* * *
Marcel, the bereaved husband, was waiting in front of the colorfully painted mural that decorated one side of the original Cuban Coffee Queen. I realized instantly that I should have chosen another shop, as this one was very close to the spot where his wife had collapsed. I hurried up to him and hugged him before he had a chance to speak.
“I’m so very sorry about Audrey,” I said. “I can’t think of a worse way to end a vacation.”
“Frankly, I can’t either.” He looked so upset and so bedraggled it was hard to witness. He had on the same clothing that I’d noticed during the tour—the jeans ripped in multiple places, the chains, the black T-shirt. Either he hadn’t bothered to change, he had multiple sets of the same outfit, or some kind soul had washed the clothing and returned it to him. From the greasy look of his hair and the stubble on his face, I suspected he hadn’t bothered with washing anything.
“What can I order for you?” I asked. “I always get the café con leche with one sugar. It’s perfect almost every time. But the smoothies are good if you’re hungry, or you may not have an appetite at all …”
I was rambling, because sitting in the presence of that much sadness was difficult and painful, and reminded me of what it would feel like to lose Nathan. Completely brutal.
“The coffee is fine,” he said. “I’m not sure I’ll ever want to eat again.”
This original site of the Cuban Coffee Queen had a square opening in the wall where patrons ordered and got a quick look at the espresso machines and tiny kitchen inside. Employees popped out of the opening like puppets to announce pickups. As a regular, I knew most of them. Today, both of my casual pals Eric and Paulina were on duty. I chatted with Paulina about her new baby and Eric about his plans for Thanksgiving, then ordered the two cafés con leche and a cheese toast to go. Maybe the sight of me eating would stimulate Marcel’s appetite. And toasted cheese was comfort food, through and through. And he looked like he needed all the comfort he could get. Several minutes later, I took the bag from Paulina and led Marcel toward a bench overlooking the harbor. I split the sandwich in two and left half on a piece of waxed paper next to his coffee.
“Analise told me you’re helping investigate Audrey’s death,” he said, staring at me with damp eyes.
I nearly choked on a mouthful of cheese toast. “No, no, I said I’d talk to a few people while I finish the article I’m writing. No one has decided it was foul play, have they? And besides, even if they did, the police here do an excellent job with these kinds of cases, and I’m marrying a detective and I’ve promised him to stay out of police business.”
His shoulders slumped even lower, as if I’d sucked away the only hope he was holding. A puff of wind blew across the harbor, clanking the masts and sails of the boats near us and causing us both to shiver. He picked up the paper cup of coffee and held it in both hands as though he was warming them by a fire. I began to feel frantic to fill the silence.
“What have you heard so far? Have they given you a cause of death? You seem to think it wasn’t natural causes. Or maybe that’s not at all why you asked to talk with me?”
“Honestly, now that I’m here, I’m not even sure why I wanted to meet. Maybe I just needed to talk with someone who’d been there with us.”
“A witness,” I said, laying my hand on one of his. “So they haven’t told you why she died?”
“A stroke,” he said. “They said she had a stroke. I thought they knew how to handle medical crises like that. How could a forty-five-year-old woman be alive one minute and half an hour later be gone?” A tear edged out of one eye, trickled down his cheek, and pooled in the stubbled dimple on his chin.
“You’d been to Key West before?” I was struggling to figure out how to keep the conversation going in a way that might be helpful to him.
“Years ago we stopped for a day during a cruise. It was our belated honeymoon. And we both loved it here and swore we’d come back.” He set the coffee down at his feet, picked up the half sandwich I’d insisted he take, and then put it down again. “That might have been the happiest we ever were. Which is kind of sad, considering we were married over twenty years.”
“I’m sorry for that,” I said. “I can see why you fell in love with the place. The same thing happened to me. I followed a guy down here knowing nothing about Key West, and after that relationship quickly blew up, I got hooked on the place. And I’ve been here ever since. In fact, I’m marrying a local guy later this week.” I twisted the engagement ring on my finger—we’d had it made using my grandmother’s diamond—wishing I hadn’t said this. “So you and Audrey were married over twenty years; that’s impressive! What was your secret?”
“Secret? I have no idea. Put one foot in front of the other.”
Yikes. If he’d been depressed when he got here, there were two of us in the dumps now.
“Shouldn’t say things like that to a girl who is just getting married.” He tried to push out a smile. “Audrey had a terrible case of depression. Most of her adult life. So it wasn’t an ordinary marriage with ordinary problems.” He gazed out over the harbor, his fingers tapping a rhythm I couldn’t hear up and down the length of his thigh.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmured, feeling like I was in way over my head here. This poor man needed to be talking to my psychologist friend Eric Altman. Or Steve Torrence with his years of experience counseling premarital couples. But Marcel didn’t seem to notice my inadequacies.
“She had been so depressed over the past eleven months that it exhausted both of us. And no one could seem to help her. I think we’d both given up finding hope. Apparently depression runs deep like a river in her family.
“I’d lost patience this past year, I had. I even told her I was at the end of my rope. You can’t imagine what it’s like to always be wondering whether this is the day she takes her own life. And yet, I was done with quack hospitals and doctors and treatments that did nothing for her.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said again. “This sounds terrible.” In fact, his hopelessness felt like it was leaking from his body and leaching into mine.
He shrugged and looked up, his face stained with tears. “She stopped telling me how she felt because I’d pretty much told her I couldn’t handle it. Out of nowhere, about a month ago she started to feel a little better. She knew I’d planned to come down here to get away from our dreary November weather and do a little fishing. She insisted on coming along to celebrate feeling better and to renew our relationship. I tried to talk her out of it. Honestly? I thought she’d be a drag on my time.” His fists clenched in his lap. “I didn’t deserve things improving, did I?”
Again, I tried to puzzle out what he wanted from me. Reassurance, most likely. “My gosh, I don’t think you can blame yourself for what happened here. She seemed joyful the other day,” I said. “She was loving all the food—and loving you as well. I remember noticing how devoted to each other you two seemed.”
He focused his blue eyes on me, pleading. “It sounds crazy to hope that your wife has been murdered. But that’s all I can think: if someone else did it, then it won’t be my fault. If someone put something in that food that killed her, at least I can live with myself.”
I wasn’t at all sure how learning that she’d been murdered was better than the stroke diagnosis, but I wasn’t going to argue with him. “I’ll keep my ears open,” I said. “I wish there was more I could say.”
He nodded briefly, then got up and walked away.
I was practically undone by the time I returned to the houseboat, feeling upset and hopelessly inadequate. I didn’t believe I’d helped him at all.
The sheet of pecan pie bars was cool by now, so I slid the confection out of the pan onto a cutting board and cut it into squares. I ate one—so sweet and flaky and the tiniest bit salty—and then began to realize I could end up eating half the tray if I stayed here at home. Though my wedding dress was not tight, it would be if I power-grazed my way through the entire recip
e. I packed the bars into a glass container, slid them into the freezer, and picked up the hammer and crowbar lying by the door, and my work gloves. I had several hours before I was due to meet Torrence at the beach. If no one else would work on the darn boat next door, I would.
Chapter Nine
Like plumage that expanded to rainbow an otherwise unremarkable bird, Kamala’s ability to transform raw ingredients into sumptuous meals brought her the kind of love her personality on its own might have repelled.
—Mira Jacob, The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing
I let myself into Nathan’s houseboat, wishing immediately that I had worn a mask or at least had brought a bandanna to cover my nose. The smell of mold and mildew was almost overpowering—like a beach house that had been left closed up too long, only worse. I could feel my throat constrict and my breathing thicken. This project had made me uber sympathetic to the people whose homes had suffered hurricane damage and had nowhere else to live. And there had been many of those, especially further up the Keys.
So far, Nathan and I had thrown out or recycled mounds of trash left behind by the previous owners, including cans and boxes of food in the cupboards—well past their use-by date—toiletries down to the last inch of goopy product in the bathroom, and sheets and towels so ratty we didn’t even consider donating them to the homeless shelter. Either the previous residents had left in a big hurry or they no longer cared about this place—or about what the new owners would think of them. It had been empty since I’d moved in, and Miss Gloria had reported that the previous neighbors were frankly antisocial.
We’d also managed to strip up the shag carpeting that covered the main living area like a hideous orange pelt, faded in some areas where the sun streamed in and dirty in others.
Why oh why would someone choose to have their kitchen carpeted? I wondered for the umpteenth time. Especially with a shaggy pile carpet that would hoard crumbs and attract pests? In this warm climate where we never felt the snap of a good frost, pests were not easy to get rid of. Underneath the carpet, as Miss Gloria had predicted, we found a beautiful Dade pine floor. Or it would be beautiful once somebody—anybody other than me—sanded it down and painted it with clear varnish that would show its humble beauty. I mulled over what I could tackle that would work off some of my angst without hurting myself.
The original contractor, whom Nathan and I had hired last spring and both been delighted to snag, had fallen off a roof in April and injured his back. Before his accident, he’d told us that the wood paneling was cheesy and thin and would strip off easily. So that seemed like a good place to start. I wedged my crowbar into a hole and pried off the first section. Underneath the paneling was a thin layer of insulation, drooping between the studs like a dirty curtain. Asbestos? I wondered, wishing again for the protective mask. Nathan would kill me if he knew I was doing this on my own.
As I worked, I thought about the coffee date I’d had with Marcel. From my observations on the food tour, I never would have guessed that she had a history of depression. Nor that they’d had a long and rocky marriage. Did she have other medical problems aside from depression that might have led to a stroke? Did she take care of herself in the physical way that a person would who was attached to her life and wanted it to continue? Quite possibly not, if Marcel was correct about her suicidal tendencies. I realized that I should have asked Marcel if he’d felt queasy or ill during the tour or after.
I worked for an hour until my muscles were quivering and my hair was soaked with sweat. Then I carried the pieces of paneling out to the deck, added them to the pile of trash accumulating near the dock, and returned to Miss Gloria’s boat. The house phone was ringing as I entered our home. I dropped the tools next to the door and rushed over to answer. It was a collect call.
Will you accept the charges from …? Someone. The connection was too crackly to make out the name.
“No, sorry, wrong number,” I said. The line cut off. Spammers had really upped their games on the Keys lately, and I refused to get sucked in. I went into the bathroom to shower and get ready to meet Torrence at the beach.
When I came out into the living room, much more presentable, Miss Gloria had arrived home. She looked up from the Key West Citizen, which was spread out on the counter.
“Where are you off to?” she asked.
I explained about my meeting.
“Are you around for dinner?” she asked, looking slightly wistful. The plate of pecan squares that I’d left for her on the counter was empty.
“I suspect I will be. Nathan’s working nights through Tuesday, so I certainly won’t be seeing him. What are you craving?”
An impish look crossed her face. “Thinking ahead to all the turkey and fixings that are coming this week makes me yearn for something rich and simple like macaroni and cheese with broccoli. Maybe with lobster instead of broccoli. Something that screams decadence to an old lady who could be living her final days on this earth.”
She was shameless. “That dish was on the food tour at Bagatelle,” I said. “It was delicious. And you know I’ll make whatever you want, even without the drama.” I grinned back at her.
“You mentioned it yesterday, and I’ve been jonesing for it ever since. Did it make an appearance before or after that poor woman took sick?” Miss Gloria asked.
“Before. Actually, we’d sampled everything on the tour by the time she collapsed. But she hardly ate any of that dish, so I’m pretty certain they’re off the hook.” I’d been thinking about the recipe too—the rich creaminess of the cheese paired with the even richer lobster. Heavenly. I’d even gone so far as to Google Ina Garten’s recipe and noodle over what tweaks I would make before adding it to my “Coming Soon” Pinterest board where I stashed recipes that I wanted to try.
“Consider it done. We have the cheese and the good pasta I ordered from Eataly, that store in New York. I’ll stop at Eaton Street Seafood Market and pick up the lobster on my way back from the beach. It would probably be a good idea if you called ahead? Say a pound and a half out of the shell?”
“Consider it done,” she said, with a giant smile spreading over her face.
“I nearly forgot,” I said. “The phone spammers are getting more and more clever. This time it was a collect phone call, which was obviously a wrong number or someone trolling for an idiot.” As these words left my mouth, her smile was replaced with an annoyed grimace, and I suddenly realized that I was the idiot. It had probably been her friend calling—the man in the orange jumpsuit whom she’d talked to yesterday at the book sale.
“That was Odom calling me with news about your food tour.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Let’s call him back.”
“He doesn’t have a phone, Hayley, he’s in prison. He can only call out. Collect.”
I apologized again. “How in the world did he track down our home number?”
She looked at me like I was a simpleton. “I gave him our phone number.”
Good gravy, was she really turning into one of those old people who could be taken advantage of, have her life savings ripped right out from one of her? I had to be gentle with her. “That doesn’t sound sensible or safe.”
She practically rolled her eyes. “He’s not an ax murder, Hayley. He’s not going to escape from jail and then come creeping onto the boat to murder us in our berths. He was an accountant at a law firm in Tallahassee and he made some bad choices, and fortunately or unfortunately, he got caught. The jury is out on our justice system, don’t you think? I don’t know if it teaches people a lesson to serve jail time, or produces hardened criminals.”
I hesitated. She was already a little mad at me, but I felt like I had to warn her again. “I’m just not sure how safe it is to give out personal information to someone who’s in jail.”
“Hayley, he’s a trustie; that’s short for trusted prisoner. He’s earned his way into that position with good behavior and volunteer work. And I’ve gotten to know him over this past year. He unders
tands perfectly that what he did was wrong. And he regrets it and he plans to make amends. Starting with helping out an old lady.” She parked her hands on her hips. “You should know that not everyone who’s in prison is a bad person.” She cleared her throat. “My son, for example.” Then she marched into her room and shut the door—almost slamming it but not quite.
Now I felt like a complete heel. But why in the world hadn’t she said something about her son before now? We’d lived together for, what, almost three years? And been friends before that. I wanted to be the kind of friend she could turn to when she had a problem, the way I felt about her. My mother had taught me how important friends were. And she lived her words, too.
The next thought stuck in my throat like a chicken bone. Had Miss Gloria told my mother and sworn her to secrecy because she thought I couldn’t be trusted or wasn’t mature enough to understand? That would really feel lousy.
Chapter Ten
Al dente pasta, swirled in a salty, creamy cheese sauce, macaroni and cheese is like a hug wrapped in a warm sweater, unparalleled in its ability to comfort and satisfy.
—Alison Roman, “Prepare to be Lusciously Comforted,” The New York Times, April 11, 2018
The trouble with having seen so many weddings on the island was that I had found it impossible to figure out what I wanted and make some reasonable choices. Well, not impossible, but certainly difficult. I didn’t choose Smathers Beach, because in the high season that strip of sand was like a wedding factory. Another option was the Southernmost Point, where I’d gone last year for the sunrise Easter service conducted by Steve Torrence. But they wanted to do the food at their café, and I had other plans for a very personal menu. Some couples hired a boat or a sailing vessel to go out on the water with a smaller group of friends and family. But I tended to get seasick easily—for the bride to upchuck during the ceremony would not be an attractive wedding feature.
I’d ended up deciding that the point of Fort Zachary Taylor beach, where my mother had planned to have her wedding (later diverted by a hurricane), was perfect. And then after the ceremony, we’d repair to the Hemingway house for the celebration.
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