Death With All the Trimmings: A Key West Food Critic Mystery (7 page)

Food meant love and comfort and even peace in my family. Quite natural that I’d crave something good to eat when I felt a little sad or angry, or like now, a lot of both.

—
Lucy Burdette,
Murder with Ganache

I waited for Ava and the visitors to clear out before packing up my stuff. Not a good time to look like a slacker. So I tweaked the Latitudes review and shot it off to Wally, who would edit for content, and Danielle, who was deadly with fact-checking and spelling mistakes. Then I would have one more chance to polish until it gleamed.

Once I heard Ava and company leave, I grabbed my backpack and stuck my head in Wally’s office on the way out. “You look a little shell-shocked,” I said. “Thanks for sticking up for me with Bransford.”

“I can’t stand that guy,” he said. “He acts like he has it in for you. But I don’t think he’s come to terms with your relationship being over. How else would you explain that intensity? Unless he’s just an ass, which is certainly possible.”

I grinned. “We never really had a relationship. It’s more like a love-hate thing, with the hate part much more prominent than the love,” I said, and smiled again. Then, seeing the sick look on Wally’s face, wished I hadn’t mentioned love. Change the subject, Hayley. “What’s with these investors?”

Danielle popped out from behind her desk in the reception area and walked over to stand behind me.

“I’m sure you heard some of it,” he said. “Ava wants to go big with the magazine. And I can’t say she’s all wrong. The town is thriving. Real estate has gone crazy. The arts scene has never been so strong.” He scowled and ran his fingers through his hair so it stood up like somebody’s overgrown Bermuda grass lawn. “Even if Edel Waugh’s restaurant never takes off, just the fact that she came down from New York to try something here means a lot. We’re not just a sloppy little backwater anymore. But, Hayley”—he looked at me—“it’s not often that I agree with that detective, but I agree about this: You need to step back from the Bistro.”

“But—”

“But nothing. That assignment has been canceled. Take the rest of the day off. We’ll see you tonight at the parade.”

“But who are these people?” Danielle asked. “If they’re friends of Ava’s, they’re probably not friends of ours.”

Wally sighed. “One of the hardest things about starting a small company is knowing when to sell, when to let some new people in. The owner of a start-up is by definition overinvested in the company. Of course I think
Key Zest
is great. And I think you’re both great, too. Amazing, really. But this may be an offer that’s too good to refuse.”

“So, they are not really investors. They want to buy us out,” I said. Realizing as I said it that there was no us.

“They aren’t giving me a lot of choice,” he said. “If I don’t agree to sell, Ava’s going to leave and team up with them, anyway—”

“Yes!” Danielle yelped, pumping her fist.

Wally’s face twitched into a small, pale smile. “The trouble is, if I don’t go along with them, she plans to start a new style magazine, something they could back. And they have unlimited funds. And lots of big ideas. They could squeeze us out in a heartbeat.” He sighed and dropped his head against his chair back. “I have to admit that turning over the day-to-day headaches to someone else has its appeal. Then I could concentrate on the editorial side of things, the side that I’m good at.”

“Will we lose our jobs?” Danielle asked. Her lip quivered and her eyes looked shiny, as if she might cry.

“Not on my watch,” said Wally, but without much conviction.

Now that I was paying attention, I could see the exhaustion in his eyes; I thought about how much his mom’s struggle with cancer must have drained him. How much fight did he have left for our magazine? Maybe it was the end of an era. A short era, in my case. Things turned over quickly in this town—go big or go home.

But home to what? My mother’s spare bedroom?

Definitely not. I loved living on this island. I loved eating and writing and helping people choose where to spend their money and finding new places to try. I loved the palm trees and the blue, blue water and the rhythm of the seasons, from steamy summer to stormy fall to glorious, sunny winter and tourist-crowded spring. I looked the three of us over, in our silly
matching yellow shirts. I loved both of them, too. I had to get out before I started to blubber.

“Mom needs help with a luncheon she’s catering,” I said in a bright voice. “So this little break is the most perfect timing ever.” I didn’t mean it, but I wasn’t going to let Wally see how worried and sad this potential change made me.

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

—Truman Capote

I whisked down Southard and through the gates that marked the entrance to the Truman Annex, slowing enough to wave at the guards who lounged in the little gatehouse. Hanging a right on Emma Street, I buzzed over several blocks to the Truman Little White House, one of the island’s biggest historical attractions. The building is quaint and adorable, with white shingles and louvered slats covering the second story, and red, white, and blue buntings hanging from the first-story windows. When not in use for official business, the grounds are in high demand for weddings and other parties.

The rental company had already begun to set up tables and folding chairs on the lawn behind the white house. Tourists in bright clothing with buttons on their shirts that identified their cruise ships relaxed in white Adirondack chairs, filed in and out of the gift shop, and gawked at the party activity. Mom, wearing a crisp
white blouse, black pants, and an apron, was talking with a tall man near the back gate that led to the Harbor Place condos, where I’d lived for six weeks when I first arrived on the island. Pushing away my misgivings, I veered over to get instructions.

“Did you know that seven U.S. presidents either used this building to do the business of the White House, or arranged for peace talks to take place here? Harry Truman, of course, spent many weeks on these grounds during his presidency,” said the man, whose voice sounded altogether too familiar. “These flags”—he gestured at a set of six flagpoles—“represent the nations who attended peace talks with Colin Powell in 2001. The countries whose flags are on either end, Armenia and Azuriastan, were the warring factions.”

Yep. Same sandy hair and broad shoulders. Same professorial tone. Same phony heartiness reserved for people he wished he didn’t have to waste time on. I had to bite my tongue to keep from blurting out that there was no country called “Azuriastan”—it was Azerbaijan.

“I could go on for hours about the history of this place,” the man added.

And, of course, he could have. Leave it to Mom to find my ex, Chad Lutz, aka Lutz the Putz. He loved knowing more than the person he was talking with—which I’d judged adorable in the early, rosy days of our short relationship. Later on, not so much. My heart banged and a sheen of sweat broke out on my upper lip. I mustered an enthusiastic smile so fake he could surely see through it. But he looked almost as uncomfortable as I felt.

I slipped my arm around Mom’s waist and squeezed.

She smooched me on the cheek. “You’ll never guess who I ran into!” she said. “I almost didn’t recognize
him because he looks a little more substantial than I remembered.” Mom’s not so subtle way of saying he’d gained a spare tire. “Chad was just telling me about the history of the Little White House.”

“Nice,” I said, baring my teeth. I hadn’t seen him face-to-face since the day I’d rescued him from a would-be killer, shortly after he’d thrown me out of his penthouse. The reunion felt about as horrendous as I’d imagined—a dead romance full moon dragging in a tidal wash of insecurity and humiliation.

When I failed to produce any small talk, Mom continued in a chirpy voice. “He says business is booming these days.” Chad was one of the premier divorce lawyers on the island, known for his relentless and ruthless attacks on the opposition.

“You can always bet on relationships going sour,” I said. “If that’s the way you choose to live.” I grinned to soften the sarcasm, hoping to avoid a scolding from my mother later. She believed in bringing enemies to their knees with kindness, rather than making a frontal assault.

“Hayley is doing so well in her food critic job,” my mother said, words hushed now, as if sharing a precious secret with Chad. “And her social life puts those folks in the paparazzi gallery in the
Key West Citizen
to shame. I had to literally beg her to help me out with this party.”

“I should let you get to work, then,” Chad said, backing away. “Nice to see you both.” He wheeled around and headed for the parking garage where he stored both his Jeep Wrangler—his beach car—and his Jaguar sedan, used for official lawyerly transportation.

“Such a twit,” Mom said with a laugh as we watched him go. “Glad you scraped that guy off your shoes.”

“Umm, I think it was the other way around.”

“You would have gotten there, sweetie,” she said, and pulled me into a quick hug. She clapped her hands. “I am so glad you’re here. I don’t know why I thought I could pull this off in forty-eight hours by myself.”

We trotted over to the table where the bar was being set up. Mom’s boyfriend, Sam, also dressed in black and white, was arranging champagne flutes on the table.

I gave him a kiss on the cheek and rumpled his salt and pepper hair. “She’s got the whole family working.”

“I should have known when she said she had a little project going today that I wouldn’t be lounging around the dipping pool,” Sam said. “Your mother does not know how to relax.”

Mom hurried over, wiping her hands on her apron. “Maybe we should move the bar a little farther back to open up the circulation. I can pretty much guarantee our most popular drinks will be the Arnold Palmers and the champagne.” She winked at Sam. “Ladies who lunch like to pretend they’re not really drinking.” She turned to me. “Can you start unloading the coolers from the van?”

Within half an hour, white cloths covered the tables and Mom had arranged glass cylinders filled with limes and pine cones in their centers. We scattered dozens of tea lights and ropes of gold beads around them. The places were set with white china and silverware, and red-and-green-plaid napkins tied up with gold mesh ribbons. Sam and I had lugged the coolers full of chicken salad, green salad, and cupcakes to the serving tables on which we’d arrange the plates.

“Here comes the boss,” Mom said.

A white SUV roared up and parked on the sidewalk. Jennifer Cornell—a blond whirlwind—hopped out. A strong young woman with dark hair pulled back into a ponytail got out of the passenger’s side.

“I’ve brought reinforcements,” Jennifer told Mom. “This is Mary Pat Maloney. She fills in for me in the high season and emergencies. Luckily she has a few days off from her day job.”

I recognized her immediately as Edel’s irreverent line cook, the woman who’d made faces behind Edel’s back but worked as hard as anyone in the kitchen. Would she be willing to talk about Edel? Or why Glenn Fredericks was on Bransford’s mind? Something told me she’d have some interesting theories.

Mom fanned her face with her hand and hugged Mary Pat. “You’re a lifesaver, honey. I’d feel awful if I flubbed my first assignment.”

Jennifer’s gaze swept over the tables. “It looks lovely so far,” Jennifer assured my mother. “If everything is under control, I need to head back to the kitchen to work on tonight’s event.”

“You’re working tonight, too?” I asked.

“Nothing too fancy, just a Christmas-cookie nibble at Schooner Wharf after the parade,” she said. “Come by if you can.”

Mary Pat and I began to arrange the green salad and chicken salad on plates as the women attending the luncheon filtered in, dressed in flowing pantsuits or short dresses, with a few wide-brimmed hats and lots of chunky jewelry. Not much like the crowd I ran with.

“Any more news on the fire at the Bistro?” I asked Mary Pat, once we had all the salads served and had passed the baskets of piping-hot biscuits.

“We’re hoping to open the restaurant by the weekend,” she said. “All the fish we ordered has been sitting for too long, so it will have to be trashed and replaced. Edel’s apoplectic about the stone crab claws. The harvest is way down this year and prices have skyrocketed. She paid a bloody fortune for what’s now essentially
cat food. Any felines who frequent the dump will be in heaven.”

“Have you seen Edel?” From Mary Pat’s report, it didn’t sound like she’d heard about the death.

“I rode my scooter over this morning to check on things—she was there arguing with the fire marshal, and then the good-looking detective.” She paused to study me. “He’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?” She wiggled her fingers—quotation marks around “friend.”

I felt my eyes go wide. By now it shouldn’t have surprised me how much people knew about everyone else’s business on this island. “I wouldn’t say we’re friends. But not exactly enemies, either. We’ve had a few dustups, that’s all. Were they able to identify the body in the fire?”

Mary Pat’s turn for wide eyes. “There was a body?”

I blew out some air and nodded. “If it’s confirmed that the fire was arson, the death could be a murder.”

“OMG, that’s horrible,” she said. “I’m surprised Edel wasn’t completely off her rocker. How in the world does she think we can open the restaurant under those circumstances?”

“She’s hoping it will all be wrapped up quickly,” I said, “though I’m not sure how exactly.”

Seeing Chad Lutz had gotten me thinking about divorces, nasty divorces in particular. How much bad blood could be generated when two people who thought they loved each other realized the love had run cold—that it had in fact frozen into icy hatred? “I hope you don’t mind if I ask: Have you met Edel’s ex?”

She looked at me as though I was about five steps behind a normal person’s thinking. “Of course I’ve met him. I worked with the two of them for years. But, honestly, I don’t think he’s been down here that much lately. At least not since their wedding—and that’s got
to be ten years ago. He certainly wouldn’t torch her restaurant.”

“Wait. They were married in Key West?”

“Oh yeah,” she said. “They spent their honeymoon here, too. I think that’s when they came up with the idea of the Bistro.”

More surprises. “They came up with the idea together? I thought it was Edel’s baby.”

Mary Pat shook her head. “They did everything together until all hell broke loose.”

“All hell?” I asked.

“The divorce, I mean,” said Mary Pat. “Last summer.”

“What about Glenn?” I asked. “What’s his role in the restaurant family? Edel was pretty hard on him the night I visited your kitchen.”

My mother signaled us from across the lawn and we began to clear the tables, scraping the leftovers into a gigantic trash bag and stacking the plates. A tiny white-haired woman in a white jacket and gold pants stood up, replaced her straw hat with a Santa hat, and addressed the lunching ladies. “Thank you so much for your support for our holiday fund-raiser. We’ve amassed two thousand dollars so far . . .”

“Edel’s a perfectionist,” Mary Pat whispered. “It’s not just Glenn—it’s anyone who doesn’t measure up to her standards.”

“Is her ex involved in the finances of the Bistro?” I asked.

Mary Pat stopped her work to stare at me, her cheeks pink from both exertion and the sun, which had come out from the morning clouds and glared down on us full strength. “I very much doubt that. But I’m not privy to the accounting side of things,” she said. “I work in the kitchen.”

“Sorry,” I murmured. “I know I sound nosy. I’m just concerned about what’s going wrong over there. And with the fire and the death, I’m afraid someone’s upped the ante.”

“Unless it was a homeless guy trying to keep warm,” she said. “Not that that’s not terrible, too. But just suppose he gets sloshed and crawls into Edel’s back yard to spend the night. Because where else is a guy with no money gonna sleep? But then he feels cold. He lights some trash on fire, and things get out of control and he’s overcome with fumes and doesn’t get out in time. Maybe he never even wakes up.”

Which all seemed quite logical, even if I didn’t quite believe it happened that way.

“Good point,” I said. “I’m always curious about how folks end up on this island and how long they’ve been here. I didn’t realize that Edel had her heart set on a Key West restaurant ten years ago.”

“We all start out with dreams,” Mary Pat said. “Some of them get trampled.” She shouldered a tray of my mother’s gorgeous raspberry red velvet cupcakes and marched off to deliver them to the ladies.