Death on the Menu

by Lucy Burdette

  “While you continue to enjoy hors d’oeuvres,” the mayor went on, “we welcome you to take a tour of the home. Your host will be one of our premier guides, Rusty Hodgdon.” He pointed to Rusty, who waved and smiled, and the visitors began to cluster around him. “After the tour, you’ll be delighted by our caterer’s foray into Cuban sweets. I hear the guava pastries are to die for.” He seemed to realize this was an unfortunate description, as he stepped down from the podium and melted quickly into the crowd.

  “Tonight we will start our tour in the living room with the man who built the house in 1851, Asa Tift, a wrecker/salvager and marine architect,” Rusty said in a booming voice. “He died in 1889, alone and without a will. The estate got tied up in litigation and remained primarily boarded up and empty for forty-two years until Ernest Hemingway and his second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer, bought it in 1931 for eight thousand dollars.”

  His words trailed off as he led the group from the porch into the house. I signaled to Bill and pulled him aside to see how his day had gone.

  “Just about as well as you can imagine given that ugly exchange you overheard,” he said, rubbing his hand over his face. “Poor Bob is so upset about the missing medal and the stabbing, he’s rendered practically mute. We were hoping for all kinds of great publicity for the Little White House this weekend. Instead we’ve become the focus of lurid stories about theft and murder.” He tipped his chin at the police officers checking visitors’ purses and bags as they exited through the front gate.

  “Are you worried something else is going to happen?” I asked Bill.

  “That’s a concern,” he said. “Half the people involved with this conference want to cancel the rest of the weekend. But anybody involved in potential lucrative business deals, of course, thinks that’s a terrible idea.”

  “Who’s on that list?” I asked, my mind reeling with thoughts about how the murder might have hurt some attendees and helped others.

  “Dana Sebek, who’s working on access to Cuban coral reefs, wants the discussions to continue.” Bill nodded at the attractive woman I’d seen in his group on Friday, and we watched her chatter with a little group of Havana visitors.

  “How about Bob?” I asked.

  “Of course he wants everyone to be safe. But canceling would be a big blow to our organization. We were hoping to not only score lots of new memberships but also secure corporate sponsorships.

  “And I wouldn’t say this to him, but now I’m a little worried about taking this group to the botanical garden. Our mayor’s already declined to accompany us. And Markham doesn’t want to go either. And who knows how many of the Cubans will come?” His eyes brightened. “Any chance you could come along tomorrow morning? I could use some extra help defusing the tension. Someone who could keep up a line of chitchat…”

  “I’m not sure that’s a compliment.” I grinned, thinking about the obligations already packing tomorrow’s schedule. But he looked desperate, so I didn’t see how I could refuse. “Sure,” I said. “Anything for you. What time?”

  “Seven thirty at the entrance to the garden?”

  I hurried off to load my tray with the sweet delicacies my mom had whipped up today. So far, her Cuban-style food was rivaling what I’d tasted this morning at El Siboney. I hoped my mojito cake could live up to her standards. I nearly flattened Lieutenant Torrence as I rushed back to the party with a full tray of guava pastries, rice pudding, and mini dulce de leche cheesecakes.

  “You’re in a hurry,” he said. “Something important on your mind?”

  “Pastries filled with guava and cream cheese,” I said with what was certainly a silly grin. He had a sweet tooth, but his really soft spot was for my red velvet cake. And that would definitely not be on the menu tonight.

  “Can you bring Miss Gloria to the police station sometime tomorrow morning?” he asked. “It’s more or less routine. We’ll be going over what you told us yesterday about what you noticed before and after the murder.”

  “More or less routine?” I narrowed my eyes and tried to read the real meaning behind his words. “I take it that means you’re not close to an arrest.”

  He said nothing, but then zipped his fingers across his lips. “The investigation isn’t going the way we’d hoped. The Cuban visitors have buttoned up tight. Whether they were told not to talk or whether this is their normal reaction to police questions, no one seems to have seen much of anything.”

  “Hence, the second interviews,” I said. “Maybe early afternoon, would that work? Morning is already more full than I can manage. I just agreed to go with this group to the botanical gardens, plus somehow they managed to get Gabriel’s funeral mass scheduled on a Sunday morning. I’ll make sure Miss Gloria is free as well. By the way, how are Zeus and Apollo?”

  Torrence owned two elderly miniature Pinschers and doted on them the way I did Evinrude. He beamed. “They’re doing well for old guys. I’ll tell them that you asked. In fact, you might see them tomorrow and you can ask yourself. They’re coming to the station for our ‘take your dog to work’ day.”

  * * *

  We were puttering home to the houseboat by eleven, me wondering all the way how I’d get everything on tomorrow’s to-do list accomplished. Somehow I’d make it work—the funeral, the cake, the articles, the chugs, the police, assisting with the dinner at the Little White House. Somehow it would all fall into place. Though tallying up the list made me feel anxious.

  Once we parked at Houseboat Row, greeted the cats, and distributed bits of tuna, I felt exhausted but my nerves were jangling. “I don’t know how I can sleep,” I told Miss G.

  “Me either,” she said.

  And she was the champion of sleeping.

  “Plus,” she continued, “I’m afraid that the police will want to hammer on me tomorrow, pressure me to tell them something about the murder. But it’s all a jamble in my mind. I’d hate to make things up because I’m nervous.” She looked so cute, with her quivery lips and white hair sticking up every which way. And so worried.

  “They only push old ladies on TV cop shows,” I said, trying to sound reassuring.

  She rolled her eyes. “This from a woman who gets hysterical every time she has to set foot in that station.”

  “I’ve gotten better since I’ve gotten to know some of the guys.”

  But she had a point. I could still remember my disastrous first visit to the KWPD when they’d fingered me as one of the suspects for murder by key lime pie. Official police visits were stressful, for sure, no matter the circumstances. Truth was, I felt jumpy about separating fact from fiction, too. “What if we did a guided meditation?” I asked.

  “What the heck is that?”

  “Eric uses it sometimes with his anxious patients,” I said. “He gets them to relax and then leads them through their memories of a traumatic event.” This was not my worst idea ever—imagining what we’d seen and heard before the popping noises. Miss Gloria, especially, might come up with some clues about Gabriel’s killer. She had been close to the storeroom where the murder happened.

  “His most neurotic patients?” Miss Gloria asked with a giggle. “We would fit right in.”

  “I didn’t ask him. You know how tight-lipped he is about his people. Probably.”

  “How does it work?” she asked.

  “First we lie down somewhere where we can relax.” We went back out onto the deck to our matching chaise lounges. There was no need to consult on this: this tiny spot of heaven drained the tension out of a tight body faster than any masseuse could have. I lit the candle that sat on the table between us, and it flickered softly in the darkness, reminding me of a gothic romance novel.

  “What next?”

  “Next we close our eyes and tighten and relax our muscle groups.” I talked her through what I thought I remembered Eric telling me. “Notice your feet and toes, the cells, the skin, the muscles, the bones. Now tighten them as hard as you can, tighter and tighter.”

  “If this gives me a c
harley horse, I’m going to be peeved,” said Miss Gloria.

  “Shhh. Now let the tension go.” By the time I’d moved up and down our bodies, I could feel my breathing getting slower and more even. Miss Gloria’s sounded that way too. I was afraid she was falling asleep, although that wasn’t all bad either. Sometimes, because she had more zip than a lot of women half her age, I forgot that she was on the far side of eighty years old.

  “Now,” I said, “picture yourself at the Little White House. There is Cuban music playing in the background, and you are carrying a tray with plates of flan on it. And then there is a popping noise—Ratatatat!” I shouted, startling both of us with my imitation of what had sounded like gunfire.

  “Lordy lordy,” said Miss Gloria, “you scared the bejeepers out of me. If this is supposed to relax a nervous customer, I don’t see how Eric keeps any of them.”

  “Maybe that’s not how he does it,” I said, feeling discouraged. But suddenly I was flooded with the urgent tension of that moment. I remembered dropping to the ground and the way my tray of custards bounced off the ground and splashed onto the people around me. I saw my mother’s auburn hair, Markham’s gorgeous pink shirt, and a pretty flowered skirt. Maybe Dana Sebek’s?

  “I didn’t hit the dirt when they hollered at us,” said Miss Gloria. “I kind of started to slump and then Sam helped me to a chair.”

  “Do you remember hearing or seeing anything unusual before we heard popping noises? Did anyone come out of the kitchen who maybe didn’t belong there?”

  She closed her eyes and frowned, concentrating. “Do you know the men’s room door is right next to the kitchen?” she asked. “I’m having trouble figuring out who came out which door.”

  I reached across the space between us for her hand. “Maybe you heard something,” I said in a soft voice. Hoping like heck that she wouldn’t come up with the sounds of a man getting stabbed.

  She shrugged and opened her eyes. “Nothing’s coming to me. But I know the mayor and Lieutenant Torrence were there almost immediately.”

  “The Cuban mayor?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “And that woman we always see on the television commercials. The one with those pointy shoes? She’s in real estate, I think. Or maybe she’s the one who has the scuba diving company.”

  “Dana Sebek,” I said. “She owns the dive shop over on Green Street, and maybe she works with Reef Relief, too? Her husband does something with dogs.”

  “I wonder why she was invited to the conference?” Miss Gloria asked.

  “Don’t you know that Cuba has the most pristine coral reefs in the world? I bet there are American companies chomping at the bit to get a claim on those reefs. And dollars to doughnuts, she’s one of them.”

  “Anybody else?” I asked.

  “Bill, of course, and Bob, and Turner Markham and Mayor Diaz and Irena, but she had a good reason to be going near the kitchen.”

  “One thing we can say for sure, the killer had to have been at the party,” I said. “No one from the outside could have gotten in.”

  “Who knows? Security isn’t perfect, you know.”

  I sat up, feeling my eyes go wide. “Wouldn’t a person who stabbed another person be covered in blood?”

  “Not necessarily,” she said. “I’ve been watching that cop TV show, Bosch? Turns out a trained assassin can stab someone without leaving a drop of blood on his clothes. Something to do with cutting the bleeders on your chest first.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The tablecloth of certainty, with all its sparkly settings, has been yanked, and not artfully. It’s why people drink.

  —Joan Frank, All the News I Need

  I had set my alarm for 5:30, knowing I’d feel like limp celery that early but also knowing there was no other way to get those cakes made. When my alarm blared out, even Evinrude looked at me with disapproval.

  “Et tu, Brute,” I muttered and rolled out of my bunk. “All those mornings you’ve woken me up early and you can’t keep me company this once?” He stretched his long legs out, extending his toes and his toenails—which needed trimming—then closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

  The night still hung like a blackout curtain outside the houseboat. But I could smell the lure of freshly brewed coffee wafting in from the kitchen. Thank goodness I’d remembered to set the auto-brew. I poured a cup and sat at the banquette, slugging it down like an addict. As my body and mind perked up, I pulled out the recipe and then the ingredients for the mojito cakes we would serve tonight after dinner in the Little White House dining room. I would bake the four layers this morning and save whipping the cream, making the lime-mint glaze, and finishing the decoration for later this afternoon. All the fussy details of this cake were plenty of work, but the compliments I’d gotten when I served it made it worth the trouble.

  In my KitchenAid mixer, I beat four sticks of butter with four cups of sugar, then began to beat in the eggs one at a time. When all that was a lovely, golden mass, I stirred in vanilla, rum, lime zest, and lime juice, and then set to work on mixing the dry ingredients. Once those were folded in and the milk added, I scraped the batter into four prepared cake pans. Our oven was too small for all that; there was barely enough space for two pans at a time. I could prepare the lime-mint syrup while the first cakes baked.

  The plan was to put the cakes together now and paint them with the glaze later. I would slather them with whipped cream in between the layers and over the top, then decorate them with thin slices of lime and mint leaves right before my mother and Sam picked me up for the dinner. Even I wasn’t crazy enough to ferry these beauties across town on a scooter.

  Once the layers were cooling on the counter, perfuming the air with scents of butter and rum, I took a quick shower and trotted out to the parking lot to my scooter. The Key West Tropical Forest & Botanical Garden was located on the next island up from Key West, called Stock Island. I managed the trip in under ten minutes, as most of the traffic was coming south. I assumed the majority were workers who had jobs in town but couldn’t afford to live here.

  Bill was waiting at the entrance to the gardens with a small cadre of the folks attending the conference and a uniformed policeman. The Havana mayor and several other Cuban officials looked supremely grumpy. I imagined this tour of the boats fashioned by Cuban people desperate to leave their mother country and flee to the United States would make their blood boil. To tell the truth, I was surprised that any of them had agreed to come. The last of the conference group gathered, including those who’d complained yesterday about the tour. Even Turner Markham was there, though he hung back, working his smartphone with his thumbs.

  I had seen these crafts before but not given them the attention they deserved. This was an outdoor exhibit, with the so-called boats arranged outside the perimeter of the garden. Left uncovered and open to the elements, they represented ingenuity and desperation.

  Some had been built using the skeletons or frames of actual boats; others had been fashioned from tarps and hunks of Styrofoam and powered by lawnmower engines. I paused alongside one that had a beautiful mahogany deck. Miranda had been stenciled on the hull. I couldn’t imagine setting off on one of these small, shaky crafts to cross the infamous straits that lay between Cuba and Key West. Ninety miles might not sound far, but I’d heard Diana Nyad talk about her attempts to cross the water between our town and Havana—powerful currents, stiff winds, deadly jellyfish, sharks. I wouldn’t have been brave enough to get into one of these boats on a dare.

  As we trudged along the perimeter of the garden looking at each of the boats in turn, I tried not to think of the people who had attempted this passage and failed. Imagine: months of planning and gathering materials, hours or days of rough seas, and then interdiction by the U.S. Coast Guard. Or a sudden storm washing the passengers into the ocean.

  “This display should be moved indoors,” I said to Bill. “The boats are getting ravaged by the elements.”

  Mayor Diaz muttered som
ething in Spanish to his wife, the woman in a flowing white dress with gorgeous black hair who I remembered smiling at me before the first night’s party. I caught him saying the word bulldozer and could guess the rest of his meaning. Bill had asked me to oil the waters—here was a chance to try.

  I edged a little closer, smiled and bowed a bit, and then blushed, reminding myself that these people were Cuban, not Japanese. “Hola,” I said. “Buenos…” I idiotically blanked on the Spanish word for morning. “Good morning,” I stammered. “It’s so nice to have you here on Key West. I hope you are enjoying your visit, in spite of the difficulties on the first night. And I hope you are enjoying our food. I’m sure it can’t compete with authentic Cuban recipes from your island, but my mother is the chef this weekend. And she is trying her hardest to create some dishes that would make you proud.”

  Draw a breath, Hayley, I scolded myself.

  The mayor looked at me as if I were speaking in tongues, and maybe to his ear I was. But his wife took a step toward me and shook my hand. “I’m Isabella Diaz. Your island is very beautiful,” she said. “And your food delicious. I was just telling Eduardo on the way over that your ropa vieja reminded me of my abuela’s recipe. My grandmother,” she translated. “I am only so desperately sorry we did not get the chance to sample the flan.”

  She smiled, her cheeks crinkling into appealing dimples. “I have a particular sweet tooth and I’m afraid that it shows.” She patted her gently rounded belly.

  I matched her grin with mine. “No, you’re perfectly beautiful. I’m hoping you enjoyed the sweets last night, since you didn’t get the flan. My mother insisted on making the pastry from scratch.”

  “Oh, certainly,” she said. “The ones stuffed with guava paste and cream cheese were amazing. Reminded me so much of home.”

  “Tonight, I am the pastry chef,” I admitted, wishing almost as soon as I said it that I’d kept quiet. “I’m making a mojito cake.”