An Appetite for Murder (3 page)

A small plate of olive fougasse bread and garlicky cheese spread in hand, I returned to my desk to try to capture Seven Fish’s main dishes in the twenty-five words I had left. How to deftly tackle my mixed feelings about ordering meat loaf or chicken (even
with
bananas and caramelized walnuts and even
if
they were outstanding) in a restaurant featuring “fish” in the name?

Evinrude startled again, caroming off the bed and onto my lap. And this time even I heard the hollow thud of footsteps coming down the dock. The clunking stopped and the houseboat rocked on its mooring. Someone had stepped off the wooden planks and onto the boat. Even a landlubber like me knew that climbing aboard someone’s craft without permission was considered extremely poor maritime etiquette.

The intruder rapped sharply on the door. I rolled the indignant cat off my lap and edged into the living room. Outside the flimsy scratched plastic of the front door,
located along the starboard side of the boat, a uniformed cop was poised to knock again. A tall man in a tweed blazer stood just behind him, my roommate’s houseplants jutting up around him like a tropical jungle. I straightened my Seven Fish T-shirt over my cutoff sweatpants and crossed the room to crack open the door.

“Are you Miss Hayley Catherine Snow?” the cop asked.

I preferred “Ms.” to “Miss,” but this was not the time to make a correction. I nodded.

“I’m Officer Torrence and this is Detective Bransford. We’d like you to come down to the station.”

“The police station?” I asked, my mouth dry and my knees wobbling. Police had this effect on me though I’ve never committed a criminal action. Except for that speeding forty-five in a twenty-five school zone ticket five years ago, and didn’t everyone have one of those? “For what reason?”

The two men, Torrence, dark and heavyset, and what-was-his-name . . . ​Bransford, tall and broad-chested, exchanged glances. Bransford tipped his chin. Despite my rattled nerves, I noticed its pronounced and sexy cleft.

“We have some questions about the death of Kristen Faulkner.”

Charles Barkley’s weight loss secret: “If it tastes good, I spit it out.”

After a short back-­and-­forth on the dock next to my houseboat, the cops agreed to let me change into jeans and a decent shirt, and I agreed to accept their offer of a ride the few blocks to the police station and then back home when we’d finished chatting. I spent my first five minutes ever in the backseat of a cop car trying not to think about who’d been there before me and why they’d been arrested. And what kind of DNA might have been left behind.

And then I wondered what the heck could have happened to Kristen. Surely they wouldn’t need my opinion on a heart attack or a motor vehicle accident. Which left something worse . . . ​Oh, Lord, I might have said some snarky things about the fact that she stole my boyfriend, but I didn’t hate her enough to wish her dead. Not by a long shot. I told myself there had to be a perfectly good
reason the officers wanted to talk to me at the station, rather than at home on the boat.

Detective Bransford parked the car and strode ­toward the station, while Officer Torrence came around to my side of the cruiser to open the door like a well-­trained valet. I hopped out, trying to suppress my jangling nerves, and followed him past an ugly tiled fountain that appeared to be out of commission and then past the public records office, which was designed like the pickup window in a takeout restaurant. Key West residents do as much as possible outdoors and the records department seemed to be no exception. Torrence held the main door open and ushered me inside the pink cement building.

Here the color scheme changed abruptly from soft pinks to a hideous greenish blue. Mental hospital blue, I couldn’t help thinking. The same hue that had covered the walls of the hospital room where my mother took her breather after Dad moved out when I was ten. Not a good memory to have as I worked to keep myself calm.

We shuffled onto an elevator at the back of the building and rode to the second floor. Detective Bransford and another man were waiting in a small room down the right hall. With a lurch in my stomach, I recognized Chief Ron Barnes from his photos in the
Key West Citizen
. Why was he here?

A little late, it occurred to me that I could be in serious trouble.

“Miss Snow,” said Detective Bransford without preamble, “how did you know Kristen Faulkner?”

I snuck a look at each impassive face, hoping for a little sympathy. They stared back, stone-­carved and
immovable. “I only met her twice in passing. I can’t say I really
knew
her, if you know what I mean. But my boyfriend did. Rather too well, if you get my drift.”

A puzzled look crept across Torrence’s features.

“What I mean is, she was naked the first time I saw her. In bed with my boyfriend. Skewered.”

I knew as soon as they were out of my mouth, those words sounded bad, like I was trying to throw Chad under the bus. It was just that the shock of that moment could still creep up and pound me like a meat mallet. I scrunched my face to keep from crying.

Torrence looked like he was trying not to laugh, but the other two were still frowning. I continued to babble.

“Other than that, she’s the new co-­owner of the style magazine where I’m applying for a job. The writing samples are due at the end of the week. But you can see how acquiring Kristen as my boss wouldn’t exactly be an ­asset . . .” My words faded. Was it nerves making me yammer foolishly, or fear? Chad would have had my head for talking to these cops without a lawyer. If he cared—­and let’s face it, how much clearer could he have been that he didn’t?

“So let me get this straight,” said Detective Cleft Chin. “She had an affair with your boyfriend—”

“Stole him right out from under me,” I said. “Next thing I knew, I had to find a room to rent or head home to New Jersey. That’s why I’m living on my college roommate, Connie’s, houseboat. She said I could work some shifts in her cleaning service in exchange for a place to live until I get back on my feet. My room’s a little cramped—­minuscule really—­and she uses half my closet
space for storing her supplies, so it always smells a little like bleach. But on the other hand, she let me bring Evinrude and not many landlords allow cats.”

Detective Bransford massaged his forehead. “Was your roommate home with you this morning?”

“I can’t say exactly when she left, but she was gone by the time I got up. She’s a hustler—­she takes any job she can get—­the early bird and the worm and all that—”

The chief flashed a timeout signal and the detective nodded curtly. “Miss Snow, were you aware of anyone else who might have felt animosity toward Kristen Faulk­ner?”

Anyone
else
? “Honestly, I barely knew her.”

“Any drug problems? Money problems? History of domestic abuse?”

I shook my head again, fingers pressed to my temples where a headache had begun to pound. “I have no idea.”

“Miss Snow, where were you today between the hours of six and ten a.m.?” asked the detective.

“Right where you found me, Detective, on the houseboat. Just like I told you.” My mouth went dry. “Wait a minute, what is this about?”

“It appears that Kristen Faulkner was murdered.” That pronouncement came from the chief.

The way the questions had been coming, this shouldn’t have been a surprise. Still, a sickening pit yawned in my stomach and for one brief moment I was speechless.

“When did you last see Miss Faulkner?” the chief asked.

“The bed incident,” I whispered. “I never saw her after that.” I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. “Wait, that’s
not right. My ex was out to dinner with her last night in the restaurant where I ate.”

Bransford leaned a little closer. “Did you two talk?”

“Not really,” I said. “I said hello and she blew me off. So I suggested they order the crab cakes.”

The cops exchanged glances, as though they’d gotten hold of a real fruitcake, and the detective jotted a note on a pad on the desk.

“You’ve had no contact with her with regard to this magazine you mentioned?” he asked.

“None. So far the application process has been conducted by e-­mail.” I twisted my hands in my lap. “She did mention last night that they have some strong applicants.”

For the next fifteen minutes, Bransford led me through my short history of Key West. I spilled the humiliating details of how I’d fallen for Chad in New Jersey, moved down here to be with him, and found myself homeless, jobless, and manless, all inside of three months.

Bransford scrawled a few more lines of notes and then looked up. “So would you say that Kristen Faulkner was responsible for all that?”

“In a way,” I said. “But not really . . . ​I can’t blame her for everything . . . ​My father is always telling me I should look before I leap.”

“Did she know that you were involved with Mr. Lutz?”

“How could she not?” I asked. “My stuff was all over the apartment.” My throat closed up and my eyes brimmed with tears. “Until he put it out on the sidewalk. Which didn’t take long.”

Bransford passed me a Kleenex. “Just to review, you say you were on the houseboat all morning?”

I nodded quickly and recovered my voice. “Connie, who owns the boat, wouldn’t be able to verify it, but I swear it’s the truth.”

Chief Barnes broke in. “Won’t it be easier for you to get this magazine job that you want so much with Miss Faulkner out of the way?”

My mouth dropped open as I took in what he was suggesting. “Oh my God . . . ​Listen, I disliked Kristen Faulkner right down to her plucked eyebrows, but I never would have killed her. Never. No matter how much I wanted to land that job.” At this point, no amount of face scrunching could have stopped the tears. I blew my nose into the crumpled tissue. “Do I need a lawyer?”

The detective rose to his feet and hulked over me. “Miss Snow, you are not accused of anything. Yet. But we’ll need to be in touch with you again soon. That means do
not
leave the island without contacting us first. Not even over the bridge to Stock Island. You can understand that we need you to make yourself readily available until we complete this investigation.”

I didn’t really understand what else I could contribute, but I gulped and nodded. The other men got up too, and I bolted from the room and scurried down the hallway, out into the bright sun.

“I’d just as soon walk home,” I told Torrence, who followed me out. It was only a quarter of a mile, but he looked at me as if I’d said I’d be hiking back to Jersey. Finally, he dipped his head and I jogged out of the parking lot toward Roosevelt Boulevard.

“Free at last,” I called dramatically as I ran, throwing my arms open to the sky. Which probably sounded a little silly if anyone was listening, but I’d felt like I couldn’t
breathe
in that police station. Good God, Kristen had been
murdered
. And they were questioning
me
. So then I punched Chad’s office number on my speed dial. He wouldn’t take my call, but his assistant, Deena, would. And she knew every lawyer in Key West.

Unfortunately, Chad—­who never answered his number if he could get someone else to do it for him—­picked up.

“It’s Hayley,” I stammered. “Sorry for your loss.” I was sorry. A little.

“I don’t want to talk to you right now,” he answered. “In fact, I don’t want to hear from you again, ever. I can’t believe—”

“I didn’t call to talk to you,” I said. “I called for Deena. The cops hauled me down to the police station to interrogate me about Kristen. They seem to think I might have killed her. I was going to ask Deena if I needed to hire a lawyer.”

“I can’t help you,” said Chad, “and neither can she. As you can very well imagine, this is not a good time for me.”

“It’s not such a good time for me, either,” I said, my desperation gathering momentum by the second. “Would there be any chance you would please, please call them and tell them I had nothing to do with Kristen dying?”

“I don’t know that,” said Chad in an ice-­cold voice. “How would I know what you’re capable of?”

My gut clenched as I realized he might have actually
fingered me. After I moved from New Jersey to be with him and two months of living together—­his having to carry spiders outside because I couldn’t bear the thought of murdering them when they might have a family—­he believed I’d kill a real person? That made me feel helpless—­and mad. I flashed on the belongings he’d failed to return, and that made me madder.

“Since I’ve got you on the line, could you at least give my stuff back? I’ve sent you four e-­mails over the past two weeks and Deena swears your server is working just fine. You can stick the box out in the hall, as far as I’m concerned.”

“I haven’t kept anything of yours.”

“Have a heart, Chad. You’ve got my books and my Japanese knives and my grandmother’s recipe box—”

No answer from Chad, just the lonely void of a dead connection. Rat bugger.

I squeezed the
END
button. Almost home now, I dialed up Connie to see if she was free to help drown my sorrows while we thought of a plan. But my call went directly to voice mail. So as I made my way down the dock past Miss Gloria’s little yellow boat and then the Renharts’ boxy two-­story, I called Eric, who on Mondays closed up his psychotherapy office at four thirty.

“Meet me at the Green Parrot? I’m buying.”

He hesitated. “I’m beat. I had six patients scheduled and two extras had crises that couldn’t wait. One of them involved decorating choices. White or beige?” He sounded annoyed and exhausted—­he never talked about the details of his patients. The town was too small to risk spreading gossip. The coconut telegraph, he called it.

“That bluegrass band you like is doing a sound check,” I said, thinking the promise of a mini musical set at happy hour would be more appealing than weeping. “That adorable guy you have the hots for will be playing the mandolin,” I wheedled. “Besides, I really need to talk with you. Kristen Faulkner was found dead today and they think she was murdered. I think I’m a suspect,” I finished, my words trailing off all weak and wobbly. “I need a voice of reason.”