Topped Chef: A Key West Food Critic Mystery

by Lucy Burdette

—Ratatouille

  I returned to my scooter, thinking it was definitely time to call the police and report on what I’d learned. But the idea of talking to Detective Bransford made me feel sick to my stomach. So I punched in Torrence’s number instead.

  “It’s Hayley here,” I said when he answered. “I said I’d call if I heard anything and well, I have a few tidbits.” I told him how I’d run into Mrs. Rizzoli and how angry she seemed. And then how I’d discovered that she and Buddy Higgs had had an affair while her husband was busy with someone else.

  “You just ran into Mrs. Rizzoli and she spilled out this story?” Torrence asked, a note of disbelief in his voice.

  “At the gym,” I replied, all breezy. “People talk about all kinds of personal things to get their minds off sweating and suffering.”

  “Is that right?” he asked after a moment of silence. “And the television show? Anything new there?”

  “They’re pretty much all at each other’s throats,” I said. “This afternoon the contestants were accusing each other of spiking the food yesterday to eliminate their rivals.”

  “Interesting,” said Torrence, “if a little far-fetched.”

  “Just passing it on. For what it’s worth.” I had the feeling I was losing my credibility as a finder of useful tips. “Did you guys happen to bring in a homeless guy named Turtle today? I’m a little worried about him. He gets kind of crazy when he’s off his meds.”

  “I know Turtle well,” said Torrence. “He hasn’t turned up on our radar—he hasn’t been arrested and he isn’t in the drunk tank. I would have heard about it. I’ll call you if I hear anything. And thanks.”

  Since it was getting near the time for the sunset celebration, I decided to buzz down to Mallory Square and see if Tony was around. Maybe he’d run into Turtle over the course of the day. If so, I’d have one less thing on my mind.

  When I reached the square, the crowd was still light, but beginning to build. As I emerged from the alley that runs along the Waterfront Playhouse, Lorenzo waved me down. I wove around the ropes marking off the fire-eater’s territory and stuffed a dollar into a pail beside a woman with long gray hair playing guitar and singing her heart out. She deserved a buck just for having that much nerve.

  “You’re okay?” Lorenzo asked when I reached his table. His eyebrows arched almost to his turban. “I had a bad feeling today.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “What kind of bad feeling?” Not sure I wanted to hear.

  He tapped his chest with his fist. “Heavy. Something ugly,” he said. “You be careful.”

  If he wasn’t about the fourth man who had warned me this week, I could have laughed at his melodrama. “I will.” I ceded my place by his table to a thin woman in a tank top and short shorts. With the sun about to set and the temperature dropping, I felt cold just looking at her.

  “I need to know about my boyfriend,” she said, and started to cry.

  I slipped away, leaving him to his work, and skirted the edge of the square until I found Tony and his buddies.

  “Good evening,” I said. “Has anyone seen Turtle since this morning?” I explained what I’d heard from Elsa about Turtle’s argument and how she hadn’t seen him since. “I checked in with the cops—they haven’t picked him up.”

  “She checked in with the friggin’ cops? Who is she, Nancy friggin’ Drew?” muttered one of men seated along the ledge.

  “Shut up, man,” Tony told him, and kicked at his sneaker with a worn cowboy boot. To me: “No, haven’t seen him.”

  “Do you have any idea where he stays? Where he keeps his stuff?”

  Tony rasped a hand over the stubble on his cheek and resettled his cowboy hat. “I think he’s got a little hidey-hole over at the end of Duval.”

  “Thanks,” I said, and turned to go. Though how in the world I’d find him with those directions wasn’t at all clear.

  He dropped his smoldering cigarette butt to the cement and ground it out. “Let me run over with you.” He doffed his hat at his friends. “Later, you sorry dudes.”

  Tony shambled along ahead, me muttering “Sorry to bother you” and “he’s probably fine” in his wake. We passed the Ocean Key Resort and then the Pier House and finally reached the tiny beach at the very tip of Duval Street. Where would someone find a place to hide here? But Tony crashed through a row of palmetto bushes along the side of a building. I pushed in behind him, stung by the snap of a few sharp leaves, until we came to a makeshift lean-to made of cardboard and pieces of castoff wood. Tony got down on hands and knees and crawled into the opening, its dirt floor layered with newspaper. The headline about Toby Davidson’s rescue from the harbor was on top.

  “Holy mother!” said Tony.

  I crouched down and crawled into the tiny space behind him. Inside, the hut smelled like unwashed clothes, sweat, urine, and the coppery scent of fresh blood. Tony kneeled beside what appeared to be a pile of rags. Only bloody. As I looked more closely, I recognized Turtle’s battered face. And shreds of the black cape he’d been wearing that first morning at the harbor.

  “Oh my god, is he alive?”

  Tony brushed a strand of red hair off Turtle’s face, and then took his hand and felt for a pulse. “No idea. You better get help.”

  My heart sank and I backpedaled, whipping out my cell phone to call 911 for an ambulance. And then I called Torrence.

  “We found him. Turtle,” I said, feeling a surge of anger and then hopelessness. “Someone beat the crap out of him. And he crawled off to die like a wounded dog.”

  21

  Plumes of white, pink, and purple blossoms offset the one hundred shades of green our little city is known for this time of year: lime, celery, and avocado, butter lettuce and kale, Granny Smith apple and broccoli and sage.

  —Jennie Shortridge, Eating Heaven

  By the time I got home it was close to six. I felt jittery and sick to my stomach about Turtle, and definitely blue. He’d only looked worse the longer I stayed—barely breathing and sticky with old blood. At least I knew he was alive because he produced a groan like pain itself when the EMTs arrived and loaded him, almost tenderly, onto a gurney.

  Torrence had arrived on the scene with another cop shortly before the EMTs. Even he had a horrified expression when he emerged from the bushes—and I imagined he’d seen the worst of the worst. After Turtle was packed up and carried off, Torrence poked around looking for evidence to explain the beating. I told him everything I could think of—about the fight I’d broken up between Derek and Turtle a couple days ago, and Elsa’s report about another argument early this morning.

  Then I motored on home, feeling washed out and impotent. I couldn’t do anything for Turtle—either he’d make it or he wouldn’t. Even though it sounded a little shallow and silly, the only thing I could think of that might drive those hideous images out of my head was cooking.

  Ever since the wedding challenge the other day, I’d been thinking about Connie’s wedding cake. If I was going to bake for her wedding, I wanted to make something that would reflect her best qualities, the things Ray had seen shining in her. A cake that was solid, yet light. Sweet but not treacle-y, with just the right dash of tart. If I could tweak those lime cupcakes into a version that would be lighter and less sweet, they could be the answer.

  I paged through several cookbooks, looking for a recipe that might come close to the lime cupcakes that Chef Stentzel had made. Without green food coloring. And with half the frosting. And a third less sugar. But nothing popped out. I booted up my computer and did a search. Mystery Lovers Kitchen, a Web site created by a gang of culinary mystery writers, provided the closest approximation—at least a place to start.

  While one stick of butter softened in Miss Gloria’s microwave, I set another stick and some cream cheese for frosting out on the counter. Then I pulled out the other ingredients—flour, sugar, eggs, buttermilk, baking powder, baking soda, limes. As I clattered from the pantry to the fridge and back to the small counter, both
cats appeared from wherever they’d been napping, crowding underfoot in case something delicious should drop.

  Miss Gloria arrived home as I finished folding the wet ingredients into the dry. She watched me pipe the cupcake liners half full of lovely pale green batter.

  “How was your day?” I asked as I slid the cupcakes into the oven.

  She described several of the bridge hands she’d played with her friends over the afternoon, including a grand slam that was bid and made. “Pretty good for a foursome of old biddies,” she said with a cackle. “And Annie Dubisson did real well with the snacks—nothing like you’d make, of course. But at least none of us went hungry.” She sat on the banquette along the kitchen wall and wiped her glasses. “What did you do today?”

  Turtle’s face flashed through my mind but I wasn’t ready to talk about him—the memory was too vivid and raw. And Miss Gloria was tender—it would only upset her. So I told her about the interviews with the chefs and judges. And how I’d virtually stalked Buddy Higgs until he admitted he’d had a fling with Sam Rizzoli’s wife.

  I gathered the dirty dishes, dropped them into the sink filled with soapy water, and began to wash. “The thing is, she insisted this morning that she didn’t even know him.”

  “So someone’s told you a stretcher,” said Miss Gloria, one arthritic finger waggling. “If it was me, I’d go back to her with the new information and lay it all out.”

  “You’ve become quite the little detective,” I said with a laugh, piling clean bowls onto the counter. I fished a dish towel from the linens drawer and began to dry. “You’d just show up at her house?”

  “We could go see her now,” said my roommate, nodding eagerly. “Once the cupcakes are out. We’ll surprise her and she’ll spill all she knows.” She whipped a phone book out of the bookcase that was tucked under the bench, laid it open on the kitchen table, and paged through until she found Rizzoli’s address. “They live in Casa Marina. We could be there in no time.”

  I frowned and wiped the clean counter dry. “Your son would kill me. He brought me onboard to look after you, not chase around the island after criminals.”

  “He’d never know,” she said, zipping a finger across her lips. “Besides, I’d just be along for company,” she said. “And courage.”

  I thought this over as I settled the clean dishes back on their shelves. No way Mrs. Rizzoli had really killed her husband. She was strong, but I didn’t believe she was dangerous. But on the other hand, there was a very good chance she was harboring a secret connected to his death. Something she hadn’t revealed to the cops—either because it was too embarrassing or she believed it wasn’t related. Or both.

  “How do you feel about riding on the back of a scooter?” I asked, grinning.

  “Hot dog!” she said. “Let me get a sweater.”

  “And you’ll stay on the bike and let me do the talking?”

  She nodded again.

  Once the cupcakes were out of the oven and cooling on the stove, I found the spare helmet I’d bought when my mother was visiting and ran a comb through my curls. At the last minute, I frosted four of the still-warm cupcakes and packed them into a Tupperware container. Though the melting icing was not quite up to my usual standards, I preferred not to show up empty-handed to a family in mourning. Then I drove slowly over to the Casa Marina neighborhood, Miss Gloria clutching my waist with both hands and the cupcakes nestled in the crate over the rear wheel.

  “Don’t let’s go on Truman Avenue,” she said. “Mrs. Dubisson says it’s under construction—an accident waiting to happen.”

  “I won’t,” I said, trying to imagine Mrs. D on a scooter on one of the busiest streets in town.

  The Rizzoli home on Washington Street was a stunner—an enormous white stucco estate just blocks from the Atlantic Ocean and Flagler’s famous Casa Marina Resort. The lawn alone was larger than many of the homes in town, and the stands of tropical vegetation rivaled what I’d seen done by the garden club. A new white Mercedes sat in the driveway in front of the three-car garage, parked behind a bright yellow Hummer.

  “Why would you even want a vehicle that’s wider than half the streets in the city?” Miss Gloria wondered. “Haven’t they heard of global warming?”

  “Some people still don’t get it,” I said. I hopped off the scooter, took the cupcakes from Miss Gloria, and ran up the stairs to ring the bell. Mrs. Rizzoli came to the door after a long pause. She saw the cupcakes first, and it took her a moment to place me.

  “You’re too kind,” she said politely, as I expressed condolences again and handed over the baked goods. She set them down on an occasional table just inside the door

  “Who is it?” called an older woman’s querulous voice from down the hall.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” said Miss Gloria, suddenly materializing next to me. She’d removed her helmet and her white hair stood up like an angry cat’s. “But we have something to ask you about Buddy Higgs.”

  Mrs. Rizzoli frowned and tried to shut the door, but Miss Gloria’s sneakered foot wedged it open. “Probably better to tell us ladies than spill the whole embarrassing episode to the police,” she said, ignoring my warning glare and my hand, clamped firmly on her wrist.

  “Who is it?” the voice called again from the living room.

  “A friend from the gym, Mother,” Mrs. Rizzoli answered. “I won’t be a minute.” She came out onto the portico, closed the door behind her, and folded her arms across her bosom, glowering. “What do you want?”

  “It’s about Buddy Higgs,” I said. “We’ve discovered that you lied, saying that you don’t know him. He told me the truth today.”

  “I doubt that,” she said, ice in her voice.

  “Is there some place we could sit a minute?” Miss Gloria asked.

  “Who are you?” asked Mrs. Rizzoli, but my roommate only folded her arms across her chest and planted her legs like a miniature bodyguard. In a sparkly pink sweatsuit. It was hard not to laugh. Then I thought of Turtle and the chuckle died away.

  “We’ve had three violent incidents now,” I told her, counting them off on my fingers. “Your husband was murdered. An attempt was made on one of the other judge’s lives.” Miss Gloria looked at me with wide eyes but I motioned her off. “And today a homeless man was beaten nearly to death.”

  Miss Gloria’s eyes grew even wider. This was news to her, too. “And you didn’t even mention the lady that got sick at the cooking show,” she added.

  “We need to know what you’re hiding before someone else gets killed,” I said to Mrs. Rizzoli. My gaze locked on hers until she finally looked away.

  “Over here,” said Mrs. Rizzoli, and stomped ahead of us to a grouping of Adirondack chairs partially hidden by palm fronds in the side yard. When we were all three seated, she dropped her face into her hands. “He’s right. We have been involved. But it was only a way to protect myself.”

  “From what?” I asked.

  She looked up. Her eyes filled and she dashed a tear away.

  Miss Gloria rustled through her fanny pack for a tissue, and then leaned over to pat Mrs. Rizzoli’s knee. “Go ahead, tell us, dear. It will help the healing to get the truth out.”

  “When did this start?” I asked.

  Her eyes found mine and then she heaved a great sigh. “The night Sam actually brought his girlfriend into our restaurant—and practically did her right on the bar in front of all our friends and acquaintances, that’s the night I went out with Buddy. He used to work in our kitchen. You know how handsome he is—and charming.”

  I bit my lip and nodded. Only I would never have described Buddy as charming, more like abrasive and self-absorbed. And not even all that appealing physically. I suppressed a snicker, thinking of Randy’s comment about Buddy’s hair impersonating roadkill.

  “You said he used to work in your kitchen. Why did he leave?”

  Mrs. Rizzoli said, “It’s not unusual—there’s a lot of turnover in this business.” She put a ha
nd to her forehead. “I don’t suppose you should be surprised to learn that a man has a drinking problem if you meet him at a bar when you’re both blotto,” she said. “To be honest, I think he missed a number of his shifts and the manager finally canned him.”

  “So Buddy was unreliable?”

  “That’s pretty much it,” she said. “I think he actually finds cooking in a restaurant beneath him. He doesn’t want to fry and plate hundreds of orders of yellowtail snapper—he wants to invent crazy dishes and then boss other cooks around who are making his creations. He’s ferociously ambitious.”

  “Did your husband know that you and Buddy were seeing each other?” I asked. “Because from what I could tell in the Topped Chef competition, Sam didn’t seem to have anything against him. In fact, he was very complimentary about his food.”

  “Honestly?” Her eyes filled again, which caused Miss Gloria’s lips to tremble in sympathy. “I don’t think he cared. When he broke his big news the other day, I don’t think he even realized that I already knew he was cheating.” Her hands began to shake—sadness? Anger? Or heartsick with the sheer humiliation?

  “That’s not right,” said Miss Gloria. “What kind of a marriage is that?”

  I wasn’t entirely sure her presence on an interview was turning out to be an asset. If we felt too sorry for Mrs. Rizzoli, it would get tougher to ask the hardball questions. I decided to switch direction.

  “Do you remember when Sam was asked to be a Topped Chef judge?” I asked. “You mentioned that he’s not much of a foodie.”

  “A couple of weeks ago, anyway,” she said. “Maybe two? He was tickled to be invited. It didn’t take much to pump up that man’s ego. When Deena Smith called, he took it as a sign that he’d climbed another rung in the Key West culinary scene.” She wrinkled her nose. “Which partly explains why he was so angry about your restaurant review. When you criticized his establishment, you pricked his balloon—and then some of his hot air ran out.”