The Key Lime Crime

by Lucy Burdette

  The Key Lime Crime

  A KEY WEST FOOD CRITIC MYSTERY

  Lucy Burdette

  For my Uncle Don, whose relationship with my dad showed us what friendship could be

  Chapter One

  … no, everybody is not a critic. What most of you are doing out there, online and in three dimensions, is complaining.

  —Pete Wells, “The Art of Complaining,” The New York Times, February 6, 2019

  To whom does our island belong? I found myself wondering that as I sat on my scooter in the rain, late for my pricy-but-absolutely-necessary-for-a-person-who-eats-for-a-living personal trainer, attempting to cross a massive traffic jam on Eaton Street. Underneath the beads and the beer and the outdoor burgers and music on Duval Street where the tourists found their “happy place,” there was a struggle for ownership. I’d seen this on Instagram and Facebook when I posted something especially beautiful about our little knob of coral. Outsiders craved a piece of paradise as much as the locals—the insiders—wanted them gone.

  This week between Christmas and New Year’s, Key West was bursting at the seams. Even my general practitioner had confessed he wouldn’t leave his condo complex unless going to work; he’d never seen the island this busy. People wouldn’t stop for anyone—on a bicycle, walking, on a scooter, in a car. Old folks, children, chickens, residents, visitors—we were all in the cross hairs of holiday-crazed motorists. Already since Monday there had been five accidents, including two couples airlifted to a Miami trauma center, outcomes unknown.

  And that pointed to one of the drawbacks of living on a small island and getting sick, with the way to mainland being a four-hour drive to Miami. You could get by fine visiting local doctors with a garden-variety cold or to get a few stitches or an eye exam, but detach a retina or bash your head on the pavement, and you had an expensive helicopter trip to Miami ahead of you.

  Because of the congestion, I seemed to be running late for everything. Adding to the chaos of the holiday season, key lime pie aficionado David Sloan had persuaded the city to host his key lime extravaganza and contest this busy week, rather than waiting for the slower summer months, I couldn’t avoid the additional madness because my bosses had assigned me to cover the event. Every pie purveyor in Key West (and there were a ton of them) was determined to claim the key lime spotlight—and win the coveted Key Lime Key to the City. My bosses at Key Zest magazine wanted me to get a jump on other foodie journalists by reporting on as many pies as possible before the contest even began, along with writing an article about Sloan’s contest, not to mention my regularly featured restaurant roundup, this time a review of fast but delicious island options. Call me Hayley Snow, food critic and frantic foodie fanatic.

  I dashed through a slight break in the traffic and whizzed across Frances Street, nearly slamming into a golf cart loaded with tourists.

  “Even in Key West on vacation, a stop sign is not a suggestion,” I hollered.

  They waved their beer cans and hooted with laughter.

  “Chill, baby,” the driver yelled back. “Anger isn’t an aphrodisiac.”

  Idiots.

  Several blocks later I noticed blue lights in my rearview mirror. I pulled over to the curb. It had to be Nathan. My new husband, a Key West police detective, was not usually a prankster. But we’d had a little kerfuffle this morning—about nothing important, really—and he’d stormed off mad. He must finally be getting over his annoyance with me and lightening up. I took off my helmet, fluffed my sure-to-be-wayward auburn curls, blotted the skin under my eyes where my mascara had no doubt smudged because I was always in a hurry, and smiled warmly.

  But it wasn’t Nathan who emerged from the cruiser; it was two police officers I did not know, one tall and lanky with a shaved head, the other shorter, with the smallest smirk on his face. He stood about ten feet away from the tall man and watched him approach my scooter.

  “Did you mean for me to stop?” I asked, feeling confused and annoyed. I tipped my head back to look him in the eyes—he had to be at least a foot taller than me.

  “Yes. Were you aware that you ran through that stop sign without even looking? Do you have a medical reason to be in a hurry?”

  How should a person answer a question like that if she isn’t nine months pregnant, clutching her contracting belly, or staunching an obvious blood flow? Maybe Give me the freaking ticket and let’s get on with it?

  Nathan would be furious.

  “No. I’ve got nothing. I’m late for the gym. That’s the best I can do.” I shrugged my shoulders and grinned, trying to communicate that I was admitting to being in the wrong, that I promised never to do this again, and that I hoped we could settle on a warning.

  He did not smile in return. “I like going to the gym, too, but this is a matter of safety—your safety and the safety of the people you might have hypothetically mowed down.”

  That made me mad. And since I hadn’t slept well in weeks, it was hard to tamp down a rising head of steam. “What about those lunatics in a golf cart who blew right through the stop sign on Southard and almost laid me out? I assure you, that was not hypothetical.”

  “I didn’t see them run a stop sign, I saw you,” he said, his lips and chin setting like hardening cement.

  “You didn’t see them? Maybe that’s your problem right there,” I said, sorry almost as soon as the words came out of my mouth.

  The cop watching my officer frowned and nodded, his hands now on his hips, near the equipment on his belt.

  “License and registration,” the rookie cop said.

  Chapter Two

  “You can train someone to use a knife, but it’s hard to train someone who doesn’t have heart,” the chef Masayoshi Takayama wrote in an email.

  — Julia Moskin, “Where the World’s Chefs Want to Eat,” The New York Times, February 25, 2019

  On the way back home from the gym, I wrestled with whether to confess the cop stop incident. I decided I had to tell Nathan about the citation, police-speak for ticket, because he’d find out sooner or later. Worst of all would be if the brand-new officer chose to show him the video of our transaction before he’d heard anything about it. As the partying tourist had suggested, anger in general, and angry arguments with the police in particular, were not an aphrodisiac. Nathan abhorred uncooperative citizens who thought they knew better about everything. Best to get ahead of the situation and admit I’d made an error in judgment. And beg him not to look at the damning video.

  I zipped over First Street, crossed Route 1, and lurched into the parking lot for Houseboat Row. Seemed like everyone in our little blended family was irritable lately. Even my octogenarian roommate Miss Gloria’s usual cheeriness was sagging. Probably the adrenaline that had carried us through Nathan’s on-the-job injury and dramatic rescue and slow recovery and the wedding and multiple visiting family members had evaporated, leaving us tired and sore and crabby. The renovations on our houseboat next door to Miss Gloria’s place were not yet completed. Our contractor, Chris, had taken the week off to enjoy his family—and who could complain about that? But with Nathan installed in Miss Gloria’s adorable houseboat along with two ladies, two cats, one hyperactive dog, and one small bathroom, our home felt tiny and cramped. Like too many rats jammed into a cage, we were beginning to turn on each other.

  No one was sleeping well. I knew Nathan was suffering from the aftermath of his injuries, though damned if he’d say so. Evinrude, my gray tiger cat, was incensed about being upstaged by Nathan’s dog. And I felt crowded by my brand-new husband. Considering that I’d been married only three weeks, this seemed like an unfortunate time to lose the glow.

  As I reached the finger of dock that led to our houseboat, my phone burred. Nathan’s name came up on t
he screen.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, before he could get a word in edgewise.

  “Me too.” He chuckled. “Of course, I was calling to apologize if I was a heel in any way, but I had another matter to discuss with you as well. My mother’s coming to town.”

  “That’s fabulous!” I said. His mom had declined to attend our wedding, real reasons unknown. I was pretty sure they related to her disappointment over Nathan’s divorce and her reluctance to embrace a second daughter-in-law when she’d adored wife number one.

  “I am so looking forward to meeting her,” I added, though the idea of his mom in Key West scared the pants off me. “Let’s get it on the calendar so we don’t book anything else that might conflict with her visit. What kinds of things does she like to do? Do you think she’d be interested in a food tour or a cooking class? I can start looking for what’s happening in the next couple weeks at the Tennessee Williams and the Waterfront Playhouse and—”

  He broke in. “Tomorrow. That’s when she’s coming.”

  “Tomorrow?” I gulped. “Where will she be staying?”

  “I’m hoping with us.”

  I could feel my inner harridan rising up, ready to shriek. Deep breath, Hayley. “Hmm,” I said. “I would adore hosting her, but I can’t imagine how that’s going to work exactly. Would she find sleeping on the couch acceptable? Or I could sleep on the couch, but that leaves you sleeping with your mom. He-he.” No return chuckle from Nathan. “I could call around, see if there might be a room in any of the bed-and-breakfasts in Old Town.” Which there wouldn’t be—during the week between Christmas and New Year’s, even the dodgiest lodging options were full. “Maybe my mother knows someone.”

  “Sorry about the notice,” he said. “She only called this morning. And I couldn’t say no.”

  “Of course not,” I said. “She’s your mother; apology accepted. We’ll figure something out.”

  “But what were you apologizing for?” he asked.

  So I had to explain my stop sign transgression and the ensuing citation, babbling longer than I probably should have. “Okay, I did run the stop sign, but I’m certain I looked both ways, and honestly he was more grim than he needed to be. If he had smiled even a little tiny bit, this never would have gone as far as it did. I’m not exactly the kind of criminal they’re looking for, right?”

  “If you broke the law, they had every reason to stop you. I can review the video of the incident and see if the rookie did something wrong, but it’s a little early to be pulling strings—”

  “Please don’t pull the video. How about those guys giving me the benefit of the doubt? Shouldn’t the more experienced cop have known who I was? Everyone knows you just got married, right?”

  “So, what, the police department is supposed to let every cute girl with a smart mouth off the hook because she might be my wife?”

  “Not funny,” I said.

  “I don’t think it is funny,” he said. “Look at it this way. New cops have to learn to follow procedure in every way. If he lets you off for a traffic citation because you’re married to me, next time does he let another cop’s family member go scot-free after a felony assault? Entitlement can creep in before anyone notices, and then the rot starts in the department.”

  I couldn’t argue with his reasoning. With cops in the news in all kinds of trouble, he took training the new guys very seriously. He wanted them to do their jobs with compassion, gravitas, and the right amount of discipline. And humanity, too. I loved and admired him for that.

  “Besides,” he added, “this stop may very well have saved your life.” I could hear someone rapping impatiently at his door, and his desk phone was ringing, too. “Look,” he said. “I’m going to spend the night at my apartment tonight, to pack up my kitchen. I’d love to have you join me, but maybe with my mother coming, we should all get a good night’s sleep?”

  “Problem solved,” I said brightly. “Your mother can stay at the apartment.”

  “The movers are coming tomorrow to pick up the furniture and put it in storage. So no bed, no couch, no table, nothing.” He sighed. “Listen, it’s going to be a late night, and if I expect to have any time off at all while my mother is here, I’ve got to dig in. Four of our incoming reinforcements for New Year’s Eve have already canceled, and none of our regulars want to fill in. And why should they? We’ve had the schedule made out for weeks.”

  “That sounds so stressful,” I said, remembering Miss Gloria’s wisdom about calming an agitated husband—show that you understand and appreciate him, even if at that very moment, you don’t. “Call me later?”

  I hung up and went inside to stretch out on my bed next to my cat. He circled around and wedged himself in the little curve between my neck and the pillow. I had a whirling mixture of feelings—irritation with Nathan for bailing out, embarrassment that I was failing this first test of our relationship. And sadness, too. This evening, I would miss his warmth and the soft sounds of him breathing in the night, and his good-morning kiss. And the way he smiled at me early in the day, before he’d donned his cop armor to face the world, when he wore an expression that said he was the luckiest guy alive.

  I flapped my arms and legs like a snow angel. On the other hand, the bed felt gloriously roomy—it wasn’t intended for two people full-time, one of them a muscular six-footer. And I hadn’t heard Evinrude purr like this in days. Face it, we’d both be relieved to have a night alone. If there was a Guinness world record for shortest marriage ever, I was deeply afraid Nathan and I were in contention.

  I buried my face in the cat’s striped fur and tried to channel his calm. Purr … breath in … purr … breath out. After a few minutes, I got up and went out to the kitchen and living area, imagining I was seeing it for the first time as Mrs. Bransford would. The windows were fogged from salt spray, the grout around the sink was trending gray, the flooring at the edges of the kitchen where linoleum met paneling was faded and starting to curl.

  It’s not that Miss Gloria and I were dirty people, but we weren’t the obsessive deep-cleaning types either. The houseboat was funky; that’s what Mrs. Bransford would see. And she wouldn’t be looking around with eyes rosy from the idea of having added a beloved daughter-in-law to her family. She’d already had her beloved daughter-in-law, and it wasn’t me. For whatever reason, Mrs. Bransford had adored Nathan’s first wife, and she probably always would. I felt as though nothing I could do to curry her favor would ever be enough—and I hadn’t even met the woman.

  Twenty phone calls later to all the bed-and-breakfasts I could imagine she might find palatable, I decided the couch was the only choice. My mother called when I was on hands and knees in the bathroom, scrubbing the baseboard behind the toilet.

  “What’s wrong?” my mother said. “I hear something in your voice.”

  Which under ordinary circumstances might have annoyed me, because what girl wants her mother sensing her every mood? But she was right in this case—something was wrong, and I needed support. I told her about the police stop and the little argument with Nathan. “He’s going to spend tonight at his place to finish his packing. Or so he says,” I couldn’t help adding. “But that’s okay, that’s all good; what’s more stressful is that his mother is arriving tomorrow. Spur-of-the-moment plans. And I’m late for the opening salvo of this silly key lime extravaganza.” I could hear my voice breaking, and I was sure she could too.

  “How long is she staying?” my mother asked.

  “I didn’t even ask. Once he mentioned that he hoped she would stay with us, I kind of lost track of the details because I was so busy freaking out. The place looks cleaner than it ever has, but it’s not going to get any bigger no matter how much I scrub. I wondered if Nathan and I could sleep on our boat next door on a blow-up mattress, but we’re still in the wall-studs stage with no bathroom and no electricity.” The longer I talked, the more desperate I felt.

  “That problem is easily solved,” she said. “She’ll stay with us. We hav
e a perfectly lovely guest room with a private bath—both of which I offered to you and Nathan, remember?—and it will be perfect. You can spend all the time you want over here, and bring her to your place for delicious treats and local color, and when you’ve had enough, you deliver her back to us.”

  “This is your busiest—”

  “Don’t even start on how Sam and I don’t have time to entertain a stranger. Almost all the parties I’m catering this week are low-key. I have most of the prep work done already. I insist. We’ll go about our business, and it will be so much fun to get to know her!”

  It seemed a little like cheating, foisting her off on my mother. But on the other hand, I felt a heavy weight lifting, as though someone had been holding a boot to my neck and I could breathe again.

  Chapter Three

  I put pie energy out into the universe. And it sends pie information my way.

  —David Sloan, Facebook

  An hour later, I buzzed down Southard Street and then over on Elizabeth to the opening of David Sloan’s key lime pie event at the Key West Library. The lovely pink stucco building was not known as a venue for culinary events, but the price to rent the space for the afternoon would have been right. As in zero. Mr. Sloan was not only an astonishing self-promoter; he had an expertise in eliminating unnecessary expenses. I climbed the concrete steps to the front door, passing several homeless men and tourists using the library’s Wi-Fi. The auditorium was packed, and I knew exactly why. Sloan had managed to land front-page articles in the Key West Citizen, the Florida Keys Weekly, Konk Life, and several of the glossy magazines regularly distributed to the most expensive hotels around the island.

  I was a few minutes late. I paused, looking into the little auditorium. Almost every metal folding seat was occupied, and our newish library administrator, Michael Nelson, had taken the stage and begun the introductions. He had his short hair gelled into a ridge, like a dog with hackles raised, though he had a quiet voice and a shy smile, giving the impression he’d be a man whose book recommendations you could trust. “We’re honored to host this talented group of local bakers,” he said. “Christopher, our new library assistant, will be working with me on today’s event.” He gestured to a thin, fair-haired man leaning against the wall to my left. One seat remained right behind him, so I hurried in to snag it. Michael continued to speak.