An Appetite for Murder

by Lucy Burdette

  “I’m okay. It turned out all right,” I said.

  “Chad probably didn’t say it, but I know he’s grateful. In fact, he asked me to call and tell you to pick up a box of your things. Looks like recipes and cookbooks. He said he brought it to the office by mistake.”

  “Fat chance of that,” I said. “Thanks, Deena. I’ll come by tomorrow. Tonight I’m celebrating.”

  After she hung up, Eric appeared in the doorway across the bar. He stood there for a moment, scanning the crowd. I waved him over, motioning that he should pick up a beer on the way.

  I squinted as he got closer. “Have you done something to your hair?”

  He smiled sheepishly. “Sun-In. It comes in a spray bottle.”

  “You’re joking! I used that product when I was fourteen.”

  “So I’m immature.” He put his arm around my shoulders and squeezed. “I can’t believe what you’ve been through today. I got your text message too late. One of my patients had an emergency. I feel terrible that you had to handle this alone.”

  I smiled. “It was probably good for my character. Lorenzo told me I was going to have to start relying on myself. But honestly, I never would have gone in the house if Meredith hadn’t forced me at gunpoint. I’m not that brave. Or dumb.” I smiled up at Eric, feeling a rush of affection.

  “By the way, I talked to the artist who painted your car. He said he’d be happy to do a retouch whenever the body shop finishes tapping out those dents. No problem. And now that I have a job, I can certainly pay.”

  “Sorry I was hard on you,” said Eric. “I shouldn’t own things that mean more to me than my friends.” He held up his bottle. “To the new food critic. To my old friend.”

  “And mine.” Connie materialized out of the crowd and clinked her bottle against mine and then Eric’s. “You’ll never believe what just happened! The ringleader of the mah-jongg table at the Truman Annex just called me. Three of them want to switch to Paradise Cleaning. Which will more than make up for losing Chad’s business—and be much less annoying.” She clinked my bottle again. “She said you talked her into it. So thank you.”

  A familiar head of wavy hair appeared at the Southard Street door to the bar. Then I saw Detective Bransford’s gaze searching the room. His eyes locked on mine and he came over to our group. “Can I buy you a drink?” he asked me.

  My heart gave a little sick-puppy lurch.

  “Got that taken care of,” I said, a little more snippily than I’d intended, and raised my beer. “Congratulations on getting your murder case wrapped up, Detective.”

  “The pastry chef with a key lime pie in the hallway,” Eric muttered.

  I held my breath, not daring to look at him for fear we’d start laughing and embarrass the heck out of the detective. Everyone was entitled a whopper mistake once in a while, weren’t they? He’d only been doing his job.

  “Nate, call me Nate. Your theory was right,” he said, ignoring the suppressed snickers from Connie and Eric. “The pastry chef intended for Chad Lutz to eat the poisoned pie—she’d filled the crust with ground Barbados nuts. She hung around outside the gate until a neighbor walked in with his dog. He came forward this evening and identified her. Miss Warner knew that you had moved out of the apartment, but not that Miss Faulkner had moved in. She claims she only wanted to make him good and sick—the courts will decide whether they believe her.”

  I nodded. “Thanks for telling me.”

  “And by the way, she was also responsible for the break-in on Miss Arp’s boat. As you suspected, she was worried about your figuring things out and came looking for any evidence that you might have collected. Unfortunately, your little neighbor was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  He shifted from one foot to the other. “Well. I’ll let you and your friends get back to celebrating.” He disappeared into the crowd.

  “He’s cute,” Connie said, staring right at me. “I like the chin.”

  “He’s a cop.” I shrugged, sure the blush gave me away.

  I leaned against the window, looking around the bar at my friends and all the other characters—the leftover hippies, the parrotheads, the folks sick of forcing their square peg selves into round holes. People who didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the world had somehow blended into a wonderful, colorful family in Key West. I hoped to fit in too, because I was neither the Hayley Mills “girl next door” that my mother dreamed of, nor the hard-driven career woman that my father envisioned. But I had the strong feeling I would find a life I loved here.

  “If you guys don’t have any plans, I’d like to make Thanksgiving dinner for you. I know Miss Gloria would love to host a party,” I told Eric and Connie. “I called my folks earlier—both sets—and told them not to expect me.”

  “Count us in,” Connie said.

  My cell phone rang—a blocked number. I answered, struggling to recognize the voice over the din in the Parrot. It was Detective Bransford—or Nate, as he insisted I call him.

  “I know this is sort of a coals to Newcastle situation, but I was wondering if I might take you to dinner. Sometime. Anytime. You could name the place. I’d offer to cook, but I don’t. Cook, that is.”

  “Make him wait,” Eric whispered.

  “I’ll have to check my calendar,” I said primly. Oh heck, wasn’t I finished trying to act like I was someone other than me? I broke into a major grin. “Scratch that. I’d be delighted.”

  Hayley Snow’s Leaning Tower of Eggplant

  2 medium eggplants, sliced lengthwise

  2 large tomatoes, sliced (Don’t bother with this dish if they aren’t in season.)

  1 ball fresh mozzarella, sliced

  Vinaigrette (see note)

  Greens, washed and torn, and arugula for the top

  Slice the eggplant and salt it, leaving it to rest for 20–30 minutes.

  Once the liquid beads on the salted slices, wash and dry them; then dip them in beaten egg, followed by flour, and fry in hot peanut oil. (Keep fried eggplant in a warm toaster oven while you continue frying.)

  When your eggplant slices are nicely browned and still warm, layer them alternately with fresh mozzarella slices (fresh is crucial—the rubbery white stuff won’t do) and the garden tomatoes on a bed of greens. Sprinkle shredded arugula over the top and drizzle with vinaigrette. Serve while the eggplant is warm.

  Note: For vinaigrette, whisk 1 tsp good quality mustard with 1 tsp sugar and 1–2 tsp water and whisk until smooth. Whisk in a half cup good quality olive oil until oil mixture is emulsified. Add balsamic vinegar to taste (usually 1/4 to 1/3 cup) along with salt and pepper, and whisk again.

  Molasses Sugar Cookies

  3/4 cup butter

  1 cup sugar

  1/4 cup molasses

  1 egg

  2 tsp baking soda

  2 cups flour

  1/2 tsp ground cloves

  1/2 tsp ground ginger

  1 tsp cinnamon

  1/2 tsp salt

  Sugar for rolling

  Melt butter over low heat. Cool, add sugar, molasses, and egg. Beat well. Sift together flour, soda, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, and salt, add to first mixture. Mix well and chill. Form the dough into 1-inch balls and roll them in sugar. Place on a greased cookie sheet 2 inches apart and bake at 375 for 8–10 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

  Alvina’s Crumb Cake

  2 cups granulated sugar

  1/2 lb (2 sticks) butter, softened

  4 cups flour

  1 tsp cinnamon, optional

  4 tsp baking powder

  3 beaten eggs

  Milk

  Rub or pulse the sugar, butter, and flour together like pie crust. Reserve one cup pea-sized crumbs for topping and add 1 tsp cinnamon, if desired. Set that aside.

  To the same bowl with the remaining mixture, add 4 tsp (heaping) baking powder and 3 beaten eggs. Stir.

  Mix in milk slowly until the dough runs off the spoon.

  Pour into 3 buttered layer cake pans and sprin
kle crumbs over top. Bake in a hot oven (around 425) about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out dry.

  This is also delicious with a handful of fresh blueberries folded in before baking.

  Note from the author: This recipe was passed down from my grandmother to my father. It was pretty much the only thing he cooked. We have not been able to identify Alvina.

  Read on for a sneak peek at the next

  Key West Food Critic mystery.

  Coming in September 2012 from Obsidian

  My new boss, Wally, slid his glasses down his nose and squinted over the top of the black frames. “Don’t even think about coming back with a piece telling us offal is the next big foodie trend,” he said. “I don’t care what’s in style in New York and LA. We eat grouper and key lime pie in Key West, not entrails.” He leaned back in his weathered wicker chair, fronds of faux tropical foliage tickling his hair. “Clear?”

  “Aye, aye, Captain.” I snapped my heels together and saluted, though it wasn’t easy to be serious with a man wearing a yellow silk shirt dotted with palm trees. Our company uniform. Which made my complexion look a little sallow, but I would have worn the houseplant and the straw lampshade that matched the other furniture were those required for the job.

  Right before Thanksgiving, I was astonished and grateful to be hired as the food critic for Key Zest, the new Key West style magazine. They sure hadn’t planned on shelling out big bucks so I could attend the “Key West Loves Literature” seminar barely two months later. But after I explained how most of the top food writers and food critics in the country would be there and we’d look like foodie fools if we missed it, Wally finally caved. With the caveat that I keep up my schedule of local restaurant reviews and write a couple of snappy, stylish feature articles about the seminar as well.

  At the time, that had all sounded doable. But right now, I had big-time jitters about meeting my writing idols and trying to sound smart. And I wished that my Christmas present brainstorm for my mother had been something other than tuition to this seminar. She was completely thrilled to be visiting here from New Jersey, and who wouldn’t feel good about making her mother happy? But for my first major (and paid!) journalistic assignment, having my mom tethered to my side felt a little like looking through the oven door at a falling soufflé.

  A block down from the white stucco San Carlos Institute building with its fancy Spanish railings, the usual suspects geared up for a night of Duval Street decadence. A gaggle of college students in flip-flops and shorts taunted one another in front of the adjoining empty storefront, looking as though they’d started drinking well before happy hour. Two fried-to-a-crisp couples giggled at the gross quotations featuring personal body parts on the T-shirts in the shop on the other side of the storefront. And the homeless man with his poorly tuned guitar and singing pit bull draped in Mardi Gras beads had set up on a blue blanket on his regular corner, ready to serenade the passersby. A handwritten sign explained that tourists could have their pictures taken with the dog—for five bucks.

  Everything was for sale in Key West—for the right price.

  I trudged the last hundred feet to the Institute, one half of me thrilled and the other half terrified. Three white arches funneled a bejeweled crowd buzzing with excitement into an enormous anteroom tiled in dizzying black and white. At the entrance to the auditorium, I flashed my press ID badge to a seminar volunteer and hurried down the right aisle to grab two seats as close to the stage as I could manage. Sinking into an upholstered seat, I studied the stage, draped in red velvet like a faded drag queen at the Aqua Nightclub. I would have killed to be up there, one of the foodie experts expounding on the latest trends and how to write about them. But right now I felt more like I belonged on that ratty street corner blanket with the howling dog.

  I flipped through the program and found the write-up about the keynote speaker, Jonah Barrows. Could he possibly look as good in person as he had in the New York Times style magazine photo shoot last fall? For a guy who’d survived a stint as a food critic for the snooty Guide Bouchée and then moved on to take first Los Angeles and then New York City by storm—a tsunami of foodie controversy—he looked thin, young, and unscathed. On the printed page, anyway.

  I waved my mother down the aisle to the spot beside me. She slid into her seat and reached over to pinch closed the V-neckline of my white shirt, and then smooth the drape of the pink polka-dotted sweater I’d layered over it. Her gaze slid down my khaki stretch pants to the Libby Edelman jeweled sandals she had presented as a thank-you gift for the weekend.

  “Aren’t they pretty?” she asked, and then tried to tuck some curls behind my ear.

  I grinned and shook my head. She was always dressed for success—in this case in a brown suede jacket and narrow tweed trousers, with her own auburn curls gathered into a gold barrette—and ever hopeful that I’d pick up her sense of style in more than the kitchen. She whipped out a camera from her handbag and snapped three blinding photos in succession.

  She was about to tap another patron’s shoulder to ask that she take a picture of the two of us when the heavyset director of the seminar bustled onto the stage and threw his arms open.

  “I’m Dustin Fredericks! Welcome to the greatest literary house party of the year!”

  The crowd roared with enthusiasm, including a loud and embarrassing “Hip-hip-hooray!” from my mother. Once the noise died down, Dustin went on to thank the program committee, the volunteers, and the many others who’d worked so hard on organizing the conference.

  “The mayor regrets she can’t be here tonight to award the seminar the honorary five-parrot seal of approval.” More polite clapping. And then he began to read a lengthy proclamation from the honorary mayor of Key West, Mayor Gonzo Mays, chock-full of whereases and here-to-fores.

  “Is he ever going to introduce Jonah?” asked the lady in front of us whose silver pompadour partly obscured my view of the podium. “I’m absolutely starving. We should have eaten before we came.”

  “It’ll be worth the wait,” said her companion. “When you’re trying to impress four hundred foodies and food writers, you can’t serve anything that isn’t fabulous.” She kissed the tips of her fingers and blew that imaginary kiss toward the stage. “I just know they’ll have shrimp, piles and piles of Key West pinks. . . .”

  My mother leaned forward, one hand on the velvet seat back in front of her, the other gently gripping the first woman’s shoulder. “Shhhhh,” she said.

  I sank lower into my upholstered seat. But it wasn’t just those ladies rustling and whispering—the audience was whirring with anticipation, as if they couldn’t wait for the real show to start; as if they expected pyrotechnics and hoped to blow past Dustin’s preliminaries to get there. Would Mom try to shush them all?

  “I know you didn’t come here to listen to me,” Dustin was saying from the stage. “So I am thrilled to introduce our keynote speaker, a man who truly needs no introduction.”

  “But you’ll give one anyway,” I muttered.

  My mother took my hand and pulled it onto her lap. “Oh, sweetie. Let him have his moment.”

  I rolled my eyes and squeezed her fingers back a little harder than I meant to.

  “Jonah Barrows has had four major culinary careers in the time most of us have only managed one. His mother once reported that he had a highly sensitive palate right out of the womb—he would only suckle organic goat’s milk.”

  The audience tittered. How completely embarrassing, the kind of thing a mother might say. Mine, in fact, was chuckling loudly. “Remember when you’d only eat strained carrots and your skin turned yellow from too much carotene?”

  “Mom, stop,” I hissed.

  “Mr. Barrows was a restaurant critic for the highly esteemed Guide Bouchée for his first four years out of Columbia. No one—I repeat, no one—lands that job as a twenty-two-year-old. At twenty-six, he co-owned and managed the three-star restaurant Ménager Bien in Los Angeles before he was lured
to the New York Times to write their food column for the young at heart, ‘See and Be Scene.’ And his memoir You Must Try the Skate . . . and Other Utterly Foolish Things Foodies Say has gone to its third printing, even though it went on sale only today! People named him a national culinary treasure, a wunderkind who will shape the way Americans eat for decades. The Washington Post called him the most frightening man to scorch the food scene since Michael Pollen. Without further ado, I ask you to welcome Jonah Barrows.”

  Then the stage curtains swept open, revealing a facsimile of an old diner—cracked red-and-black leather booths, Formica tabletops balanced on steel posts, fake carnations drooping from cheap cut-glass vases. All we needed was big floppy menus stained with tomato sauce and a worn-faced waitress asking, “What’ll it be, hon?”

  Jonah strode across the stage, waving a graceful hand at the crowd, grinning broadly, clad in tight black trousers, cowboy boots, and a gorgeous orange linen shirt. The other panelists for the weekend trickled along in his wake, taking seats at the booths and tables of the faux diner. When they were settled, Jonah clasped the director in a bear hug, and maneuvered him toward the wings in a fluid two-step. Then he blew a kiss to the audience, who clapped vigorously, finally working itself into a standing ovation.

  Jonah waved us down. “I am honored to kick off this weekend. It’s hard to know where to begin—it’s customary, I believe, to be positive in a speech like this.” He flashed a lopsided, regretful grin, teeth eggshell white against his tan. Then he turned to face the food writers seated behind him.

  “But I have decided instead to opt for honesty. We have traveled so far from the basics of food and food writing where I feel we belong. We have competitive cooking shows featuring chefs oozing testosterone. We have food critics getting outed by disgruntled restaurateurs using a rush of Twitter posts and Facebook photos.” He bounced across the stage to clasp the shoulder of an impish man and ruffle his dark hair.