Topped Chef: A Key West Food Critic Mystery

by Lucy Burdette

  Toby splashed frantically a few yards from me. I breaststroked over. She slapped at the water, gasping and choking, and grabbed onto my head.

  I frog-kicked, trying to make a little space between us. She held on tighter, now with a death grip on my hair. Her weight pushed me under and I had to fight to get back to the surface and breathe.

  “Toby,” I sputtered, my adrenaline surging, mouth full of salt water, “I’m trying to help. But you have to let go.”

  “I can’t swim,” she shrieked, and floundered until she sank a second time, pulling me down with her. I bobbed to the surface, panicked at the idea of her fastened to me like a barnacle as the current swept us away. A fact from the lifeguarding class that I’d flunked flashed through my brain: To break the stranglehold of a panicked victim, drop down low into the water and then approach again from behind.

  If I didn’t try something, we would both drown. So I kicked hard and shot lower into the water. Flailing madly to stay at the surface, Toby let go of my hair. Then I surged up on her far side. Slinging one arm across her chest, I started an awkward sidestroke toward the extension of the pier that hosted cruise ships during the city’s three-boat days. Toward the closest way out—a slippery-looking ladder attached to the concrete. She continued to flop and thrash like a hooked marlin as I kicked against the current. Finally, we reached the ladder; I grabbed her hand and wrapped it around the rusty metal. I was exhausted and breathless. And frightened and cold.

  “You’re okay,” I said, shaking the water and some green glop out of my eyes. “The cops will be here soon.”

  She reached for the bottom rung with her other hand, sucking in great gulps of air. Her hair, plastered to her scalp, was covered with an oily sheen—something cruise-ship related I was sure—and some strands of brown sea grass. And her eyes looked wild.

  My friend Tony’s worried, whiskered face appeared thirty feet away, at the top of the ladder attached to the main pier. “Lorenzo’s gone to show the cops the way. See if you can swim over here and grab my hand. They’ve got the gates locked so I can’t get over to you.” He dropped his battered cowboy hat on the cement, wiggled prone, and reached out for us. But Toby wouldn’t let go of the rung she was gripping and I was afraid to leave her there alone. In fact I was afraid to try fighting the current again myself.

  The welcome sound of a siren split the air. Once it bleated to a stop, we could see the lights of emergency vehicles flashing off the clouds. Then thin beams of flashlights pierced the darkness.

  “Over here!” Tony shouted. “Over here!”

  When he’d gotten the attention of the officers, he melted away into the shadows. He’d taken a forced march to the police department last week on charges of disturbing the peace—he would not be eager to be seen by the cops, however positive the circumstances this time.

  After what felt like an hour, two policemen approached the edge of the pier, with Lorenzo in his white shirt, black tie, and black vest decorated with the moon and stars right behind them. All three struggled over the fence and then ran across the dock to our ladder. The smaller cop, a wiry guy with thinning blond hair, descended the ladder until he was wet to his knees.

  “Take her first,” I said, flutter-kicking out of the way and tipping my chin at Toby.

  The cop grasped her arm and pulled her up so she could get a foothold on the ladder’s lowest rung. Then she slipped her other foot on the ladder, too, this one still clad in a black leather sandal. The second policeman lay out flat on the concrete above us and reached for Toby’s hand.

  “Ma’am,” said the first cop. “You’re going to have to let go.”

  “You’ll be okay,” said Lorenzo, who hovered above him. “They’ve got you. You’re safe.” He squeezed his face between his hands and shook his head at me. “Good lord, woman, what were you thinking? I told you how strong the current is here.”

  “I couldn’t let her die,” I muttered, trying not to picture what might have happened if we’d gotten swept away. My teeth had begun to chatter as I realized how close I’d come to drowning, trying to save a woman I barely knew.

  Finally, Toby was hoisted out, then the cops helped me. I flopped onto the concrete, my chest still heaving from fright and exertion.

  “What happened?” I asked her, once I had scrambled to my knees and then to standing. “How in the world did you end up in the water?”

  Toby crouched in a shivering heap, breathing hard, her eyes closed. Lorenzo took off his vest and wrapped it around her shoulders. She nodded her thanks. A town employee arrived to unlock the gate and we staggered over to the main pier.

  Once I reached my pile of belongings, I wiped my face with my sweater, then pulled it on and slipped my feet into my sandals.

  “Get a couple of blankets from the cruiser,” said the wet cop to the dry one. Then he addressed Toby, repeating my question. “What happened here?”

  But Toby was shaking too hard to speak.

  “I was working across the square,” Lorenzo offered, pointing to his table where the lanterns still flickered, carving out geodes of light in the darkness. “Unfortunately, I didn’t see exactly how it happened. I heard a splash and then my friend Hayley yelled for help. And then there was another splash.”

  The cop looked at me. “And you are?”

  “I’m Hayley Snow. This is Toby Davidson. We’d just walked over from the Westin,” I said, “working off a few calories after the Mallory Square Stroll tasting event. As if walking a couple of blocks could make up for all that fried stuff.” I smiled but got no reaction. “And then I left to meet up with some friends. I was halfway across the plaza when I heard a noise, like something hit the water.” I gestured at Toby. “I was afraid she’d gone over because I didn’t see her anywhere. Sure enough, she had.”

  The dry policeman returned with a shiny silver space blanket and wrapped it around Toby, over the top of Lorenzo’s vest. “Why did you jump, miss?” he asked gently.

  “I didn’t plan on j-j-jumping,” she stuttered. “A shot went off and I swear a bullet went right over my head.”

  One cop’s eyes flickered up to meet his partner’s gaze. They didn’t believe her.

  “I heard the cracking noises, too,” I said.

  “There was no place to hide—I was an easy target,” Toby explained. “I was afraid for my life. I threw myself down to the ground but I misjudged how close I was to the water.”

  Another look exchanged between the cops. “Are you injured?” asked the dry man.

  “No,” Toby said, running her hands down her arms as if to check for wounds. But she winced when she came across an ugly scrape that reached from the inside of her elbow to her palm. And then I noticed the blood oozing from a shallow gash on her temple. I touched my own face.

  “You’re bleeding. Did you hit your head on something?”

  Toby put her hand to her head and just stared at the blood that came away on her fingers.

  The dry cop frowned, looking as though he still didn’t buy her story. “You said you heard a shot. Did you see a shooter?”

  She shook her head.

  “Was there a flash of light?”

  “I don’t think so. I can’t remember.”

  “Did you smell anything, like gunpowder? Or sulfur?”

  She dropped her chin to her chest. “I only heard the noise.”

  He stared at her a little harder, then turned his attention back to me.

  “So you heard a shot, too?”

  “I did hear a cracking noise—that must have been what got my attention in the first place.” Had it been a gunshot? My adrenaline had caromed off the charts as I tried to rescue her, shutting off my brain’s usual whirl of curious questions. I touched my ears with my hands and shrugged.

  “There have been firecrackers going off most of the night. I ran over after I heard the splash. When I saw it was Toby in the water and there was no one else around to help, I dove in. Once we got close to the ladder, one of the homeless guys tried to
help us out.”

  “Where is he?”

  I glanced around. Tony was gone.

  “When we first got to the square, they were talking over there.” I pointed to the now-empty bench where the men had been drinking.

  “We’ve had a number of noise-related complaints tonight, especially from the folks over at the Truman Annex and the Westin hotel,” said the cop. “We’ve tracked down two groups of kids who were shooting off illegal fireworks.” He paused and squinted at Toby, shivering, wide-eyed in a wet heap. “Would you say this popping sounded similar to a firecracker, or different?”

  “Like a gunshot—I thought that’s what I heard.” She crossed her arms over her chest and frowned. “I know what fireworks sound like. This was different.”

  While the cops went over Toby’s story again, I put in a quick call to Connie. “I’m not coming after all. It’s a long story but I’m soaking wet and absolutely freezing.” Now that the adrenaline had ebbed away, I could feel how chilled I was.

  “Wet T-shirt contest?” she yelled over the background noise of the bar. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  “Ha-ha, so funny,” I said. “One of the other TV show judges fell in the water off Mallory Square and I had to help her out.”

  “You went in that water? Do you need a ride home?” she asked, suddenly all business and concern. “We can swing up and get your scooter tomorrow. Where are you?”

  “Behind the Waterfront Playhouse,” I said, feeling suddenly relieved—the idea of a cold, wet scooter ride held zero appeal. “My former roommate is on the way over—she would be happy to give you a ride,” I told Toby once I’d hung up.

  “We’re going to keep Ms. Davidson here until the paramedics can check her out,” said the cop in a firm voice. “Then we’ll take her home.”

  “I’ll see you on the set tomorrow,” Toby told me, as if none of this had happened. “Eleven, right? And thank you for coming in after me. I can’t imagine what I would have done…” Her chin quivered and her lips trembled as her words trailed off.

  The truth was, she probably would have been swept off to sea and drowned.

  Four little judges, judging for TV. One swinging from the mast, and then there were three. Three little judges, tasting wine and roux. One couldn’t swim, and then there were two….

  10

  Mise en place (meez en PLASS) comes from restaurant kitchens, where a brigade of helpers spends the day getting everything ready for the dinner rush. It comes from a French phrase meaning “make the new guy do it.”

  —Pete Wells

  I woke early in spite of my best intentions to sleep in, troubled by the events of the previous evening. Had Toby really heard a gunshot? Or had she ramped herself up so that she panicked and overreacted? Had I?

  By the time Connie and Ray had arrived to take me back to the houseboat, I was leaning toward the latter explanation. And the police were definitely headed that way, too, based on the “poor nervous biddy thought she heard a gun” tone in their voices and the matching skepticism in their eyes. Toby’s injuries did not resemble gunshot wounds, the paramedic who cleaned and bandaged her up had reported. They more resembled flesh scraping against the concrete dock, as it definitely had while we flopped around trying to reach the ladder and then climb out of the murky water.

  And finally, a second phalanx of cops had searched the vegetation and the outbuildings around Mallory Square, and come up with zero evidence of a sharpshooter. No bullets, no bullet casings, no nothing. Which in the end was the good news we all preferred, even if it was embarrassing to Toby. What kept me awake more than anything was the visceral memory of Toby’s arms, squeezing my neck and head in the cold, brackish water. And how easily my attempt at rescue could have ended with a double drowning.

  There would be nothing gained by staying in bed. And Shapiro’s comments yesterday about my plump-as-a-guinea-hen figure kept surfacing through the layers of my cortex, no matter how hard I tried to press them down. Exercising might calm those voices—all of them.

  So I pulled on sweatpants and a T-shirt, fed the cats, and set off jogging in a slow chug toward the harbor. I motored up Palm and around the curve to Eaton and then over to the historic seaport harbor, thinking that once again, I would reward myself with a large café con leche on the way home.

  A fog had settled in over the harbor, snugged up so tightly to the water that I could only make out a faint thicket of masts. But the clanking of rigging against wood and metal sounded an atonal cacophony, louder than I remembered hearing in sunny weather. Underneath all that, I heard the noises of hose beating against metal. My acquaintance Derek from the other day must be washing down the deck of the big Sebago catamaran—in case the weather cleared. Conditions could change on a dime on this island and the tourists would be clamoring for the sails to be set and the party to begin.

  “Good morning!” I hollered once Derek’s wiry frame and yellowing beard emerged through the mist. Then I noticed Turtle, the homeless man I’d seen fighting with Derek the other morning, was lounging against the hull, pointing out spots that hadn’t been hit by the hose.

  “Someday maybe you’ll get your own damn job instead of standing around bothering me,” Derek groused in return. Turtle spun around, swirling his cape like Dracula and growling like an angry bear.

  It occurred to me again that the cape looked exactly like the one I’d glimpsed on Rizzoli the other night, as he dangled from the mast. No way it could be the same—that garment would be buried deep in the stacks of police evidence. But would these guys have heard news about the murder? Something more than what the detective had been willing to tell me? They appeared to spend a lot of time here—maybe they’d even been lurking in the shadows as Rizzoli was strung up.

  “Turtle,” I said, diving into the conversation without grace. “Where’d you get the cool cloak?” I imitated his swishing movements with the hem of my T-shirt.

  “Fantasy Fest last October,” he said, flashing a big snaggletoothed grin. “Damn tourists get so damn drunk they leave all kinds of good stuff right alongside the road.”

  “Terrible thing about the murder the other day,” I said, trying to sound open-ended and conversational without coming off as shallow. “Wasn’t Mr. Rizzoli wearing a cape like yours?”

  Turtle slitted his eyes with suspicion.

  “Nothing unusual about that. Anyone with a few bucks could pick one up at the pirate shop on Simonton Street,” said Derek, bristling a little and sidling closer to Turtle. Making it clear that while they might have been fighting to the death the other day, I was still the outsider—a recent transplant from the northeast who had money and relatives and options. Who didn’t have to worry about supper and a place to sleep in the visceral way that Turtle did.

  “I didn’t mean to suggest you had anything to do with it,” I said. “Sorry if it came out that way.”

  “It was ugly, that hanging,” Derek said finally, and Turtle nodded in agreement.

  “Were you guys here before it happened?” Even if they’d seen the whole thing, I doubted they’d admit it. Not to me.

  “I was in bed by nine,” said Derek, waving toward a beat-up apartment building a couple blocks east of the harbor.

  “My digs ain’t quite as fancy as his,” Turtle said.

  “He likes the old Waterfront Market’s Dumpster,” Derek added, snickering. He pinched his nose. “He sleeps better surrounded by eau de garbage.”

  Turtle pointed an imaginary gun at him and pulled the invisible trigger. “I heard an awful ruckus,” Turtle told me with a big guffaw of laughter, “loud enough to wake the dead. Or even those of us not dead, only slightly pickled.”

  “There had to be half a dozen police cars, and every one with its damn siren blasting,” said Derek. “Usually I would roll over and go back to sleep, but I could tell this was something big.”

  “And besides the fuzz, they called in the Navy scuba guys. Those dudes were in the water for hours. Glub, glub, glub, g
lub.” Turtle chortled.

  “How long did it take the cops to get him down?” I’d seen that part myself, but I wanted to hear about their experience.

  “Cutting him down wasn’t the problem,” said Derek. “But they had to wait a damn lifetime for the photographer.”

  “Hey, show her the picture you got,” said Turtle.

  “She don’t want to see that,” Derek said with a scowl. But at the same time, he hitched up his faded blue jeans and pulled a smartphone out of his back pocket. With a few quick jabs of his finger, he found the photo in question and passed the phone to me.

  The scene was worse than I even remembered. Sam Rizzoli had been laid out on the decking, the black cape spread out underneath him. The yellow wig was askew, revealing a fringe of thick, black curls. A rope was still tied around his neck. Even now, knowing exactly who it was, I could barely recognize his face under the makeup caking his swollen skin. No surprise that I hadn’t been able to work out his identity when I’d seen him from a distance the other night.

  “Killer would have to be some strong sonofabitch to haul him up that line,” said Turtle.

  “Those boats have electric winches, you moron,” said Derek. “All you have to do is wind a rope around the poor bastard’s neck and then press a button.”

  “Yeah, but you’d have to know what button to mash,” Turtle said, adding a shrill cackle of laughter. “And how about wrestling him onto the boat deck to begin with?”

  “Why do you suppose he was dressed that way?” I asked, handing the phone back to Derek.

  “It’s Key West, man,” said Turtle.

  “Yeah, but it’s not Fantasy Fest or New Year’s Eve,” I said.

  “That man liked to party,” said Derek. “Ask any of the regulars at his bar.” Then he squirted the deck near Turtle’s feet with the hose, causing him to yelp and hop out of range. “I gotta get my work done here, fellas. You all go yak somewheres else.”

  I trotted off in search of my Cuban coffee, unable to get the hideous photograph out of my mind. Why was Rizzoli dressed in those clothes? What was up with the makeup and wig? Once I had my con leche in hand, I walked two blocks south to see if the pirate store might be open. If I was lucky, I could kill two birds with one stone: take some photos of the wedding garb for Connie, and talk to the staff about what I’d seen at the harbor. It was still none of my business, but the question nagged me. What if Toby was right? What if the contest was related to the murder?