Topped Chef A Key West Food Critic Mystery (6 page)

“Rats! I’m sorry, too.” The combination of feeling slightly tipsy and quite relieved made me babble. “The food has been wonderful so far. Can I wrap your steak and bring it to you?”

“Not necessary,” he said. “I won’t have time to eat it. I’ll call the front desk and give them my credit card number.”

“Don’t worry about it. What’s wrong?” I couldn’t help adding, my curiosity kicking up a notch. In the distance, outside the restaurant, I could hear the shriek of sirens heading down Southard Street. Toward him?

“Looks like a silly prank gone bad,” he growled. “Or if we’re really unlucky, a suicide.”

He never would have told me this much if he hadn’t just stood me up at one of the nicest restaurants in town. “Where are you?” I asked.

“At the old harbor,” he said. “Hang on another minute.”

Then I heard another man’s voice rumbling a question and Bransford’s tense bark in return. “Find the owner of the boat. Now! And for god’s sake, take a few pictures and then get the damn body down before the damn press gets here.”

And then he came back on the line to me: “Sorry. I don’t know when we’ll get things wrapped up. Probably late. We’ve got a lousy situation. Why don’t you finish eating and go ahead home and I’ll phone you later if it’s not too late.”

“Fine,” I said, at the same time I was signaling to the waiter for the check.

If there was a strange body on a vessel down at the harbor and Nate was in charge of the investigation, I wanted to find out what happened. Call me curious or just plain nosy, but I wasn’t going to sit here alone and continue forking down the calories—though leaving the chocolate lava cake broke my heart. I hung up, and asked the waiter: “Could you box up the steak and the dessert and bring the bill? I’m kind of in a hurry.”

*   *   *

I bungeed the aromatic package to the back of my bike and headed the few blocks over to the harbor. A quartet of blue lights flashed against the starlit sky, and beams of light probed the rigging of the moored boats. The water carried garbled gruff voices to the street corner where I’d stopped. The cops had gathered on one of the docks midharbor, and appeared to be peering through the forest of rigging to the darkness at the far end, where the mast of one of the smaller sailboats listed to the right. Squinting in the dim light, I was able to make out a bulky weight three-quarters of the way up the mast, which looked unlike any of the other boats’ equipment.

Swallowing hard, not wanting to think too much about that lump, I parked my bike and circled around to the finger that led to the sailboat’s dock, stopping at the chain with its rusty
KEEP OUT
sign hanging from the links. I peered at the weight again. Could it be a radar machine? An extra sail? A puff of wind gusted and the boat listed to a forty-five-degree angle, the dark lump swinging out toward the water, the mast groaning under the load.

I stepped over the chain and moved closer. To my
absolute horror, the heavy weight took the definite shape of a human figure. Dangling from the mast. White sneakered feet were illuminated by the beam of a flashlight. The wind picked up, pushing the person back and forth on the groaning rope like an oversized metronome. Two officers struggled to lower the figure to land.

I started up the dock, edging a few steps nearer.

“Go easy,” said one voice to the other. “He hits the deck and we destroy evidence and our necks are on the block.”

As the figure lurched and bounced down the mast toward the deck, a bright searchlight was switched on, lighting up the bizarre details: first the curly platinum-blond hair that had to be a wig and the red lipstick. Then the discolored features, the protruding tongue, the bulging eyes. And finally, a black cloak. The body landed on the deck with a resounding thud.

“Turtle?” The word came out before I could stop it and echoed over the water. I clapped my hand to my mouth.

“What are you doing here?” Bransford’s voice boomed behind me, causing my pulse to gallop and my guilt-o-meter to surge.

I turned, met his angry eyes, and shrugged. “I was on my way back to houseboat row. I wanted to help. I brought your dinner over. I know I can’t work worth a darn on an empty stomach, so I thought maybe you—”

“Go home,” he said, and pushed past me toward the knot of cops and the body.

5

I would think a chef would look at me and kind of go, “Pfft, move on with your little fried self,” he said.

—Katy Vine

When I arrived at our houseboat, Miss Gloria was watching a rerun of a cooking show on the Food Network while talking on the phone with my mother. They’d become fast friends after my mom stayed with us for a few days earlier this month. On the TV screen across the room, Emeril was hacking a chicken to pieces and then dredging the pieces in egg and flour.

“You’re home early,” said Miss Gloria, her face lighting up with a huge smile. Then the smile faded away. “Maybe home early from a big date isn’t good news, though, is it?”

Mom’s voice floated through the receiver. “How was her dinner with Nate?”

“I’ll put you on speakerphone, so you can hear it firsthand,” said Miss Gloria, even as I tried to wave her off.

I dropped the sack of leftovers on the coffee table and flopped onto the couch. Evinrude and Sparky hopped up to investigate the scent of grilled meat. After shooing the cats away, I gave my mother and Miss Gloria the short version of how I’d ended up eating alone, then a whitewashed version of seeing the hanged man down by the harbor.

“I’m scared to death it was Turtle, the homeless guy I bought coffee for this morning.”

“Why would you think that?” Mom asked.

I explained about his cloak and Turtle’s cape, but then had to agree with Miss Gloria’s assessment—a hundred folks on this island might own a garment like that. Our island is rife with costume parties and pirate events and just plain kooky people. Besides, why in the world would a homeless man be wearing a wig and lipstick? Not that that helped me feel better in the grand scheme of things—a man was still horribly dead.

“So you never even saw Nate?” asked Mom.

“I ran into him at the dock,” I said, and then admitted that he and I seemed to fit together like nails on a chalkboard.

“Even considering that he was called in to deal with an awful crime,” I said, “he was pretty harsh when I tried to drop off the food.”

“What were you wearing?” she asked.

“Mom! What does that have to do with anything?”

“I’m sorry, darling,” said my mother. “You’re completely right. Your Nate has such a stressful job. He probably doesn’t always handle it as well as he might.” She cleared her throat. “I liked him quite a bit when I met him. But maybe he really isn’t ready to date again.”

“Was it Maya Angelou who said ‘when people show you who they are, believe them’?” asked Miss Gloria. Which seemed like deep wisdom from a tiny old lady in a sparkly pastel sweatsuit.

“On another subject,” said my mother, “how are the plans for Connie’s wedding coming?” Connie was my college roommate. She’d grown close to my mother after hers died of cancer during our freshman year.

“She’s so busy,” I said. “I haven’t heard anything except they want it to be on the beach.”

“But it’s only two months away,” said Mom. “What’s she going to wear? Are there any attendants other than you? What are you going to wear? And what about the reception? What will they serve?”

I felt a rising surge of panic. If Connie was too overwhelmed to plan the occasion, the maid of honor should step up. Me. “I’ll get on it,” I said. “And keep you posted.”

*   *   *

I had to drag myself out of bed the next morning. The caffeine in the chocolate lava cake that Miss Gloria and I had bolted down after hanging up with my mother, along with my alternating feelings of disappointment and humiliation over the interaction with Nate had kept me awake for hours. And worst of all, the sound of that body hitting the deck with a sickening thunk. Had it been Turtle?

One quick look in the mirror confirmed the crepey bags under my eyes: I had no business being on television. Besides that, I was wicked nervous about appearing on camera again. It would have been kinder for the show’s theoretical audience—and me—if I went back
to bed. Instead I showered, troweled on some miracle concealer that my mom had left behind on her recent visit, and spent a little extra time blow-drying my curls into submission. Then I donned the yellow
Key Zest
shirt again, layering it over a pair of snug black jeans. Finally, I swallowed a cup of coffee, laced up my favorite black sequined sneakers and headed downtown to the Studios of Key West.

I parked my scooter in between a Smart car and a motorcycle on Southard Street and walked through the alley behind the Armory building, which normally housed art receptions and artists’ studios, to the courtyard in back. Chef Adam and Toby Davidson were already on the back porch of the little conch house; Sam Rizzoli was nowhere to be seen. Deena Smith was overseeing the application of makeup to the chef candidates in the other corner of the square.

“Morning, Deena!” I called out. She waved back and returned to her work.

I ducked through the sculpture garden to the porch and trudged up the steps. The lead cameraman muttered: “What do you people not understand about nine o’clock sharp?”

“Sorry,” I said, and scuttled across the deck to take my place at the table. “Take a chill pill,” I added under my breath. “I’m five minutes late. And it’s Key West.”

He began to suit us up with microphones, laying Sam’s wires and power pack on the table in front of his empty chair. Through the mullions of the glass doors that led into the kitchen, I could see our producer/director, Peter Shapiro, on the phone—getting some crummy news from the look of dismay on his face. He
punched a button on his phone, threw it onto the counter, and strode out onto the porch. His ruddy complexion had paled and his blue eyes watered. He gestured for all the TV personnel to move away from the set.

“I need to speak with the judges,” he explained curtly. Then he approached us, leaned forward, his hands on our table, and spoke in a low voice. “We’ve had some unfortunate news,” he said, lips thinning to a grim line. “Mr. Rizzoli is dead.”

Toby gasped. “Oh my goodness, whatever happened? We can certainly reschedule. Or I for one, would understand completely if the show’s taping is cancelled.”

I raised a finger to indicate that I agreed.

Peter shook his head and smoothed a lock of white hair off his forehead. “I realize the news is horrifying,” he said in a soothing voice. “I feel ill myself, but I beg you to understand that we must proceed with filming. We’ll certainly be respectful of any services that are planned. But we’ve spent too much money and time on the show to risk letting it die—and even more importantly, these chefs have their careers riding on the outcome.” He waved across the courtyard to the makeup area, where the three chefs whose food we’d chosen yesterday were being groomed for their first appearance.

“What in the world happened to him?” Toby asked. “He was much too young for a heart attack. Though in these stressful days I suppose men succumb younger and younger. Of all people, I should know that much.” She frowned, her eyes sad.

Peter rubbed his chin, then said, “Mr. Rizzoli appears to have been murdered.”

“Oh tell me no,” I said, melting down in my chair, the horrible image of the dead man I’d seen on the rigging flashing to mind, oversized like the picture at a drive-in horror movie. “Tell me he wasn’t found hanging from a sailboat’s mast last night.”

Peter looked shocked. “I certainly hope not! Where in the world did you hear that?”

I shrugged, wishing I could take my comment back. “There was a big brouhaha down at the harbor—something to do with a hanged man. They weren’t letting anyone get too close. I imagine you can find the details in the paper.”

“You were there?”

“Close enough to get a ghastly view that I wish I hadn’t seen.”

“I’m not privy to the details of how Sam died,” Peter said. “We can only hope that wasn’t him.” He looked away from me to the other two judges and rapped his knuckles on the table. “Are we in agreement? We can continue?”

“Give us a minute,” I said and turned my back on him to consult with Chef Adam and Toby. “We don’t have to do this if it doesn’t feel right.” It didn’t feel right to me, especially considering the way Rizzoli might have died. If in fact I’d seen his corpse last night.

“But I do worry about those young people who came to cook today,” said Toby in a low voice, lifting her chin at the chef candidates.

They looked so excited. And after all, having written the memoir about her husband’s death, wasn’t she an expert on working through grief?

“More to the point,” said Chef Adam, “yes, it’s a
tragedy, but if the world stopped every time someone died, nothing would get accomplished. I don’t mean to sound callous, but did either of you know him personally? I liked him fine and he seemed to know his way around a kitchen table…but yesterday was the first time I’d met him.”

I most certainly wasn’t going to mention my connection: how I’d trashed his restaurant in our magazine. “I’ve seen his name in the paper from time to time,” I said. “He was a city commissioner, right? And kind of controversial.”

I was pretty sure he’d stirred up some kind of trouble recently about widening the cruise ship channel. I remembered reading comments in the Citizen’s Voice that suggested he voted for things that would advance his businesses, to hell with the town’s needs.

“That doesn’t mean he should have been murdered,” Toby squeaked.

“Of course not,” I said. Though if I were the police, I’d be asking questions about exactly this. Local politics on this island were anything but cozy.

“So you didn’t know him either?” Chef Adam asked Toby. She shook her head no. “Then I’d suggest we go ahead and get this over with. I’m losing money every minute I sit here without getting anything accomplished. I told my kitchen staff I would be out two days, three at the most.”

I reluctantly agreed. Wally was expecting an article on this chef competition for
Key Zest
. And my own scramble to get hired was recent enough that I could understand how fiercely the candidates on this show wanted to succeed. I could feel the buzz of their excited
and nervous energy from twenty-five yards away. They’d be devastated to hear the show’s taping had been canceled. Because canceling the taping would very likely mean the end of the opportunity. Peter Shapiro had warned us early on that he was operating with a gossamer-thin budget.