“Kitchens?” I asked.
Bill said, “There’s a second kitchen in the back of the store. Lots of times if one of the visiting chefs doesn’t want to prepare everything in public, he or she might start the dishes in back and then finish them in front of the guests. There’s also lots of storage, walk-in refrigerators, all that kind of not-so-sexy stuff.”
“You’re writing an article for Key Zest, Martha said?” asked Eden. “If you plan to talk about the store, maybe you’d like to see the rest of our place?”
“I’d love to!”
She waved me on to follow her past the wine coolers, containing a wall of bottles of all colors, and to the door at the back of the kitchen through which Martha had disappeared. The hidden area was utterly neat and organized, lined with shelves that included cooking merchandise that I assumed would be sold in the store, cases of wine, and dried and bottled food. Against the far wall was a supplemental kitchen including a six-burner gas Wolf stove with a griddle and double ovens underneath that made me drool with envy, a chest freezer—ditto—and a walk-in cooler.
Bill opened the door to the cooler and gestured at the shelves, overflowing with turkeys, sacks of Brussels sprouts, slabs of bacon, onions in net bags, and more.
“She’s teaching a class on Thanksgiving side dishes,” he said. “My favorite is the brown-butter rosemary yeast rolls.”
My stomach let out a loud rumble and they both laughed.
“You’re welcome to join this class, on the house. She’s including a tutorial on gravy from scratch,” said Eden. “And her side dishes are like nothing you’ve ever seen on dinner tables. She likes to put a Thai spin on old classics, like sweet potatoes with charred poblanos or Brussels sprouts with Thai chilies and caramelized shallots. I can’t wait for the habanero candy!”
I’d begun to salivate at the sound of those recipes, almost drooling like one of Pavlov’s dogs. “Sounds divine, but I have plans with my family, and my mother would personally kill me if I bailed out. Another time, I hope.” I exited from the cooler and circled the storage area, pausing by the bottles of key lime juice lined up on a top shelf.
We emerged from the back kitchen and I thanked them for talking with me, collected my backpack from the counter, and headed out the front door. I needed to stop in at the other places we’d visited on the tour, but maybe I’d save that for tomorrow. Today I was over-the-top exhausted, and had promised to pop in at my mother’s place on the way home. I’d meant it when I’d told them that not showing up there would be considered just cause for homicide.
Chapter Seven
Even the angriest person is soothed by the scent of soup simmering on the stove.
—Ruth Reichl, My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes That Saved My Life
I trotted up the block to the parking area in front of the Custom House, where a tangle of rusted bike parts, rental bikes, and a few scooters rested. My trusty silver scooter was not in the place I’d left it. Had someone taken it? A lot of people passed this area coming in and out of Mallory Square. The scooter wasn’t that valuable, but it was priceless to me—my only real form of transportation. I rummaged in my pocket and found the key. So at least I hadn’t spaced out and accidentally left this in the ignition—a thief would have had to hot-wire the engine. Thoroughly irritated and a little rattled, I debated whether to call Nathan, decided yes, and punched in his number.
He answered, sounding sleepy.
“Oh my gosh,” I said. “I totally didn’t think—I’m so sorry to wake you.”
“Is something wrong?” he asked, the sleepiness gone instantly from his voice. “Where are you? Are you OK?”
“I’m fine. I’m downtown. It’s just, someone stole my scooter. I should have called the regular department phone number instead of bothering you.”
“I’m glad you bothered me,” he said, and began to bark out questions. “Where did you park it? Did you take the key? Did you notice anyone watching you as you left?”
As I was getting ready to answer, I spotted the scooter parked in the next rack over. “Shoot,” I said. “It’s here and now I’ve woken you for nothing. I was in a big hurry and I’m overtired and all is well. Will you able to go back to sleep?”
“I’ll be fine, talk tomorrow,” he said.
Ten minutes later, I parked outside my mother and Sam’s rental on Noah Lane. For the last several years, they’d occupied this two-story home in the Truman Annex with a cupola overlooking the Navy’s harbor and a covered deck with a dipping pool surrounded by tropical foliage in back of the house. It was much roomier than Miss Gloria’s houseboat, and quieter too, with a glorious kitchen and a big dining room that could be opened up to the back porch if the weather was nice—the perfect place to host a dinner.
My mother and Sam were in the dining room, pouring over a handwritten page.
“Oh Hayley, I’m so glad you’re here. The seating chart is impossible.”
“We’ve hosted stressful dinners here before,” said Sam with a wicked grin. “Remember how your Detective Bransford showed up when cousin Cassie and her husband were visiting? He was not exactly a gracious addition, and yet we survived that.”
Nathan had appeared at a Christmas dinner party and interrogated my mother’s guests at a moment when his murder investigation had stalled. The evening was going badly even before his arrival: Sam had just made a public marriage proposal to my mother and she’d said—nothing.
“I will never forget that night,” my mom said. “I almost let the best thing in my life slip away. And having an irritable detective there didn’t help.” She smiled up at Sam, and he rubbed my mother’s back in comforting circles.
“I promise he’ll be better this time. For one, he won’t have any reason to question your guests. I’m mostly worried about him and Dad—whether they’ll hit it off.” I hesitated, glancing at Sam and squinting my eyes. “And what about you and Dad? Will you be snorting and pawing at the dirt around my mother?”
Once Sam stopped laughing, he said, “We’re not exactly rivals. He opted out of being married to your mother and I opted in. From what I can tell, that makes me both smart and lucky. And perfectly capable of being generous.” He ended with an enormous grin.
I went around the table to hug him. “And she was so smart to snag you. Finally.” I hugged my mother too. Then I peered down at the paper, which contained a line drawing of the dining room table with names penciled around it. “Assuming you and Sam are taking the ends of the table, I’d put Connie and Ray across from each other, and Allison next to Sam. Maybe Rory next to Mom on the other end because he’ll be feeling a little shy. And then seat Miss Gloria in between Nathan and Dad. I’ll sit next to Rory, across from that trio. She can get anyone laughing, even the worst curmudgeon, in case we have one. And knowing those two, we probably will. One or both. It scares me that I chose to marry someone so much like my father.”
“Your father had some good qualities. Or I wouldn’t have chosen him,” Mom said in a brisk voice. “Time for a cup of tea? I could use a break.”
We headed to the kitchen, where the counters were covered with Thanksgiving works in progress, even though we were days away from the holiday. She put the kettle on to boil. Sam retrieved herbal tea, mugs, and honey, and loaded a plate with delicious-looking cookies. I took a seat and read over Mom’s recipe list.
“Cornbread sausage stuffing? That sounds amazing!” I said. “I don’t remember you ever making that.”
“It’s Sam’s specialty,” said my mother. “He brought a whole recipe box from his southern grandmother as part of his dowry. None of this Pepperidge Farm–in–a–bag for him.” We both giggled. As if either of us would ever serve food from a bag or a box or any kind of mix. We simply didn’t have it in us. Our genes dictated that everything be made from scratch, and my grandmother’s training had reinforced that.
“I remember that your father was crazy for bacon, so I’m making the roasted Brussels sprouts with crispy bacon and onion and a lit
tle balsamic glaze.”
I was curious about why she’d try so hard for my father. And wondered if Sam felt OK about that amount of effort as well. But why stir the pot when it didn’t appear to be bubbling over? “Nathan will go mad for that, too—he loves anything bacon. But didn’t Rory turn vegetarian this year?” Rory was my stepbrother who’d gone missing the last time he visited Key West. He’d started out looking for fun but ended with trouble way more serious than he could have imagined. Hopefully he’d grown out of the urge to bolt away from his family in a strange town.
“That’s why we’re making the roasted butternut squash and sage dish. Allison said he’ll gladly eat cheese and eggs and butter, just not the animals themselves.”
“As we all should eat if we walked our talk,” I said with a sigh. I selected a perfectly light-brown pumpkin snickerdoodle from the plate in front of me.
My mother asked how things had gone during the meeting with Martha, and I explained how she seemed worried that the death was related to her. And how she didn’t seem to have shared this fear with her employers.
“Honestly, it all sounds a little preposterous—or at least paranoid. So I plan to do a little looking online to see if I can find anything unusual about her history. Even though she fears that someone did this to damage her reputation, she won’t talk to the police or give me any details.”
“That sounds like a long shot, doesn’t it?” Sam said. “Have you learned anything about the other people on the tour or the lady who died?”
“Those questions are on my list, too. And at some point I want to stop in at the other restaurants to see if they noticed anything about our group.”
“Are you sure you want to take that on when you have so many wedding details to wrap up?” my mother asked. She was biting her lip, and I knew she must have worded that question carefully so as not to appear meddlesome.
“The thing is, I have to write the article on the seafood tour anyway. It’s all I’ve got for this issue of Key Zest, other than a little piece on where to eat Thanksgiving if you’re not up for cooking. And Danielle tells me that Palamina’s on a tear.”
“Again?” my mother asked. “What’s wrong this time? For someone so high-powered, she sure seems high-strung.”
I could only shrug.
“Have they definitely determined that the death was related to Martha’s food?” Sam asked. “If so, I would think your Nathan could handle all this, or turn it over to someone who would.”
“No, that comes from her so far. For all we know, the woman could have had a stroke or heart attack, unrelated to anything she ate. And I promised Martha I wouldn’t say anything until she was ready.” I crossed my arms over my stomach. Sam wasn’t usually pushy this way—the stress of the season must be getting to him too. Luckily, my phone dinged with a text message to interrupt the conversation. Unluckily, it was the contractor, canceling. Again. A lump swelled in my throat. I held the phone up so they could see.
“I hate to say this, honey, but I don’t think he’s going to do the work,” my mother said. She had that “I’m your mom and it breaks my heart when you’re sad” look on her face.
“Maybe there’s someone else in town who would take it on?” Sam asked, reaching out to put a comforting hand on my shoulder.
“Maybe.” But in my heart of hearts, I suspected it would be years before that houseboat was renovated. Which wasn’t the end of the world in the grand scheme of tragic things happening in the universe. But even so, I felt down in the dumps and ready to retreat to my bedroom with only my cat in attendance, a good book, and whatever treats might be tucked away in my freezer.
Chapter Eight
And fantasy is exactly what it’s designed to be: the ooze of a buttery grilled cheese, the drip of a just-punctured yolk down the side of a double-stacked burger snowdrifted with truffles, a magically pink drink swirled with neon blue, a four-scoop ice cream cone melting in the sultry summer heat—these images are intended to elicit visceral, lizard-brain responses of hunger and desire, but somewhere between the screen and the mouth, things often go left.
—Amanda Mull, “Instagram Food is a Sad, Sparkly Lie,” Eater.com
I woke up early, not surprising as I’d gone to bed before ten. I had a text message from Nathan, who’d sacked out at six AM but promised to call in the evening. And another text from Analise, who asked me to call her when I got a moment. While I brewed a pot of coffee, I mulled over what to make for breakfast.
On the counter sat a perfectly ripe avocado that would turn brown and mushy if I waited another day. I peeled it and mashed it up with a squirt of lemon and a few drops of Tabasco hot sauce. After popping two pieces of whole-grain bread into the toaster, I sliced radishes and dug out the arugula and cilantro sprouts I’d found at the Bayview farmers’ market earlier this week. When the toast was done, I slathered it with avocado and sprinkled the radishes and sprouts over top.
Then I went out onto the deck with a big mug of milky coffee and the avocado toast to think through the day. Both cats nosed around my plate, seeming disappointed to find vegetables rather than bacon. The humidity that had hugged the island like a fleece blanket for the past few days had been pushed out by a cold front overnight, so I was glad to have my furry companions settle in on my lap.
I didn’t have anything on the calendar until my meeting with Steve Torrence this afternoon at Fort Zachary Taylor beach, where we would discuss the rehearsal, which was scheduled for Thursday morning before Thanksgiving dinner. I realized that I was even more nervous about the wedding than I’d allowed myself to acknowledge. I didn’t think it was the prospect of marrying Nathan. I loved Nathan and he loved me. We didn’t have a simple relationship, but it was fiery at the right times and comforting at others. Committing myself to Nathan felt right and true. It was more the weight of history that was getting to me—my parents’ divorce scared me. And Nathan’s as well. Did two people who weren’t that great at talking things over stand a chance of staying together?
On top of that was the group of disparate people gathering this week, despite my reassuring comments to my mom. To be honest, it was hard to picture Nathan and my father hitting it off. Dad liked to think of himself as an intellectual. He hadn’t wanted me, his only biological offspring, to go into the food business, and I very much doubted that police officer would be on his list of son-in-law dream occupations. I suspected that both of our jobs felt blue collar to him. Though hands-on was more like it—he wasn’t a snob. But his parents, my grandparents, had drilled the importance of moving beyond physical labor to intellectual work into his value system.
And despite Sam’s insistence to the contrary, how easy could it be to be hosting my mother’s first husband in his home? And how tense would this make my mother? Just thinking about it made me quiver with anxiety. What would help calm me down? Baking, of course.
Once I’d finished my breakfast and dislodged the kitties from my lap, I headed back into the kitchen, purposely avoiding looking at the pile of trash next door that was supposed to be my future home. I brought up my recipe for pecan pie bars on the iPad and began to pull out the ingredients: flour, sugar, salt, eggs, vanilla, butter, pecans, and the fat-inducing ingredient that I dared use in no other recipe—corn syrup. I’d made these once before for a potluck dinner and they’d vanished off the plate like a light frost in the sunlight. I whipped up the shortbread crust in my food processor, patted it into a parchment-papered pan, and slid it into the oven before starting on the filling. Once I’d finished the gooey pecan mixture, poured it over top of the piping-hot crust, and slid the whole thing back into the oven, I returned Analise’s call.
“Did you get a chance to talk to Chef Martha?” she asked.
I filled her in on the little I’d learned. “Tomorrow I’ll visit the other restaurants and see if anyone noticed anything. If I turn nothing up, Martha promised she’d talk to the police.” I wasn’t sure she’d follow through on that, but I had to hope. Or better still, maybe t
here’d be an announcement about the death occurring from natural causes and I could get out of this pseudo-investigation business altogether.
“Sounds fair enough.” She hesitated, then added, “I have one more small favor. Would you have time to have a quick coffee with the dead woman’s husband? He wants to talk with someone who was on the tour, and I can’t reach any of the others. I know it’s a lot to ask …” Her voice trailed away.
I heaved a mental sigh. “Could he meet me in an hour or so? At the Cuban Coffee Queen near the harbor?”
“Of course, and thank you. His name is Marcel. I admit I’m feeling a little desperate, too. Did you see the article in the Citizen this morning?”
“I haven’t had a chance to read it.”
“You’ll see,” she said. “Let me know if you find out anything new. And what I can do for you this week. I’m an expert on wedding stress after my brother’s party.”
While the pecan pie squares baked, I walked up the finger to the parking lot to grab our copy of the local paper. The headline that Analise had referred to was on the front page: WOMAN DIES FOLLOWING LOCAL FOOD TOUR. The Key West police spokeswoman, Alyson Crean, was quoted as saying the police would consider the possibility of food tampering as the cause of death, as well as natural causes. The short piece was accompanied by a large photograph of Analise holding a tray of small individual-sized key lime pies. This exact photo had appeared on the cover of Menu Magazine last year. The pies came from Blue Heaven restaurant, where the pastry chef specialized in mile-high meringue. This stop had been on Analise’s original tour, before she’d cooked up the seafood tour. She had to be absolutely devastated. I was glad I’d agreed to another favor.
A Deadly Feast Page 5