“Not really,” she said. She took the phone back from me and enlarged the view. “But I’d swear the art was done by Christy Haussler.” She pointed at the screen. “Do you see the sharpness of the lines when the color changes? That’s not always easy to do on skin. If a person has a tendency to an oily complexion especially, the paint tends to blur. But Christy uses a base coat like I do—it’s expensive but if you care about your art, you feel it’s worth it. And her paintings have an Asian flair.”
“Where does she work?” I asked. “Do you suppose she would tell me who this person is? Or is there some kind of code of face painting privacy ethics?”
Jennifer grinned. “You saw the customer who was here right before you stopped by. This is very personal work and if I talked about my clients that might be the end of my bookings. But on the other hand, if I text Christy first, she might talk to you. In this case it’s important because it could be related to the murder, right?”
“Right,” I said. “Maybe. I sure would appreciate it if your friend was willing to chat.”
Jennifer pulled out her own phone and sent a quick text message. Meanwhile the next customer had knocked at Jennifer’s kitchen door and I went down the short hall to let her in. I heard the zip of a return text as I led her to the kitchen. Jennifer jotted a name and number on the slip of paper and handed it to me.
“Good luck,” she said with a wink. “And if you change your mind about getting painted for Fantasy Fest, I’ll squeeze you in.”
When Snorkel the pig flew instead of bowled, that’s when I’d parade down Duval Street wearing body paint only.
11
“Rabbit,” said Pooh to himself. “I like talking to Rabbit. He talks about sensible things. He doesn’t use long, difficult words, like Owl. He uses short, easy words, like ‘What about lunch?’ and ‘Help yourself, Pooh.’ I suppose really I ought to go and see Rabbit.”
—A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner
Once I had left Jennifer’s apartment, I took the phone out of my pocket and looked at the mini video again. I had taken the film as a lark after seeing other parade participants capturing the moment with their smartphones. What were the chances that rather than capturing the zany joy of the occasion, instead I recorded the seconds leading up to a woman’s death?
My breath caught in my throat, its rhythm growing fast and shallow. I mentally pinched myself: She hadn’t died right on the spot. She’d been transferred to the hospital, where I was certain they applied all the medical assistance available. Rather than call the cops now with my video, I determined I could show it to Torrence before meeting my mother and company at Fort Zachary Taylor beach for the wedding rehearsal.
Meanwhile, I had just time to pop over to the office and check in, as Palamina had requested. I hoped this meeting would end up being short and pro forma—extra time sitting on the sand gazing at the horizon and listening to the salt water slosh on rocks could only help my state of mind.
Wally and Palamina had already gathered in their shared office by the time I arrived, but there was no sign of Danielle.
“Sorry to be a little late,” I said. “The traffic out there is unbelievable.”
“I’m finding it easier to walk than drive. Is Danielle coming?” Palamina asked, frowning and glancing around the small space as if she might be hiding.
“I’m sure she’s caught up in traffic too,” I said, though I wasn’t sure. And I didn’t know why I should suddenly suffer a surge of guilt. Palamina had turned out to be more judgmental than I had expected when I first met her. She got the job done with the magazine, but we all ended up keyed up higher and tighter than we ever had when Wally led the charge. “I’ll send her a quick text.”
“I saw you across the street at the press conference,” Palamina added as I typed an SOS to Danielle. “I couldn’t catch your attention in that mob scene. It sounds like they have another murder on their hands. Any word from your friends at the KWPD?” They both stared at me expectantly.
“I don’t know anything more than you do at this point,” I said. Certainly not that I’d share.
“What did you think about the weather bit?” Palamina asked. “I have to admit, the idea of a hurricane has got me spooked. When do you think we should evacuate?”
“I’ve heard horror stories either way, stay or go,” I said. “The year Wilma hit, people kept evacuating—”
“Eight storms that year, including Katrina,” she said. “I just don’t think I could bear the suspense.”
Wally and I exchanged glances. Her New York anxiety was showing through.
“I’m inclined to clear out the minute they tell us to,” she said. “Why would I think I’m a better judge of meteorological events than the scientists? And it’s not like Key Zest is known for covering meteorological news. No one relies on us for the details of the weather.”
“I’m inclined to go too,” Wally said. “Mostly for my mother’s peace of mind. And that way, if the storm veers up the East Coast in her direction, I can help her out. What about you?”
I shrugged. “Mom and Sam are in town getting married on Sunday, remember? So we’ll wait a bit, hope for the best.” I flashed a loopy smile. “Like the rest of the nutcases on this island.”
“Keep us posted, then,” said Palamina, glancing at her iPhone watch. “I think we should get started. It doesn’t look like Danielle’s coming. I hope she’s not flaking out on us completely,” she added, making me want to warn her she’d develop a permanent furrow between her eyebrows if she kept frowning. Though I was worried too. Why hadn’t Danielle shown up or at least answered my text?
I told them a little about how the face-painting article was shaping up, and we discussed how and whether Palamina should write up the press conference. Then I excused myself, headed out to the soupy heat of the end of the day, and began to drive to the beach at the end of the island.
Reaching the spot where Southard Street dumps into the harbor, I passed the parking lot across from the Eco-Discovery Center on the right, and the police horse barracks and training ring on the left. Lately, the sustainability coordinator of the town was particularly proud of the compost material available there, and encouraged all residents to take advantage of it. But horse manure in flowerpots on a houseboat? Probably a no-go in the eyes of the Tarpon Pier Neighborhood Association.
Finally, I puttered by what always looked to me like abandoned military barracks. Key West had hosted an enormous military presence during the Cold War, and remnants of those scary days still remained. Within minutes, I was at the entrance to the state park, paying my fee and accepting congratulations from a friendly ranger.
“Most people don’t take the time to enjoy nature this week,” she said. “Though I suppose they’re enjoying a different kind of nature.” She winked and handed me a receipt that would grant me entrance into the park until eight p.m. this evening. “Be careful of rip currents if you’re going to swim,” she added. “That low pressure out east of us is doing weird things to our ocean. The swells are a lot bigger than we’re used to.”
Then I drove into the park grounds, past the parking lot that led to the snack shack and all the way to the end of the spit. Instead of palm trees, tall pines shaded the thin stretch of land between the pavement and the beach. These were not native plantings, and like many subjects in Key West, their presence was controversial. To me, it seemed a no-brainer. The trees provide a shady respite on an island that has gotten built up and crowded with commerce and humanity. Maybe native plantings would have been better for the environment, but right now anything green and quiet felt soothing.
I left my scooter by the bicycle rack and trudged over to the rock pile at the far end of the property. In the distance, I could see the top-heavy, rectangular shape of a cruise ship chugging from the harbor out through the channel. I often wondered—even worried a little—about the impression of Key West that cruising visitors left with. How many people who spend most of an excursion day drinking and
perusing the weird and tacky shops on Duval Street could be left with a positive memory of the city?
I paused for a minute to jot down notes in my iPhone for a possible Key Zest article: decent eats within striking distance of the cruise ship dock. I crab-walked out ten yards onto the rocks, already feeling my blood pressure sinking and the stress wrinkles on my forehead relaxing. Not far from where I perched, a large pelican soared above the sea and suddenly plunged into the water, emerging moments later with his pouch wiggling.
With a big sigh, I forced myself to focus on Danielle’s problem, the case of her dead rival. As far as I could see, the main reason that would point the cops in her direction was a lack of other suspects. And quite possibly, with the antics of Fantasy Fest stretching their patrols to the max, the police department would not have a lot of time to explore other leads.
Nathan Bransford despised it when I made statements like this. He’d told me more than once that my low opinion of the department’s capability would be the death of our relationship. And that what I read as incompetence or disinterest was in fact a normal and necessary secrecy, a veil between the police department and the public (including or even especially me) that prevented the public both from getting hurt and from falsely accusing innocent people. I took a deep breath and cleared my brain again.
Once I’d spent enough time gazing at the water and keeping my mind focused on absolutely nothing, I began to feel as though my pulse rate was back to normal. I scrambled across the rocks in search of my mother and Sam. They drove up to the bike rack in their rental car as I emerged from the beach path. Mom opened her door and tumbled out, her face lined with concern.
“Will it be all right for the ceremony? Do you think we are trying to act younger than we are? Are we going to look silly out here?”
Behind her, Sam rolled his eyes but smiled fondly. “They say when the bride is having doubts about the venue, it’s really about the marriage,” he said.
My mother spun around and kissed him on the lips. “Point taken. I’m acting ridiculous.”
“Besides, it’s gorgeous,” I said. “I think it’s the most beautiful spot on the island. And that’s saying something.”
Torrence roared up in his SUV cruiser and sprang out. “Sorry I’m late. It’s crazy out there.” He whirled a finger around his ear and shook his head. “I can’t believe people pay to come here at this time of year. I would pay to get away.”
We started through the path under the pines, the air now scented with roasting hot dogs from a grill off to the left. A mother herded three small boys with energy like fireworks to the nearby picnic table and divided the hot dogs among their paper plates. With the fish taco receding several hours in my stomach’s memory, my mouth watered. We stopped at the edge of the pines and looked out at the beach, where choppy waves slapped against the breakwater. A funny/sad expression crossed my mother’s face.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Flashback,” she said, gripping my arm so hard that I almost yelped. “You were with me the first time I did this too.” She patted her belly. “But my father walked me down the aisle that time.”
Mom had turned up pregnant during her senior year of college. Back in those days no one expected or condoned pregnancy out of wedlock, but she still claims it was the best thing that ever happened to her. It gave her the gift of motherhood, the chance to raise a nearly perfect daughter. No pressure there, right?
“Your grandpa had such a scowl on his face,” she said. “He actually threatened your father, right at the altar in hearing distance of the minister. You’d better take care of her—better than you have so far.” She reached over to cup my cheek. “And I wouldn’t change a thing. Even if I did desperately want the white dress that I couldn’t fit into at five months pregnant. We’ll do that at your wedding.” She smiled a smile so full of love and yearning that it made my own heart ache.
“We’ve got years, if not decades, to plan that,” I said. I made a let’s-get-on-with-it face at Torrence.
Then he talked us through the ceremony, how I would walk my mother to the point on the beach where the breakwater burst out of the ocean. There, Sam and Torrence would be waiting. “I’ll welcome your family and friends and then Hayley will read the psalm you’ve chosen and Gloria will say the prayer.”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you!” Mom gripped his wrist first, then grabbed Sam “Remember the trumpet player from Connie and Ray’s wedding? As a special gift, they’ve arranged for him to pipe us in down the aisle.”
“I think you’re mixing your metaphors, darling,” said Sam with a rumbling laugh. “Piping in is for captains coming aboard a new ship. I doubt you want to start the marriage off with that particular image in everyone’s minds.”
Torrence directed Sam to stand near him facing toward the pines, away from the ocean. Then I took my mother’s hand, which felt slick with perspiration, and we started across the beach toward the men. The tears that had seemed to shimmer in her eyes most of the afternoon threatened to spill over. Torrence smiled with reassurance.
“Then we’ll do the vows, and you both have rings, right?”
My mother nodded. Another sore point with my father, who insisted that a wedding ring would interfere with his tennis serve. (His tennis serve! As if he was a USTA international player, or a virtuoso pianist, or, for that matter, a construction worker who could realistically have caught the ring on his saw. Not a run-of-the-mill businessman whose biggest physical danger in life was a computer freeze.)
Once we reviewed the sequence to my mother’s satisfaction, she and Sam stayed to watch the seagulls and pelicans on the rocks before their dinner reservation at Latitudes. I walked back to the parking lot with the lieutenant.
“You guys must be pretty darn sure that woman was poisoned to share all that insider information with the universe,” I said, hoping to bait him into telling more than they had at the press conference.
He looked surprised. “What did we say, other than all possibilities are being investigated?”
“But you intimated that it wasn’t natural causes, right?”
“Yup.”
I heaved a sigh and tried to figure out how to wiggle my way into his confidence. He made his vacation pocket money conducting weddings. I’d start with some chitchat there.
“Any more nuptial ceremonies this week?” I asked.
“I don’t know anyone crazy enough to get married during this particular week of the year,” he said. “The weather’s terrible and the crowds are too. There was the one couple who wanted me to officiate in body paint only so the guests wouldn’t feel uncomfortable.”
I giggled. “Let me guess. You were busy that night.”
He cracked a smile and I dove for the opening.
“Seriously, the press conference sounded awfully grim,” I said.
“Death is grim, Hayley,” he said. “And why do I get a distinctly bad feeling that you’re not staying out of this as we’ve asked you to?”
I pursed my lips, measuring the likelihood that he’d share something with me if I told him what I knew. Some of it. I pulled the phone from my pocket. “I accidentally got a video of Caryn Druckman before she fell off her bike,” I said.
“Accidentally?” He took the phone and hit the PLAY button.
12
He spoke blasphemies other chefs recognized as hard-won truths. “Any chef who says he does it for love is a liar,” Mr. White said. “At the end of the day it’s all about money. I never thought I would ever think like that, but I do now. I don’t enjoy it. I don’t enjoy having to kill myself six days a week to pay the bank.” Can you blame him, or any other chef, for wanting to live like his customers?
—Dwight Garner, “A Bad Boy’s Manifesto,” The New York Times, April 8, 2015
As I puttered up to the parking lot in front of Tarpon Pier, feeling the breath of relief and gratitude that always greets me when I realize I’m at home, I heard a huge ruckus on the dock. The racket radiated fro
m Schnootie the schnauzer, whose barking echoed hysterically from the Renharts’ houseboat. As I strode up the finger, I spotted Miss Gloria on the Renharts’ deck. This never happens because Mr. Renhart abhors socializing. Over the incessant yapping of the schnauzer came the shrieking and growling of what sounded like hyenas. A lot of them.
I was pretty sure I recognized Evinrude’s angry cat voice among the yowls.
I broke into a trot, arriving just as Miss Gloria dove into a cartoon maelstrom of spinning legs and feet and fur and emerged with my tiger cat.
And that break in the action gave enough space for Miss Gloria’s black cat Sparky to rush back into the fray. So much was happening that I wasn’t certain who was fighting—or how many of them. But when Schnootie lunged into the whirling fur, I saw my chance and snatched Sparky out. Her chest heaving, Mrs. Renhart wrestled down two other long-haired cats, one pure black and one furry gray with a white face and neck and striking green eyes.
“Oh my gosh,” she said, her voice squeaky with exertion. “What a way to meet the new neighbors. And I so hoped my new kitties could be friends with yours.” She looked utterly bedraggled and forlorn, the two big cats clutched under her arms.
“These belong to you? Let us put our guys away,” I said, gritting my teeth as I smiled. “Then we can have a proper introduction.”
Miss Gloria and I carried our squirming, growling felines back to the dock and locked them in our houseboat. “What in the world was she thinking?” I muttered.
“I think she’s mostly lonely,” said Miss Gloria. “She sees how our animals get along so nicely and she wanted to copy us.” She shrugged and grinned, the skin around her eyes crinkling with laughter. “Take it as a compliment.”
“You’re right as usual,” I said, and gave her a quick hug. Another way I felt lucky in my life—this amazing and unlikely roommate. When I first met her, I sized her up as a frail but quirky old lady, a relic living out her last shaky legs on Houseboat Row. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
We started back to the Renharts’ houseboat, where our neighbor had—thank goodness—put Schnootie away in their cabin. Her new cats had retreated under the deck chairs. And Mrs. R was laying out a gallon jug of inexpensive white wine and a plate of Oreo cookies.
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