Ode to a Fish Sandwich
Read Ode to a Fish Sandwich Online
Authors: Rebecca M. Hale
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #International Mystery & Crime, #Travel, #Caribbean, #General
Ode to a Fish Sandwich
by Rebecca M. Hale
In memory of all
the delicious fish sandwiches
I have eaten
during my trips to the Caribbean.
Chapter 4: A Delicious Sandwich
Chapter 13: The Lure of the Cane
Chapter 16: A Covetous Compulsion
Chapter 17: A Present from Delilah
Chapter 22: The Last Fish Sandwich
Additional Titles by Rebecca M. Hale
FIFTEEN HUNDRED MILES southeast of Miami, on a tiny Caribbean island that time and progress forgot, a man walked into Delilah’s Beachside Diner and placed his order.
“Hey, Winnie. I’ll take the special.”
A stout West Indian woman looked over the plank counter, easily recognizing the relaxed vacationer. He had eaten lunch at her establishment every day for the past week.
“Take a seat, doctor,” she replied, nodding at the picnic tables that had been pulled out onto the sand. “Burt hasn’t brought in the morning catch yet, so it’ll be a wait if you want fresh.”
The man stretched his arms wide, grinning his capitulation. “This is my last meal on the island, Winnie, so you’d better make it good. The ferry leaves at two. I’m all yours until then.”
“Get on with it,” she said, giving him a shrugging half-smile. “I’ll bring you a going away drink.”
Winnie peered out her rear kitchen window, watching as Dr. Walcott Emerson Jones settled into his regular place at the table farthest from the kitchen, closest to the beach.
The dermatologist from Utah always arrived and ate alone. Over the course of the past week, he had spent countless hours sitting in that same spot. Long after he finished each meal, he would remain at the table, silently staring out at the water.
Those first few days, he’d looked mostly lost and forlorn, a fitting demeanor for a groom who’d just been jilted at the altar. But as the week progressed, his mood gradually improved. The island worked its healing magic, and the bright sun lightened his cloudy disposition, its curing rays reaching his soul—if not the surface of his skin.
No matter how intense the tropical heat and humidity, the dermatologist dressed in a long-sleeved shirt, lightweight sports pants, and a floppy hat. On the few exposed areas of skin not covered by clothing, he smeared a thick layer of sunscreen. By the end of the week, his face had absorbed so much UV protectant that his cheeks were permanently chalked with a pasty white residue.
“Skin cancer,” he’d replied when Winnie asked about his aversion to the sun. “You can never be too careful.” He’d emphasized his point with a twirl of the black umbrella he carried everywhere he went, his own mobile shade generator.
She shook her head as the doctor selected several large stones from the beach and used them to anchor the umbrella’s handle on the top of the table. Adjusting the pile, he tilted the handle’s wooden rod so that the upper nylon webbing spread over his head.
With a chuckle, Winnie poured rum punch into a plastic cup and set off for the propped-up umbrella at the far end of the eating area.
“Only person I’ve ever seen come down here on vacation and leave whiter than he arrived.”
Her second laugh shortened to a snort.
“The man probably glows in the dark.”
~
AFTER DELIVERING THE drink, Winnie shuffled back to the kitchen and started preparations for the day’s lunch service.
Sidling up to her station, she opened a wooden drawer and reached inside for a butcher knife. She had a full set of cutlery at her disposal, but she used this hefty knife for almost every task. It was her favorite cutting tool, her go-to implement.
To Winnie’s ears, there was no better sound than the satisfying
thunk
of the knife’s blade against her cutting board. She loved the way its handle pressed against the palm of her hand and how the mere flick of her wrist could generate a clean, cleaving blow. Its versatility knew no bounds. No other knife in her collection could so easily switch between dicing tomatoes and deboning a fish—or any other use that might arise.
Gripping the trusty handle, she began running the blade over a well-worn sharpening stone. With smooth slicing motions, the steel scraped across the stone’s flat surface, each pass sliding faster and encountering less resistance.
“The doctor’s last meal,” Winnie murmured as she studied the knife’s gleaming edge.
“…his last fish sandwich.”
~
DELILAH’S BEACHSIDE DINER was one of the few notable attractions in this isolated corner of the Caribbean.
The sparsely populated island received only a trickle of tourist traffic. The little infrastructure that existed was maintained by a five-star resort on the south shore, and the guests to that all-inclusive establishment rarely ventured outside its gated boundaries.
Beyond the rocky shoreline, a rugged interior commanded the bulk of the island’s topography. A dormant volcano rose from the inaccessible center, a hulking shadow that somehow made its presence felt even when the scalloped peak disappeared in a bank of clouds.
Abandoned sugarcane fields spread across the short skirt of the island’s lower elevations, a head-high tangle of reeds, ferns, scrubby bushes, and the occasional mangrove. Once planted on every arable acre, the colonial-era crop was being slowly choked out by the natural vegetation.
The diner was located in the island’s only officially designated “town,” a community represented by a far bigger dot on the map than warranted by its actual population density. A one-pump gas station, tiny grocery, and a handful of cinderblock houses filled in the rest.
Limited commercial activity centered on the ferry dock, which hosted two boats a day to and from a much larger, built-up island to the north. The passengers were generally either guests to the resort or children commuting to school.
Delilah’s provided the town’s sole dining option, and its menu was selective, at best, with the majority of listed items frequently being unavailable. Most orders were for the daily special, which hadn’t changed in years. No one ever asked for clarification when they requested the special; the locals knew to expect the fish sandwich.
If the diner’s menu lacked variety, at least its top seller was a culinary success.
The daily special was a straightforward preparation of a fish filet, grilled on both sides, and served with a toasted bun, a few pickled condiments, and a mound of potato chips. But everyone agreed that the fish sandwiches at Delilah’s tasted better than anywhere else within a hundred mile nautical radius. Passing mariners, the employees at the resort, and the ferryboat operators all regularly ate the diner’s fish sandwich.
Of course, it had been many years since anyone named Delilah had worked at the shack by the beach. Winnie had been manning the kitchen counter for the better part of the last decade. She was the chef responsible for the diner’s fish sandwich reputation.
It had taken a great deal of work to perfect the deceptively simple dish. After much trial and error, she had settled on a few key elements.
First, the fish should be extremely fresh, preferably caught and gutted the same day. The filets should be cut thick and basted with a light coating of spices (her own special blend) and then cooked at precisely the right temperature on a heated metal grill. The stove itself was an important component to the preparation as the iron surface conveyed its own unique seasoning from the countless seared fish that had been cooked on it before.
The diner wasn’t much to look at. The shack’s exterior walls were made of sun-bleached plywood that once had been painted a colorful array of pastels. On one of the boards, faint yellow text spelled the now barely discernable label, “Delilah’s.”
Wedged between the beach on one side and a dirt road on the other, there was little space for permanent outdoor seating. The diner’s metal roof extended a couple of feet out from the kitchen, providing a narrow band of shade.
Beyond the rustic building, a scattering of stubby palm trees bent over the picnic tables that were dragged onto the sand each morning from a nearby storage shed.
The meager accommodations were more than sufficient. Even with the popularity of the fish sandwich, the diner rarely saw a huge crowd.
A pile of boulders, assembled during the tenure of the original Delilah, protected the diner and the surrounding area from erosion, but each major storm threatened to wipe out the building. One day, the sea would rise up and sweep the tiny shack into the Caribbean.
When that time came, the diner would be missed, but not by many. Other than the occasional yacht and a few adventurous sailboats, the out-of-the-way island was off the world’s collective radar.
It was the type of place where a person might disappear, unnoticed, into the abandoned sugarcane fields, a place where dark deeds might go unpunished—if not altogether unspoken.
~
WINNIE SPREAD A plastic sheeting over her counter as Burt thumped the day’s catch on top. The seventy-five-pound Yellowfin tuna still twitched with life, but its fight had been spent in the water. The ragged tear at the fish’s lip evidenced the mighty struggle it had waged against the fisherman’s line.
A bulging eye blinked as Burt braced the tuna’s nearly three-foot length with his gloved hands. Squinting to judge the distance, Winnie raised her knife. The blade hovered over the counter, shining in the sunlight, before the chef’s sturdy arm flexed, bringing the knife down with a whistling slice.
The blade cut through the fish at the targeted location, severing the head from the scaly body, but the anticipated
thunk
against the cutting board was replaced by a jarring
clink
.
“What in the…” Winnie muttered, leaning over the counter.
Burt released his hold as she reached into the fish and pulled out a small metal object.
She puzzled for a moment, staring at the sparkling item that had impeded the knife. Then she looked through her window to the man sitting at the picnic table near the beach, casually sipping his rum punch.
With a grunt of realization, her eyes focused on the narrow strip of white skin at his neck.
Her expression darkened as she shifted her grip to thumb the knick in the knife blade.
“Well, doctor. This might be the last fish sandwich—for both of us.”
White Wally
WINNIE FIRST LAID eyes on the diligent dermatologist a week earlier, while picking up her children from the afternoon ferry.
She spied him on the dock with the other resort-bound arrivals, waiting for his luggage to be unloaded from the boat. Even at a distance, he stood out from the crowd—a frail umbrella-waving figure grouped with several tanned physically fit couples.
As her children clambered down the gangplank, Winnie turned to watch the curiously clad man exit the docking area. Retracting his umbrella, he climbed into the resort’s canvas-topped bus. Unattached to any female companion, he took a seat at the rear of the vehicle, adjusted his floppy canvas hat, and applied another layer of sunscreen to his face and neck.
“One of these things is not like the other,” Winnie mused as the bus rumbled off down the dirt road, carrying the lonesome dermatologist to his lodgings.
The resort typically catered to couples seeking a romantic escape. The facility had a strict ‘no children’ policy, and its vacation packages featured spa services, massages, and private dinners for two. It was rare to see guests outside the targeted demographic: late twenties to mid forties, affluent, and paired with a mate.
Shaking her head, Winnie grabbed the hand of her youngest child and resumed her slow plod back to the diner, never once imagining the events that would be triggered by the doctor’s stay on the island—and his insatiable appetite for fish sandwiches.