Murder With Ganache: A Key West Food Critic Mystery (13 page)

However it could be managed, it sounded like keeping my father and Rory’s father apart would save a lot of misery. Though it was hard to see how that could be arranged. I gathered the trash up and wrapped the few leftover scraps into a plastic bag to carry downstairs to an outside garbage can. At least I could spare the other beleaguered families the smell of onions and garlic—the tantalizing promise of life outside the hospital.

Food blogs are not so much about cooking as about exhibitionists letting us peep at private lives in hopes we will be, ahem, smitten, a word usually applied to sexual attraction.

—Sandra Garson

I sped back down Route One, but then slowed to a crawl when I hit the traffic along the Roosevelt Boulevard construction strip, which seemed to have been torn up forever. The “Citizen’s Voice” column in the
Key West Citizen
had been bristling with complaints for months and months. But like everything else in this town, the project would get done when it got done, and not a moment earlier. As I inched along with the traffic, sandwiched in between an open air golf cart with
RENT ME
written on the back end and a flatbed truck full of Hispanic workers, I tried to sort and prioritize the jumble in my head.

My mother would be all over preparing tonight’s dinner, so there was no rush to get back to the houseboat. I could whip up my strawberry pies this afternoon once she vacated the kitchen. But I did need to put another half hour of work into my articles—on-site was probably better, so Wally would see that I was in fact working, not disintegrating into a puddle of stress. And then he could report that to Ava without being forced to lie.

Even more pressing was the question of what had happened with Rory and his new friend the night before. I felt sickened as the memory of the girl floating in the mangroves played through my mind like a jerky home movie. And worried about Bransford’s parting blow, because, yes, even a novice investigator would look at the Facebook photo, the Jet Ski theft, and worst of all, the chain marks, and link the two kids together in a damning way. No chance in hell Bransford would tell me anything that I didn’t already know, but it might be worth putting in another call in to Lieutenant Torrence. At least he would be sympathetic. If I didn’t wake him up. Which meant waiting until six, when his shift began.

Once I passed the Palm Avenue intersection, the traffic thinned out and I continued down Truman Street toward the teen drop-in center. Other than the cops, the person with her finger most closely on the pulse of Key West teenagers would be Jai Somers. I pulled over in front of Project Lighthouse and parked my scooter.

Unlike the quiet scene earlier this morning, now the big room was humming with teens. Girls with nose rings, bare stomachs, and tight jeans. Boys with black T-shirts, tattoos, and ponytails. And kids dressed and coiffed so it was hard to make out which sex they were. They sprawled on the overstuffed couch and chairs, ate sandwiches at the center table, and jockeyed for position at the two computer stations. Jai sat at her desk beside a tearful girl with pink hair and a pixie face who looked about fifteen. She glanced over as the bell on the door jingled to announce my entrance.

“Any news on your stepbrother?” Jai asked me.

I shrugged. “Not really. I just came from the hospital. Maybe his color looks a little better.” I dropped my voice low and moved closer so I wouldn’t telegraph my troubles to all the kids. “One of the detectives was just at the hospital interviewing my stepmother. He’s putting a lot of pressure on her about whether Rory’s been in trouble before. I wondered whether you could put me in touch with anyone who knew Mariah. Maybe even spent time with her last night?”

Jai reached for the pink-haired girl’s hand and whispered something to her. The girl swiveled around to look at me, then barely nodded. Now I recognized her as the second girl in the photograph with Rory.

“Daisy was Mariah’s friend. She says she’ll talk with you. Let’s see if I can find you a spot that isn’t quite so noisy.”

She ushered me and the pixie girl into the cubby where I’d seen kids sorting clothes this morning. Daisy sank into a battered beanbag chair that released a puff of dust and mildew. I crouched on the floor with my back against the wall, so I wouldn’t block her path out. Nothing, my psychologist friend Eric once told me, spooks a troubled soul more than putting yourself between them and the door.

“Let me get you a chair,” Jai said.

I smiled. “I’m fine.” Second-to-last thing I wanted to do was create mental distance between the girl and me by acting like a creaky old fogey.

“Hi, Daisy, I’m Hayley.”

The girl drew her thighs to her chest, picking at the hole in her jeans where one bony knee poked through.

“I’m so sorry about Mariah.”

The girl buried her face in her knees and began to sob.

“It’s so hard to lose a good friend. How long did you know her?”

Daisy wiped her eyes on her sleeve, the gauzy fabric fluttering away to reveal a Teddy bear tattooed inside her forearm, above two horizontal scars, still pink from healing. The dark kohl outlining her eyes melted down one cheek, a luge run for her tears. “A couple of weeks? I don’t know. She was my best friend ever.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again. And I was. Sorry for the dead girl and sorry for this little lost girl who’d taken a blade to her own wrist. Or so it appeared. Sorry that someone she knew so briefly was her best friend. And sorry for all the kids clustered in the drop-in center who had left home for reasons unknown, but probably unhappy. How in the world had Rory found them?

I pulled my iPhone from my back pocket. “You were with her last night?” I tapped through Rory’s Facebook page until I reached the photo of the kids on the Courthouse Deli bench. I passed the phone over to her. “This is my brother, Rory.”

“She loved him,” the girl said, tears leaking from her eyes again. “I can’t believe he’d hurt her like that.”

Which sounded like an extreme reaction, typical of a young and troubled teenager in a world where true love could be declared when you barely knew someone. Although maybe I understood this better than I wished. Wasn’t I the crazy girl who’d followed Chad Lutz to Key West after one glorious three-day weekend and a bunch of sexy text messages? I sighed. This could be bad news for Rory if the cops interviewed these kids. And they probably would. Probably already had.

“I don’t think he did hurt her,” I said softly. “But I’d really like to help find out what happened. Can you tell me about Mariah?”

The girl snuffled and then the sobbing escalated until the teenagers nearest the cubby gathered around the doorway, scowling at me. Two girls rushed over to Daisy and hugged her, shutting me out of their circle of grief. One of theirs—whether they knew her well or not, she was their kind, she belonged to them—had been violently taken. And if Daisy’s assumptions were representative, some substantial percentage of the kids probably thought my brother had killed her.

I stood up and backed into the main room.

Jai held her hands up. “Sorry. She’s pretty fragile right now. I’ll see what I can find out,” she added. “I’ll call or text you.”

The thing that made cookbooks unique was the personality behind the book. The cook, the chef, the voice in the dialogue about each recipe. A recipe box filled with recipes had a story to tell.

—Daryl Wood Gerber,
Final Sentence

When I got back to the pier, Schnootie the Schnauzer was tied to the deck of the Renharts’ place, staring at our boat, looking forlorn. She yipped at me, and Mrs. Renhart waved from her deck chair. “I’m so sorry about those cupcakes. My beastie’s still a little wild.”

“It was a perfect storm,” I said with the brightest smile I could manage under the circumstances. With the wedding canceled and Rory in the hospital and a girl drowned in the mangroves, the cupcakes no longer ranked as the biggest disaster in my life. “When—if—things settle down, we’ll have you over to introduce her properly to the felines.”

Inside, Miss Gloria and the cats were watching with interest as Mom patted a spinach, dill, and feta cheese filling into two glass pans. Then she layered a thin sheet of phyllo pastry over the top, picked up a small paintbrush, and began to dab on melted butter.

“This is amazing,” Miss Gloria said. “Now I see where your daughter gets her talent.”

“This is as close as I come to artistic.” Mom laughed. “We already made the salad,” she said, turning to me. “Your pie ingredients are on the table. I left the cream cheese out to soften, and Miss Gloria washed and hulled your strawberries. The oven’s already on.”

“Thank you,” I said. “It’s heaven having a sous chef, isn’t it?”

“Sam’s getting the hang of it when I cook for him. I’m training him early,” Mom said. Miss Gloria giggled. “Stop that,” Mom said, but then they both burst out laughing. Obviously my mother’s love life had been under discussion. Again.

I ignored them and sat at the kitchen table to slice berries as Mom continued to paint her phyllo layers with butter. Miss Gloria grated white cheddar and mixed it into a bowl containing cream cheese, then added chopped red peppers, scallions, and mayo. When the pimento cheese dip was chilling and the two pans of spanakopita were finished, ready for baking later, my mother cleaned up the area around the sink and we traded places. Mom and Miss Gloria went out to the deck with cups of coffee and I extracted the food processor from the bottom pantry shelf. I whirred two packages of chocolate graham crackers to crumbs, then stirred in sugar and melted butter, and pressed the mixture into two glass pie pans. While the crusts baked, I whipped cream and folded in whipped cream cheese, vanilla, and a little more sugar. With the filling in the fridge and the crusts cooling on the stovetop, I joined the others on the deck.

“And you rascals are coming with me,” I said as I passed Evinrude and Sparky. I scooped a cat up in each arm and brought them outside. Evinrude jumped up on the railing, stared Schnootie into a quivering, yapping gray mass, and began to groom himself as though the Schnauzer did not exist.

“He’s going to torture that poor animal into the doggie nuthouse,” my mother said. “Anything new with Rory’s case?”

“I stopped in at Project Lighthouse,” I said. “But the kids were really too upset to talk to me. This girl’s death has been a horrible shock for them.”

“I remember when my son was twelve or thirteen,” said Miss Gloria, “and one of the boys in his class committed suicide. The students were inconsolable.”

“It’s the same thing here,” I said. “And I’m afraid these kids think Rory killed her.”

“Oh no,” said Mom. “He’s not that kind of boy. It’s all so upsetting—they’re looking for someone to blame. No one expects a young person to die,” she added. “It isn’t the proper order of things.”

We gazed out from the deck across the water, soaking up the afternoon sun, lulled by the slap of waves against hull. Several sets of wind chimes tinkled from boats down the finger. But the hazy mangrove islands in the distance would never again look innocent. My cell phone interrupted the silence: Jai. I returned to the kitchen to take her call.

“I was able to talk with Daisy after you left,” she said. “I’m sorry if the kids made you feel bad.”

“I understood. They have to blame someone.”

“Mariah was fairly new to town—I’m guessing she arrived two weeks ago or so,” Jai continued. “But Daisy, poor Daisy. She’s so young and so conflicted about being away from her family. She’s always looking for another mother figure and she took to Mariah like a lost duckling. That girl did have a special sparkle. At the same time, she seemed very vulnerable. It was an irresistible combination.”

“You don’t very often send out text alerts about kids like you did yesterday,” I said.

Jai was silent for a few moments. “The first time she came in our door I had a sense she was in danger. I thought about calling the cops. But what would I tell them? This girl looks like she’ll find real trouble?” She heaved a sigh. “That could be true of most of the travelers who come through here.”

“So what was different about her?” I asked.

“The kids were worried too,” she said. “A couple of them confided to me she was all wound up about a scheme to get rich. They were afraid she was going to do something dumb.”

My heart sank, as I imagined all the dangers a lost teenage girl and a hormone-driven boy without much impulse control might get involved with. “Drugs?” I guessed. “Prostitution?”

“I don’t have the details, but drugs are always a problem. Whatever it was, Daisy thinks Rory was the one who suckered her in.”

“But he only met her twenty-four hours ago,” I protested, feeling a strong urge to protect my stepbrother.

“I’m telling you what she said.” I could hear a ruckus in the background, an angry shouting match between boys that sounded like it was escalating fast.

“Got to go,” she said. “We’ll stay in touch.”

I hung up feeling helpless and sick with worry. How did Rory get into such a mess? I couldn’t wait for him to wake up and explain himself. Surely there was another answer, other than him ensnaring this girl in something illegal that led to her death, which seemed to be the way the signs pointed.

Back on the deck, I started to explain to Mom and Miss Gloria what Jai had told me. But Evinrude sashayed outside again, leaped up onto the deck’s railing, and hissed. Schnootie began to bark her fool head off, drowning out our conversation. My cat balanced on the railing, motionless except for his switching tail, watching the dog fling herself into the air, nearly strangling herself repeatedly.

Mrs. Renhart rushed out from her cabin and snatched the dog up. “Who’s my little Schnootie-Bootie? Who’s my silver beastie?” She looked over at us, grinning like a monkey. “She must be starving. At the animal shelter, she got used to eating right at four,” she said. “We’ll get things worked out, don’t worry. She and Evinrude will be BFFs before you know it.”

I waved and smiled. When pigs flew, that’s when Evinrude would befriend a dog.

“She’s gone completely gaga over that animal,” said Miss Gloria. “But it’s kind of nice to see her so happy.”

“Is it really four o’clock?” my mother asked. “Good Lord, I have to get dressed. We’ll see you over at the gallery? I may be a little late. I’m sure Sam isn’t ready either. He gets so absorbed in his work, he hardly knows where he is—never mind that he’s still wearing pajamas.”

She collected her purse and sweater, kissed us both, and roared off to the Casa Marina. I trotted back to the kitchen to finish making the pies, alternating the layers of sliced strawberries with the whipped cream mixture. I finished by placing decorative rings of halved berries on top and stood back to admire the results. When the world seemed to have spun off its axis, what could be more reassuring than homemade dessert?

Miss Gloria came in to take a peek. “You’ve outdone yourself, young lady,” she said. “But I say that every time, don’t I?”

I picked up her hand and kissed it. “Yes, you do. And I love it.”

“I’m going to stay put this evening and make sure we’re set for dinner,” she said. “Your mother said the spinach pies need an hour to cook. I’ll tidy up around here and then iron the cloth napkins and set the table. Everyone needs a little pampering today.”

“Are you sure?” I asked. “I hate for you to miss Ray’s reception.”

“I’m sure.” She nodded and grabbed her little black cat just as he jumped on the counter and made a beeline for the whipped cream bowl. “Your family has had such a lousy week. I want this dinner to be special.”

“You’re the best,” I said, and hurried off to hit the shower. I hadn’t had time to get to the Laundromat just yards up the dock, so my choices for outfits were limited. Black cuffed jeans and a black T-shirt with red boots? Or black cuffed jeans with a white lace top and sandals? I sighed. My mother would hate the first outfit. Besides, maybe it looked too gloomy, considering the last two days. And Mom would love the fact that I was still wearing the jeweled sandals that had been her hostess gift when she’d visited in January. So I patched some moleskin on the points where they rubbed my skin raw and prepared to gush about how much I loved them.