“I better not catch you up here after we put the tablecloths on,” I said, knowing these cats pretty much did what they wanted no matter who scolded or warned them. My pal Donna Vanderveen, who had formerly worked here as a cat caretaker, had once seen two of the cats licking the icing off the back of a wedding cake. Without a word to the bride or her family, she had shooed them away and repaired the damage.
As I worked, I ruminated about Lorenzo’s cards. Maybe he hadn’t really been reading my cards. Maybe they belonged to our island. After all, Lorenzo believes that cities have astrological signs, exactly as people do. Key West is a Capricorn. Always all about the money: how much, where it will come from, and whose pockets it might line. I reminded myself to look at the “Citizens Voice” in the paper when I got home—this column is often a good snapshot of what folks in town are most worried about. Maybe the vibes he was picking up in my kitchen had come directly from the newspaper, not from me at all. It sounded farfetched, but who knew how the mystery of tarot really worked?
Rusty Hodgdon came over when he’d finished with his group. A big bear of a man with white hair and a beard, he looked like a stand-in for Hemingway himself.
“Any chance you know someone who’d want to earn a few extra bucks this evening during the cleanup?” I asked, figuring he’d probably be at the party anyway. “My mom’s kind of desperate after last night’s debacle.”
“I’m available,” he said, and began helping me unfold and arrange the chairs. “I have to be here to take the big guns on a tour of the place.” He paused for a moment. “You looked like you had a question back there.” He waved in the direction of Hemingway’s studio.
“I wanted to ask you about the gold medal. You know, the one that went missing. What’s the history there? Until yesterday, I knew nothing about it.”
“Oh yeah, the Cuban guests were PO’d about the disappearance,” he said. “That’s about all anyone could talk about yesterday. Not that I can blame them. Our CEO is plenty nervous about holding tonight’s event here. We have a lot of valuable memorabilia and he doesn’t want another case of sticky fingers. The security is going to be tight.”
“Another case?” I paused for a minute to wipe off the sweat beading on my upper lip. “I don’t even know quite how to ask this question, but I’m trying to figure out what the medal might mean to the person who stole it. Was it lifted because of its monetary value? Or could there be some deeper reason?” I wondered if there was any way the medal could be connected to Gabriel’s murder. Like, had he seen the theft in action? I wasn’t ready to voice this out loud. “I figured you’d know the history of the award and how Mr. Hemingway won it.”
We finished unloading the cart of chairs and headed back to the truck to get more.
“Maybe you remember hearing that Hemingway’s second wife, Pauline, found a gift given to him by Pablo Picasso in one of her storage boxes long after they’d split up?” Rusty asked as we walked. “It was a statue of a cat. We had it displayed in their bedroom upstairs until 2000, when it was stolen at the end of a tour.”
“Yikes! I can’t imagine how that guide must have felt,” I said.
He shook his head and began to unfold the new stack of chairs. “Awful. And even worse, I think the thief used it as a down payment for a dinghy. He seemed to have no specific connection to the statue at all. He needed fast cash and the guide must have mentioned it was valuable.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s really nervy! So possibly someone lifted the medal for money, too.”
“Maybe. But on the other hand, everything Hemingway did was motivated by competition,” Rusty said. “Or informed by it. And I don’t mean consciously. That’s my theory anyway. He brought out the competitive streak in both the men and the women around him. The women vied among themselves for his attention. And obviously, with four wives, there were a lot of winners and losers.”
He gestured at the pool, winking blue and clear in the sunlight. “I’m sure you’ve heard the story of how Pauline oversaw the building of this expensive swimming pool while Hemingway was out of town. You can bet he was already half in love with his third wife-to-be, Martha, and you can bet that Pauline damn well knew it and was going to make him pay, one way or another.”
I grabbed the empty dolly and started to walk back to the rental van for the final load. Rusty followed along, continuing to talk.
“For the men in his life, the competition took a different form, like the size of the fish they caught that day. Or how many drinks they could pound back. Or success in boxing or bullfighting. But he was an enigma because he had a very soft side too.” Two young cats, a yellow tiger and a tortoise, darted across the path in front of us. “Who would’ve guessed such a tough macho guy would be crazy for cats?”
I laughed. “Good point. What about with his writing? Was he competitive there as well?” I’d taken Rusty’s guided tours inside the house here on the grounds—he was well versed in Hemingway’s literary history. As a writer himself, he was a great admirer of Hemingway’s spare style.
“Definitely competitive,” Rusty said. “I think he and his peers spurred each other to write harder and better.”
“Would there have been someone who might have felt they deserved the medal that year?” I asked.
“Maybe. I’m not aware of anyone in particular,” he said. “They certainly wouldn’t have been alive to attend yesterday’s dinner party.” He chuckled and pulled on his beard. “Fun fact: did you know there is a contest for bad imitations of Hemingway’s writing?”
I shook my head.
“You should Google it—there are some snippets posted online and they’re a hoot. I entered a couple of years ago and got an honorable mention.”
“You entered a bad Hemingway contest? Do tell!”
He laughed. “Of course I have it memorized for moments like this. I called it ‘A Farewell to Harm,’ and it went like so:
He had hired the guide again after one too many women gone wrong. ‘You drink too much,’ the woman said. ‘You stink of beer and fish.’
The man and the guide had been at sea for hours, and reeled in two marlin. Both of them were big as Spanish bulls and that strong too; heaving silver bodies, that glinted in the sunlight and left the man and the guide breathless.
‘Let’s have a drink,’ the fishing guide said, though he knew the man’s history. ‘One drink won’t hurt you.’
‘OK, but only if it’s rum and beer. And only if you pour the rum slowly so the foam resembles the beach at low tide.’
‘Not until five. The tide won’t run out until five PM,’ the fishing guide said. ‘That’s when you see the foam.’”
By the end of Rusty’s recitation, I was laughing too hard to speak.
One of the other guides gestured to him from the porch. “Got to go,” he said. “I have one more tour before I’m off until this evening.”
After he’d left to greet his next group of tourists, I thought about my own writing as I loaded the last stack of chairs onto the dolly and delivered them to the yard. My scribbling in no way compared to the prizewinning prose of Mr. Hemingway. But in my own small pond of food critics, I aimed to be the best that I could be at writing restaurant reviews. I wanted to be entertaining while scrupulously fair to the places I visited. I wanted to guide people to choose the best food on the island because they were spending their hard-earned dollars and they deserved to get something delicious in exchange. I dreamed I’d write as well as my idols someday—the New York Times food critics Pete Wells, Frank Bruni, Ruth Reichl. But what did any of this have to do with the stolen prize? I couldn’t see it clearly yet, but still something was tugging at me, suggesting there was a connection.
Once the chairs and tables were all in place and my mother had assured me that the food was under reasonable control, I ran back home to change clothes and pick up Miss Gloria for the second time in as many days. She had insisted on doing laundry during her so-called rest day, so we both had clean white shirts an
d pressed black pants. Miss Gloria had added a pin of two dancing cats on her shirt in honor of the polydactyls who would be in attendance.
“Cory Held was here again today,” she said, looking glum as she pointed to the houseboat next to ours. “This time with a man who looked suspiciously like a home inspector. She wouldn’t say a word about the buyer, just that things have a way of turning out fine on this island.” She perched her little hands on her narrow hips. “Now if that isn’t the worst sort of clichéd real estate tripe, I don’t know what is.”
I kissed her on the forehead and went in to take a shower. Because what could I say really? We had no control over our new neighbors. And she had told me that she’d dreaded the Renharts as neighbors when they moved in on the other side, and they’d turned out just fine. Or the missus had, anyway. Mr. Renhart was a terrible grump, prone to political rants and complaints about the elderly animals his wife had adopted. He occasionally trapped us on the dock, but we’d gotten adept at smiling and nodding while shuffling inexorably toward our own houseboat.
Once I’d showered, I grabbed a little container of salty, creamy fish dip from Cole’s Peace out of the fridge and smeared it on a couple of pepper crackers. I ate standing at the counter while reading the posts in the “Citizens Voice” column in the Key West Citizen. Anyone in our community can call or email in an opinion about life in Key West, and the newspaper prints the comments on page two. Today’s “Voice” contained the usual smattering of grievances:
Should we be connecting at all with Cuba when their government’s human rights violations are legion? I don’t believe this weekend is about a cultural exchange. It’s about profit and power. Who is benefiting from this?
Kudos to the staff at the Truman Little White House for what might have been the most spectacular event ever, had it not been for the tragic ending.
Shouldn’t we have been using our expensive, top-of-the-line, must-have amphitheater for a show like the party last night on the White House grounds? Isn’t that why we spent millions of dollars for something half the citizens of Key West didn’t want? Isn’t that why we built the “Their Dream, Our Money” showpiece? Or should it be named the Key West Taxpayers Memorial Boondoggle Coliseum?
Why is it that bicyclists on this island feel they don’t have to follow the rules of the road? Going up the wrong way on one-way streets, refusing to stop at red lights, weaving among the traffic. Don’t they realize that the only people immune from regulations in Key West are chickens, iguanas, and city commissioners?
Our police chief should be embarrassed about the debacle at the White House yesterday. First, a priceless artifact is stolen. And second, a man is murdered under the heaviest security ever seen on this island. Will we ever see anything from our police department aside from boneheaded incompetence?
As usual, most of the comments were anonymous. And negative—although I got a good chuckle from the caller who lumped our city commissioners in with iguanas and chickens. Both commissioners and police officers in this town have to develop thick skins and a sense of humor or they’ll go crazy. I would have loved to learn the identity of the first citizen caller, who talked about profit and power. Because I was getting the sense that Gabriel had been killed for something big, something related to the mixed feelings about the conference. And maybe to the stolen medal. I had no real evidence on which to base this—mostly intuition. Both mine and Lorenzo’s.
Would there be a way to find out who that anonymous caller was? Wally would know, if anyone did. He’d worked for the Citizen before founding Key Zest, and he still had a lot of friends on the staff. I waffled about reaching out.
But this seemed important—figuring out who had murdered Gabriel and whether anyone else was in danger. I’d take that approach rather than telling him I wanted to get my friend Bill and his boss, Bob, off the hook. Before I could overthink it, I dialed Wally’s cell and explained my theory that the anonymous comments were possibly connected to the tragedy.
“Listen,” he said after an uncomfortable silence. “I was pretty clear that you were to keep your eyes open for political slants but otherwise stay out of this story. Wasn’t I? If you have conspiracy theories, you should report them to your police contacts.” His voice was level, but the words stung.
I used my snottiest tone to answer back. He deserved snotty. “Fine, I’ll stay out of it. If I need information in the future, I’ll use my police contacts. I’m sure I’ll get more from them. In every imaginable way.” Then I hung up fast, swallowing the flush of shame I felt after his scolding. And another flush of embarrassment about acting childishly in return. I wished we could find some kind of level ground where we each appreciated the other, unstained by our short romantic past.
I texted Nathan with a breezy check-in, thanking him for his kindness and telling him all was well. Then I mentioned that they might want to follow up on the “Voice” comments in this morning’s paper. There would be absolutely no payoff for mentioning Lorenzo. Nathan was the least spiritually tuned-in person I knew, though he would say he had a finely honed woo-woo detection radar.
I forced myself back to questions about the stolen medal.
Supposing that someone could get big, big bucks for that medal, what if poor Gabriel had gotten mixed up with that person? Wouldn’t the next logical question be who needed the money?
As the “Citizen’s Voice” caller suggested, who stood to benefit most from the conference? Possibly, one of the people included in the small group of VIPs yesterday?
I hated the next question that floated into my brain.
Could there be something bad going on behind the scenes at the Little White House? Bill Averyt would surely know what was happening with the finances.
The question was, would he tell me?
Chapter Twelve
She was not much of a cook, but she married men who could cook. Men, one after another, who beat her, she said, until she looked like a melanzana, the deep purple color of an eggplant.
—Victoria Pesce Elliott, “Remembering My Mom’s Meatballs,” Miami Herald, November 24, 2015
Before plunging right into our duties at the Hemingway Home, Miss Gloria and I took a quick swing around the grounds. The crowd seemed subdued, though the lines at the bars were long, with bartenders mixing drinks as fast as the patrons could swallow them—mojitos, Cuba Libres, and Hemingway specials made from rum, grapefruit and lime juices, and a dash of maraschino cherry liquid. I returned to the catering truck and took a tray of mini Cuban sandwiches and black bean burgers garnished with avocado and caramelized onions. Miss Gloria followed me with a tray containing small plastic cups of black bean soup. I kept one eye on her and both ears open for any news about yesterday’s tragic events.
Once my tray was almost empty, I carried it to the side of the lawn where my friend Bill was standing with Turner Markham. They appeared to be arguing. As soon as I got within hearing distance of their conversation, I wished I had gone another direction. But they’d seen me, and I thought it would feel more awkward to turn and bolt.
“Why drag them over there and rub their noses in that tawdry history?” Markham was asking. “They’re already upset about the problems this weekend with theft and murder, as well they should be.”
“Exactly because it’s history,” Bill said, his posture even straighter than usual. “We are supposed to be talking about historical relations between our island and theirs. The thinking is that once we know where we came from, we can figure out where we go. These chugs were an important, though admittedly fraught, part of our joint history. Eric would say it’s like psychotherapy—you don’t make progress if you only skate along the surface.”
Markham looked stubbornly unconvinced and Bill appeared increasingly annoyed. “We’re also doing this because we told them we were planning to,” Bill added. “How would it look if we changed the agenda now? We’d look like marionettes, like someone was pulling our strings behind the curtain.”
I couldn’t help thin
king it might also look as though they were responding reasonably to rising tensions at the conference—and fears about the possibility of another tragedy. Or, canceling the chug visit could look like bowing to one side’s politics at the price of the other’s. It was complicated for sure.
“A lot of things have happened already this weekend that weren’t planned,” said Markham. “And it seems to me that part of the problem was biting off way more than you could reasonably handle.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning if you people had kept your focus on the conference itself instead of showing off with fancy speakers and musicians, it might have gone well. And if you had thought to have someone watching the displays in the first place, we wouldn’t be in this pickle.” Markham was fairly hissing by this point.
I grinned inanely and thrust my picked-over tray of goodies between the two of them. “Tonight we are serving mini Cuban sandwiches with mojo-marinated pork roast with maple mustard and pickles from our local Pickle Baron. And for the non–meat eaters, we are serving mini black bean burgers spiced with cumin and jalapeños.”
Both Bill and Markham grimaced and refused my proffered nibbles. Fortunately, I was saved from babbling further inanities when the Key West mayor stepped up to the podium.
“On behalf of the staff of the Hemingway Home and on behalf of our conference organizers and all the people of Key West, I am privileged to welcome you to Hemingway’s Key West home.”
He went on to describe Hemingway’s love for both the towns of Key West and Havana. Behind me, I heard a man whisper to his wife that Key West officials seemed to ignore the fact that Hemingway had spent little time on this island compared with the time he spent in his Havana home. More competition over Hemingway, but this time the two islands were jostling for position. It occurred to me that the folks who ran this home might feel a bit like one of Hemingway’s earlier wives—left, by a man with large appetites, for something more alluring.
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