Topped Chef: A Key West Food Critic Mystery

by Lucy Burdette

“The boat definitely belonged to Rizzoli?”

  He nodded and threw the rag back into the sink. After drying his hands on his apron, he flipped the sandwiches. “Can’t say how often he actually sailed, but the guy who does my deliveries said he stayed aboard fairly often.” He grinned. “Probably the nights his wife was mad at him. Or when he planned to party harder than she approved.”

  As I started to cross the street with my loot, an orange and green trolley rattled around the corner. A man dressed in chef’s hat and clothing burst out of Kermit’s Key Lime Shop and pretended to throw the pie at the tourists on the bus. I estimated that he performed this stunt ten times a day, but he acted as if this was the first time he’d thought of it. I detoured around the back of the trolley and settled on a bench overlooking the bight, thinking about a slice of key lime pie for dessert. Or frozen pie on a stick, dipped in chocolate. How many push-ups would it take to counteract those calories?

  I sat with my face tipped to the sun until I couldn’t wait another second to dive into the lunch. Maybe Turtle would smell the roasted pork and come out of hiding. But I made it all the way through my sandwich, washed it down with the sweet, thick coffee, and there was no sign of him.

  I strolled past the bar at the Conch Republic Seafood Market, passing the slips that held charter fishing boats, most of which were empty for the day. Then I came to the sign that read TARPON FEEDING 4 P.M., which reminded me that I needed to take more advantage of the quirky things that made this island so endearing. In front of the A & B Lobster House, I finally had a decent view of Sam Rizzoli’s sailboat. A piece of yellow crime-scene tape was still strung across the stern; a loose end fluttered in the breeze. Standing on the dock and looking up at the restaurant, I tried to imagine whether diners would have been able to see Rizzoli’s body as it was hoisted up the rigging. Maybe not, if it was dark outside and light in the restaurant. The death had been all over the front page of the Key West Citizen for several days running. Wouldn’t someone have come forward?

  A little farther, around the corner, at the end of Front Street, a homeless woman named Elsa was sitting in the dappled shade of a royal poinciana tree. I’d seen her many mornings as she wandered the island on a three-wheeler bike, with its rusty wire baskets stuffed with her belongings. A gray tiger kitten with muted stripes that reminded me of Evinrude ribboned through her legs, batting at the ragged hem of her blue skirt. She had laid out a tiny bowl of kibbles and another of water in the shade beside her.

  “Morning,” I said. “That kitty is so cute! What’s his name?”

  “I was thinkin’ of Cloudy. Or Stormy. Or Foggy. Or Whisper,” she answered, her weathered face creasing into a wide smile. “I’m havin’ some trouble deciding.”

  She hooted out a peal of laughter and I laughed along with her. “You need a whole litter of kittens to use up all those good names.”

  “Yep. Right now, I’m calling him Cat.”

  “That works.” I crouched down to their level and wiggled my fingers until the kitten pounced. After wrestling with him for a few minutes, his sharp white teeth pricking my hand, I smiled again at Elsa. “Are you okay on cat food?” She wasn’t the kind who’d take a handout easily, but I figured showing concern about the cat was something else.

  “For now,” she said.

  I left it at that, not wanting to push about whether he’d had his shots or flea medicine. Maybe next time I saw them, I’d tell her there was a program that paid for veterinary care. Me.

  “I was looking for Turtle. I bought an extra sandwich, thinking he might enjoy it.”

  Her smile in return flickered and then dimmed to a worried frown. “Haven’t seen him since early this morning,” she said. “He was across the harbor real early.” She waved a hand in the direction of the dock where the Sebago party boats were tied up each night. “Seemed like he was having a fight with another man. Shouting and going on the way he does when he stops takin’ his meds. That’s the last I saw of him. Honest to god, I’m a little worried.”

  “What did the man look like? Could you hear what they were fighting about?”

  “Whitish beard maybe, blue jeans? It was still this side of dark and I was too far away to catch much of the conversation.”

  I sighed and got to my feet. It sounded as though Turtle’s truce with Derek had ended. I hope he hadn’t ended up in serious trouble, like a trip to the county jail for disturbing the peace. “Would you like the sandwich?” I didn’t want to insult her, but on the other hand, I hated to see it go to waste. And chances were, she was hungry, too. “I inhaled one just like it—it was amazing.”

  She grinned, a little shy now. “I’ll share it with Cat. And Turtle if I see him.”

  19

  While cooking shows can inspire, you can only learn to cook at the stove. The grandmother is the ultimate cooking teacher in the world.

  —Mona Talbott, Zuppe

  On the way back to my scooter, I stopped at the dock where Derek washed the Sebago party boat every morning, but neither he nor the boat was in evidence. If I wasn’t too stiff to jog in the morning, and if Turtle hadn’t made an appearance before then, I’d come back tomorrow and talk to him then.

  After showering, dressing, and slapping on some mascara and blush, I drove over to the filming session at the Studios of Key West. Peter was working with the camera crew to set up lights for the interviews in a corner of the big gallery. I joined the judges and chefs clustered by the coffee and snacks that had been set up on a table near the entrance. Randy Thompson and Buddy Higgs were arguing about what had happened at yesterday’s tasting.

  “You were the only one who used cream in your dish,” said Buddy. “It wouldn’t have been hard to slip a little something into that container before whipping up your disgusting sauce.”

  “What sense would there be in poisoning my own food?” Randy asked. He ran a hand through his buzz cut; it looked like he’d bleached the tips again overnight. “I’m trying to win the contest, not kill it.”

  “You’re suggesting someone else messed with our ingredients, right in front of you and in front of that mob of people?” Buddy perched a cheek on the table, his free foot swinging, his neck flushing pink.

  “How are you so sure it was my food that caused the problem?” Randy asked. “I wouldn’t put it past you to make your rivals’ customers sick.” The forced smile on his face disappeared and he looked fierce and intense.

  Why didn’t Peter put a stop to this? I turned to wave him down and signal for help. But as I tried to get his attention, I noticed that one of the crew, who carried a camera on his shoulder, was filming the back-and-forth not five feet away from where we stood. They were getting this whole argument on film. Which meant Peter had instructed the cameras to roll.

  Deena walked by and I tapped her on the shoulder and motioned her aside. “What have you heard about the woman who got sick at the tasting yesterday?”

  “She’s in stable condition,” Deena answered. “I haven’t had time to get over to the hospital, but we did hear that.”

  How to phrase my concerns without making her mad and shutting her down? I couldn’t think of a way so I smiled as I asked: “Surely the incident last night wasn’t planned all along? Surely you wouldn’t have risked people’s lives to add drama to the show?”

  “Oh, Hayley,” she said, and pretended to chuck my chin. “Don’t be naïve. This is reality television, remember? Conflict makes for good ratings. If everything was to go smoothly, there’s not a viewer in the country who would watch the show.” She winked and walked away. “But no, we didn’t plan it.” The words floated over her shoulder.

  Did I believe her? I hated the way I’d started finding everyone suspicious, even Deena, who’d stuck with me after Chad did his best to poison her opinion of me. And I really hated the idea that the producers would risk the health of the spectators to spice up the program. Or even the contestants. Would one of them have slipped something into the food? I tried to remember how each of the c
hefs had reacted when the woman took ill yesterday. Angry? Scared? Worried?

  Then Peter called all of us over to begin the filming. “I’d like for Chef Stentzel to be interviewed first,” he said, pointing to a metal folding chair at the center of the lights and cameras.

  Henri ducked out of the crowd and took the seat. She wore a light-pink collared shirt with her hair braided down her back; she looked younger than she had yesterday in her chef’s garb. The expression on her face flickered between nervous and resigned.

  “Chef Stentzel. It’s a pleasure to have you here with us this week.” Peter flashed a phony crocodile smile. “How do you think things are going for you so far?” he asked. “How do you rate your chances?”

  “Everything’s going fine,” she said, squaring her shoulders with a confidence I didn’t think she felt. “In spite of the chaos last night, I think my seafood dish turned out well. The thing is”—she bit her lip and paused, maybe searching for the right words—“we can all cook. You narrowed the field down to the best the island had to offer. Of the folks who were crazy enough to audition.” She smiled and tweaked her braid. “The thing is, I can only be me. If you’re looking for an excellent cook who can relate to home cooks on an honest, natural level, you’re looking at her.” She frowned a little. “I can’t be Randy or Buddy. If that’s what the judges are looking for, so be it.” She folded her arms across her chest and glared at us judges.

  Which I didn’t think would help her case one bit.

  “Thank you, Ms. Stentzel,” said Peter, who then beckoned for Buddy.

  Buddy took the hot seat.

  “How does the contest look from your perspective?” Peter asked.

  “She’s right,” Buddy said, tipping his head at Henri. “We can all cook. But there’s a difference between a cook and a chef. A chef has his own point of view and he doesn’t cut corners or lean on someone else’s recipes. If you want some guy telling you about what his grandmother cooked for Sunday supper, or some lady who’s good only for a late-night slot because her presentation and her food are a snooze, your choices are clear. If you want a chef who can dazzle your viewers, there’s only one choice.” He stood up and thunked his chest. “Me.”

  “Bravo,” said Chef Adam softly, clapping his hands.

  Randy glared at him as he was escorted, bristling with energy, to the metal interview chair. He began to speak without waiting for Peter’s question. “First of all, admit it, people, I look good on the camera.” Several of the crew members chuckled and one flashed him a thumbs-up. “I know how to dress. I know not to kill everyone’s appetite by wearing an unwashed ponytail down my back that looks like a dead animal.” He bared his teeth in Buddy’s direction, whose hair, now that Randy mentioned it, did bear a resemblance to roadkill. More laughter from the crew. “The camera loves me and I love sharing my Southern-style we-may-be-old-fashioned-but-we-ain’t-old-fogeys food with my fans.”

  He skipped back to join the audience and Peter instructed the three judges to come forward. We settled into a semicircle of those same uncomfortable metal chairs, the lights bearing down on us.

  “Let’s talk about what we’ve seen so far this week,” Peter said. “We have one event left and then we will be choosing our Topped Chef of Key West. What have you loved so far? What have you hated? Don’t hold back, folks. Now’s the time to tell us what you’re really thinking. There’s a lot riding on your decision.”

  Chef Adam cleared his throat and leaned forward. As Peter had advised the first day, he’d left his chef’s whites at home and donned a pale green polo shirt that made him look a little sickly. “The stakes couldn’t be much higher, could they? Buddy Higgs stands out in my opinion. He’s a master of his ingredients. He doesn’t just give you recipes, he gives you a philosophy of cooking. Something to live by.”

  I tried not to snort with laughter. “I think our decision has got to be about who looks ready to be on camera,” I said. “Certainly yesterday opened a window onto how these three chefs work when circumstances are challenging, how they deal with the unexpected. Mr. Higgs is fine as long as everything is going his way. I’m afraid both he and Ms. Stentzel wilted a bit under the pressure.”

  “Ms. Stentzel doesn’t seem natural,” said Chef Adam. “She’s too earnest. She’s not having a good time.”

  “Who is?” I muttered under my breath.

  “I think you’re right for once,” said Toby. “Ms. Stentzel is a little awkward on camera, not comfortable in her skin. With Randy, you can look at him bounce around the kitchen and you know what you’re going to get. He may stumble, but he’s back on his feet before a single viewer is lost. They are going to want to root for him. They are going to watch him one week and come back the next week just to hear about what he ate over the weekend.”

  “But what’s his point of view?” asked Chef Adam. “If he’s going to star in a network show, I need to know not only who he is but what to expect from his food. Not just his granny’s recipes, but something unique and focused.”

  “I don’t know what you mean by that,” I said, feeling irritated by his pompous posturing. He and Buddy actually made a perfectly matched, annoying pair. “How does a chef have a point of view?”

  “I don’t know how to say it any plainer. His philosophy. It can’t just be ‘I love my grandma and I love food.’”

  “You keep saying that same darned thing, but why not?” I asked. “That’s pretty damn straightforward if you ask me.” The whole conversation had begun to feel like listening in on one of Eric’s troubled families in therapy. Tense and awkward, but without his calm presence to sooth the waters and coax a sense of unity from the family. Instead we had Deena and Peter asking pointed questions and fanning the flames of any friction they spotted. I couldn’t wait for this to be over.

  “Before we wrap up,” said Peter, “remember we will be filming the final challenge at 484 Johnson Street at ten a.m. tomorrow. Judges should wear cocktail attire. Chefs—no street clothes. Please come dressed as professionals. You will be preparing your signature dishes. Before you leave, we need your list of ingredients—Deena will be doing all the shopping so we have some quality control. That’s it, people. Be on time tomorrow.”

  Quality control—huh. Meaning no one would get sick from eating the food? I unclipped the microphone from my collar, extricated the wire from my shirt, and handed the battery pack over to Deena at the same time Buddy Higgs gave her his scribbled list.

  “See you guys tomorrow!” Deena called cheerfully as we headed out the back door of the studio into what was left of the cool January afternoon.

  Buddy stumped ahead of me so we wouldn’t have to converse, which only made me certain I should talk to him now while I had the chance. As I hurried to catch up, I decided I would ask him point-blank what kind of relationship he had with Mrs. Rizzoli, because I doubted she’d told me the truth. Maybe it had a bearing on Rizzoli’s murder and maybe it didn’t, but I wouldn’t feel satisfied until I knew.

  And maybe I would mention the incident with the chocolate syrup, too. This had weighed on my mind ever since I saw him squirt it on those desserts the other night on the yacht. It wasn’t the fact that he’d used fabricated chocolate whose first listed ingredient was probably corn syrup—the demon of the American obesity epidemic. I understood that not everyone who cooked was a purist (read: food snob) like my mother and me. Lots of normal, hardworking people needed to take shortcuts in their cooking—they didn’t have time to make every dish from scratch. That was okay—better than sacks of greasy fast food or fake food from a box.

  What bothered me about the chocolate syrup was the fact that Buddy had pretended he was serving something else. I worried about choosing him as the Top Chef of Key West. I worried about siccing him on the public, to whom he was liable to flat-out lie about how easy a dish was to make and how good it might taste. He turned the corner out of the alley and started down Southard Street.

  “Buddy, wait up!” I hollered after him.
<
br />   He kept going.

  “Buddy! Wait!”

  He wheeled around, scowling. “I have to get to work.”

  I jogged up behind him. “I need just a minute. I didn’t want to ask you in front of the others, but I do have a question. What is your relationship with Mrs. Rizzoli?” Smooth, Hayley, I thought. It would be a miracle if he answered.

  Stopping beside him, I smelled the sour odor of old alcohol and garlic, underneath a topcoat of breath mints and sweat. The kind of odor that seeped from your pores after a long night of drinking, that couldn’t be washed off no matter how long the morning shower.

  “Why is this any of your business?” he asked. “It isn’t.”

  Which hit home. But why was he so defensive? I sidestepped the question of why I was asking and pushed a little harder. “Her husband was killed this week, as you know perfectly well. And then one of us judges was attacked. And then a lady was sickened by food from our contest. If you have some kind of relationship with the dead man’s wife, you need to come clean.” I paused, hands on my hips. “Unless you killed him.”

  “Did she put you up to this?” he said, practically hissing.

  I shook my head slowly, keeping my gaze pinned on him.

  “I screwed her once or twice,” he finally said, almost spitting the ugly words. “That’s it. Her husband was off with another woman. She told me all about it at the bar. She felt devastated, so she said. Like she wasn’t a real woman. So I did her a favor and took her home. A pity poke, that was it.” He wiped his upper lip, where a sheen of sweat had appeared. “There was no relationship. And there sure won’t be now.”

  He stomped down the sidewalk, steaming.

  Which left me wondering: Who was the liar?

  20

  After reading a lot of overheated puffery about your new cook, you know what I’m craving? A little perspective.