“My buddy Odom didn’t know anything about the death, but he’s going to find out and let me know,” she said.
I stopped working, stickers in one hand and my fist on my hip. “Find out from whom? And let you know how?”
She winked. “I’ll keep you posted. Aren’t you supposed to be going to Key Zest about now?”
I’d been dismissed.
I collected my backpack from the cupboard in the shed where we stored our valuables and walked down Fleming Street and across Simonton toward the office on Southard. The whole time I was wondering how Miss Gloria’s friend Odom would possibly know anything about a tragedy on a food tour when he was locked away without access to Facebook or any other Internet apps that might supply Key West news.
Activity in the town was beginning to pick up—our local grocery store, Fausto’s, was already bustling with customers. And three people waited in line in front of the ATM near the entrance to Key Zest. I bolted up the stairs and burst through the front door. My friend Danielle, the receptionist, was already at work on her computer at the front desk.
“You’re in early on a Saturday,” I said.
“I needed to finish the holiday calendar,” she said. “Wally wants it to go out with the next issue.”
“Doughnuts?” I asked hopefully, looking around the small space, sniffing for the irresistible scent of glazed sugar.
“A fruit plate.” Danielle scrunched her nose and pointed to squares of pineapple piled next to a bunch of red grapes on the TV tray near the door. “Palamina’s request. She thinks we eat too many treats during this season.”
Palamina was our co-boss, slim as a reed and not an inhaler of sugar and carbs like us.
I leaned over to whisper, “I’ll bring some cookies on Monday.”
Danielle grinned. “What kind? Oh never mind, you’ve never brought anything that wasn’t delicious, so surprise me. What are you working on?”
“I took the seafood walking tour yesterday,” I explained. “Every stop was wonderful until we got to the brewery, where one of the customers collapsed. Now I don’t know if they’ll even want to run the piece. I suppose it depends on what the authorities find out about this woman’s illness.” I glanced at Palamina and Wally’s office door, where I could hear the soft hum of their voices.
“She’s on a tear today,” Danielle whispered. “My suggestion is whatever you’re really doing, just look busy.”
Chapter Five
For Jean-Remy, a scallop served in its shell with a teaspoon of velvety cognac and some exquisite whipped cream was more romantic than all the roses in the world.
—Nina George, The Little French Bistro
Nathan and I had settled on meeting with Steve over lunch in the back room at Camille’s restaurant for our premarital counseling session. We’d gone around a few times about where to schedule this discussion. Houseboat Row was out of the question. All of my neighbors would have ears wide open—not in a mean way, just a matter of friendly curiosity. The truth was that Nathan scared them a little bit with his stiff-cop persona. Miss Gloria told me they all wondered how I’d managed to tame him. Ha! That would be a lifetime assignment. The interested listeners aside, it would be unfair to wedge Miss Gloria out of her own space.
The police department, with all those curious men and women in blue? When Key West froze over. Nathan didn’t want anything to do with the teasing that would result if we were seen trooping into Steve Torrence’s office to share our deepest joys and concerns. At least in the restaurant, our secrets would be muted by the busy hum of conversation from the other diners.
Nathan texted me at twenty to twelve to say he was waiting in the parking lot behind my office building. I felt a familiar shiver of excitement when I saw him leaning against a silver SUV. I ran the few final steps and enveloped him in a big hug.
“Too late to warn you that I’ve been up all night and don’t smell that fresh,” he said once we’d let go.
“You just smell like you, and that’s all good,” I said with a grin. “What’s with the new wheels? Where’s your police car?”
“In the shop,” he said with a grimace. “The brakes felt spongy, so I didn’t want to take chances. Ready to go?”
“Yes, and I’m ravenous. Apparently Palamina has put us all on a diet for the holiday season. What a dreadful idea. Doesn’t she know that diets start after New Year’s? And doesn’t she know that most diets are doomed to fail anyway?” I slid into the passenger seat and he got in the other side.
“I suspect I’m going to pack on a few pounds, married to you,” he said.
“Then you just work out a little harder,” I said, running my hand down his arm. “I do so love these manly man muscles.”
We exchanged a kiss that felt like it promised a lot more. His portable police scanner began to crackle, and he turned the volume down. “Whatever emergency that is, someone else is going to have to handle it. I have something more important to do—marrying you.” He grinned and started up the engine, then drove us across town and parked on the street that ran along the side of the restaurant.
Decked out in rosy stucco, pink awnings, and aqua shutters, Camille’s was a stalwart, old-school restaurant with a funky edge that was popular with the locals. The food was plentiful, solid, and inexpensive, a combination that customers couldn’t get at fancier places in town. The waitress led us immediately to the most private booth in the back room. “Steve called to say he’s running a few minutes late. Can I get you something while you wait?”
“Black coffee for me,” said Nathan.
“I’ll stick with water. Lemon if you have it, please,” I said. “I’ve had enough bad office coffee this morning to rot anyone’s gut.” I turned to Nathan. “Where should we sit? Maybe side by side so he can look at both of us?”
He nodded and slid to the inside seat of the bench looking out at the other tables. Cops were vigilant all the time, I’d learned; they didn’t like being surprised.
After the waitress delivered our drinks, his in solid white china and mine in a tall clear plastic cup, I asked him what he’d heard about the incident in the brewery. “It’s not just morbid curiosity,” I assured him, though he looked dubious. “You know I was right there when the woman took ill.”
“Yes, and I find that astonishing.” His eyebrows peaked in mock dismay. “Not.”
I’d developed something of a reputation for showing up at murder scenes. And while there, I seemed to notice things more than other people did, and make connections that they might have missed. Friends knew I’d sorted out a few mysteries. And I was pegged as more approachable and less intimidating than the cops. Nathan wasn’t thrilled about any of this. I rolled my eyes, peeled half the paper off my straw, and blew the rest of it in his direction.
“Really, can you tell me what happened?”
“We’re investigating the situation,” he said, ignoring my silliness and revealing his usual minimal facts. “I’m on another case, so I didn’t hear the summary report this morning. But first, how did it go with the contractor?” he asked. “I’m afraid to ask that question.”
“He had another emergency. We rescheduled for this afternoon. I’d ask you to meet with us, but I know you haven’t slept. A crabby fiancé would probably not help the situation.”
“Definitely not,” he said, the skin around his green eyes crinkling with his smile. “I’ve saved every bit of available pleasantness for this meeting. Besides, I trust your mother completely.”
He glanced at his watch. “About the food incident. Your friend came into the station yesterday. She was too upset to be very helpful.”
“Understandably,” I said. “She’s not used to people getting sick and almost dying on her watch.”
“And I hope she never gets used to it,” he said. “If you don’t mind taking our personal time to run over this, I’d like to hear more about what you observed during your food tour yesterday.”
“Of course,” I said, on instant alert. He
didn’t very often ask me for professional help. Like ever. Except last spring, when I’d acted as a decoy for a tense ten minutes to help catch a bad guy. And really, there had been no other choice. Maybe this pointed to growing trust between us?
My best friend Connie, who lived up the dock from me and was still a newlywed, had explained that in her experience, trust changed over time. “You think you trust someone completely, because why else would you marry them?” she’d mused. “But then you find that that feeling ebbs and flows. Overall, the ebbs get smaller and the flows get bigger and you end up with a net gain.”
And my mother had said the same thing—that trusting someone entirely takes time, and that trust develops in a marriage as the relationship is tested by outside events. Inside events, too. I was finding that they were both right.
“Anything you want to know in particular?” I asked Nathan.
“Maybe first give me your impressions, and then I’ll ask specific questions or have the officer in charge of the case call you to follow up. Honestly, I don’t think it’s going to amount to anything much more than an unfortunate stroke. But better to be thorough and consider all the possibilities now than be accused of negligence later.”
“OK.” I closed my eyes and began to think about how the day had started. “We met at Isle Cook Key West. Over on Whitehead Street near the Mel Fisher museum. It’s a really cute space with a big chef’s kitchen and an enormous island where the customers sit and watch the cooks at work. Chef Martha teaches a lot of classes there, and they bring in guest chefs as well. And they have wine-tasting events too. We should try one.” I opened my eyes and grinned.
He made a face. “Maybe. I won’t say no flat-out the week we’re getting married.” He took my fingers and squeezed. “OK, so you’re in this room with a big kitchen,” he prompted.
“They had us all take seats at the counter. And they gave us little jars of key lime pie sprinkled with Cuban crackers instead of regular crust. Martha makes her filling with lime juice fermented with salt. She calls this mixture Ol’ Sour.” I laughed, and then looked up at him, feeling a sudden rush of horror. “Please don’t tell me this woman was poisoned with Martha’s key lime pie.”
My first interaction with Nathan several years ago had come after a death by key lime pie. That time, I had been a suspect. And he had scared me to death when he’d shown up at my houseboat. And then scared me even worse at official interviews that took place at the police department later.
He would have been quick to point out that I’d been a hysterical suspect.
And I would have responded that I had excellent reason to be—hysterical, that is. Being a person of interest in a murder case had been one of the worst experiences of my life. Even if I hadn’t exactly mourned the victim (an understatement), I wouldn’t have wanted to have been responsible for her demise. Honestly, I didn’t ever wish her dead. Maybe swept away in a big wind like the wicked witch she was.
Nathan sighed. His chin sank to his hand, and with his change in position under the overhead fluorescents, the blue circles under his eyes became more prominent.
“You know I’ll tell you what I can when I can. Nobody’s saying anything about poison.”
“I know you will. It’s just that Chef Martha is such a sweetheart and they’re doing such a good job with that new venture. I would hate to see anything knock the legs out from it.”
“Of course you would. We all would, Hayley. We want every local business in town to succeed. Keep going, please.”
“OK, so that’s where we met the group.” I described for him the one couple and the two other strangers, none of whom I’d seen before. “I wasn’t paying that much attention at first because I was taking notes for my article.”
“So you all had jars of key lime pie. Individual jars, or was it scooped from a bowl that everyone shared?”
“Individual. Little mason jars with lids that had the Isle Cook Key West logo on them. They were really cute. I think I saved mine, if you want to see it. I tasted it like everybody else, but I don’t like dessert before my savory food—I always eat too much and then I’m not hungry for the main event. So I put it aside to finish later in the day.”
“So noted. This jar you saved, is that same pie mixture still in it?” he asked.
I could feel my face sag with disappointment, and a flicker of matching disappointment in his eyes. “Darn it. That would have been too easy. Though I’m pretty sure there wasn’t anything wrong with mine, because I ate the whole thing later and didn’t feel a twinge of illness. Once I got home, I ran the jar through the dishwasher, thinking it would be the perfect size for making vinaigrette. Should I save it for you or bring it to the station?”
He shook his head no. Obviously a sparkling clean glass jar wouldn’t offer clues to anything. “And then?”
“And then we walked over to Bagatelle’s on Duval Street. Analise took us upstairs for their restaurant’s special lobster macaroni and cheese. It was so rich, it could’ve put you into a coma. But delicious. Everybody loved it except for the woman who said she didn’t eat carbs. Can you imagine? Life without carbs?”
He nodded. “I’m glad to know that isn’t in our future.”
I grinned. “Now that I’m talking about it, this no-carb person was the woman who died. Anyway, she tasted the dish, and then asked if anyone else wanted the rest of hers. We all said no. At first. Then her husband decided he couldn’t let it go, so he ate a couple bites of hers too.”
“You’re sure it was the man, the husband, who ate the extra, rather than the woman who took ill?”
“I’m sure,” I said. “Though that could have been the perfect way to sabotage a dish. Taste it yourself and then offer it to others. Except …” I ran my fingers through my curls. “Except how could she have been certain who would take her up on the offer? Anyway, she’s the one who got sick, not her husband. And how in the world could you poison something while sitting at the table with a group of people? Someone would be bound to notice.”
Nathan was beginning to look glazed.
Steve Torrence rushed up to the table, looking flustered himself. “So sorry to be late. I thought this was the slow season, but apparently our pre-Thanksgiving island visitors didn’t get that memo.” He kissed me on the cheek and reached over the table to shake Nathan’s hand. Then he looked at the two of us, seated side by side.
“Maybe you two lovebirds might like to sit across from each other so you can look at each other directly as we talk?”
“Sure,” I said, sliding out of Nathan’s bench and onto the other. And feeling a bit like we’d failed the first premarital test. Torrence sat next to me and we ordered lunch, a rare hamburger with grilled onions and Swiss cheese for Nathan, bacon, lettuce and tomato on white toast easy on the mayo for Torrence, and the special Caesar with a scoop of chicken salad on the side for me. I didn’t need to try something new because I wasn’t taking notes on the food today, only concentrating on the future good of my relationship.
Torrence began. “Congratulations again on your upcoming marriage. It’s really an honor for me to be part of this special day.” The warmth of his smile made me feel as though he truly meant this. “I’ll tell you my theory about what makes a marriage work—people who know how to talk to each other through thick and thin and assume only the best motives from their partner have the best chance of surviving. As you know, we can’t predict what kind of life changes and challenges you’ll face together. We can only work on how graciously you’ll handle them.”
Suddenly this all felt so serious and I was bursting with love and along with that, fear. I knew it was wrong, but I was overcome with a terrible urge to lighten things up. And a case of the giggles. I snickered, fighting to keep the laughter inside by taking a sip of lemon water and nearly choking.
Steve patted me on the back. “OK?” I nodded, wiped the tears from my eyes.
“What’s so funny?” Nathan asked.
I winked at Torrence. “I’ve h
ad plenty to face already with this guy’s ideas about the wedding. First he wanted me to strip off my gown and throw it into the ocean after you pronounced us man and wife. I never did get the meaning of that.”
“So you’d be left standing around in your underwear on the beach?” Torrence asked, an exaggerated look of horror on his face.
I thought he was on the verge of a major laughing fit—they both were. Which I did not appreciate, even if I deserved it for bringing the subject up.
Nathan leaned forward and tapped the table with his fingers. “First of all, I’d be stripping down too, and we’d have our bathing suits on underneath. The idea, sweetheart, is that we’d be throwing off the shackles of the actual wedding stuff and getting on with the fun in our life.”
I rolled my eyes at Torrence. “Ridiculous. He’d never do it even if I had agreed. I’d be left standing there mostly naked and he’d be snickering in his tux.”
“Maybe he was thinking of a James Bond and his golden girl effect?” Torrence asked.
“No tux,” Nathan said quickly. “That was part of the original deal, remember?” He turned to face his friend. “She asked me for ideas, and the only things I could come up with were what I’d heard from guys around the department. As you know, cops can be kind of childish when they aren’t being dead serious.”
“Kind of childish?” I looked at Torrence again. “And then you know what his next idea was? Driving off into the sunset on a Jet Ski! In a wedding gown. A gown that I spent months searching for and plenty of money to score.” I rubbed my fingers together to make the point, though honestly, I hadn’t gone that crazy on the expense.
“Believe it or not, I’ve seen that done. It wasn’t pretty. Somehow the bridal gown got caught underneath the Jet Ski and pulled the new wife underwater. She was dragged behind the ski for almost twenty yards. When she finally surfaced with her ruined hair and torn-up dress, she was beyond furious,” Torrence said.
Nathan chuckled. “I get it, it’s a bad idea.”
A Deadly Feast Page 3