Fatal Reservations : A Key West Food Critic Mystery (9780698192003) Read online

  “He left a while ago in a pink taxi,” she continued. “With a little suitcase and a train case. Remember those? All the fancy ladies would carry their cosmetics and potions in a train case.” She lifted her chin at the white cat. “He called for Miss Kitty but she wouldn’t come. He sounded kind of desperate, but then the cab pulled up and he had to leave without her. I’d take her in but my pit bull would eat her for lunch.”

  Who was this woman? At first blush, she struck me as completely annoying, but if she was Lorenzo’s friend … “Miss Kitty? That’s not her name, though, is it?”

  “He called her Lola, but that seems like a big name for that little bit. I think he liked the idea of singing her all the songs with Lola in them.” She chortled and began to croon “Copacabana”: “‘Her name was Lola…’”

  “Any idea where he went?” I asked. “Or when he’ll be back?”

  She shrugged. And held up two crossed fingers. “We’re not that close.” Her eyes narrowed to watchful slits. “But I can tell you that the cops swarmed all over this block last night. He’s in some kind of hot water—that much is for sure.”

  If they weren’t close, why was she calling him by his given name? Most people didn’t know him as Marvin. And changing the name of his cat? This seemed like the kind of neighbor who might have snooped in his mailbox. Or even his trash. The kitty rubbed her jowls against my chin. “Tell him if you see him that Hayley took the cat to her houseboat? Thanks. I’m just going to go in and collect a few supplies.”

  Wishing I hadn’t felt as though I had to explain myself to her, I marched over to the back door and went inside. I closed and locked the door behind me and pulled the shade on the window so the nosy neighbor couldn’t spy on me.

  Then I scanned the kitchen for signs of cat supplies. If Lola had to move in with strange cats and humans, at least she should be able to eat something familiar. I sorted through the cabinets, looking for her food, and finally opened the door leading into a very neat pantry. Dozens of cans of Fancy Feast were arranged on a shelf to the right. I loaded half a dozen of these and a sack of dry food into a cloth grocery bag, then reached for a couple more cans. Who knew how long he’d be gone? I searched around for a cat carrier, but no luck. But the kitty was sticking close to me, so I didn’t think the transport would be a problem.

  I texted Miss Gloria. Furry company coming. Warn Evinrude and Sparky, they should trot out their best manners. After hoisting the bag of food over my shoulder, I wrapped the quivering kitty in my jacket and tucked her under the other arm. Then I went back outside, clamping down on the thoughts that were whirling in my mind so I could concentrate on getting my cargo home safely.

  6

  In the stress-reduction class I learned to go to the cake inside my mind, but these were darker days. To escape the level of stress in my house, I had to go inside a much more literal cake. I had to surround myself with cake, build a foxhole out of cake in which I could hide.

  —Jeanne Ray, Eat Cake

  While Miss Gloria fussed over the white kitten and kept our cats from rushing her, I filled her in on the police findings and Lorenzo’s subsequent disappearance.

  “His neighbor said he called for the kitten before he left. And that he looked desperate and took some luggage.”

  I pulled out my phone and texted Lorenzo again. I have Lola. Where r u?

  “The cops found a bloody knife in his stuff?” she asked.

  “Not a knife, a fork,” I said, realizing after I’d said it that “fork” sounded almost worse. Who stabbed someone to death with a fork? Someone vicious and angry and possibly crazy—that’s who. Torrence hadn’t said anything about blood, but it surely had been there.

  Then my mother phoned, and I explained the situation to her.

  “You can’t just let him rot in jail,” she said once I’d finished outlining the high—or low, really—points of the conversation.

  “Put her on speakerphone,” said Miss Gloria. “Hi, Janet!” she called, and my mother greeted her back.

  “Lorenzo isn’t in jail,” I said, working to tamp down the impatience that had crept into my voice. She had to be stir-crazy, shut in by a frigid New Jersey winter, nursing Sam. She wouldn’t be able to listen carefully under those circumstances. “I don’t know where he is.”

  “But you know what I mean,” my mother said. “Somebody has to be in his corner.”

  The irritation spiked again and I took a big breath. “We are all in his corner. But I promised Torrence that I’d stay out of trouble. And I know you would agree,” I added pointedly. “I felt okay about dropping by Lorenzo’s house, and I’m glad I’ve got the kitty, but that’s as far as I’m willing to take it.”

  Lola the kitten danced around Sparky, and he batted at her and hissed. Evinrude Halloweened up and backed away, taking refuge under the kitchen table. He crouched low, growling like a dog and watching.

  “We could just take a swing around the Sunset this evening,” said Miss Gloria. “Check out the vibe.”

  “Check out the vibe?” I asked. I could feel my eyeballs bulging.

  “Not a bad idea,” said Mom. “You could mostly listen—see what the word on the street is about last night’s meeting. And then if you recognize someone who knew Lorenzo, you could chat with them. No trouble there, right?”

  “I’m not sure Torrence would see it that way,” I said. Since when did my mother encourage me to look for trouble? But the idea was growing on me.

  “Any other problems I can help with?” Mom asked.

  “This next one isn’t really a problem,” I said. “More of an opportunity. And that is, Palamina made a reservation for four on the floating restaurant for tomorrow night. I have to fill out the table.”

  “I wish I could be there,” Mom said, her voice full of yearning. “We’re expecting another snowstorm tonight and Sam can’t go anywhere anyway.”

  “I’ve got a special mah jong game,” said Miss Gloria, “or I’d be glad to go with you.” She winked at me. “I’m the designated driver.”

  I groaned and thunked my forehead with my palm.

  “Do you suppose Palamina wanted you to invite her?” Mom asked.

  I thought back to the meeting. Had there been any hint that she was fishing for an invite? I honestly didn’t know her well enough to say.

  “And what about Wally? Add Danielle and you can make it all Key Zest all the time.”

  “That’s an idea,” I said. “But by the time Wally gets down here, I’d like to spend some time alone with him.”

  “Hot dog!” said Miss Gloria, and we all laughed.

  “Speaking of romance, how is Sam doing?” I asked.

  Mom was silent for a minute—not her usual state. “The doc wants him to walk as much as he can. But the sidewalks and the backyard are sheets of ice. So the poor man circles around and around the kitchen island and then out to the living room and back. With his walker. In his boxer shorts, because it hurts to dress.” More silence. “Oh lord, how I miss Key West.”

  *

  Around four o’clock, as we prepared to head down to Mallory Square to check out the “vibe,” we separated our resident cats from the white guest cat and put the kitten in my bedroom just to be sure there wouldn’t be any incidents while we were gone. As we left, one tiny white paw reached through the crack under my door. Laughing about how cute she was, Miss Gloria and I piled onto my scooter and headed down the island. I had managed to persuade her that there wouldn’t be parking for an oversized Buick and thus to sidestep the issue of riding shotgun with her again.

  “I’d like to walk a few blocks on Duval Street and see if the man who weaves those palm hats is around. If we wait till later, I’m afraid he’ll be fried.”

  “Drunk again,” warbled Ms. Gloria.

  “He’s an explosive personality,” I warned her, “and he could be very dangerous. So please let me do the talking.”

  On Southard Street, I parked in a small space that had been set aside for bicycles an
d scooters, and we started to walk west. The sidewalks were already busy with tourists wearing flip-flops, sundresses, and Tshirts, most of the visitors shiny and red from too much time in the sun. Under the overhang of Willie T’s bar, its ceiling papered with messages written on dollar bills, a rock band played. The crowd spilled out onto the street, drinking beer and dancing. We stopped for a minute to listen and watch the fun.

  “Mr. P and I used to come to Duval Street once a week back in the day,” said Miss Gloria, the expression on her face all nostalgic and sad. “We figured if we didn’t act old, we wouldn’t get old.”

  “It worked pretty well for you.” I squeezed her hand. “Let’s get going, okay?”

  The palm-hat weaver was sitting in a low beach chair on the sidewalk, not far from Starbucks the next block over. He had a pile of palm fronds next to him and several completed hats and bowls on display. Behind him was a rusty metal grocery cart full of more supplies and products. He was shouting at a stream of passersby, explaining about his merchandise and his reasonable prices as his fingers worked the palm fronds. When there was a break in the action, I moved closer.

  “Hi,” I said in a perky voice. “I’m Hayley and this is Miss Gloria.”

  “We would love one of those hats,” said Miss Gloria, “for this young lady’s father.”

  I glared at her—I hadn’t intended to buy anything. And my father would not—no way—be caught dead in this ugly green hat.

  “Freaking awesome,” he said, pushing the hat into Miss Gloria’s hands. “I’m Louis. These hats here are woven from only the finest coconut palm trees. I harvest them gently and legally and they cure in approximately three weeks and provide excellent protection from the sun.”

  “How much?” I asked, pointing first to the green pith helmet and then to a smaller basket, hoping one of them wouldn’t break the bank. And feeling a bit like a cop who had to pay his snitch.

  “Thirty-five for the hat and twenty-five for the basket. Fifty for the both.”

  “We’ll take one of each,” piped up Miss Gloria. “And while you’re wrapping those, we would like to extend our condolences on the loss of Bart Frontgate.”

  He looked up, surprised, and grunted his thanks. “Though truth is, we weren’t more than working acquaintances.” He scratched his stomach through a gap between his shirt buttons and then placed the hat and the bowl into a rumpled plastic bag with a CVS logo on it. “Still, he was one of us. And he put a hell of a lot into making things run smooth.”

  “What’s happening with the group managing the Sunset Celebration now?” I asked. “We thought we might have seen you at the commission meeting last night.”

  He twirled a finger around next to his ear. “Loco,” he said. “That crap has all gone further than it should. I tried to take a leadership role, but apparently I wasn’t leader material. Or so thought our precious fortune-teller.”

  He guffawed, releasing a gust of alcohol-laced air. “Apparently he didn’t see me in his cards. But that isn’t working out so well for him now, is it?” He leered and thrust the sack of hideous woven items at Miss G.

  I handed over the last of my cash. Then I took Miss Gloria by the elbow and steered her down the street toward the Westin pier. She perched the green palm hat on her head, though it was large enough that it fell over her forehead and just caught on her ears. She could hardly see from under it.

  “So what did we get from that conversation?” asked Miss Gloria. “Besides this attractive hat.” She giggled and shifted it to a rakish angle. “Your father’s going to go bananas for this.”

  “And let’s don’t forget the lovely bowl that set me back another twenty-five bucks. I can’t think of a thing I would serve in it.” I put the bowl on my head and we both snickered.

  “What I learned,” said Miss Gloria, returning our woven purchases to the plastic bag, “was there was no love lost between him and Lorenzo. Everyone knows that Lorenzo drags his stuff to Sunset in that cart hooked up to his bike. So if our weaver had a reason to get rid of Mr. Frontgate but wanted to shift the blame on someone else, it wouldn’t have been much of a stretch for him to see Lorenzo’s cart, grab the tablecloth, and wrap the murder weapon in it. And then dump it where he could be sure someone would find it.”

  I stopped on the crosswalk in front of the redbrick Custom House Museum and squinted down at her. “I haven’t heard that they’re looking for new detectives at the KWPD, but I’ll keep my ears open. You’d be a shoo-in.” I took her elbow again. “Although planting a bloody implement seems so obvious and cruel. And risky, too. He’d have to have a big grudge against Lorenzo, right?”

  “Lorenzo,” she said, “is like that perfect nerd from high school. The one who made all A’s and also ran the yearbook or the school newspaper. Maybe ran for treasurer of student council too. Someone who didn’t have his you-know-what together could easily resent him.”

  “Point taken,” I said. “Though if the man was killed down by Tarpon Pier—and that’s a big if—where was Lorenzo’s cart? Wouldn’t it have been at his house that time of night? Where would the murderer find the cart? There are just too many questions we don’t have answers to.”

  Around us, the crowd thickened as the time approached for people to abandon their Duval Street barstools and stumble, stagger, and weave toward the entertainers on Mallory Square. We fell in with the tide.

  The first performer we passed was Dominique, dubbed the Cat Man of Key West, who had probably been performing his act longer than most of the other entertainers. And he was also arguably the most popular. A slender man in capri pants, cat kneesocks, and a white Farrah Fawcett hairdo, Dominique charmed the customers who flocked to Mallory Square with a faux French accent and a stable of trained house cats.

  Eight cages of cats had already been unloaded with their backs facing the water and the sunset. He was setting up several padded stools and ladders and a tightrope that his cats would scramble across during the show. A cluster of tourists was pawing through the boxes of Cat Man merchandise for sale—Tshirts, socks, and postcards.

  “We’d better chat with him later,” I said to Miss Gloria. “He’s got his paws full.”

  Both of us grinning, we continued along the water and crossed the small bridge in front of the aquarium that led to Mallory Square proper. Vendors selling jewelry, artwork, and other Florida-related paraphernalia were laying out their wares on card tables. A trolley car set up as a bar was doing a brisk business in beer and mojitos. Now the humid sea air was thick with the scent of hot grease wafting from stations offering fried conch fritters, hot dogs, and popcorn. I could almost feel the oil settling on my skin.

  Further along on the pavement, performing grids had been marked off on the cement with heavy black ropes. The best location in the entire square—front and center, looking across the water to Sunset Key—was empty, except for piles of flowers and cards and stuffed animals. The place where Bart Frontgate would have been juggling his barbecue implements had been turned into an impromptu shrine. We moved a few steps closer to study the memorial.

  We love you, Bart! one note read, written in red crayon and tied around the neck of a blue rabbit.

  Another letter, nestled among some droopy green carnations, featured a stick-figure drawing of a man on a high wire holding several enormous forks, with a gold halo hovering over his head. Juggling in Heaven, the caption read.

  This I very much doubted.

  I spotted three men chatting underneath a palm tree twenty yards away; one of them I recognized as my homeless friend, Tony. I hadn’t seen him around in several weeks and I had begun to wonder whether he’d moved on from Key West. Maybe found a less expensive town where the cops didn’t know him well enough to hassle him. Sometimes he was happy to see me, other times not so much. But it seemed worth a try to see what he knew.

  “Good evening, everyone,” I said in a cheerful voice. I prodded Miss Gloria ahead of me toward Tony. “I’m not sure if you ever met my roommate, Miss Gloria.” />
  She thrust her tiny hand out to him and he shifted his beer bottle from his right hand to his left. He grasped her fingers and then removed his battered cowboy hat and bowed.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, young lady,” he said. He gestured to the other two men, who had grizzled faces and looked to be in their early twenties. They were dressed in shabby pirate costumes. “Couple of my pals here,” he added. “There’s no need to learn their names, because their act sucks, so I doubt they’ll be around much longer.”

  He cackled with laughter. The other men grunted and barely smiled.

  “Are you performing tonight?” asked Miss Gloria of the closer pirate.

  “That’s the plan,” he said. “Although the spot we were assigned stinks to high hell. The only traffic we’ll get is tourists looking for the damn restroom. I was just asking Tony here whether we might use Mr. Frontgate’s square since he sure ain’t gonna be performing.”

  Leave it to Tony to act like he was in charge of the performers’ grid, when I doubted he had anything to do with it. But on the other hand, with all the time he spent observing from the sidelines, he knew plenty about what happened on this island. And even if he had a low database of factual information on a topic, he never lacked confidence in his own opinions.

  I squeezed Miss Gloria’s arm just above the elbow, hoping she’d get the message to allow the man to talk. In my experience, pressing Tony for information didn’t work nearly as well as cutting the lead loose and letting him run.

  Tony set his beer on the curb and lit up a cigarette. “And as I was explaining to you before these lovely ladies stopped by, spaces are assigned according to how long you’ve been around. Mr. Frontgate, for example, had been here since the Dark Ages. You, on the other hand, washed in with the latest tide. And your act stinks like that, too.”