An Appetite for Murder

by Lucy Burdette

  With nothing else to distract me, I plunked down at the desk and mulled over my article choices. In the beginning, I’d thought it would make a stronger application packet to include two traditional restaurant reviews and one that was slightly offbeat. But both the brown-bag piece on Bad Boy Burrito and the breakfast article I’d sketched out this morning fell into the funky category. The Seven Fish and Blue Heaven reviews should be the anchors for my application. In fact, I’d already written a jazzy introduction to Blue Heaven, discussing the pleasures and concerns of sharing a meal with live chickens. Unfortunately, since Blue Heaven hadn’t catered Kristen’s reception, I was short on facts about their food.

  That left me with one traditional restaurant review, one take-out restaurant with gourmet-quality Mexican food, and the scant beginning of an article on best breakfasts in Key West. And no time to research anything new. Kristen, I was certain, would have shredded an applicant like me in an instant. Would Wally be more tolerant?

  I felt frozen, like I had a million times in college at eight or ten p.m. when a major paper was due the next day and I’d only just hit the library. “When in doubt, wait it out” used to be my motto. It hadn’t worked well then and it wouldn’t now either. I tried to visualize the instructions that the applicants had been issued at the beginning of the process: Show us your style.

  In a mini blast of inspiration, I thought of rating my reviews with cute little palm trees instead of the same dull stars used in the Michelin Guides and at the New York Times. One palm tree for fair, two for good, three for excellent, and no trees at all if the place was truly a dog. I wrote this up in an opening paragraph, then sat back, mired in the same problem.

  My mind shifted to the Chad and Kristen conundrum. And Ava’s statement at the funeral reception that she too had hooked up with Chad. And it occurred to me that Deena—Chad’s secretary—would certainly know what their relationship had been like before he met me. Whether she would spill any secrets was another question altogether. We’d gotten to be pretty friendly right after I moved to Key West. A few times I’d even ended up having drinks with Deena instead of Chad when he was working too hard to entertain me. I checked my watch. She was probably still at work—she often set aside Thursday nights to catch up on Chad’s paperwork.

  Suddenly it felt like I couldn’t wait one more minute to find out what she knew about Chad and Kristen. And maybe she could explain too why Chad seemed so angry. About everything. I padded back out to the galley and poured another inch of wine into my glass—liquid courage. Then I dialed her work number.

  “Deena,” I said when she answered in her husky voice. “It’s Hayley Snow. Sorry to bother you at work.”

  “No problem,” she said, but not like she meant it. “I was just wrapping things up.”

  “I miss talking to you,” I said. “That’s one of the worst things about this stupid breakup.”

  “I know,” she said. “Me too.” Her voice warmed a little, which gave me the guts to forge forward.

  “I don’t mean to put you in an awkward position, but you know how painful these past few weeks have been. I’m trying to get some perspective.” And then, before she could tell me she had nothing to say and that her first loyalty had to be to her employer, I asked her how long he’d known Kristen.

  There was a hefty silence. “I wondered when you’d get around to asking,” she said finally.

  My heart plunged like an elevator on the fritz. “Get around to it?” I repeated in a dull voice. “Please tell me—it can’t hurt anything now.” Could it?

  She didn’t say anything, so I tried again. “Deena, please. You have to tell me. This isn’t just a case of being nosy. The police think I killed Kristen.”

  She was still quiet. I could picture her thinking, tapping those long, red nails on her desk. How did she type with those talons anyway?

  “Deena?”

  “Kristen and Chad were pretty tight before he met you,” she said. “But I’m not going to say anything more on the phone. His phone. Jesus, Chad would kill me if he knew I was talking to you. And I can’t afford to lose this job.”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called you at work. I’ll meet you anywhere—just name it.”

  “Tomorrow at the pier in front of the Truman Annex. I’ll be walking Ginger at five.”

  I thanked her and hung up feeling utterly foolish. What a dupe I’d been. And a dope. I could just imagine the scene when Chad told Kristen that he’d gone north to visit his mother for a week and come back with a new girlfriend. No wonder Kristen couldn’t stand my guts. No wonder she’d expunged me from the Key Zest computer.

  I shuffled back out to the kitchen and made a cup of coffee. This news was going to require rethinking everything that had happened over the past two months. With a clear mind, if I could rustle one up.

  I remembered the fool card that Lorenzo had dealt onto the card table. However he might have interpreted it, the meaning was clear to me.

  12

  “It is possible to imagine him having a small meal of minor critics for breakfast, as if they were kippers . . .”

  —Dwight Garner

  I lingered in bed longer than I should have the next morning, partly because of the minor post-Prosecco-and-white-wine headache, but mostly because the day looked exhausting and I’d only been awake ten minutes. The conversation with Deena had left me feeling stupid and heavy. And having teetered on the edge of playing the clown yesterday at the reception, I dreaded talking to Eric. Besides, I’d have to admit what he suspected all along about my move to Key West to be with Chad.

  For a half hour, I stayed under the covers, listening to the sounds of morning at the marina. Someone at the end of the dock was hosing down his property, with KONK 101 AM blaring at top volume. Seagulls squalled, the Renharts’ oversized wind chimes clanked, and I could smell the scent of the Laundromat’s dryer wafting in from the parking lot.

  Before I moved in, Connie had warned me that some folks find marina life to be the worst of both worlds: There is no pure experience of nature like you’d get on the open seas. And the place has all the lack of privacy and convenience that comes from living on a boat. In other words, some people might consider it an overpriced trailer park on the water. She loved this place though, and I was beginning to feel that way too.

  I rolled over and reached for my phone. No new messages. I was dying to hear if Eric had picked up any more gossip after I left the church. And whether he’d come up with any bright new theories about Kristen’s murder. But first, Key Zest. And before that, Evinrude, who’d started the morning by tickling my face with his whiskers and progressed to padding back and forth across my chest, meowing for breakfast.

  I left a message on Eric’s voice mail, extracted myself from the bedcovers, and trotted into the kitchen. Connie had left a half pot of dark roast coffee and a note wishing me luck with the application. I filled a big blue mug with steamed milk and coffee and splashed a taste of milk in a bowl for the cat. Busy crunching kibbles, he flicked his tail with satisfaction. I returned to my room and tapped out an introduction to my application.

  Tolerance of differences among people seems to be higher than most places in our little patch of paradise, so why shouldn’t this be true with food too? Yes, a hungry diner can find a multistarred dining experience in Key West, but she can also find mouthwatering takeout and breakfasts to die for. As the new food critic for Key Zest, I will cover eating establishments from one end of the spectrum to the other. One human family—one interesting meal after another.

  And then I attached my three reviews to the e-mail, added a link to the key lime pie article in the Citizen, and pressed SEND. Now it was out of my hands.

  I poured a second cup of coffee and brought it back to my desk, considering a shower. And then whether I should put a few applications in at restaurants on Duval Street where staff turned over so quickly that they always needed help. Depressing prospect, yes indeed, but at least I’d be doing somethin
g. A loud rap on our flimsy front door rattled the houseboat and Evinrude bolted off the desk and disappeared under the bed. I tossed on my bathrobe and hurried out to answer. With any luck, Eric would have stopped by for a visit.

  Two Key West policemen were standing on the dock: Officer Torrence and another with Elvis-style sideburns whom I didn’t recognize. I clutched the robe closed at my neckline, pushed the door open, and forced a smile. “Good morning. You have some news, I guess?”

  “Miss Snow, I regret to say that we have been dispatched to bring you into the police station,” said Officer Torrence. And not in a friendly voice.

  “Again?” I said. “We have to stop meeting this way.” No smiles. “I’ve pretty much told you guys everything I know.” I wanted to sound lighter than I felt—the dread was gathering. They looked very serious. “Let me just grab a shower and I’ll run over—”

  “We need to bring you in now,” said the officer with the sideburns, looking even grimmer than Torrence, if that were possible.

  Once it became clear that now meant now, I threw on jeans and a sweatshirt and stumped down the dock between the two men. If anything could be worse than another trip to the station, it would be a trip to the station in rumpled pajamas with napping cats on them.

  As we passed the neighbors’ boat, Mrs. Renhart was hanging out her husband’s clothes on a fold-up clothesline on their deck. Her weathered blue eyes widened in disbelief and I swore she pulled her cell phone right out of her pocket and dialed. This would be all over town by afternoon, but that was the least of my problems.

  After a short ride in the back of the cruiser, I was escorted into the same conference room that I’d visited two times earlier. Detective Bransford joined the other cops and deposited a brown bag on the table in front of me. I could hope for doughnuts, but it had a long, flat shape unlike any pastry I’d ever seen and no tantalizing yeasty smell. In fact, the bag gave off a slightly rancid odor.

  “Good morning, Detective,” I said in a trembling voice. “Well, I hope it’s a good morning for you. It’s not going all that well for me so far.”

  He nodded gruffly, his dark eyes gleaming.

  “Miss Snow, would you be so kind as to explain again your relationship with Miss Kristen Faulkner?”

  “There wasn’t much to it,” I said. “I told you about finding her with my boyfriend. And how she owns the magazine where I’m applying for a job. Owned, I should say. I don’t know who’s got her half now.”

  “So you applied for a job, but oddly enough, your résumé was deleted?”

  I gawked and stared. How had they learned this? “Yes, it’s true,” I said, heaving a great sigh. “She deleted me on account of my relationship with Chad Lutz. I went over there yesterday and managed to get myself back on the list.”

  “Miss Snow, can you explain where you were exactly on Tuesday morning between six and ten a.m.?”

  Of course he’d asked me the same question during our previous “conversations,” just as all the TV cops I’d seen over the years asked repetitive questions of their subjects. I searched my memory for who I might have called that morning, and when I came up with no one, tried to puzzle out what the hell he had in that bag.

  “Do you understand what I’m asking?” he repeated when I was silent for too long.

  “I understand. And you guys must know that I had nothing to do with that murder. Don’t you?” I took a deep, wobbly breath. “I even found out last night that Kristen and Chad were involved romantically before I ever came along and so doesn’t it make sense that she’d want to kill me rather than the other way around? That’s the way I’d be thinking if I was in your—”

  “Miss Snow,” the detective broke in. “I know you’re nervous, but you need to pay attention. This is a very serious matter—a woman has been murdered. You have no alibi. You have motive. You are quite familiar with the weapon used to kill the victim. And you entered Mr. Lutz’s apartment, where the victim was discovered, without his permission. In fact, we have a witness who places you at the condominium complex around the time of the murder.”

  I set my trembling lips into one firm line. “But that’s not true! Your witness is lying. I was at home all morning, working. And I didn’t kill her. I just didn’t do it.”

  The cops exchanged unreadable glances; then Detective Bransford looked back at me.

  “Can you identify this?” He snapped a white latex glove on, extracted an object wrapped in plastic from the brown bag, and set it on the table. I immediately recognized it as my own missing carving knife—or one just like it—the knife that could hack through a chicken carcass in one crushing downward blow. One of the knives I’d hoped to find in Chad’s apartment. I peered a little closer. Underneath the plastic evidence bag, the knife appeared to be covered in green gunk, mixed with the black fingerprint dust that I’d seen everywhere when I started cleaning Chad’s place.

  “It’s just like my knife,” I admitted. “But Kristen wasn’t stabbed. You said she was poisoned.” Which, of course, they hadn’t told me. Henri had. My eyes filled suddenly. “Oh my God, that’s the poison pie isn’t it? And you think because my knife was used to cut it . . .” I took a shuddering breath and tried to calm down and figure out the angles. “But that’s ridiculous! She probably grabbed the knife out of the drawer and cut a piece herself.”

  The three policemen just stared at me.

  The detective broke the silence. “We did find your fingerprints on this knife, Miss Snow. Listen,” he said, smiling warmly. “Probably you only meant for her to get sick—vomit a little and so on. Maybe an unpleasant night in the ER. Payback for what she put you through.”

  “But—”

  “I’m just saying, to have her steal your boyfriend after you uprooted your life and moved a long distance to be with him. Isn’t that what you told us the other day? And you don’t have a job now or a place to live. I could imagine how a person in this situation might come a little unmoored. Unglued.” He smiled again and offered a sympathetic nod.

  And I realized that this was the point in every TV crime show that the poor beleaguered and innocent suspect lawyers up. I straightened my shoulders.

  “I believe I would like to call a lawyer. But since I don’t know any except for Chad Lutz who hates me and deals with divorce anyway, I would like to call my father and get his help.” I slid my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans.

  Detective Bransford leaned across the table, frowning, and held out his hand.

  “I’ll hold on to that until you leave. Officer Torrence will bring you a phone.”

  The veins in my temples were throbbing so hard I could barely remember my name, never mind a string of numbers that I didn’t dial that often. I could have called Mom, but she had a tendency to flip out under pressure. So I closed my eyes and breathed until my father’s cell number came to me, then accepted the phone and dialed.

  After three rings, my stepmother picked up. I groaned aloud—an action I was certain would be mentioned in future family fights, but I couldn’t worry about it. Right now, it seemed bad enough to have my own father thinking I was a loser—Allison lacked the blood connection that would soften my humiliation.

  “Sorry, Allison,” I said. “I thought I called Dad’s cell.”

  “You did,” she said. “He’s in the shower. I saw the Key West exchange and since we haven’t heard from you all week, I thought I should answer. He would be disappointed to have missed you. Anything I can let him know?”

  How could I emphasize how crucial it was that he call me back without telling the whole truth? I couldn’t.

  “This may sound completely crazy, but please don’t hang up. I’m about to go to jail and I only get one call. I need Dad to help me find a lawyer. Right away.” I suppressed a sob—it sounded so awful—so melodramatic. “Wait a second. Let me figure out what number he should call.”

  “Hold on,” said Allison. “I’m going to pull him out of the shower this minute. I’m going upstairs. Ar
e you all right? Are they treating you okay? How in the world did this happen?”

  As her sympathetic questions unrolled, I felt a whoosh of relief. “I’m fine—they’re not beating me or anything.” I made a small face for the benefit of the detective who had scared me half to death and was obviously listening to every word. “I just need a lawyer, that’s all,” I added, choosing not to address how I got into this mess.

  “Just a minute,” said Allison.

  I could hear muffled conversation, as if she’d pressed the phone to her bosom while she talked to my father.

  Then he came on the line. “Hayley, for the love of God, what is this about jail?”

  Just the sound of his voice destroyed the rest of my fragile composure and I began to cry. I told him about Kristen being poisoned. “The police found my knife covered with poisoned lime custard—it’s so green, now that I think of it, I believe the person who baked it used food coloring. Isn’t that disgusting?”

  “Stop talking this minute!” my father ordered. “Why in God’s name are you discussing cooking? Do not say one more word to the cops. About anything. Give me the phone number there.”

  I got the number from one of the cops and repeated it to my father.

  “Stay right where you are. I’ll get back to you in no more than fifteen minutes.”

  He hung up. If I hadn’t been feeling so completely distraught, I would have laughed. Where the heck did he think I’d be going?

  I handed the phone back to Detective Bransford. “My father’s finding me a lawyer. I guess I have nothing more to say until that’s settled. Except I wonder if I might use the ladies’ room.”

  He rolled his eyes and ushered me down the hall.

  13

  “Everyone needs a chocolate cake in her repertoire.”

  —Molly Wizenberg

  A half hour later, Bransford returned to the interview room with my new lawyer. Attorney Richard Kane was a thickset man with bushy black hair and a burr of a mustache that looked as though it had been glued on. Glowering at the detective, he thrust his business card at me. They’d obviously done some talking before they got to the room.