Topped Chef A Key West Food Critic Mystery (21 page)

This was exactly the warning that Torrence had given me about the killer. “What kind of man is he?” I asked. “Your husband, I mean.”

“Was he,” she corrected. She began to tick his characteristics off on her fingers. “He was a strong personality, brilliant in business and tireless in bed. Unfortunately, as you probably overheard, I was not the only recipient of those gifts. He wanted what he
wanted and he didn’t mind lying or cheating to get it.”

“I’m so sorry. I had a boyfriend like that,” I added. Those few months with Chad were of course nothing compared to a long-term marriage where you’d promised in front of God and all your relatives to hold each other gently for life. And then gotten drop-kicked from heaven to hell when the rat bastard let you down. I’d felt shocked and outraged and embarrassed and furious—hard to imagine how she was coping. Hard to figure what was real in the façade she was showing, and what wasn’t.

“Does the name Buddy Higgs mean anything to you? He’s another one of the TV show contestants.”

I could have sworn her lips twitched, but she pulled them tight and answered: “Don’t know him.” She shook her head and gulped another swig of water. “Thinking back, I can’t imagine why that producer even asked Sam to judge food. Sure he owned restaurants and he loved hanging out at the bar and feeling like the big cheese, but he was no foodie. If I served him something new, he poked at it like I was trying to poison him. So you see he wasn’t altogether crazy.” She grinned. “More than once he asked to order off the kids’ menu—that’s what he was like when it came to food.”

Then her eyes widened until they looked like two dinner plates—like my mother’s Burleigh china, with all its shifting shades of blue. “Hayley Snow. You’re the one who slammed Just Off Duval. He was soooooo angry. The food isn’t that bad, is it?”

I lifted one shoulder and faked a smile. “I felt like I
had to be honest about my experience. And I swear I gave it three tries…because I hate writing negative things about someone’s restaurant. I go in hoping I can give a good report. That’s the fun part of the job, spreading the word about great meals.” I was babbling and she wasn’t even cracking a smile.

My bicycle beeped, signaling that the fifteen minutes I’d programmed were up. According to the computerized display, I’d consumed fifty-six calories in this aerobic segment of my workout. Not even enough to counter a single café con leche.

“He was gunning for you, dear. You should be grateful that he’s dead.”

Mrs. Rizzoli tipped her chin and stepped off her machine, leaving me in a pool of guilt-ridden sweat. I knew writing negative reviews would hurt people’s feelings, but I didn’t expect they’d make someone want to kill me.

She banged into the TRX machine on the way out, leaving its pulleys and levers swinging like the rigging of a sailboat.

18

You’re better off peeling potatoes at a great kitchen than working saucier at a really mediocre place.

—David Chang

As I struggled off the scooter at Tarpon Pier, every muscle screaming, a text message came in from Peter Shapiro instructing the staff, chefs, and judges to gather at the Studios of Key West at two p.m. He planned to tape pick-up interviews to fill in slow spots in the show, which were many, according to Peter. Apparently he had no intention of closing the show down just because of one gut-sick fan.

Then I scrolled through my e-mail. I was reading a note from Mom about a new catering gig she’d landed and how much she wished I was there to act as sous-chef, when my psychologist pal Eric called.

“Just checking in,” he said. “How are things going?”

“I’ve been dying to talk to you, but I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of your vacation,” I said, feeling
ridiculously relieved to hear his voice. I took a seat on the bench outside the laundry room at the head of the dock.

I needed to hash things over with someone, but I refused to worry Miss Gloria with every gory detail. And Connie’s life was so hectic these days, between her business and the wedding. Mom would have been happy to listen, but I try not to tell her everything. Not because she wouldn’t take my side, but more because she’d take it so definitely. And once my side was taken by my mother, there was no room for going back. Chad, for example, was doomed for life once Mom found out I’d discovered him in bed with another woman. She was a mother hen and I will still be her chick fifty years from now when we’re sharing a suite in an assisted living facility.

“We’re finding vacation to be a little boring.” Eric laughed. “We may even come home early. What’s new down there?”

“What isn’t new?” I hated to dump everything on him at once—he didn’t know about the
Topped Chef
contest, Rizzoli’s hanging, or all the events that had unfolded after. I’d have to ease him into it. “You’ll never guess where I just came from.”

“The police department? The county jail? Detective Bransford’s yacht?”

“Very funny,” I said. “None of the above. The gym. My first personal training session.”

After he’d squawked in disbelief and feigned admiration, I admitted how I’d really made the appointment hoping to learn something about Rizzoli’s murder. And then I summarized the hanging, Toby’s near-drowning,
and the disaster at the Mallory Square cook-off. Eric was pretty much speechless by the time I finished.

“So someone strung him up wearing pirate drag?” he asked. “Why in the world was he left like that?”

“Torrence asked the same thing. And Bransford, too. Randy Thompson thinks the killer was pointing to the drag queen community.” I sighed. “Whoever did this was ruthless, and maybe crazy.”

“And terribly angry,” Eric said. “You need to keep your distance.”

I sighed again and stretched out on the wooden bench, breathing a mixture of salty harbor air and dryer vent odors. “I’m in the thick of it, ready or not.”

“What did Mrs. Rizzoli say?”

“She’s a funny person. She was telling her friend how her husband cheated on her, yet at the same time he seemed to want her sympathy. And she says she gave it to him.”

“You don’t believe her?”

A couple of seagulls landed near the trash can and began to squabble over a partially eaten sandwich. “Maybe. But why would any woman be solicitous after her husband tells her he’s having an affair? Why wasn’t she furious?”

“Makes a good story though, doesn’t it?” Eric mused. “Especially when the cops are nosing around looking for murder motives. Gets her off the hook, right? Speaking of cops, what’s happening with Bransford?”

I covered my eyes with one hand and groaned, then drew my knees up to my chest to ease the strain in my back. There had been a lot going on over the past few
days and I was feeling it settle hard in my sacrum. “We’ve ground to a halt. His ex has arrived in town and they looked very cozy.”

“Sorry about that,” he said, not even asking for the gory details.

“You never did like him much, did you?”

“I tried,” said Eric, “because you liked him. From a friend’s point of view, I couldn’t help finding him standoffish and condescending. Hang on, I’ll be right there,” he said to someone talking to him. “Listen, Bill’s calling me to get moving. I think we’ll be back day after tomorrow. But call me if you need me. For anything, okay?”

I hung up feeling slightly less lonely, but utterly disappointed in Bransford. I knew Eric wasn’t crazy about him, but it still stung to hear the unvarnished truth. Shoving that thought away, I turned back to mulling over what I’d heard from Rizzoli’s wife. Just how angry was she at her husband?

I had plenty of time before I had to shower and dress to return to the Studios of Key West, so I decided to run back over to the old harbor. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered how in the world Rizzoli had been hoisted up into the rigging without anyone noticing. And who’d finally seen him and called it in? I hadn’t heard anything about that. Two days after the murder and there were still no leads? That was hard to believe.

Quite possibly the two guys I’d talked with at the harbor—Turtle and Derek—had not told me their whole story. And if they hadn’t told me, they certainly wouldn’t have told the cops. Derek just on principle,
because the cops were authorities and he’d come to this island to shed as much big-brother baggage as possible. And Turtle because he hadn’t had a good interaction with the police the whole six months he’d lived on the island. And probably a long time before that.

What else might they have noticed—and held back?

Muscles complaining, I struggled back onto my scooter, buzzed across town, and parked it at the rear of the Schooner Wharf Bar. My body was starting to scream for caffeine and calories, so I trotted over to what used to be called the European Village Cafe, now Key West Munchies, next to Kermit’s Key Lime Shop. A cute young man with a Russian accent took my order for a café con leche, extra sugar. While the milk steamed and the TV chattered in Russian, my stomach began a serious rumble. Telling myself I’d been planning to review this place anyway, I added two Cuban sandwiches to my order, one for me and one for Turtle in case I found him.

“That was an awful tragedy the other night,” I said, when the young man delivered my coffee to the shelf separating his little kitchen from the outdoors.

“Terrible,” he said, as he began to pile ham, roast pork, Swiss cheese, and pickles on loaves of Cuban-style bread. “I’m glad I wasn’t here to see it.” He slathered mustard over the top of the bread, closed up the sandwiches, and weighted them down on his grill. The cheese melted down the sides and sizzled on the hot metal. I tried not to drool on the counter.

“Any word on who did it?” I asked, thinking he must see and hear a lot from his little window on the seaport.

He rubbed his chin and looked out across the horizon, over my head. “They’ve gone door to door interviewing at the shops and restaurants that were open that evening. They even had Navy Seal scuba divers come in to search the harbor bottom around the boat. There’s so much garbage down there, I doubt they could tell what might have been new.” He pulled a rag from a sink full of soapy water and wiped his counters down. “That was a low trick to hang a man on his own boat.”

“The boat definitely belonged to Rizzoli?”

He nodded and threw the rag back into the sink. After drying his hands on his apron, he flipped the sandwiches. “Can’t say how often he actually sailed, but the guy who does my deliveries said he stayed aboard fairly often.” He grinned. “Probably the nights his wife was mad at him. Or when he planned to party harder than she approved.”

As I started to cross the street with my loot, an orange and green trolley rattled around the corner. A man dressed in chef’s hat and clothing burst out of Kermit’s Key Lime Shop and pretended to throw the pie at the tourists on the bus. I estimated that he performed this stunt ten times a day, but he acted as if this was the first time he’d thought of it. I detoured around the back of the trolley and settled on a bench overlooking the bight, thinking about a slice of key lime pie for dessert. Or frozen pie on a stick, dipped in chocolate. How many push-ups would it take to counteract those calories?

I sat with my face tipped to the sun until I couldn’t wait another second to dive into the lunch. Maybe Turtle would smell the roasted pork and come out of hiding.
But I made it all the way through my sandwich, washed it down with the sweet, thick coffee, and there was no sign of him.

I strolled past the bar at the Conch Republic Seafood Market, passing the slips that held charter fishing boats, most of which were empty for the day. Then I came to the sign that read
TARPON FEEDING 4 P.M.
, which reminded me that I needed to take more advantage of the quirky things that made this island so endearing. In front of the A & B Lobster House, I finally had a decent view of Sam Rizzoli’s sailboat. A piece of yellow crime-scene tape was still strung across the stern; a loose end fluttered in the breeze. Standing on the dock and looking up at the restaurant, I tried to imagine whether diners would have been able to see Rizzoli’s body as it was hoisted up the rigging. Maybe not, if it was dark outside and light in the restaurant. The death had been all over the front page of the
Key West Citizen
for several days running. Wouldn’t someone have come forward?

A little farther, around the corner, at the end of Front Street, a homeless woman named Elsa was sitting in the dappled shade of a royal poinciana tree. I’d seen her many mornings as she wandered the island on a three-wheeler bike, with its rusty wire baskets stuffed with her belongings. A gray tiger kitten with muted stripes that reminded me of Evinrude ribboned through her legs, batting at the ragged hem of her blue skirt. She had laid out a tiny bowl of kibbles and another of water in the shade beside her.

“Morning,” I said. “That kitty is so cute! What’s his name?”

“I was thinkin’ of Cloudy. Or Stormy. Or Foggy. Or Whisper,” she answered, her weathered face creasing into a wide smile. “I’m havin’ some trouble deciding.”

She hooted out a peal of laughter and I laughed along with her. “You need a whole litter of kittens to use up all those good names.”

“Yep. Right now, I’m calling him Cat.”

“That works.” I crouched down to their level and wiggled my fingers until the kitten pounced. After wrestling with him for a few minutes, his sharp white teeth pricking my hand, I smiled again at Elsa. “Are you okay on cat food?” She wasn’t the kind who’d take a handout easily, but I figured showing concern about the cat was something else.

“For now,” she said.

I left it at that, not wanting to push about whether he’d had his shots or flea medicine. Maybe next time I saw them, I’d tell her there was a program that paid for veterinary care. Me.

“I was looking for Turtle. I bought an extra sandwich, thinking he might enjoy it.”

Her smile in return flickered and then dimmed to a worried frown. “Haven’t seen him since early this morning,” she said. “He was across the harbor real early.” She waved a hand in the direction of the dock where the Sebago party boats were tied up each night. “Seemed like he was having a fight with another man. Shouting and going on the way he does when he stops takin’ his meds. That’s the last I saw of him. Honest to god, I’m a little worried.”