I drove the last few blocks, parked the scooter behind Preferred Properties Real Estate, and trotted up the stairs to our second-floor office. Through the clouded glass door, I could see the shadow of Danielle at the desk and hear the low rumble of voices from Wally’s office. I brushed my fingers over my curls, squared my shoulders, and walked in.
“Good morning,” said Danielle in a cheery voice, all while making a terrible face and pointing to Wally’s office. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “The dreaded Ava is in session. With the investors. Did Wally tell you to come?”
I nodded. “What’s going on?”
She shrugged. “Negotiations of some kind. He didn’t want to tell me anything, at least not with her hanging over his shoulder.” She dropped her voice even lower. “I took the liberty of doing a little research.” She shoved a piece of white paper covered with block letters across the desk. Did you know that Ava went to school with Palamina?
“She told me that,” I whispered. “Not Ava. Palamina. Ava wouldn’t share information with me if we were the last two rats on a sinking ship.”
Danielle laughed out loud, then clapped her hand over her mouth. But it was too late. The meeting had been interrupted by our hilarity. Wally stuck his head out of the office.
“What’s so funny?”
“Just girl talk,” Danielle said. “Hayley came in to catch up on some reviews. I was getting some snacks together for our guests.” She gestured toward a white platter that held a selection of cookies. Honest to god, they looked like Double Stuf Oreos, Chips Deluxe Chocolate Lovers cookies, and store-brand caramel coconut Tim Tam knockoffs. Okay, we don’t do cookies out of a package in this office—too much fat and sugar and not enough pleasure, except in a major emergency. This would count.
“Keep it down out there,” Wally said, adding a pained smile. He turned back to his office and Danielle stood, preparing to follow him with the cookies.
“Store-bought?” I mouthed to Danielle, pointing at the trans-fat-laden orbs.
She raised her eyebrows and giggled.
“Hayley,” Wally called over his shoulder, “would you mind joining us in fifteen minutes or so?”
I hurried down the hall to my writing nook and spent the next fifteen minutes desperately trying to concentrate on the edits Wally had returned on the review of Latitudes, where I’d eaten with my family days earlier. It was hard to push away the memory of Edel’s despair, that night when she heard that her precious new restaurant was burning.
I tweaked my lead-in paragraph, which was all about the setting: the short ride across the harbor to Sunset Key on the private people ferry, the palm trees wrapped in Christmas lights, the flickering torches lining the path that lead to the restaurant, the aura of wealth and privilege. Then I moved on to the amazing, spicy, condiment-laden Bloody Mary—thinking I could use one of them before facing Ava.
I had just begun to polish the description of the French onion soup, which I remembered as delicious though perhaps not remarkable, and the coconut-encrusted Key West pink shrimp, when Wally’s voice echoed down the hallway.
“Hayley, could you join us?”
I swiped at the beads of sweat that had popped up across my upper lip and leaped up, slamming my knee against the desk on my way.
“Crap!” I hissed. And limped down the hall to Wally’s office. I paused for a moment outside his door, practiced a grin that I hoped wasn’t sickly, and stepped inside.
Wally said, “Of course you know Ava and Palamina and Marcus Baker. Hayley is our crackerjack staff writer. Have a seat,” he said, “and please help yourself to Danielle’s snacks.”
The last thing I wanted was one of those cookies—it would sit leaden in my stomach, oozing sugar and preservatives. But I reached for one, anyway, so as not to appear snobbish or ungrateful. Wally flashed a smile, tight as the rubber band around a bouquet of broccoli.
“We’re brainstorming ideas for the new Key Zest formula,” he said. “Marcus was wondering what kind of readership we have for the restaurant reviews. How many hits and particularly comments have you noticed?”
Marcus leaned forward, palms on his knees. “We’re wondering how often your reviews start a conversation. If we are to be involved in the new iteration of the magazine, it’s important that we have a way for readers to speak to us. That they feel like we’re inviting them to respond to what we write. It’s very easy for writers to become solipsistic.”
“Oh so easy,” said Ava.
I cleared my throat, forcing myself to keep my gaze pinned on Marcus, away from Ava’s prune-lipped grimace. Sweat ran in runnels down my spine and I knew my face must have reddened. The Jersey tomato look, my father used to joke when my mother or I got mad and he wanted to defuse our fury. His ploy never worked.
“I would like to think my readers always feel part of the conversation,” I said. “I can’t tell you how many people stop me on the streets to thank me for my opinions. My theory on being a restaurant critic is that I spend my money testing food so they don’t have to waste theirs.” I turned to Wally. “We have comments enabled on the blog already, don’t we?”
“It’s not simply a matter of enabling comments,” said Marcus. “Periodicals that are successful these days are those that manage to develop a community around their product. So there should be an entire program of social media in place—a Facebook page, of course, for those trapped in the Stone Age.”
We all laughed, though at Key Zest we relied heavily on Facebook to drive traffic. Or at least we thought we were driving traffic. Or we hoped. We’d certainly noticed fewer hits and more requests for post-boosting expenditures over the past year.
“And a Twitter feed,” said Palamina. “But you need to be a foodie and style leader, not just tweeting your own links. You can hold chats and develop your Google+ platform and Instagram, too. With teasers to your lead articles.”
“Pinterest, definitely,” said Marcus. “With some group boards. And Tumblr, maybe down the road.”
Palamina turned to look at me, her expressive, birdlike face drenched with sympathy. “You see,” she said, “our sense of Key Zest is that it needs a complete structural overhaul, not just a few cosmetic tweaks. If we are to invest in the organization, we don’t believe it will work to apply plaster to the cracks to disguise the weaknesses. We would propose taking apart the pieces of the structure that are faulty and rebuilding for the future. That, of course, will involve cost cutting, along with really sharpening the focus.”
“And, as Marcus said, figuring out the way to get the readers dedicated and involved,” Wally added.
“This also calls for a paid advertising program with food establishments in this town,” Ava inserted. “If the restaurants have paid for ads, they are by definition invested in our magazine.”
I bit the inside of my cheek, trying hard not to snap at her. She had brought up this possibility four or five times over the past year and each and every time it sounded dreadful. I waited for a moment to see if Wally would respond to her. But either he had lost his concentration or he had changed his mind and gone over to the dark side.
“May I say something in response?” I said, horrified that my voice squeaked as the words came out. “It seems as though once you get restaurants paying to be featured or mentioned in the magazine, in exchange you have an obligation for a certain kind of review or coverage. The truth is sacrificed along the way. It’s hard for me to be comfortable with that.”
Ava put her hands out, palms facing to the ceiling, looking at the faces of Wally and the two investors. “You see what I’m trying to say. Our staff doesn’t think big picture. They think about the small square inch of work directly in front of them and their own little niggling concerns. Very difficult to run a thriving business like that.”
“You mean difficult to run a business with morals?” I snapped. Then I stood up and marched out.
24
I wouldn’t feed you anything that would kill you. Just eat it and qui
t complaining!
—Dr. Kiel Christianson to his children
I collected my belongings from my office, blew past Danielle without explanation, and stormed out of the office. Most likely she would have heard the entire conversation, anyway—the walls are mandoline thin. And the volume had been ramped up pretty close to shouting by the time I finished. In my dreams, I might have wished that Wally would run after me, insisting that I had been right all along and that he’d ejected Ava for good—she was now out of the picture. The reality was different. I needed to suck it up and realize that this job was history. Possibly I could find another job related to food writing. Not likely I’d land another gig as a food critic, the position I’d dreamed about all of my short working life. But lots of people did lots of things that might not have been their first choice in order to stay on this island. I could do the same.
Assuming that I wanted to stay on the island, with or without Wally. My heart started to beat faster and I felt my stomach pitch and roil. I needed to focus on something else or I would go mad. I yanked the phone from my backpack and started making calls. First one to Edel.
“It’s Hayley,” I said after the beep at the end of her message. “Just wanted to confirm that I will be back by five and ready to help in any way you can use me. But call me if there’s any news on the fire or Juan Carlos’s death, okay?” I hung up and dialed Officer Torrence. He didn’t answer, either.
“Is there any news on the fire or the murder or the arson or the shooting? Are the police doing anything about any of this?” I took a breath. “Sorry,” I added. “I know that isn’t fair. I’m having a really lousy day. Call me when you get a chance?”
I got back on my scooter and buzzed down Southard Street past the Truman Annex gatehouse and left to Fort Zachary Taylor Beach. I needed to pull myself together before I talked to any other living being. After paying my token entry fee, I drove the half mile to the farthest beach, heading to the point where cruise ships make their turns into the channel leading to Key West. I left my scooter near the bicycle racks and trudged out to the beach.
As it was still early in the day, families gathered in town for the holidays had not yet arrived to spend hours baking in the sun. I took off my sandals and walked along the water. As I calmed down, I began to notice the line of Jet Skis bouncing along the horizon. And the waves crashing against the rocks a couple hundred feet off the beach. I’d heard that the snorkeling around them was amazing—my friends had reported seeing schools of colored fish darting through the water. I swore to myself that I’d get some goggles and go exploring in the New Year.
As my heart and pulse rates slowed, I forged a semblance of a plan. I texted Torrence and told him I would be coming by with a sandwich around one to apologize and chat. “Sandwich” would probably get his attention, though, in hindsight, “chocolate” would have been a surer bet. Then I tried to focus on exactly the questions for which I needed answers. Who had shot at me and why? That one I had a personal stake in. Who had set fire to Edel’s restaurant? Why was Edel’s ex-husband in her storage shed the night of the fire? Who was trying to sabotage her food? Was Edel having difficulty following the city’s rules and regulations? Was she having conflict with her neighbors? And which of her employees—if any—might have wanted to see her fail? And was there anything I could do to save my job?
Once I’d ordered two Cuban mix sandwiches with extra pickles and BBQ chips from Coles Peace for pickup at noon, I perched on a picnic table under some trees a little ways from the beach. I started my search by Googling Ava Faulkner’s name, grasping for anything that would help rescue my spot at Key Zest. I assumed she had not changed her surname, as this had also been the given name of her sister, Kristin, who had tragically died not long after I’d come to town. But that was a whole other story. Remembering that Palamina had told me that Ava and she went to college together at Columbia University, I began to Google their two names in tandem. The only connection I discovered was the mention of a sorority gala coordinated by Palamina Wells and Ava Faulkner. At least my trail was slightly warm. I could imagine the havoc Ava must have wreaked among her sorority sisters.
Then I started searching through the magazines for which Palamina had worked. On the masthead of a short-lived fashion magazine, I found the names of Palamina and Ava as staff assistants. But four names down from theirs was another I recognized: Edel Waugh. Bizarre. So Ava had to have known Edel years ago. Did she dislike her former colleague back then as much as she did now? I wondered if I could get Palamina to talk. Probably not. However, it did seem worth warning Wally about the connection. I hated to watch Key Zest take a direction that was based on Ava’s grudges.
Wally answered his phone on the first ring. “I only have a minute,” he said brusquely. “Still in a meeting.”
“Understood,” I said. “I thought you should know that Ava, Palamina, and Edel all worked on the same magazine in New York some years ago.”
“And that’s important because?”
“Because she seems to have you in a headlock and that’s okay if it’s really good for you and Key Zest, but what if she’s making decisions based on old grudges rather than what’s truly right for your magazine? I’m not so sure you’re seeing everything so clearly right now. With your mom being sick and the investors waving money in front of your nose—” I stopped, gulping back the tears that took me by surprise. “You’re vulnerable right now, that’s all I’m saying. Be careful.”
“I’ll do that,” he said, still formal and cool. “Thanks for the suggestion.” The connection was severed. Probably in more ways than one. I blotted my face dry on my sleeve and headed off to get the sandwiches.
25
When I’m dead worn-out, in a reverie, I often think that when it comes time to die, I want to breathe my last in a kitchen.
—Banana Yoshimoto, Kitchen
On the way back from the beach to the parking lot where I’d left my scooter, my phone rang—a call from my stepmother, Allison. Retracing my steps to a bench in the shade of some tall fir trees, I accepted the call. I hadn’t spoken with her in a while so I might as well catch up now.
“Hayley, we haven’t heard from you in forever,” she said, sounding cheerful rather than accusatory, but a little concerned. “And usually that means you’re either crazy busy or crazy worried, but don’t want to bother us with the details.”
“You know me too well,” I said with a laugh. “How about both at once?” We’d grown a lot closer since the events surrounding Connie’s wedding last spring. She gave me credit for persuading her ex to allow my stepbrother to live with my father and her this year, rather than be shipped off to a military academy. “How’s Rory doing?”
“Absolutely thriving,” she said. “He can hardly be bothered to sulk like a normal teenager. He just finished up with the cross-country season. For a kid without much experience in athletics, he did really well. And it even looks like he may be elected one of the captains. And his grades are all B or better.”
“Wonderful,” I said, really meaning it.
“Now you,” she said. “Tell me the worried part. I can picture the busy. How’s it working out to have your mom down there?”
I heaved a big sigh. “It’s all fine. She’s very busy, too, helping Jennifer with a million catering gigs.” I paused. This wasn’t really my story to tell, but Allison knew the players and might have some insight. “Can I trust you with a secret? No telling Dad.”
“Of course,” she said, adding a laugh. “His information is doled out on a need-to-know basis.”
“Sam proposed,” I told her. “In front of an entire dinner party.”
“That was bold. And she said?”
“Nothing. She said nothing.”
“Hmm,” said Allison. “Can I be honest? She hasn’t dated anyone else since the divorce, right?”
“Not worth mentioning.” Not that I knew of. But her adventures on Match.com, where she’d met Sam, had all been a cold shock to me. Who
knew how many dates she’d gone on before finding him?
“She’s über-cautious when it comes to men,” Allison said. “Maybe she’s got a psychological block against considering a happy relationship. Maybe the idea is too scary.”
I couldn’t help defending my mother. “She planned on her marriage to Dad lasting forever.” Not that my parents’ divorce had anything to do with Allison.
“I meant no criticism, just observation.” Allison waited, then added, “A little bit like you, wouldn’t you say? Or you’re like her. She’ll get around to it when she’s ready. He’s a lovely man; it would be a shame to cut him loose. Some other single woman would snatch him up.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Exactly.”
“And how’s Wally?”
“Deep in talks with investors who are interested in butting into Key Zest. Ava’s behind it, of course. I’m not sure how long I’ll even have the job, never mind the boyfriend.” My voice caught in an embarrassing hitch. I tried to cover that up by segueing into the story about Edel and her ex, and the terrible, deadly fire. I described her staff and her fierce insistence on becoming a foodie star in the Key West scene, in spite of the very recent tragedy. “I don’t believe she was involved in the fire, but the cops haven’t come up with another good suspect.”
“So, you’re writing a piece on the restaurant?”
“I was. Until the fire and the death and the complications at Key Zest. What happened to Edel and her ex-husband was so sad. Their New York restaurant had been a raging success, but she pulled out after his very public betrayal.” I explained more about the Page Six story.
“Was she angry enough to kill him?”
“I hate to think the worst of her, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t so.” A heavy wave of sadness washed over me. Did most marriages end in disaster? Change the subject, Hayley.
“What do you have planned for Christmas?” I got up from the bench and started to walk toward the parking lot as she began to tell me about their holiday plans with her sisters. “Sounds like fun. I’ll miss you guys. Right now I have to go. I’m headed over to the police station. Maybe if I dangle a Cuban mix in front of Lieutenant Torrence, he’ll tell me what they’ve learned.”
Death With All the Trimmings: A Key West Food Critic Mystery Page 18
