“She said that to her right during the show? That was mean.”
Victoria nodded, applying a new coat of lipstick where the beer bottle had smeared the perfect red bow of her lips. “Danielle, of course, started to cry. That’s when one of the twins came barreling up and lit into Druckman. Telling her she was a bully and not all that light on her feet besides. And maybe if she’d lay off the cheeseburgers and French fries, she’d look like she belonged in front of an audience. I didn’t hear the rest because I was due onstage, but the MC separated them.”
“Wow,” I said. “And we in the crowd had no idea the real drama was backstage.”
Just then the manager for the Aqua announced Victoria’s next set. She blew me a kiss and sashayed off to sing.
14
“Where did you source your ingredients from?” one of them asked. “Are they local?”
“Yeah,” Pat said, “they’re from the store about a mile from my house.”
—J. Ryan Stradal, Kitchens of the Great Midwest
I woke the next morning feeling a little heavy and gloomy. I wanted to write this off as an artifact of the weird weather and the Fantasy Fest crowds, but I had to admit that it felt more like loneliness. I loved seeing my mother so crazy for Sam, and him even madder for her. But seeing them so happy made me realize that my slown-burning, slown-budding relationship with Bransford had suddenly screeched to a halt. I had two choices: mope like a dope or do something about it.
So I leaped out of bed, slugged down a cup of coffee, and fed the cats. It was early enough that maybe I could meet up with the detective at the dog park and entice him to breakfast at Harpoon Harry’s. Not letting myself obsess about dressing for success—whatever that meant in this context—I pulled on khaki shorts and a Key Zest T-shirt and started across the island. The air didn’t appear to have cooled off overnight, and if anything, the humidity felt higher. Almost like taking a shower on my scooter.
I toyed with trying to convince myself that the point of the trip to the dog park was to see Ziggy Stardust, Bransford’s mini Doberman pinscher mix. But the truth was, I missed Bransford himself. In a yearning, schoolgirl kind of way, all mixed up with hopes and fears about my future, both short-term and long.
I parked at Higgs Beach, across the street from the large half-grass, half-sand park, fenced in by chain links. Every hour of the day, passersby could find a cluster of dog people sitting on white plastic chairs in the shade and watching their furbabies frolic. Bransford liked to get here early, both because of his work schedule and because he wasn’t quite as sociable as some of the other fathers. Understatement of the week, or even the month.
From that distance, I saw a cluster of dogs chasing balls and wrestling. Then a small blur of black and brown emerged from the pack and bolted after a German shepherd. That was Ziggy, all right. He did not consider himself to be a candidate for the small-dog section. Just as Bransford himself was not a candidate for chitchat with regular people.
I scanned both the big-dog and the small-dog sections of the park, but saw no sign of the detective. Surely he wouldn’t have dropped the dog off alone? I stepped inside the gate and whistled for Ziggy. He did an about-face, bolted across the well-trodden lawn, and threw himself into my arms, leaving no question that a dog gives a more obvious welcome than a cat. Even my own Evinrude.
Ziggy licked my face and then scrambled to get back down and resume his chase. Still there was no Bransford. A young woman with glossy black hair, large sunglasses, and short shorts approached me. “I take it you and Ziggy are pals.”
Did I know her? I scrolled through the possibilities. Bartender? Waitress? Shopkeeper? Police department? Nothing rang a bell. “Yes, Ziggy and I are friends. And you must be related—you have the same beautiful hair.”
She let loose a peal of laughter. “Neighbors. Dog sitter. Which is yours?” She gestured at the pack of dogs frolicking.
“Oh, I don’t own a dog,” I said. “I’m a cat person really. But don’t tell Ziggy.”
She pursed her poofy pink lips. “You bring a cat to the dog park?”
“No, no, I was riding by and thought I’d say hello to Nathan Bransford if he was here.”
“I’ll tell him you were looking for him.”
“Not really looking for him,” I said, adding what I hoped was a casual grin.
“He’s hard to keep track of. Popular guy.” She grinned back, and then winked. “He texted me last night to say he wouldn’t be home until lunchtime today and could I take the dog—”
“Wait.” Her brows crinkled in worried lines. “But you’re not—” She got more and more flustered as the seconds that felt like minutes ticked by. “I mean, I thought when …” She clapped her hand over her mouth. “I never do know when to shut up. And it’s not any of my business anyway.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, adding a pained smile. Ziggy caromed by, close on the tail of the big shepherd.
“It’s just, well, maybe it had nothing to do with Carolyn.”
She looked as though she was going to break into tears. And I didn’t feel that solid either. I’d assumed he was busy with work, not his ex. The thought of her resurfacing made me queasy. More than queasy; I felt as if the floorboards had rotted out from under me and I was plunging down.
The young woman continued to yammer, her face flushing with distress. “I’m sure you know she’s been in town a couple of times over the past few weeks. Dropped in, you know, kind of by surprise? Oh, this is so awkward. And I know perfectly well what she looks like.” Her eyes raked me from top to bottom. She cupped her hands by her chest, the universal sign for expansive cleavage. Something I did not share with his ex.
“And she’s got the biggest brown eyes and that dark hair …” Her hands made sweeping wavy motions that mimicked the way the former Mrs. Bransford’s gorgeous tresses cascaded off her shoulders. “She doesn’t look a bit like you.”
There was no graceful way to back out of this, so I just waved and trotted across the street back to my scooter. I would not think about Bransford’s ex coming to Key West, several times if that young woman was a credible witness. And possibly out all night with her … I slapped myself on the thigh. I needed to get to work, do something useful, write some sparkling words, and help Danielle. Quit dwelling on a man I apparently didn’t know well enough to trust and certainly couldn’t control.
But then the alarm on my iPhone began to beep, reminding me that I had an exercise training appointment with Leigh at the WeBeFit gym. No one would ever accuse me of being one of the gym rats who loved to exercise, but in my line of work it had become a necessary evil. I couldn’t eat what I wanted to eat, as often as I wanted to eat it, without expending some calories in the other direction. I hired Leigh to keep me motivated, because I stunk at doing it by myself. I’d learned a few tricks too, like if I distracted Leigh with interesting conversation, she tended to go a little easier on me. Maybe even forget how high she was counting and cut the repetitions off early. Today I thought I had an excellent topic.
I powered into WeBeFit, trying to look as though I belonged in this gym community, which already bristled with energy and testosterone. The few other female exercisers in spandex and leggings looked fit and satisfied, not bedraggled like me, like someone who’d been out on Duval most of the night. Leigh was waiting at the front desk, a tall blond dancer, known for being tough but mostly fair with her clients.
She looked me up and down. “You’re going to work out in that?” she asked with a quizzical lift of her brows.
I mumbled something about being frazzled by Fantasy Fest and not getting to the Laundromat.
“You forgot your appointment, didn’t you?”
I made a face and shrugged. “I’ll get by in this, maybe even start a new trend in workout clothes.”
“Mmm, doubtful.” She directed me to begin by doing the bank robber shoulder stretches that she knew I hadn’t had time to run through before the session. Sitting in the hallway wit
h my back pressed against the wall, I raised and lowered my arms as if in a stickup, and she stood over me like the robber with a gun.
“You need a sense of humor about your laggard clients,” I said once I’d finished.
“I know,” Leigh said, “but can you imagine the weight I carry with ten to twelve clients a day who don’t really want to be here? The worst are the ones who try to trick me out of their workouts.” She raised an eyebrow. “I know you’d never do that, Hayley.”
Then she waved me over to a horizontal bar and indicated that I should start a set of push-ups. She’d moved the bar several inches lower than our previous session. So far my distraction technique wasn’t working perfectly.
“So what are you frazzled over?” she asked when I’d finished.
I explained the news about Mrs. Druckman’s death, which she’d already heard, and the apparent lack of suspects aside from Danielle. “Say, have you eaten at the Beach Eats truck?” I asked. I slid my phone out of the back pocket and showed her the photo from the zombie parade. “Do you know this guy?”
“That looks a lot like Grant Monsarrat. He’s good friends with the owner and was probably moonlighting for the event. He’s usually the chef at Paradise Pub. I think I heard he’s buying the place.”
“The staff were crabby buggers when I was at the pub the other day,” I said. “They lost my order and I finally gave up on it. In fact, everybody’s crabby on this island, including me.” I described the fight I’d witnessed the night before on Duval Street.
“You have to remember that the locals sometimes behave like eighth graders,” she said, adding a grin. “And I’m including myself in there. Sometimes we’re not so crazy about the outsiders swarming the island. And you might remember from junior high school, when a clique gets threatened, they can lash out.”
“Are you saying Caryn Druckman was killed because she wasn’t a local?”
“I’m not suggesting she was murdered by a local, but I’m saying feelings run high when it comes to this subject,” Leigh said. “People waltz in here thinking they can shove a new business down people’s throats and keep it afloat with tourist money. And locals get mad about that. And there’s some legitimate reasoning behind this too, because who’s here to order food or sit at the bar in the steamy off-season when no tourist would set foot on the island? The locals are, that’s who.” She started me on a series of squats and biceps curls that kept me breathless.
“I get what you’re saying,” I said, once I’d struggled back to a standing position. My biceps quivered like the mint jelly my grandmother used to serve with a leg of lamb. “I try to be sensitive to that when I’m writing reviews. I hope I don’t come off as a know-it-all insider.”
She grinned. “Most of the time, you’re okay.”
We slogged through the rest of my workout without much conversation.
“See you next time,” Leigh said, “unless the hurricane gets us first.” She turned to greet her next victim, and I went to the ladies’ room to gather my stuff and wash my face.
When I finally dragged myself out of the gym, feeling every muscle throb but unreasonably proud of my effort, I checked my phone. Nothing from Bransford—big surprise. Not a word from Danielle, either, which worried me. It wasn’t like her not to show up at work yesterday and not to be in touch. I decided that eight o’clock was a decent hour to call, considering the level of my concern. She answered right away, her voice shaky and low.
“What the heck, Danielle?” I said. “Where are you? We’re worried sick about you. You never miss a staff meeting.”
Pause.
“Sorry, Hayley. I’ve been so ill. You don’t want to hear the details. I’ll just leave it there.”
“Did you eat something bad?” Always the first thought in the food critic’s mind. Because if you eat out as often as I do, you’re bound sooner or later to ingest a bad clam. But I’d had lunch with her yesterday—we all ordered the same fish tacos—and I’d never felt the slightest bit queasy. “Is the stomach flu going around?” I asked.
“I don’t know anybody sick,” she said. “My mother thinks it’s vertigo—that thing where the crystals in your ear get discombobulated and throw off your balance.”
“Doesn’t that mostly happen to senior citizens?” I asked, not wanting to scare her with the next thing that popped into my mind: that she’d somehow gotten hold of the same poison that killed Caryn Druckman. Maybe in a lesser dose … but still … scary.
“Have you been to the doctor?” I asked, and then added before she could protest: “I think you should go.”
“It’s just a little stomach upset,” she said.
“Then you would have come to work.”
“How mad was Palamina?”
I hemmed. “Luckily, she was distracted by the weather.”
15
The next day, I buttered a slice of it, delicious and long-deferred toast, and had it with my coffee. As toast always will, it seemed morning-bright, and clean of complications. Women, I thought, remember everything. Bread forgives us all.
—Adam Gopnick, “Bread and Women,” The New Yorker, November 4, 2013
By the time I reached my scooter, I realized that I was starving. Not that a half hour training session burned that many calories, but try telling that to my gut. I would take a spin over to Grant Monsarrat’s kitchen and kill two birds with one stone: ask him what he’d seen at the zombie parade and hope to grab something to eat that would tide me over until lunch and possibly beef up my takeout piece.
I parked the bike and approached the restaurant, which looked deserted and mostly dark. No surprise, as they were known more for late-night action than breakfast. Though I thought I remembered their hours as eight a.m. to two a.m.—someone should be minding the stove. I tried the front door first, but it was locked. So I went around back, past the ripe-smelling Dumpsters and stacks of recyclable cardboard waiting on wooden pallets. The lights in the high windows of the kitchen were on and the door was propped open. Outside, two slightly dusty calico kittens lapped milk from a foil pie pan. The smell of bacon frying wafted from the kitchen and caused my stomach to growl.
“Hello!” I called, poking my head inside the door. Shelves loaded with cans of tomatoes and beans and sweetened condensed milk and sacks of rice and flour and sugar lined the short hallway. “Anybody home?”
Half a minute later, Grant appeared—the chef I’d seen cooking in the Beach Eats truck, his hair pulled back in a man-bun, eyes early-morning red, and a fresh apron tied around his narrow waist. “Help you?” he asked, looking behind me and to either side. “Bring your truck around back. I don’t like to drag the stuff through the restaurant.”
“Oh, I’m not here for a delivery,” I said. “I’m Hayley Snow. I’m the food critic for Key Zest magazine.”
His nose wrinkled and he shook his head—disgusted. “I’m in no shape to provide you a meal right now. We’re shorthanded and struggling to get our prep done for the day. Come back later when we open, and I’ll make you anything you’d like.”
I tossed off a laugh. “I know better than to ask for special treatment. Never fair to surprise the chef off hours and expect a decent meal. That’s not why I came.” I paused, wondering how to explain. Why would he care what happened to a stranger? How to put this so he wouldn’t slam the door in my face? Direct was always best. “I need a tiny minute of your time to ask some questions about the zombie parade and the woman who died there. You were working the Beach Eats truck—am I right?”
His lips pinched shoelace thin. “Yes. But if you’re asking about what happened to her, I didn’t know the woman. Didn’t see anything. There’s nothing I can add. You know this is Fantasy Fest week, right? We’re expecting to do two hundred covers tonight. That’s twice our usual traffic. I’d like to help, but I don’t know anything and, like I said, I’m slammed.” He started to back away. One of the kittens ran over and wound between his legs. He scooped it up and kissed its head.
“I’m surprised that you have time to work here and in the food truck both,” I said, trying a sympathetic smile as he put the cat back down. “But everyone on this island has to grind harder than we ever think is possible while the crowds are here, right?”
“A friend owns Beach Eats,” he said. “I help him out in a pinch once in a while for big events.”
My stomach growled loud enough that both of us could hear. I patted my midriff and grinned. “Sorry,” I said. “Your bacon got to me. I was so hoping to include this place in my killer takeout roundup, but the text is due to my editor this afternoon. There was a mix-up with my order the other day, so I didn’t get to try your food.”
He wiped a hand over his forehead, shifted from one foot to another. “Staffing this kitchen is a beast sometimes. I’m sorry we messed up the other day. I could make you a bacon, egg, and cheese on a hard roll. Tell you about some of our takeout dishes. That’s the best I can do.”
“I would love that,” I said. “I would be so grateful.”
He scooted the kitten back outside, then held the door open and directed me to a stool by the stainless steel counter in the middle of the room. “My sous-chef called in sick this morning. I’m afraid he’s got the Duval Street flu. Do you know Kat, aka Catfish?” He grinned and pointed to a woman wearing a white coat and a long dark braid who was chopping vegetables near the sink.
“Yes, I think we met the other day when there was a little mix-up with the takeout.”
“Apologies for that,” Kat said with a warm smile. “It’s so hard to get decent help on this island.” She wiped her hands on her apron and bustled across the kitchen to shake my hand.
“She’s our hostess with the mostest, and my front of the house manager, but she helps out in the kitchen too, thank god,” said Grant. “That’s what I love about this place—there is always someone willing to pitch in when I need it. Although to be honest, usually it’s Kat. She doesn’t have culinary training, but you know what she does have?”
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