Death With All the Trimmings: A Key West Food Critic Mystery (19 page)

He had seen a girl with a sandwich in her hand and fallen in love with the part of her that made sense to him, that fit the particular story he knew how to read.

—
Erica Bauermeister,
The Lost Art
of Mixing

I grabbed a quick nap and then played with Evinrude for half an hour, throwing his K
ITTY
C
AN’T
C
OPE
catnip sack over and over until he tired of the game. He had been acting standoffish in the face of my recent absences from the houseboat, and I knew too well that an angry cat could wreak some ugly vengeance. Finally I took a shower, washed my hair, and enlisted Miss Gloria to rebandage my wound.

“It’s healing quickly,” she said, when all the dressings had been removed. I winced as she patted antibiotic cream on the wound with a sterile pad. “Are you sure you’re up for going back to Edel’s kitchen?”

“Are you kidding? This could be my only chance ever to see the
New York Times
restaurant critic in action.” Miss Gloria doesn’t usually go all
parental-worried on me, but obviously this incident had thrown her, too.

“Did you tell your mother?”

“I definitely told her,” I said. I did not add that she’d wormed it out of me only because the bandage was leaking. And that she’d spilled her own secret about backing Edel’s new restaurant.

Miss Gloria tried one more time to persuade me to relax at home, abandon my station at Edel’s bistro tonight, and forget about the conflict at
Key Zest
. But part of growing up meant figuring out when a little mothering became too much. And how to mother myself.

“How did Janet seem?” Miss Gloria asked.

“Jennifer’s got her so busy,” I said, “that she doesn’t have much time for anything else, even worrying. And that includes Sam and his proposal.”

“Lucky for me,” said Miss Gloria, “I never had to go through a divorce. I imagine that changes your faith about marriages being happily ever after.”

“It sure did a number on my mother,” I said as I unrolled my shirtsleeves and buttoned the cuffs. “So, you’re planning a quiet night?”

Miss Gloria laughed, a lovely silver tinkle. “As quiet as I can manage with that crazy schnauzer for a neighbor. I’m going to watch the sunset out here with the kitty cats and have a teeny-tiny glass of wine, and then eat some of your leftover stew and watch TV. This time of year is so hectic, at my age I have to watch getting overexcited and overtired.”

“At your age?” I said with a big grin. “You have more energy than most of the people I know that are my age. You’re a role model for all of us.”

I gave her a one-armed hug; grabbed my phone, my helmet, and a notebook; and headed out to the scooter. Only when I was halfway down Southard Street did I
remember that I had not taken any anti-inflammatories or painkillers. The prescription stuff would have made me fuzzy and woozy. But a couple of ibuprofen might help get me through the night. I veered right on Simonton Street and pulled my scooter onto its stand in the lot next to Fausto’s Food Palace.

The wide glass doors slid open as I approached the store and I ducked inside. A collection of tourists and locals were busy shopping for their night meal. As the only true grocery store left in Old Town after the demise of the Waterfront Market, Fausto’s does a good business. In fact, if I’m not baking, I’ve been known to peruse their dessert counter for treats home baked by Chef Jeffrey Smiley. I hurried down the aisle displaying toiletries and over-the-counter medications and grabbed a bottle of ibuprofen. At the far end of the row, I saw my cousin Cassie, her husband, Joe, and poor hung-out-to-dry Sam standing by the meat counter. I went over to greet them.

“We wondered when we would see you next,” Joe said. “How was the lighted boat parade? Cassie and I started over last night, but once we got to Greene Street the crowds were so thick. We couldn’t see much so we opted for gelato from Duetto and then saw the end of the parade from Mallory Square with your mother. Not your boat, though.”

“There were some gorgeous entries,” I said, working to keep my voice light. “We couldn’t provide much competition in a little motorboat, even though Connie and Ray went all out with their lights. And you were right, it was hectic. We cut out early, too.”

They would hear soon enough from my mother about the shooting. I preferred not to rehash the incident at the meat counter, where half the island’s locals might be listening.

Sam added, “We’re having to fend for ourselves tonight, so Joe’s offered to make his beef stew. I’m springing for the wine. They carry a lovely selection right here. Imagine finding a French rosé in downtown Key West.” He held out a gorgeous bottle of pale pink wine.

“And I am in charge of dessert.” Cassie grinned and showed me a clear plastic container that held half a key lime pie and a large chunk of coconut cream layer cake.

“Those two are definitely my favorites,” I said. “It didn’t take you long to catch on.”

“Can you join us?” Sam asked.

“Oh that sounds so good. And so relaxing. But I told Edel I’d be there tonight for her opening.”

“Was there news about Edel’s husband?” asked Sam.

“Nothing on that,” I said. “But supposedly the critic from the
New York Times
food section is coming to review her restaurant tonight. They’re all very excited and that helps a little bit with the sadness.”

Sam gave me a big hug, squeezing my sore arm, and I tried not to wince. “Maybe that restaurant critic can take a few tips from you. I think you’re the best writer in the business.” He pulled me a few steps away from the others. “Have you heard anything from your mother?” he asked in a low voice.

I cleared my throat, wondering how much to say. “I checked in with her at Jennifer Cornell’s kitchen.” I toyed with my small gold hoop earring. “Here’s what I think: be patient. Give her some space. You know it’s not you, Sam,” I said, grabbing his elbow and giving it a little shake. “She’s got some things to work out in her own brain. You’re the best thing to come along in her life in a long time—she knows that, but she’s scared.”

Joe accepted the package of beef tips that the butcher handed over the counter, and he and Cassie came over to join us.

“Did you ever follow up with that Mary Pat person?” Joe asked.

“The one whose name came up on your handsome detective’s phone,” Cassie added.

Why did every member of my family persist in referring to him as “my” detective?

“Not yet,” I said, “but I’m glad you reminded me.” I blew them a round of air kisses and retreated to the checkout, grabbing a Coke from the cooler nearest the cash register—for the caffeine and the sugar and to swallow my pills.

And lobes of dismal-flavored sea urchin served over thick lardo and heavy toast were just dreadful: the eighth band after Nirvana to write loud-soft-loud music and call it new.

—
Sam Sifton, “Imperial No. Nine,”
New York Time
s

Over at the harbor, Edel’s kitchen was buzzing like a video on fast forward. I imagined it would be hard to slow down and sleep after a night at this pace. People say that becoming a chef requires a complete shift in biorhythms. And a shift in social life, too. While we customers in the front of the house are unwinding from our hectic days and enjoying the wonderful food, the cooks in back are working at peak velocity. When we’re tumbling into bed after a great meal, the kitchen staff is hitting the town to unwind.

I melted into a corner by the desk and bookshelf where Edel planned her recipes and menus and paid her bills, to be out of the way of the workers. And to have enough space to observe how they were working
together. I wished I could tease out the stress of opening night from the strain of the recent tragedy—and the possibility that someone was trying to hide his involvement in several very serious crimes.

Edel bustled in from the backyard and the tension in the room kicked up a couple of notches.

“How are you feeling? Everything okay here?”

She shrugged her shoulders, looking tightly wound. “We’ve taken reservations for every seat in the house, from opening moment to closing time at ten. It’s just a matter of whether this staff can manage the heat. If you don’t mind,” she said, “I prefer that you sit out back or in the dining room for a bit while we get the preparations completed.”

“Okaaaay,” I said, drawing the word out and trying to figure out what the heck was the subtext of her message. Besides
“Get lost.”
This was the first time I’d been banished. “If you’re sure there’s not something I can do to help. I’m pretty good with a knife and very good at stirring—”

“I would just as soon any nonessential, nonprofessional personnel move out of the way for a while,” she said, not meeting my eyes.

“Have you heard anything more from Paul Woolston’s staff?” Paul was the critic for the
New York Times
. Having him come all the way to Key West to critique Edel’s food was a huge deal. He held an enormous sway over foodies across the country, with an emphasis on the tri-state area around New York City. He was not known to be soft or subtle with his criticism.

“Nothing new, nothing different,” she said, “but I’m pretty sure he’s coming. And if he does, I would love for you to go out and chat with him. I don’t need a sycophant or a cheering section, just a friendly Key West welcome. And I’d rather it didn’t appear to be set up.
Maybe more like you happened to be dining here, too, and you recognized him and wanted to say hello.” Offering a very thin smile, she turned away to shout orders at Glenn, the sous-chef. Nothing he was doing at the stove or the counter appeared to be up to her standards. Honestly, if I’d been him, with the way she talked, I’d have been tempted to quit. Walk straight out the front door, opening-night jitters or not.

“I’ll be out in the back if you need me.” I gathered my backpack and phone and slipped through the swinging screen door. Maybe that was the real reason she’d asked me to be here tonight: not to help out in the kitchen or watch her back, but to help handle the most important restaurant critic in the world.

I retreated to a stone bench in the rear yard, which seemed to serve as the staff’s smoking and break station, based on the cigarette butts clustered on the surrounding dirt. The faint odor of burned wood from the big fire still lingered. And the not so faint memories of Edel’s beleaguered ex-husband with it. I pulled out my phone and began to formulate the opening paragraph for a story about Bistro on the Bight. If I no longer had a job at
Key Zest
, perhaps I could use this piece as a sample of a profile in food journalism when I applied somewhere else.

It’s not easy to leave an environment where your food is well-known and wildly successful. Nor is it easy to leave a partnership that has those same qualities. But Edel Waugh was determined to do both. “I adore Key West,” Waugh said in an interview days before the opening of her new Key West establishment, Bistro on the Bight. “I don’t know how well anyone can ever know this island—she’s a tropical beauty, but mercurial, multilayered, fickle, and quirky. I had
visited many times over the past two decades and I was pretty sure I could cook here in a way that I would be able to cook nowhere else. I intend to make dishes that reflect this island’s Caribbean roots and her migrant past. But I will also cook dishes from my own past, dishes that reflect the best of my influences.”

That was the easy part of the article. Next I’d have to talk about whether Edel had been successful in the task she’d laid out. No question in my mind that the food would be successful—but whether the woman and the restaurant would make it in Key West was up for debate.

The screen door squeaked open, then slammed shut behind Rodrigo, who carried two enormous black bags of garbage to the Dumpsters a hundred feet away. He lingered at the end of the alley, lit up a cigarette, and leaned against the wall of the building next door, which housed the public restrooms. At first glance, I thought he was killing time, looking at nothing in particular—the sky, the diesel tanks, the weeds bordering the open space behind the Bistro. Probably relieved to be out of Edel’s spotlight for a few peaceful moments. But then I noticed the flowers laid out on the ground. I got up and walked over.

“Hola,”
I said when I got nearer to Rodrigo. Pathetic, but the only Spanish I knew.

He startled, then grunted a greeting in reply.

When he leaned to straighten a paper weighted down by several pieces of coral rock, I realized he’d been standing over a mini shrine to Juan Carlos: photos of the man in his New York restaurant, toasting the cameraman with a glass of wine and a cigarette, and, at the bottom, a photo of him and Edel, arms around each other. In earlier, happier times. And in front of the
photos, a pile of wilting flowers—roses mostly, with a few carnations mixed in.

“Good man,” Rodrigo said, his words perfect though his accent was heavy.

“Did you know him long?” I asked.

“Twenty years New York. Then I followed her.” He jerked his head toward the restaurant. “Hate cold. And my family’s Miami.”

“Did you see him before the fire?”

He glanced behind him, looking both ways, as if he worried that I’d set a trap. “No cops?”

I shook my head and held my palms open. Which could have meant anything, but if he told me something that would lead to the killer or a shooter, I wouldn’t keep it to myself.

“They fight,” he said. “Like always, only worse.”

“A physical fight?” I asked.

He put his hands around his own throat and squeezed.

Edel stepped onto the porch, beckoning frantically for me. “Hayley?”

I patted Rodrigo’s shoulder and trotted back to the restaurant.

“What was all that about?” Edel’s eyes had narrowed, her hands on her hips.

“I think he’s in mourning,” I said. “He was talking about Juan Carlos.” I did not mention the pantomimed choking. Not yet.

“Paul Woolston is in the house,” Edel said, after one final glare in Rodrigo’s direction.

The
New York Times
critic. I felt a little frisson of excitement—a current of the same seemed to be running through the kitchen staff, too. They were working faster, their faces intent, chattering about the meaning of the visit—the possible benefits. And costs, if he didn’t like
the food. What would he order? Should they send him something extra? Who had come with him?

I peered through a crack from the swinging door leading from kitchen to dining room. Woolston had been seated at a table for two near the window overlooking the harbor. Despite his sway in the world of food-obsessed Americans, he looked like an ordinary diner, maybe a little too recently deplaned from New York to have relaxed completely. His companion, a middle-aged woman with streaked blond hair, was dressed in a black shift with pearls and kitten heels. Woolston himself wore sharply creased khaki trousers and a long-sleeve button-down shirt, also neatly ironed.

An amber-colored cocktail sat in front of Woolston, and something pinkish—a cosmopolitan, maybe?—in front of his companion. Leo McCracken, Edel’s head waiter, was hovering near the table with a wine list and two leather-bound menus. Edel pushed the door closed, nearly pinching my fingers.

“Wait a while until he’s had a chance to order his starters,” she snapped. “I don’t want it to look like I’ve set the dogs on him.” She grinned, baring teeth like a stray dog herself, a mutt that you couldn’t be sure was smiling or growling.

Leo burst through the door into the kitchen, still holding the menus. “He knows we’re onto him,” he said. “He told me nothing extra from the kitchen. He wants what everyone else is getting when they order and nothing special.”

“What did he order for starters?” Edel asked, her face relaxing a little.

“They weren’t ready,” Leo said. “They wanted to enjoy their cocktails.”

Edel took a small white bowl and filled it with her
smoked fish dip, then centered it on a plate and surrounded it with toast rounds. She shoved the finished plate at me. “Will you take this out? I’m too nervous to talk to him. I can’t bear to know they’re sitting there with nothing to eat.”

So I stumbled out of the kitchen and over to the water-view table, a frozen smile on my face. “Hello, Mr. Woolston. I’m Hayley Snow, the food critic for the local style magazine,
Key Zest
. This dip comes with compliments of the chef. I know you said nothing special, but she couldn’t help herself.” I shrugged and grinned and slid the plate onto their table. The toast rounds shifted. I reached over to straighten them, then snatched my hand away. Good gravy, who would want my fingers all over their snacks?

“Paul,” the woman said, “why don’t we ask Ms. Snow to join us?” Her eyes twinkled and a friendly smile played across her lips. “As long as you’re no longer incognito.”

“Waiter!” said Paul, snapping his fingers at Leo. “This lady is joining us.” And to me: “What are you drinking?”

“Are you sure?” I asked. “I would kill to . . . let me try that again. I didn’t mean to insert myself into your dinner . . .”

“Since my cover appears to be blown already,” he said, pushing the third chair away from the table and motioning me to sit, “we might as well get some local insights.”

“A glass of the Paco and Lola Albariño,” I told Leo as I took the seat between the food critic and his wife.

“Never mind the wine just yet,” said Paul to the waiter. “This looks like a woman in need of a martini. Do you mind?” he asked me. “I’d like to sample
something else from their bar without sliding under the table before the entrées arrive.”

“Absolutely,” I said. “Lots of olives. Make it dirty.” Which I’d seen on bar menus but never actually sampled.

Leo scurried off to fill the order while Mrs. Woolston chatted about the amazing weather and the sharp contrast with the polar vortex in New York.

Within minutes, the martini was deposited in front of me. “Cheers and welcome to Key West,” I said, then clinked their glasses and took an esophagus-burning gulp. “I adore your column in the food section,” I said. “I so admire both what you say and the way you say it. Honest to god, if I could write a review like that . . .” I trailed off, horrified to find tears filling my eyes.

The woman patted my hand. “I’m Margaret, by the way, the great critic’s wife.” She grinned. “You should call him Paul. Believe me, he didn’t always write like that and he’s had some excellent editing across the years.”

“She knows how to take a man down a few pegs if his head swells too big,” said Paul with a chuckle. “She’s also in charge of exercising me, because, as you’ve probably discovered, spare tires around the waist are a serious side effect of the job.” He patted his belly, which had a pleasing roundness without wandering into a pot.

“Now tell us about Key West. What should we see while we’re in town?” He spread a spoonful of Edel’s fish dip on a crusty piece of bread and popped it into his mouth. “This is very good, by the way, Margaret,” he told his wife. “The smoked fish is outstanding. But the dip has a nice bite to it, too. Tabasco and lime zest?” he asked me.

“I can’t tell you her secrets, but doesn’t it taste like a
dash of Old Bay Seasoning?” I said with a grin. “And a squeeze of lemon.”

He tasted the dip again. “And maybe a bit of horseradish? I should have known. What else should we not miss on the menu?”

So I told him about Edel’s signature yellow snapper, and the spaghetti Bolognese that wasn’t listed but he could request it, and the key lime parfaits. When we’d gone over the entire menu, he signaled for Leo and ordered the dishes I’d mentioned, plus half a dozen others.

“Now,” said Margaret, “where should a brand-new tourist begin to explore this island?”

“I always recommend that folks start with a ride on the Conch Tour Train. Don’t be put off by the crowds, because the ride gives you an overview of the island. And later you can go back to visit the places that catch your eye.”

Then I began to describe my favorite tourist attractions—the Hemingway cats, the Custom House Museum, the sunset celebration, Truman’s Little White House, Fort Zachary Taylor park. I barely registered that Leo had brought a second round of cocktails and then set up a wine cooler to the left of the critic.

But I did notice that I’d begun to feel tipsy, which made me garrulous. And bold. “Tell me about Juan Carlos’s restaurant in New York,” I said. “My mother was a huge fan. And you must have eaten there many times.”

Paul exchanged a glance with his wife.

“At least a dozen times over the past ten years,” he said, scratching his head with two fingers. “In fact we visited a couple of weeks ago, and, well—” He shrugged and sighed. “I was rather appalled at the deterioration in his dishes.”

“In New York circles, Juan Carlos had always had the reputation for being the cooking genius of the pair,” Margaret added, her voice barely above a whisper. “I suspect some of that was old-fashioned sexism. But this visit got us wondering whether, in fact, Edel had been the more brilliant chef of the couple all along.”