An Appetite for Murder (2 page)

And then one shadow came to life. I let loose a screech loud enough to be heard all the way to Miami.

“Easy, miss,” said a skinny man in a battered cowboy hat. “Could ya spare some change?”

I knew you weren’t supposed to give money to bums,
especially ones that smelled like a day’s worth of drinking, as this guy did. Editorials in the newspaper insisted that only perpetuated the problem. The cowboy moved closer, wheezing his boozy breath and smiling to reveal two missing incisors. My heart thrummed faster and I clutched the strap of my shoulder bag. There but for the grace of some capricious God could have been me.

“I haven’t eaten since yesterday,” he said.

Now I felt sick at the prospect of gorging myself at a nice restaurant while he, drunk or not, went hungry. I dug in my pocket and dropped a crumpled dollar bill and some loose change into his dirty palm, wishing I had more, but that’s all there was. Then I waved off his mumbled thanks and rushed by.

Up ahead on the left-­hand side of the street, a cluster of people holding wineglasses milled on the sidewalk in front of an unassuming glass and concrete block building—­home of Seven Fish. Eric was already there, wearing his white Oxford shirt and nerd glasses—­he would never be late worrying about how to dress because his outfit was always some version of the same thing. He carried two glasses of wine: one red, one white.

“It’s a Spanish Albariño,” he said, handing me the white and pecking me on the cheek. “They’re just clearing our table now.” He snuck a glance at his watch but managed not to mention my lateness. I got the point.

“Brilliant.” I sipped, tasting overtones of apricot and peach. “Hope you’re hungry, because we need to try a lot.”

Which I didn’t have to say because he knew the deal: He was in charge of making the reservations just in case
someone might recognize me as a potential food critic (in my dreams) and I’d order for both of us so I could sample a range of their dishes. A dark-­haired man swathed in a chest-­to-­knee white apron called out Eric’s name. We followed him inside, past the four-­seater bar to a room no bigger than my houseboat, and plainly furnished, without my roommate’s tendency to tropical upholstery. He deposited us at a tiny table at the far end of the room. I took the seat facing the iron fish sculpture on the back wall so I wouldn’t be distracted with people-­watching—­or, even worse, absorb their opinions about the food.

Within minutes, the waiter came around and described the specials, including yellowtail in a mild curry sauce and sautéed grouper sushi rolls. I salivated with anticipation like a rat pressing a lever in a psychology experiment. “We’re good to go,” I said, and began to list the dishes I needed to try. “We’ll start with the fish tacos, the grouper rolls, and a small Caesar salad with a crab cake on the side. For the main course, the gentleman will have the chicken with bananas and walnuts”—­I grinned as Eric’s face fell—­“and I’ll try your special curried yellowtail. And we’ll have a meat loaf for the table.”

“Anything else?” asked the waiter, deadpan.

“Two more glasses of wine. And no bread please.” I smiled and handed him my menu. “Oh, what the heck, add the grilled mahi-­mahi with roasted potatoes, too.” He finished writing and swished off toward the kitchen.

Eric leaned forward to whisper, “He has to know something’s up.”

“We could be very, very hungry.” I thought of the cowboy lurking near the cemetery.

Eric excused himself to hit the men’s room. I whipped out my smartphone to check e-­mail just in case one of the freelance articles I’d submitted on spec to the
Key West Citizen
had been accepted. The subject line of the third message down jolted me hard: “Food critic applications due Friday.” The deadline for application packets had been moved up. Staff at
Key Zest
would only consider those that arrived in the office by five p.m. Friday. Signed by Kristen Faulkner.

Rat bugger.

My pulse hammered like an overloaded food processor. How could I possibly meet that deadline? Friday was only four days away. This was my first official restaurant visit. I’d counted on having the weekend to write and rewrite and rewrite again, and hope that the paragraph about my so-­called style would make a miraculous appearance. Besides, every time I heard or saw Kristen Faulkner’s name, I lost a little confidence.

Eric returned and I thrust the phone at him. “Maybe I should forget the whole thing. It’s too much pressure. It’s a message from the universe saying ‘Just go home.’ It’s—”

“Ridiculous.” He skimmed the message and then squeezed my hand. “Finish this one tonight and you have all week for the rest.”

Eric’s been an optimist for as long as I’ve known him—­almost fifteen years since my mother first hired him to babysit me. Even during his awful college years, as he struggled with the realization that he was gay, we stayed friends. He was one of the reasons I had the guts to follow Chad Lutz—­a guy I barely knew—­to this is-
land. Eric would always be there if things got rough. And they had.

I’d met Chad last summer in the “mystery and thriller” section of the New Jersey bookstore where I was stocking shelves. He was picking up the latest Mary Higgins Clark novel—­signed by Ms. Clark herself—­for his mother. He looked so adorable in his distressed brown leather jacket, flashing his dimples and talking about his mom: I fell for him instantly. And to seal the deal, my tarot card reader back home had predicted a big event in my love life only days earlier. So after some steamy, long-­distance back and forth, I moved south to live with him in Key West. We had four sparkling weeks, and five that were a lot less shiny, and then twenty-­one days ago, I’d found him in bed with Kristen Faulkner. (But who was counting?) I hadn’t laid eyes on him since.

Two more glasses of wine and the first wave of appetizers arrived. I thanked the universe—­and the waiter—­for sending food to distract me from my deadline problem and yet one more swell of regret about losing Chad, and we dove in. The fish tacos were divine—­no stale Old El Paso–­style tortillas here—­accompanied by shredded red cabbage and a spicy cilantro salsa. The grouper rolls were even better: a mélange of sweet, fresh fish, buttery avocado, and sauce-­absorbing rice, wrapped in a crispy tissue of seaweed. We finished all of them before the Caesar salad was delivered, which I knew a real food critic would never do. A true professional would take a bite of this, a second nibble to confirm impressions, saving space and palate to try all of the dishes. Too late. This stuff was too
good. And besides, eating calmed my nerves—­and boy, did they need calming.

The server returned to remove our empty plates and then the main courses rolled in. I tasted each, jotting notes on the phone in my lap as I went. Three bites into the meat loaf, I had to unbutton my pants.

The waiter cleared the dishes and invited us to consider dessert. “We have strawberry whipped cream pie in a chocolate graham cracker crust. Or key lime cheesecake. Bananas flambé? That’s on the light side.” He grinned.

“Uncle,” I groaned. “Just the check, please.”

He delivered the bill and Eric paid with the cash I’d given him yesterday. As we stood to leave, the expression on Eric’s face changed from happily sated to disgusted.

“Chad Lutz alert,” he said through gritted teeth. “He’s sitting at the bar. Just walk past him and don’t say a word.”

I gulped, sucked in my stomach, and rebuttoned my pants. There was no way out other than passing right by him. I could say nothing and avoid eye contact, but that would be just what he’d prefer. Was I going to make this comfortable for him? Not a freaking chance. Meek and mild had gotten me nowhere. “Is Kristen at the bar, too?” I asked Eric.

He nodded his head and grimaced. Yup. I snuck a look and saw Chad’s sandy hair leaning into Kristen’s, nearly white blond. Then I rolled my shoulders like a boxer facing the ring and barreled toward the exit.

“How’re ya doing?” I asked Chad, clapping him on
his sculpted shoulder and squeezing. His muscles tightened under my fingers. “Long time no see.”

“Hello, Hayley.” He kept his gaze pinned on the mirror behind the bar, but he couldn’t avoid me in its reflection. I was glad I’d worn the tight jeans and the red boots—­he hated those boots. He thought they made me look like a tough from Trenton, which I interpreted as meaning sexy to the point of scary. Besides that, they added two inches to my five foot four. Even so, if Kristen stood up, I’d look like a shrimp in comparison. A slightly chunky crustacean, after the meal we’d just devoured.

“Hello, Kristen,” I said, in a voice like molasses—­treacly sweet with a little bite underneath. “This is my good friend Eric Altman.” Kristen tucked a strand of glossy hair behind her ear, revealing the mother of all diamond earrings. Then she flashed a cool smile at Eric, but said nothing to me.

“Nice to see you,” said Chad.

Eric poked me in the back—­time to move on. But I wasn’t quite ready.

“I saw the deadline for the food critic application has been moved up.” I barely recognized my voice, squeaky and high. “Mine will definitely be in the
Key Zest
inbox by Friday.”

Kristen still looked at Eric, that phony smile frozen on her face. “We have some excellent applicants,” she said after a pause. “We’re not encouraging amateurs without significant experience to waste their time.”

Eric grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door.

“Enjoy your meal,” I warbled over my shoulder. “We recommend the crab cakes.”

Which we didn’t. They had a larger ratio of cake to crab than I preferred.

But I got a prick of guilty pleasure imagining Kristen ordering the
only
ho-­hum item on the menu. Pathetic.

“All it really takes to be a restaurant critic is a good appetite.”

—A. J. Liebling

My plans for writing up the first review had flown out the window after seeing Chad and Kristen in the restaurant. Instead I’d gone home with Eric and shared a third glass of wine with him and his partner, Bill. I needed the company to distract me from running the emotional script of the meeting over and over like a lousy sitcom—the helplessness, the outrage, the impotence. A million things I could have said to Kristen and I chose crab cakes?

But this morning I regretted the headache and the looming deadline. With my roommate, Connie, off to work early, I had no excuse for not pounding out the article. I poured a second cup of coffee and retreated to my tiny bedroom to work. Evinrude dozed on the bed, whiskers twitching and motor running.

As I settled at the desk, the cat quit purring and his ears stiffened to alert. I got up and peered out of the porthole. No one there.

Evinrude and I certainly hadn’t planned to end up living on a houseboat in Key West, but my freshman-year college roommate, Connie, took us in when Chad left me in his dust, just like Dad left Mom. Except Chad had my stuff packed up and put out in the hall literally hours after I found him with Kristen—like I was the one who’d been caught cheating.

Sometimes living on a boat turned out not to be as idyllic as we’d imagined. Every sound carried on the water, from the sloshing of the Garrison Bight to random voices to the traffic on the causeway, ferrying tourists to their alcohol-infused oblivion in the tackiest bars on Duval Street.

Last night, my bed provided a front-row seat to the Renharts’ squabbling on the next boat over. Money was tight and he hated the way she squandered it, and she insisted if he’d try the tiniest bit harder he might find a job that stood a chance of covering the bills. And so they spiraled off as he reminded her it was Key West, and the economy sucked and there were more people panting for every job opening than anyplace else on earth. Because everyone wanted to live in paradise—and wasn’t it a damn shame that this was what paradise came down to—a shrieking wife on a stinking tub.

Then she cried because he’d gone too far—which drove him nuts, so the make-up sex ensued, the details of which no one outside the couple really wanted to hear. I had trouble looking them in the eye this morning when
I went out for the paper. And besides, all that reminded a girl who’d been recently dumped of exactly what she was missing.

I dragged my mind away from that personal sinkhole and back to my computer, staring at the blank screen that should have held the draft of my first review. Food criticism has had a tradition of showing the restaurant’s setting, which made sense to me. People wanted to know what they were in for—how comfortable they’d feel spending their hard-earned bucks. I could start there.

After you’ve turned off Duval and stumbled four blocks down one-way, residential Olivia Street, you’ll come upon knots of hungry would-be diners sipping wine on the sidewalk. You’ve reached your
destination: Seven Fish Restaurant. But don’t be put off by that unusual introduction—once the first bite of dinner melts in your mouth, you’ll never mistake Seven Fish for a Duval Street tourist trap. Inside, the decor is bare-bones and the room is always packed and loud enough to make your eardrums vibrate (my kingdom for a few yards of noise-absorbing fabric on the ceiling), but those quibbles shouldn’t keep you from a delightful meal.

I stopped writing, struck with a jolt of terror about describing the restaurant as “loud.” This was one of my favorite places: Would they refuse to serve me the next time I came in? Would my review turn away customers and ruin their business?

Eric had reminded me sixteen thousand times that I
couldn’t worry about these things if I wanted the job. So I scrolled through the notes I’d taken last night until I reached the appetizers—in my book, the best part of any meal. I began to salivate as I pictured the attributes of the sautéed grouper roll, and wrote all of them down.

My stomach rumbling, I got up and went to the galley kitchen to rustle up a snack. I could already spot the downside of food writing—I’d spend my days hovering in a constant state of starvation while describing what I’d eaten the night before. Possibly even be forced to join a gym or take up jogging in order to combat my expanding waistline. But I’d be willing to do all that and more to land this job.