn’t see well enough to go anywhere without her glasses. Unless she was forced to. And then I remembered Lorenzo’s warning about keeping channels open, and how someone couldn’t see. Although he hadn’t wanted to alarm me, perhaps this was the danger he’d sensed—and more concrete than I’d ever imagined.

“Something terrible has happened. She’s blind as a bat without these.”

Torrence radioed the dispatcher at the station, and several more uniformed policemen were called in to assist with the search. I phoned Connie, and she and
Ray came over to help me wait. The cops worked up and down our finger, blue ghosts knocking on doors and inquiring about whether anyone had seen Miss Gloria leave Tarpon Pier. The neighbor at the end closest to the street, who had moved in last month and hadn’t responded to anyone’s friendly overtures, reported seeing a woman get into a pink taxicab sometime between eleven and one o’clock and then tear off toward town. He could not remember how she was dressed or any other details about her physical appearance.

At the water end of the dock, Mrs. Dubisson, Miss Gloria’s best friend, said she’d spoken to my roommate around nine p.m. They were looking forward to breakfast at Harpoon Harry’s in the morning. Once a month seniors were given fifty percent off anything on the menu and they hated not to take advantage of the price reduction. But as far as she knew, Miss Gloria had no other plans. The cops moved on to the other docks in the houseboat neighborhood, and I sank to a chair on our deck.

“They’ll find her,” Ray finally said. “And if they don’t, we’ll mount a search around the bight the minute it gets light.”

Torrence returned, sat next to me, patted my knee. “I’m sure there will be a reasonable explanation. Please don’t assume the worst.”

But my mind had already rushed to the worst: that Miss Gloria had been attacked and abducted, or even thrown overboard. Where she would have sunk to the sea bottom like a little white stone.

“Can we get the Coast Guard looking? Maybe she’s in the water somewhere. Maybe she’s found a little piece of Styrofoam or something and is bobbing around,
waiting to be rescued.” I sniffled and tugged at his shirtsleeve, and then turned to Ray. “Can we take your boat now and go out looking?”

“I’ve called the Coast Guard,” Torrence said. “Best if you stay put in case she comes home. We’ll find her if she’s out there.”