The Key Lime Crime

by Lucy Burdette

  “Come over here a minute,” she called to us in a voice tight with excitement. “Cheryl, do you have a flashlight?”

  I shrugged and got up to join her, followed by the others. I aimed the flashlight app from my phone under the house, and Cheryl shined a big black flashlight into the back recesses of her crawlspace.

  “I should have said something about this the other night,” said Miss Gloria, “but I was so focused on luring the kitty out. Maybe I saw this out of the corner of my eye, but I kind of forgot about it.” In the beam of the flashlight, something red and white and plastic took shape. “I think it could be the blow-up Santa from Claudette’s porch,” Miss Gloria added.

  “I suppose we’d better leave it there and call the cops,” said Cheryl, looking resigned.

  Within ten minutes, two police officers arrived, and Miss Gloria explained what she’d seen and why she thought she’d missed it earlier. After patrolling the area around Cheryl’s house again, the cops wriggled into the crawlspace, took photos, and retrieved the deflated Santa.

  Once we were cleared to go, we thanked Cheryl for the tea and cookies, patted the cats again, and headed to the street. As we reached the sidewalk and started toward Miss Gloria’s car, I asked the others the question that had pushed into my head. “Could she possibly have hidden that Santa under her own house?”

  “Why would she do such a thing?” Helen asked.

  “She killed Claudette and then panicked?” It didn’t make a lot of sense.

  “Someone who rescues cats and works at the SPCA is not going to be a killer,” said Miss Gloria.

  My mother-in-law raised her eyebrows. “Even good people who do good things in their lives can be pushed to cliffs of desperation that they never imagined.” She bit her lower lip. “But she didn’t seem anxious as we talked to her, or even upset about anything much other than having to adjust to another new neighbor, and getting her cookie plate back. If she was really the killer, she wouldn’t be that cool. She wasn’t anxious about your Santa doll discovery, did you think?”

  Miss Gloria shook her head. “Maybe a little annoyed. Whereas I would think she’d be nervous about a killer on the loose in her neighborhood,” she said. “I sure would be.”

  Honestly, I didn’t think we’d gleaned anything new, other than adding to our backlog of calories and unanswerable questions. And discovering the blow-up Santa, which was police business now. We loaded into the Buick, and I took the next right and headed back down Truman Avenue toward the Truman Annex and my mother’s home. I pulled up beside the curb and turned to Helen.

  “We’re meeting for pizza at Clemente’s on Fleming Street at six thirty,” I said. “Nathan won’t be able to make it, but my mom and Sam will bring you.”

  “Pizza?” she asked, looking a little stunned. “After everything we’ve had today—pie, cookies, lunch, coffee cake—I don’t know how the rest of you don’t weigh a million pounds.” She wasn’t looking directly at me, but she surely meant the question for me.

  “We keep moving, and so we need our fuel,” said Miss Gloria, pretending to march in place. “Hayley’s like a hummingbird, and you wouldn’t believe the amount of sugar they consume to keep going.” I could always count on her for backup.

  Once Helen was out of the car, we motored up the island toward our houseboat. On the short drive home, Miss Gloria’s head dropped against the seat, her eyes fluttering. “Time for a cat nap,” she said as she got out of the Buick.

  She turned to look at me as we approached our deck. “One piece of advice I’d give you is, don’t cross your mother-in-law.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said, laughing.

  “And don’t try to hide something from her either—she’s dogged.” She disappeared into her room with Sparky on her heels.

  I took Ziggy for a quick walk, freshened up his water, and shook out a few kibbles into his bowl, then stretched out on my bunk for a brief rest. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the people we’d spoken with over the long day. In some ways, it seemed ridiculous to imagine killing someone over a pie.

  On the other hand, it wasn’t only a pie. The financial stakes were high. But who might also have had an emotional stake in getting rid of Claudette Parker? I remembered something Mrs. Bransford—Helen—it was hard to get used to calling her by her first name—had gotten me thinking after we’d visited Au Citron Vert. Didn’t Claudette Parker have a pie she could have entered in David Sloan’s contest instead of the napoleon pastry? If so, why didn’t she submit it?

  I opened my laptop and rechecked the Facebook page about Sloan’s contest. The rules were clear: the contest was not for pastry, it was for pies. The best key lime pie on the island. Period. And Claudette had a pie in her shop that was simply to die for. I walked out to the kitchen, Evinrude following closely behind, remembering that we had stashed one piece of that pie in the fridge only yesterday. It wouldn’t hurt to taste it again to confirm my first impression.

  Although I had enjoyed and even adored most of the pies I’d tasted over the last few days, this one was killer good. The crust was flaky and light, almost replicating Claudette’s napoleon layers. The filling was light and citrusy. And in the whipped cream, still tasting so fresh it might have come from a cow that morning, I identified two flavors—almond and vanilla, my two favorites.

  I scrolled over to the Key West locals Facebook page and searched for comments about Claudette’s shop. The majority complimented her pastries, but others critiqued her decision to crowd the shops already on Greene Street.

  “And where is she getting the dough to fund this place?” a disgruntled local asked. “And why does she have to ruin businesses that have been here for years?”

  And that led to a series of remarks about how the world would be better off if people kept their effing opinions to themselves.

  If she did have a financial partner in Au Citron Vert, I wondered whether it had been she or the partner who’d insisted on stocking the pie along with her pastry. Had she resisted and insisted on entering the pastry in the contest instead of the pie? A logical person to ask would be Paul Redford. Maybe I could fit a stop at the Green Parrot into my already busy night.

  Then my mind wandered back to David Sloan and the pie-throwing incident. Was the anger I witnessed between the two of them confined to the contest? Or had he done something or said something to damage her shop that might explain the pie in the face? Could he possibly be an investor? No, that was a reach—it made no sense. Because why would he ban Claudette’s pastry from his contest if it was going to improve the bottom line of the business he had invested in? It would be as if Marcus Lemonis torpedoed the Key Lime Pie Company by refusing to carry their pie in the company’s distribution warehouse. A smart businessman just wouldn’t do it. And although David Sloan might be a showman and a wild card, he was also very good at business. And all that aside, why would she want him involved in her business?

  I went back to bed, Evinrude purring beside me, hoping to drift into my own cat nap. But sleep wouldn’t come. Instead I found myself thinking of Miss Gloria’s question: why hadn’t Cheryl seemed worried about the possibility of a criminal in their neighborhood? Because I was worried sick about the latest incident at Houseboat Row.

  And Nathan. Could what my mother-in-law told me this morning about Nathan, the possibility that someone had him in their sights, relate to the break-in? And could that someone have been in this very room, pulling things out of my drawers, flinging pie on the windows? Had they been looking for something they didn’t find? Sending a message? Would I ever feel safe here again? How in the world had Miss Gloria bounced back and moved on from the vicious attacks she’d suffered?

  We could fool around all we wanted pretending to solve this horrendous murder, but the truth was, Nathan could be in serious danger. And there was very little I could do about that.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Baking is for the rule bound, the people who sat up front in cooking class and paid atten
tion, who wrote things down, rather than relying on the feel of a recipe.

  —Meredith Mileti, Aftertaste: A Novel in Five Courses

  Miss Gloria and I found a residential parking space on Simonton Street and threaded through crowds of tourists a few blocks to Clemente’s Trolley Pizzeria on Fleming. This was a fairly new restaurant that had operated out of a trolley food truck a few years previous, then moved to the real estate that had been occupied by an establishment boasting nude dancing girls. Limousines used to idle along the block alongside the establishment, and girls in skimpy outfits often loitered on a bench outside the door.

  The neighbors had been thrilled when the property turned over and a pizza joint moved in. Inside this tiny space, the owners had built a bar, an enormous pizza oven, and a small seating area with a painted backdrop of an old-time trolley by local artist Rick Worth. We were lucky to grab the last two unoccupied tables and push them together. Shortly after we sat down, my mother, Sam, and Helen bustled through the door. My mother looked a bit bedraggled, and I felt bad that I wasn’t able to give them a hand with their jobs this week.

  “Where’s Captain Wonderful?” Sam asked. We all laughed.

  “Nathan texted,” I explained, “and he won’t be home until late. I told him we’d pack up the leftovers so he’d have something to snack on besides key lime pie when he gets in.”

  “We certainly won’t be up late tonight,” my mother said, “but I’m so glad you thought of this place. The idea of eating New Haven–style pizza instead of leftover canapés could not be more appealing. And I certainly wasn’t going to cook!”

  Sam chuckled and rubbed her back. “Nor would we ask you to.”

  “That’s exactly what I was telling Helen earlier—cooks and chefs love to eat other people’s food,” I said.

  We ordered beer and wine and negotiated our way through the menu, eventually choosing three pizzas, a mushroom-and-pepperoni, the chicken Parmesan special pie, and a vegetarian loaded with things that would be mostly good for us. At least above the crust and underneath the cheese. We also ordered two salads, one arugula and beet, the other Baby’s special with garbanzos, blue cheese, and homemade Italian dressing. Unbelievably enough, my mouth watered at the prospect, and even my stomach growled in anticipation.

  “Tell us about your day,” Sam said to Helen, while we were waiting for the food.

  “We learned the secret to a creamy key lime pie; we had lunch with Amber, the doyenne of Key West’s Finest; and we had cookies with Claudette Parker’s next-door neighbor. And Miss Gloria found the blow-up Santa doll that belonged on Claudette’s porch under the neighbor’s porch. But don’t tell that to Nathan,” Helen said.

  I swiveled my head quickly to look at her.

  She patted my hand briefly. “Don’t worry, I know you feel you have to tell him everything. But I don’t. He’ll hear that soon enough through official channels.”

  “Did you get any leads on the murder?” my mother asked.

  “It’s a puzzle,” said Miss Gloria. “Claudette dressed in that Santa costume is frankly throwing us for a loop. Maybe it had nothing to do with her death. Maybe she was on her way to a costume party? Or a special Christmas event? And got waylaid by a random intruder?”

  “Except that we’re past Christmas now and almost to New Year’s, and from the way her neighbor described her, she didn’t have time for socializing,” I said. “But it does make me wonder. Did someone kill her and then dress her up? Or was she dressed up and then got killed? None of it makes a lot of sense.”

  Sam looked around the little restaurant. “Speaking of costumes, where did the girls go who used to perform here? Do you suppose they’re working somewhere else?” He tapped his chin, thinking. “Was Claudette wearing that kind of costume, a sexy Santa?”

  I met Miss Gloria’s eyes, and we both shook our heads. “I wouldn’t say so. Not attractive at all. More like what you’d see at a low-end department store, what a low-budget Santa would wear getting his picture taken with random kids at the mall.”

  The food arrived and we tucked into dinner. As I ate, I paused to make notes on the pizza toppings and tried to figure out the secret to the Italian dressing. Parmesan cheese definitely, with garlic, onion, and basil. I’d have to experiment with this if life ever slowed down. Once we’d finished dinner and boxed up the remaining pieces of pizza to take home to Nathan, I could see Miss Gloria was drooping, sliding lower in her chair as the evening went on. We hadn’t had time for a decent nap, and we’d consumed a week’s worth of carbohydrates and sugar and careened around the island like a pool ball that kept missing its pocket.

  But I was feeling restless. Though the day had been very busy, snatches of the conversations we’d had kept bursting into my mind like mini-fireworks. The niggling worry that had begun when my mother-in-law told me this morning that someone might be after Nathan was gathering like a thundercloud of dread.

  After turning down offers of both chocolate chip and key lime cannolis, then paying the bill, I said, “I feel like I’ve gotten a second wind. Anyone up for walking over to Mallory Square to see if Lorenzo is still there?”

  “I hate to miss Lorenzo, but truthfully,” said Miss Gloria with a smile of chagrin, “I am bushed.”

  “How about if we drop you ladies off?” my mother suggested to my roommate and mother-in-law. “And Hayley can take Gloria’s car?”

  “I’d like to walk over with you, if you don’t mind,” said Helen to me.

  “Of course, I’d love your company. And you should see Mallory Square in the evening, though it’s a little late to experience the madding crowd at this point.”

  “I’ve seen plenty of crowds already today,” she said. “And more to come, from what you’ve been telling me.”

  Once on the sidewalk, I noticed that the Key West Island Bookstore across the street was still open, with a sandwich board outside that read Bookapalooza—New Year, New Book! Start the new year right with a book by local author David Sloan! People were spilling out onto the sidewalk holding beers and some kind of green drink, pale and frothy. Many wore New Year’s Eve hats and T-shirts, or sparkly headbands with 2020 written in fancy script.

  I could see through the open door that the owner, Suzanne, was at the register chatting with a customer. Further in, Sloan sat at a card table with a pile of books and a line of eager customers.

  “Isn’t that the fellow who’s running the pie contest?” Helen asked. “He’s the Energizer Bunny. We should stop in,” she added, at the same time that I said, “Do you mind if we stop?”

  We grinned at each other. “Great minds,” I said. “And besides, the owner knows David Sloan and the whole key lime pie scene well, so maybe she’s heard something more about Claudette’s death.”

  “How about you chat with him,” Helen suggested, “and I’ll watch his body language. I’m pretty good at telling when people are lying.”

  “Sure,” I said, widening my eyes. She was full of surprises.

  The store was crammed with jolly people drinking and talking loudly. Helen disappeared down the first aisle to observe David Sloan’s interactions while pretending to peruse the bookshelves. I waited in line until I reached Sloan, who appeared to be selling books like proverbial hot cakes. I stepped forward to greet him.

  “I own all of your books already, but I’d love to buy a copy of the bucket list for my mother-in-law. She’s visiting this week and probably hasn’t done a single thing that you suggest.”

  “Of course,” he said, pulling a book toward him and scribbling his name on the title page. “Do you want it personalized?”

  “Sign it to Helen, please. And maybe say something about how Key West will grow on her?” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “So far, she’s not the biggest fan.” I suspected Helen would leave her autographed copy behind at my mother’s house, but that was okay. I needed a minute to chat with him while he signed.

  “Is the contest going on as scheduled tomorrow?” I asked. “How devas
tating to have one of your contestants murdered.”

  His face grew serious, his dark eyebrows drawing together. “It’s proceeding as planned in spite of that sad ending. You were there, I think, at the library?”

  I nodded.

  “She was not going to make the cut anyway,” he said. “She imagined herself to be so brilliant, and yet you saw how impulsive she was. Real bakers don’t run off the rails like that; they follow rules and recipes exactly so the product is always the same. Even though they say any publicity is good publicity, I don’t think that goes in this case.”

  “Were you acquainted with Claudette before the contest? I admit I’m terribly curious about the pie-throwing bit. Why in the world …?” I let my words trail off, hoping he’d fill in the blanks.

  He shook his head with disgust, rubbed his goatee with the heel of his palm. “Yeah, that was crazy. I can’t say I knew her well. She contacted me eight or ten months ago to talk about the possibility of opening a pastry shop in town. She’d heard that I knew everyone who mattered on the island.”

  “Which of course, you do.”

  He smirked. “I told her that her plan was crazy, we are so full of key lime pie in Key West. And it’s rising like a king tide—we are up to the lips of our hip waders in lime-scented custard. But she seemed determined. So I chatted with her about what shops were already in town, those specializing in pastry and baked goods. And I also reminded her how every restaurant with a local flair and even some without included key lime pie on the menu. And I told her we had several storefronts devoted entirely to key lime pie and its spin-offs, so she’d be truly insane to plan something like that. And for her to be looking at a property on Greene Street? Certifiable insanity.”

  He shook his head solemnly. “This was my direct quote: Even if you think you have your own genius marketing plan, Greene Street is particularly saturated. With the Key Lime Pie Company and Kermit’s on the same street …” He shook his head again as though wondering how anyone could even think about a venture that dumb. “Obviously she thought I was full of crap.”