Murder With Ganache: A Key West Food Critic Mystery

by Burdette, Lucy

  James stuffed my phone back in his pocket and began to pace back and forth across the room, muttering to himself. He stopped to look at his own phone, whisking through several screens. In the bluish light, his face looked sweaty, his eyes haunted and desperate. I strained to hear signs of progress outside, while he resumed pacing.

  About ten minutes later, the detective called back again. “It’s going to be impossible to land the bird right here in town. Okay if we give you a ride over to the airstrip?”

  James pulled his gun out of his belt and fired it off again. “Does that answer your question?” he shouted into the phone before hurling it into the far corner.

  I hugged Daisy closer and began to think about the people I loved and the food I would make for them, if we ever got loose from this crazy man. I started with dessert—picturing a caramel cake that I’d always thought seemed a little too complicated and calorie-laden to be worth the trouble. Now I realized it would be worth every amazing bite. And then I thought of chocolate bar cookies, the consistency somewhere between fudge and brownie, with a thick layer of ganache frosted on top. And I’d perfect that yellow cake with coconut frosting that Eric made, which I’d never gotten quite right—

  Suddenly there was a flash of light and several loud bangs, followed by shouting and gunshots and barking and an acrid smell that I didn’t recognize. The hall swarmed with oversized figures in black uniforms and helmets, POLICE written across their chests in white.

  “Hands above your heads!” they shouted.

  I scrambled to my feet, dragging Daisy with me. “Hands up!” I squeaked, yanking her wrist skyward.

  But James snatched Daisy away from me, clutching her one-handed in front of him. “You shoot me and the girl dies, too,” he hollered, and force-marched her toward the door.

  Without thinking more than a nanosecond, I flung myself to the floor in front of them. James stumbled and tripped over me. I heard his gun clatter to the floor and skitter out to the hallway. Hands reached for me and I was half carried, half dragged down the dark, smelly passageway and back into the Key West twilight.

  Outside, Lieutenant Torrence pulled me into a hug. “Good god, woman. Didn’t I tell you to stay out of that place?”

  “I thought he was going to kill her,” I said, sniffling into his shoulder as I watched EMTs load Daisy into the back of an ambulance. “He wanted her to say where Mariah hid his stuff and she simply didn’t know. You should have heard her screaming. I couldn’t stand by. I just couldn’t.”

  “What stuff?” he asked.

  “I think Mariah and Daisy believed it was emeralds. I really have no idea if that’s true.”

  He hugged me again. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  • • •

  I was cleared medically an hour after we hit the emergency room, escaping with only a few scrapes and bruises and a minor case of anxiety every time my mind wandered toward what might have been. Daisy was not so lucky. She’d been roughed up pretty badly, and she retreated into a mute and quivering ball in the center of her hospital bed, unable to make eye contact or speak.

  After I’d explained as much as I knew, Detective Bransford tried to get Daisy to answer questions about James Davidson’s connection with Mariah. My father, who’d sprinted down two floors from Rory’s room as soon as he heard the news that I was in the hospital, watched with me from the door.

  “Maybe you should take a little of your own advice and back off,” he told the detective. “She’ll talk when she’s ready.”

  26

  All I really need is love, but a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt!

  —Lucy Van Pelt

  (in Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz)

  Daisy’s parents texted me early the next morning to say I was welcome to stop by their hotel before they flew back home to Atlanta. I hopped on my scooter and buzzed over. It felt hard to let her go without getting a sense of who they were. Not that I had any say about whether she went home with them, but I’d feel better if I learned they loved their daughter and were decent human beings who’d made a few mistakes. Like most of us. But different from Mariah’s family. I hoped for Daisy’s sake that they knew her to the core—as much as any parents could know a teenager. And loved her in spite of all her shadowy nooks and crannies.

  I rapped on the door of the hotel room. A faint voice invited me in. The room, containing two double beds and a small desk, overlooked the construction on Roosevelt Boulevard. Light years from the elegant rooms where my parents were staying, but under the circumstances, I doubted that this had registered. Daisy was curled up next to her mother on the bed by the window. Her mother shifted to sit up and greet me; Daisy shifted too, as if desperate not to lose the physical connection between them. She barely looked like the same girl, the pink hair tucked under an Atlanta Braves cap above her heart-shaped face, her tiny body clad in designer jeans and a pink cardigan sweater set that was too big for her.

  “We’re so glad you came,” said Daisy’s mom. “We can’t thank you enough for what you did. Daisy said you were so brave when that terrible man threatened you.” Her lower lip quivered and Daisy’s face crumpled. Her mother pulled her closer and patted the tears from her cheeks with a pink tissue.

  “You’re welcome,” I said. “I’m glad it worked out as well as it did.” No point in dwelling on how close we’d come to getting wiped out—they had enough drama to absorb. And I’d overheard the victim’s advocate late last night telling her parents that they should be prepared for a full-blown case of post-traumatic stress disorder and recommending they contact a therapist as soon as they got home. Not to mention that they’d have to sort out why she ran away in the first place.

  Daisy’s father emerged from the bathroom, pulling his wallet from his back pocket. “We really don’t know how to thank you. I’d love to pay you something for your trouble.”

  “Certainly not,” I said, my hackles rising. “I only came by to make sure Daisy was all right.” What was he thinking—that I was a professional bodyguard? “I’m sure Jai at Project Lighthouse would appreciate a donation—they do so much for kids. Daisy made some good friends there.”

  Daisy nodded, still snuffling. Her mom stroked her arm, then picked up her hand, touching her fingernails, peering at the remnants of green polish on them. “How about your brother? Is he doing okay?”

  “They said he’d be out of the hospital tomorrow,” I said. “He shouldn’t have any long-term problems. Not physical anyway.” I perched on the end of the bed. “He didn’t kill Mariah,” I said to Daisy.

  “James did that,” she said in a baby-doll voice, and started to cry again.

  “Why did he take you into that building?” I asked.

  “I told him Mariah had hidden his emeralds there,” she said. “He was so mad when we couldn’t find them.” She ran a hand down her thin arm, which was discolored with bruises. Maybe even the print of a hand.

  “So there really were emeralds?”

  “Mariah stole them from his boat. Didn’t Rory tell you?” She sank back into her mother’s lap, eyes flickering shut.

  • • •

  I arrived back at the Tarpon Pier parking lot at the same time as my father. He kept his arm around my shoulder all the way up the finger, both of us tantalized by the scent of chocolate baking and hoping it came from our boat. Miss Gloria, Sam, and the two cats were lounging on the deck, the screen door leading to the galley propped open. Inside, Mom pulled a pan of chocolate bars out of the oven and poured chocolate ganache over a second pan that had been cooling.

  “What’s the occasion?” my father asked.

  “Just life,” Mom said. “I know it’s corny, but Hayley’s safe and life is good. And chocolate would help even if it wasn’t.”

  My father rubbed his belly and raised his eyebrows in Sam’s direction. “You’d better get yourself a treadmill, man, or a membership at the gym. If you eat like this all the time, you’ll blow up like a balloon at the Macy’s Thanksgi
ving Day Parade.”

  “How’s Daisy doing?” Mom asked.

  “She’s fragile,” I said. “I didn’t have the nerve to press her for more details about how she got hooked up with James.”

  “Just as well. That poor thing,” Mom said. She bustled over to me and pulled me close. “With all the excitement around here, I never asked you how the psychic fair at the BottleCap Lounge went.”

  “Let’s put it this way,” I said, scooping up Evinrude and collapsing into the chair he had occupied. “Lorenzo’s job won’t be threatened.” I laughed and stroked the cat from ears to tail. “For a while, I thought everyone there was phony. But the palm reader told me my lifeline is fine—I’m not going to die early. And the tarot card reader helped me find Daisy. Sort of.” I shrugged. “She said someone was in trouble and I should help.”

  My father frowned. “Anyone could guess that and be right more than fifty percent of the time.”

  I laughed again. “Who the heck knows about these things? But I wouldn’t rule out that the force was present.”

  “That’s my girl,” said Mom, at the same time that my father rolled his eyes and groaned.

  For the next half hour, we lounged around the houseboat, celebrating Daisy’s rescue and Rory’s recovery and waiting for the ganache to set. Then I saw a trio approaching up the finger, a lanky boy in between two adults.

  “It’s Rory!” I cried. “They let him out early!”

  When they reached our boat, we smothered Rory and Allison with big hugs. Rory turned bright red under the microscope of that much familial attention, but he looked grateful too. And underneath, more sad than a fifteen-year-old boy should have to feel.

  Allison came over to get a hug from my father, while Rutherford stood awkwardly on the dock. “You must be Rory’s dad. Come aboard,” said Miss Gloria. “Take a load off.”

  “The taxi’s waiting for me,” he said. “I was able to get a plane out today. I’ll see you at home,” he said to Rory, and stalked off without another word to anyone else.

  “Now we really have cause for celebration,” said my mother briskly, mustering a bright smile and rubbing Rory’s back. “That came out wrong. What I meant was, you’re out of that wretched hospital. And the chocolate bars are cool enough to sample.”

  With glasses of milk and plates of chocolate ganache bars in hand, we coaxed Rory into telling us what happened the night he disappeared. “I knew Mariah from home. She’s a townie,” he began.

  I winced at the present tense, but didn’t correct him.

  “She dropped out of high school, and her parents were furious.” He glowered, picking at the hospital bracelet that still circled his wrist. “If they’d tried a little harder to understand what she was going through, none of this would have happened.”

  My father patted his knee. “We all could have done better, son. We’re going to work on that.” I had to look away to keep from getting teary.

  “So she dropped out of school and then what?”

  “At first she stayed with a few girlfriends, but their parents told them she needed to find something more permanent, or go back home. Then she hooked up with some loser townies and I brought her food from the cafeteria and other stuff she needed. She looked everywhere for a job, but no one wants to hire a teenage kid, especially those snotty Princeton stores,” he said.

  I knew from talking to Jai and the cops at the hospital last night that Mariah had probably been in more trouble than Rory was willing to admit. Drinking, drugs, and shoplifting, among other problems.

  “That’s when she read about the emeralds,” he continued. “And she got the idea if she came to Key West she could make some money fast and then go wherever she wanted, find her birth mother maybe.”

  “Oh that’s so sad,” said Mom, pressing both hands to her chest. “Have another chocolate ganache.” She shoveled two more bars onto Rory’s plate.

  “She hitched a ride all the way down here, and found James pretty much the first night. He’d stolen some jewels from a treasure hunter, and he wanted her to help fence them. She texted me she’d found a way to make some fast cash, but I was worried.” He looked down at his hands. “I was right, too. He made the mistake of telling her where he kept the emeralds.” He glanced over at my father. “He was furious when he realized that she had stolen them. He said he’d kill her if she didn’t tell him where they were. That’s why we took the Jet Ski—we needed to get away.”

  “He followed you onto the water?” I asked.

  Rory nodded. “His boat was a lot faster than that crummy Jet Ski we took. I tried to fight back, but he was a lot stronger.”

  He snuffled and no one said anything for a minute, giving him space to gather his dignity.

  “We should have noticed there was something slimy about that guy,” Mom said. “Usually my creep radar is finely honed.”

  “And that’s why you were eager to come with us to Key West,” said Allison. “Mariah needed you.”

  Rory looked away, his shoulders slumping.

  “You were a good and loyal friend,” Allison added softly. “I wish you could have told us she was in trouble.”

  “When I tried to tell Dad, he threatened me with military school if I didn’t stay away from her,” Rory said.

  “That’s some other good news,” Allison said, her face brightening. “Rutherford’s agreed to let Rory live with us next year and attend Summit High School.” She flashed a big smile at me. “If it goes well, he’ll stay right on through graduation.”

  “Fantastic!” I said. “So I take it the charges against Rory were dropped?”

  “He was never charged with anything,” my father said.

  “What about the policeman stationed outside his room?”

  “Turns out that was for his protection,” Dad said. “There was some concern that James would come and finish the job he started with Rory the other night. I don’t think he expected our son to be as resilient as he showed himself to be.”

  “If only Connie’s wedding was going forward,” said Miss Gloria with a sigh. “Then this day would be perfect.”

  I caught my mother’s eyes just as she glanced at me, on her face a stubborn grimace that meant business and probably matched my own expression. “Let’s go talk to her,” I said. “It’s time we got to the bottom of this.”

  We strode up the dock to Connie’s boat and Mom rapped on her door. After a minute, Connie answered.

  “May we come in for a moment?” Mom asked.

  Connie hesitated, but in the end, what were her options? Refuse to speak with her best friend? And her mom-away-from-mom? She ushered us in and fluttered around the tiny living room to straighten things that didn’t need straightening. “Would you like some tea? I have green or Red Zinger or plain old Lipton.”

  “We’ve just had a snack. Thanks, honey. Come sit with us for a minute,” said Mom, leading her over to the sofa and pressing her down. “Listen, we respect that this is absolutely your decision,” she added, cutting Connie off as she opened her mouth to protest. “There is nothing more personal than whom you choose as your life partner. Even if we all think Ray is adorable and sweet and smart and perfect for you, if you don’t think so, that’s what’s important.” She rested her hand on Connie’s forearm. “But, sweetheart, would you mind terribly telling us what’s changed? You seem so upset about it and Ray is simply sick about the whole thing. We just want to be helpful.”

  Connie looked from her to me and then down at the floor, eyes on the heart-shaped rag rug that her mother had made for her before she left home for college. It had faded badly over the years I’d known her but she refused to wrap it in mothballs and put it away. She forced her shoulders up to her ears and then let them go. I thought we were finally making some progress.

  “Honestly, I don’t really have time for tea or chatting.” Connie heaved the biggest sigh ever. “I’m on the way to the Hemingway House to do their spring cleaning. It has to be done before the gates open to customers
and I happen to be free. I couldn’t afford to turn them down.”

  Mom and I looked at each other. Of course she was free. It was supposed to be her wedding day.

  “In fact, I was just going to call you,” she said to me. “Two of my employees called in sick. But I’ll lose the business if it isn’t done quickly. Could you possibly fill in?”

  If I’d had any doubts when we started talking, now I really believed her employees were ill. Because the last time I’d worked for her cleaning service, I’d broken into my ex’s apartment under the guise of cleaning and nearly gotten myself arrested. As I’d told the cops, I wasn’t really breaking in, just looking for a few of my belongings in the process of dusting and mopping. Connie had to come down to the police department to vouch for me. Suffice it to say, I’d done a lot of groveling to get our friendship back where it had been.

  “Be happy to,” I said. “Mom will probably want to pitch in too. She’s a whirlwind.”

  My mother nodded vigorously. “And we’re both a little at loose ends since we don’t have any jobs to do for the wedding.” Hint, hint.

  Silence.

  I sighed. “We’ll meet you over there in about fifteen minutes?”

  We returned to the houseboat and explained the plan to the others. My father, Allison, and Sam took Rory back to the hotel for some relaxation by the pool. By the time my mother and I changed our clothes, Ray’s parents had arrived at our houseboat.

  “Oh we’ve come at a bad time,” said Ray’s mom, looking at my faded jeans with holes in the knees and the ratty yoga pants I’d lent to my mother. “You’re just going out.”

  “I’d love to have you stay and visit,” said Miss Gloria. “We’re serving chocolate ganache for breakfast.”

  My mother got a wicked glint in her eyes. “Or, we’re helping Connie clean the Hemingway House,” she said to Alice. “Would you like to come along?”

  “Love to come!” Alice replied. “Will the cats be involved?”