Murder With Ganache: A Key West Food Critic Mystery

by Burdette, Lucy

  “It’s always kinda noisy out here after midnight. We’re not what you’d call an upscale neighborhood.” He barked a laugh and studied my mother with rheumy blue eyes. “Your son, huh?”

  Mom nodded, looking sober and sincere. No point in correcting that impression—it might help in this case. “And her grandson,” she said, pulling Miss Gloria close to her side. “We think he got involved in some serious trouble. Serious enough that someone might have tried to kill him.”

  “Could be drugs,” I added, because after my visit with Rory, that’s how it was looking to me. They all looked startled at my pronouncement, which made me feel queasy.

  “Drugs, huh?” He scratched his beard again. “I think I know a man who could lead a kid to that kind of trouble. He’s a dealer from what I can tell. And he uses kids to do his dirty work. He spent some time on that boat over yonder”—he pointed to a sailboat on the outer perimeter of the live-aboards. “Haven’t seen any sign of him today though. Maybe he’s cleared out. Though you never can be sure out here—people come and go. You get tired of the lifestyle, you know?” He grinned and chuckled, tapping the basket of cans with his toe. As though drinking too much beer off the grid was a “lifestyle.”

  “What kind of dirty work do the kids do?” I asked.

  He stared at me a minute, then hitched up his jeans. “He seems to like to have a girl to front the business. Sales. Who wouldn’t rather buy something from a cute young gal?”

  “How do you know all this?” Miss Gloria asked, which was exactly what I was thinking but didn’t have the nerve to ask. He was giving us too much, too fast, too good to be true.

  The man winked at her. “Most nights, I like to get a beer with my buddies at the Green Parrot. Sometimes I see him across the street. You watch long enough, you see things change hands.”

  “In front of the Courthouse Deli?” I asked. “Is it always the same girls, or different?”

  “Different ones, I guess. I’d say there’s a fair amount of turnover.” He winked again at Miss Gloria, who stood her ground, looking a little fierce.

  “Could he be fencing emeralds?” Miss Gloria asked.

  The man hooted with laughter. “You’ve been reading too many articles in the Key West Citizen, ma’am. The guys who ‘discovered’ those emeralds planted them there themselves.”

  “Then what drugs is he dealing?” Mom asked.

  “Can’t say for sure,” he said. “I don’t use the stuff myself.” He toed the beer cans again and grinned his gap-toothed smile, which would have been adorable on a toddler. Him, not so much.

  “Did you notice the boy lying over on that boat in the morning?” my mother asked sternly. “He was nearly dead when we found him.”

  “I mind my own business,” said the man. “Like I said, I go out at night. I’m not a crack-of-dawn kind of guy.” His voice got louder. “You might have noticed there’s a lot of junk lying around on these wrecks. One more lump of trash would hardly stand out.” He retreated into his cabin.

  Ray started up the motor again and backed us away.

  “He minds his own business?” Mom asked with a snort. “A likely story.”

  “If this guy was using street girls like Mariah to front his drug trade,” I said under my breath, “I imagine if they knew too much, they’d conveniently disappear.”

  “Which would work just fine, because people are used to them coming and going,” Mom said. “No one’s going to raise a red flag.”

  “Except this time Jai did,” I said. “She had a feeling Mariah had gotten into something bad, and she was right. And then Rory tried to come to the rescue.”

  “A teenage white knight,” said Mom, shaking her head sadly. “I wish he’d felt like he could tell one of us she was in trouble.”

  “You’re assuming this guy was telling the truth,” Ray added. “I don’t believe a word he said. Why would he bother to tell all that to us? We’re not in the least bit official.”

  “Maybe he would get something out of turning the dealer in,” I said.

  “Maybe he is the dealer.”

  Ray pointed the boat toward the sailboat that the man had fingered and we circled around it. But as the man had guessed, it looked abandoned. As we pulled away, its rusty hull rocked in our wake, one loose chain clanking against the mast.

  23

  I would like not to keep going into restaurants and have flashbulbs go off when people are taking pictures of their food. People aren’t tasting it anymore. Just eat your food!

  —Ruth Reichl

  Ray dropped us off at the Stock Island marina, with the plan of meeting up with his folks at Two Cents just after five. We’d get a light bite to eat and then walk them over to see the Sunset Celebration at Mallory Square. We were all feeling grim, considering the ugly truth about Connie’s father and wondering if a drug dealer could be targeting his next young victim, even while Rory took the rap for the death of his last.

  Once back at the houseboat, my mother left to pick up Sam and Miss Gloria retreated to her cabin for a short lie-down. I stretched out on the couch, with both cats slung across my legs, and ripped through my e-mail—almost twenty messages from Connie’s friends asking for details about why the wedding was canceled. Yikes, what could I possibly say? I deleted them all without responding. And then a note from Danielle, reminding me about the articles I was supposed to be writing, when they were due, and when they were scheduled to go live in Key Zest. I deleted that one as well. Now wasn’t the time to obsess about how much I hadn’t gotten done. Then I surfed over to my Facebook page and from there to Rory’s. I studied the photo that had been taken on the Courthouse Deli bench the other night, the last time his page had been active.

  It looked different this time—less playful, more tragic—after seeing Mariah, drowned or strangled in the mangroves. And I recognized the other girl as her drifting friend, Daisy. I clicked on the photo to enlarge it. There had been a fourth person sitting on the bench, but only one muscular leg and part of his arm and hand were showing. I punched in Jai’s cell phone number.

  “Hey, it’s Hayley here. Thank you for letting me listen in on Mariah’s folks. I felt so bad for them.”

  “Me too,” Jai said. “The whole situation is tragic. Sometimes I get to see happy endings, but not for Mariah.”

  “Would you mind taking another look at the photo on Rory’s Facebook page?” I asked. “If you blow it up, you’ll see part of a fourth person. I just noticed this. Do you recognize him?” I waited a moment until Jai found the photo.

  “I can’t see enough of him to say.”

  I sighed. I knew it was a long shot. “Is Daisy still around?” I asked. “I know she didn’t want to talk to me earlier, but maybe she’d be willing to take a quick peek.”

  Jai was silent for a minute. “She isn’t here. Which is odd, now that you mention it. I haven’t seen her for a couple of hours. Once Mariah’s family left, she disappeared. That’s perfectly normal,” she said, as if reassuring both of us. “The kids come and go as they please. But she almost always checks in to help me clean up before I close up the place for the day.”

  I was getting a horrible feeling. “Call me if she turns up?”

  “Will do,” Jai said.

  • • •

  A little before five, I got dressed and motored to the restaurant where I’d planned to meet the others. Two Cents is a stone’s throw from Duval Street, but down an alley, so it tends not to get clogged with tourists. Besides that, we were very early for dinner by Key West standards. I passed through the bar, decorated in purple and teal and swirls of gold, lit by stunning art deco chandeliers, and headed to the patio. I found a table large enough for six and settled in under the netting that kept leaves and birds from dropping onto the diners.

  While I waited, I tried to take a few notes about the setting, but the words weren’t flowing. I put a call in to Allison. “How’s everything?”

  “We’re doing just fine,” she said. “Your father has g
one off to get us a grinder. The kind with pickles and roast pork. I guess you’d call it a Cuban sandwich down here though, right? Rory’s already complaining about the hospital food, and I don’t blame him.” Her voice sounded strained, as though she was working to keep up the cheerful banter. She had to be sitting with Rory.

  “Can I speak to him for a minute?” I asked.

  “Hi again,” I said, once Rory came on the line. “One more thing I wanted to check on. Do you remember getting your picture taken on the Courthouse Deli bench?”

  “Sort of,” he said, still sounding grumpy.

  “Who took the picture?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Daisy was there, and Mariah, and another kid. A guy. Do you remember him?”

  “Not the name,” he said, after a pause. “Just that he wasn’t a kid.”

  “He’s not a kid?”

  “He’s older than he looks.”

  I tried several ways to get him to say more—like was he old and scuzzy like the man we’d seen on the boat this morning?—but he couldn’t. And the harder I tried, the more agitated he got. Allison came back on the line.

  “He just doesn’t remember,” she said softly. “We’ll call you if that changes, okay? And we’re meeting with Rutherford’s new lawyer in about an hour. So he’ll take it from here. Okay, Hayley?”

  In other words, back off.

  As I hung up, feeling guilty for pressuring Rory, my mother and Sam arrived for dinner.

  “How’s he doing?” Mom asked, seeing the phone in my hand and reading the distress on my face.

  “I’m pushing too hard, I guess,” I said. “I have the feeling the key to the whole thing is this guy right here, only Rory can’t remember and we’re not putting the pieces together.” I showed them the Facebook photo again.

  Mom peered at the screen and shrugged. “There’s not much to go on. I could say he looks familiar, but I’m afraid that’s wishful thinking.”

  Ray and his parents came into the courtyard and I waved them over. Once everyone was seated, I explained that I’d be reviewing our meals for Key Zest. “So don’t mind me if I order more than normal—I’m not a glutton, I just have to taste a lot of different dishes. Oh, and please don’t say anything about me being a food critic. I try to fly under the radar so we get the same treatment anyone off the street would get.”

  “This is exciting,” said Ray’s mom. “A covert operation.”

  We ordered drinks and appetizers and then returned to chatting. Except that light chitchat felt difficult, because all roads seemed to lead to the wedding that wasn’t happening. And the absence of Connie.

  “How long are you staying?” Mom asked Ray’s parents.

  “We tried to move our flight up and leave tomorrow,” said Alice, “but everything is booked straight through until next Tuesday. There was one first-class seat but it cost over a thousand dollars.”

  “One way,” said Ray’s father, shaking his head dolefully. “Who in their right mind would pay that kind of money?”

  “We’re considering renting a car and driving to Miami,” Alice said. “Then we could get on standby to Salt Lake City and figure something out from there.”

  “That sounds so stressful. There’s no reason you have to rush off,” Ray said. “Why not relax and see some of the sights on the island. Have I mentioned the Conch Tour Train?”

  Nobody answered.

  The waiter arrived with a Greek salad, fish tacos, wok-sautéed green beans, Key West pink shrimp wrapped in bacon, and a grilled Caesar salad. We divvied the food up and began to eat.

  “How do you go about this?” Alice asked. “Are you comparing this meal to other places you’ve eaten?”

  “I can’t help that a little,” I said. “If the Caesar salad here is better than the last three I’ve eaten, it’s worth a mention. But I also try to keep in mind what a restaurant is trying to be to its diners. This one, for example, isn’t pretending to aspire to Michelin stars, but the chef is definitely focused on being creative without getting outlandish. Hence the calamari with a Vietnamese dipping sauce instead of marinara.”

  “With some of those dishes Buddy Higgs made for the Topped Chef competition,” Mom said, “he was definitely trying too hard.”

  After the waiter had cleared away the appetizer plates and brought more wine, we tucked into a plate of sliders, cooked perfectly to medium-rare as I’d requested, Moroccan-spiced chicken for Mom and Ray, steak frites for Charles, and two kinds of fish for Sam and Alice.

  “These are worthy of Idaho,” Charles said after tasting his fries.

  I sampled everything and jotted down notes as fast as my companions could dictate them. This wouldn’t be the most stylish review I’d ever written, but what did Wally expect with only a day’s notice? The more I thought about him piling this on me on top of everything else that was going on, the more annoyed I felt.

  After dinner we left the restaurant without ordering dessert and walked the few blocks to Mallory Square. We stopped first to watch Dominique the Cat Man and his flying house cats, ordinarily one of my favorite sunset entertainments. He wore a white T-shirt belted around the waist, capri pants, and yellow knee-high socks with black cats preening on them. He released two of his cats from their carriers, and in his falsetto French accent, began to coax them up a rope ladder onto stools. Ray’s mom and mine laughed and clapped with delight, while Charles snapped a series of photos.

  But I found it hard to pay attention to the cat man’s antics.

  “I’m going to look for Lorenzo,” I whispered to my mother. “I’ll meet you over that way in a while.”

  24

  Curiosity kills the cake.

  —Jacquy Pfeiffer

  Anxious to get a tarot card reading from Lorenzo, I pushed through throngs of tourists enjoying the Mallory Square party. The last few days had left me feeling sad and unsettled—I hoped he could shed some positive light on the future. I skirted the guy who dressed his golden retriever in boxer shorts and sent him around to beg dollar bills from tourists, and then a juggler handling a set of monstrous knives that gave me the shivers. In the distance, the Disney Magic cruise ship had swung around and started to chug through the channel, on to its next stop in the cycle of manufactured fun.

  Lorenzo had set up his table about ten yards from the water, looking distinguished in sunglasses and a jacket shot through with gold threads. Three middle-aged women were stacked up only feet from his table, fidgeting and trying not to stare at his current customer as they waited for their readings.

  “I’m going to get another glass of wine,” said one woman to another. “Hold my place?” She headed toward the beverage cart a little farther down the plaza.

  This could take forever.

  The lady seated across from Lorenzo had a death grip on his hand and tears on her cheeks. He murmured as he leaned toward her, patted the back of her hand, and passed her a colorful business card. I caught only the last few words. “Call whenever you need me.”

  When she finally stood up and stumbled off, I signaled for his attention and tapped my wrist. “How long?”

  “It’s crazy busy out here tonight,” he said, shrugging apologetically. “It could be an hour before I can get to you. Call me later?”

  I nodded.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Sort of.”

  I waved and turned to make my way back to my scooter, still feeling uneasy. The crowds pressed in closer to the edge of the pier as the sun dropped toward the slot between two mangrove islands on the horizon, tinging the clouds rosy. As I circled around the aspiring Houdini hanging upside down in chains, a half dozen curvy blondes in pink tank tops that read On the Rock for Missy’s 30th in rhinestone-studded script blocked my progress. One of the girls thrust her phone at me.

  “Would you take our picture? It’s Missy’s birthday today!”

  They were so tipsy and insistent, it would be faster to comply than argue. On the other hand, I was tired and wor
ried and a little panicky about getting out of the sunset mob. But I snapped a quick shot, returned the phone, and forged forward.

  I wasn’t in the mood to tackle one more minute with the crowds on Mallory Square. Or to try to cheer up Ray and his family. But I was too itchy to head right home. Then I remembered the BottleCap Lounge, the bar that had been advertising in the paper for psychics the last few weeks for their nonprofit Friday event—this one to benefit Literacy Volunteers of America. I probably wouldn’t find anyone as skilled as Lorenzo at reading cards, but the pull to try overwhelmed my skepticism. I texted my mother about where I was headed, suggesting I could meet them later at Casa Marina or at Miss Gloria’s houseboat for a nightcap.

  Then I buzzed across town and parked my scooter on Catherine Street. The lounge, located at the intersection of Catherine and Simonton, was bustling with activity—card tables had been set up in the parking lot, manned by people dressed as fortune-tellers. Up the stairs on the deck were more fortune-tellers and a smattering of happy-hour drinkers.

  I went inside to the bar, bought a Red Stripe beer from a woman I recognized from library events, stuffed two bucks in the tip jar, and shuffled back out. A psychic dressed in a flowing skirt, beads, and a red scarf sat alone at a table only feet from me. What the heck: I took the seat across from her. She smiled and reached for my hand. A palm reader, I realized too late. Several years ago I’d agreed to a palm reading from a friend of a friend who was getting started in the business. She’d traced the lines on my palm with her forefinger, pausing over my broken life line. A look of panic crossed her face, and then she’d closed my fingers and turned away, declining to make any predictions.

  I had to assume she’d seen the worst.

  I explained this to the lady across from me, adding: “I haven’t let anyone look at my palm since then, for fear they’ll tell me my life will be short.”