There was a pause on the line.
“You forgot to mention this?” Torrence asked.
“Sort of,” I said, feeling a little sick to my stomach. In my urge to protect Derek’s privacy and his smartphone, had I put Turtle in danger?
“Anything else?” he asked.
I hesitated, but then spilled the details of the visit I’d made last night to Mrs. Rizzoli, and her admission that she’d been involved with Buddy Higgs.
“Thanks for letting me know,” he said.
Which sounded like a perfectly nice thing to say, only the way he emphasized “letting me know” made it clear he was annoyed.
“I would appreciate it if you’d leave any further interviews to me.”
“Sorry,” I said. I hesitated, but decided it wouldn’t hurt to ask. “Has there been any progress on the case? Anything you can tell me, I mean?”
Torrence sighed loudly, then said: “The preliminary report on Mr. Rizzoli’s autopsy is in. It appears that he didn’t die from hanging. He was killed by a blow from a blunt instrument, then dressed and made up, and then hoisted up into the rigging.”
“Someone put makeup on him after they killed him? That’s sick.”
“That’s the working theory. Not that any of it should have any bearing on your activities,” he warned. “I’m only telling you that because you’re morbidly curious and I figured you’d badger me until I gave up something. Chances are it’ll be in the paper tomorrow anyway.”
24
The amateurs are not going away, which restaurateurs once might have hoped, and they are making chefs nervous.
—Ike DeLorenzo
A wealthy Venezuelan man and his third wife had donated the use of their home for the final leg of the Topped Chef competition. Only blocks from Mrs. Rizzoli’s house on Washington Street, this place was twice as opulent and showy. Key West is known for tiny yards and adorable conch homes decorated with gingerbread trim and inviting front porches. But Juan Pisani had chosen to design and build a white stucco monstrosity surrounded by a black metal fence and elaborate plantings.
A card table had been set up on the porch outside the door underneath an enormous portico. Two volunteers in red shirts with TOPPED CHEF KEY WEST logos printed on them asked for my name and driver’s license. Behind them, just inside the foyer, a uniformed cop waited, partially hidden by the largest indoor ficus tree I’d ever seen.
“Got your A-team security here today,” I said with a chuckle as I handed over my license.
The volunteer studied my license and then pushed it back to me. “That’s right.” No return smile. She gave me a badge and explained that I was to wear it at all times while on the premises. Serious business.
I entered the house, gawking shamelessly at the leather and brass bar in the foyer and after that the expansive living room filled with leather furniture and African artwork. Nothing subtle about any of it. The ceilings swept up through two full floors and some of the potted palms reached three-quarters of the way to the top. Deena hurried past me as I was trying to decipher the meaning of a twisted metal sculpture. I tapped her arm and she whirled around to face me.
“Oh, it’s you.” She clapped a hand to her chest. “You startled me.” She looked me up and down and tweaked the fake pearls I’d put on to dress up my sleeveless black shift. “You clean up nice.”
“Thanks. Hey, I have some really good news,” I said. “The woman who took sick at the Mallory Square taste-off? Turns out she was allergic to star fruit. So nobody poisoned anybody.” I grinned but my cheer ebbed away when I saw the worry in her expression and a sheen of sweat gathering on her upper lip. This on a woman who considered perspiration a cardinal sin.
“What’s wrong?”
She glanced around the room and then beckoned for me to follow her into a small office adjacent to the living area. Once inside, she slid the mahogany pocket doors closed behind me and straightened the faux zebra-striped rug with her foot. “There’s been a threat against the show.”
“A threat? Good lord, what kind of threat?”
She held a finger to her lips. “We need to keep this quiet if we don’t want mass hysteria. But someone slipped a note under Peter’s door at his bed-and-breakfast during the night. The police have it now.”
“What did it say?” I hugged my arms around my torso, feeling suddenly chilled rather than pleasantly cool, as I had when I entered this palace.
“It looked childish—made of letters cut from a magazine. ‘Topped Chef Key West, where someone’s not making it back for seconds.’ The chief of police thinks it’s a fraud, but of course it has to be taken seriously. Hence, the extra security. All the guests will have their purses searched and ID’s checked.”
“Shouldn’t we cancel? It’s not worth continuing if someone else dies. My gosh,” I added, slinging my backpack off my shoulder and perching it on the shiny cherry desk, “no one looked at what I brought in.”
“What did you bring?” she asked, her eyes widening with worry.
“Nothing. But that’s not the point. I could have smuggled anything in. A gun. A knife. Anything. How would they know if no one is checking?”
“They are checking,” she said in a soothing voice. “But you’re one of the judges. Once they recognized your name, they would know you’re a good egg.” She smiled with encouragement. “We considered all the options, including canceling this episode of the show. The police mentioned that possibility to Peter, but they didn’t push it. And neither of us felt it was the right thing to do. Especially since the cops agreed to provide extra security.” She sighed. “We’ve come so far. We’re so close to the climax. We hate to bow to some fruitcake’s idea of a joke.”
“But aren’t you worried about the food getting tainted—for real this time?” I asked her.
“I shopped for everything personally,” Deena said. “Every grain of salt, every stick of butter, every length of pasta. And it hasn’t been out of my sight since I left the grocery store.”
“How about right now?”
Deena smiled. “We have a volunteer stationed in the pantry and two more in the kitchen. And there are at least two cops in street clothes on the premises. We wouldn’t proceed if we thought anyone was in danger.” She placed her hands on my shoulders. “Look, I shouldn’t have said anything. But I know you’re a good observer so I wanted you to keep your eyes open. Let me know right away if you notice anything weird. Okay?”
“I guess.” I shrugged my pack back onto my shoulder and followed her into the living room, which had begun to fill with guests sipping champagne from plastic flutes, even though it was well before noon.
We threaded through the crowd and finally arrived at the kitchen—a fabulous, futuristic, open-air kitchen that might have been designed for this very affair. A central island at least four yards long held a six-burner stainless stovetop, set in pink granite. It made Miss Gloria’s propane stove look as though it came from Barbie’s Dream House, circa 1980. Behind the stove against the window were double sinks and the biggest stainless steel refrigerator I’d ever seen, surrounded by more yards of gorgeous granite. The other wall of the kitchen was constructed of sliding glass doors so the room could be opened to a vast interior courtyard containing a pool, a hot tub, and enough foliage to keep an army of landscapers busy. Rows of folding chairs had been set up in the courtyard for the studio audience.
While the guests were getting settled and I was looking around, Toby and Chef Adam were seated on stools facing the stove and then attacked by the makeup artist bearing oil-absorbing powder. Up close they looked dusty like a dry roadbed with all that makeup, but the camera would love them. Bright spotlights had been positioned near the ceiling, casting beams of hot light onto the work surface. The three chef candidates hovered in the pantry off the back of the kitchen. Every person involved with the show looked anxious, from the contestants to the judges to the lead cameraman.
Peter emerged from the people in the courtyard and entered the k
itchen. “Chop, chop, people!” he called. “Take your places. The final episode of Topped Chef Key West–style is about to begin.” The theme song from Oliver! began to play from the home’s fancy speakers, both out in the courtyard and inside the kitchen. The audience quickly took seats.
I sat at the counter between Chef Adam and Toby, clipped on my microphone, and submitted to a quick face powdering. Rivulets of sweat began to run down my back and chest. Behind us, I could hear the guests rustling and murmuring. I felt vulnerable and tense; I remembered hearing how a judge who handled high-profile criminal cases always sat with his back to the wall in case some loony tunes came after him with a gun.
He would not have agreed to sit on this stool.
“Welcome, welcome!” Peter called, once everyone was in place. The music faded away. “We are so pleased to present the final, thrilling installment of our contest. You’ve seen our contestants interviewed. You’ve heard about their visions for a Key West wedding and tasted their party specialties. You’ve watched as they pulled together a meal from secret ingredients.” He rubbed his palms with feigned anticipation—or was it real? “Tonight we crown the Topped Chef of Key West! Tonight we choose the chef who will take his or her interpretation of island delicacies and spread the word to the world. This episode is all about romancing the audience. Are you ready to be swept off your feet?”
The courtyard audience roared. But inside the kitchen, the tension was palpable, as if we were all waiting for one more awful thing to happen. Peter addressed the chefs, who had gathered in a knot to the left of the double sinks. “Chefs, are you ready to leap from the frying pan into the fire?”
“Ready!” yelped Randy.
The other two merely nodded.
“We’ve drawn lots to select the order in which you will cook. We’ll begin with chef Randy Thompson, followed by chef Henrietta Stentzel, and finally, chef Buddy Higgs will close the competition.”
Randy stepped up to the counter, as the other two retreated to the pantry. “Thank you for that wonderful introduction—I adore a good romance.” He winked at the camera and began to belt out the words from the song Peter had chosen as the show’s theme. “Food, glorious food,” he warbled as he organized his dinner ingredients. “We’re all anxious to try it!”
He measured cornmeal into a pan of simmering chicken broth, shucked the shells off a pile of pink shrimp, and grated a mound of white cheddar cheese, all while chattering amiably about cooking and entertaining and interspersing his comments with snatches of song. And most appealing of all, half a pound of bacon spat in his frying pan, perfuming the air. The audience laughed and cheered at his antics: I couldn’t imagine that the other two would be able to match this performance.
“Every Southern chef worth his or her salt has a variation on the classic recipe for shrimp and grits,” said Randy. “And they will argue about whether the necessary secret ingredient is the bacon, the tasso ham, the green peppers, the heavy cream versus the cheese. But Key West has a supersecret weapon.” He winked and grinned. “We are so lucky on this island to have access to gorgeous local shrimp—Key West pinks, they’re called, for those of you who aren’t local.” He stopped and beckoned the camera forward to show a close-up of the shrimp.
Then, leaning toward us judges with both hands on the counter, he made eye contact with the front row of the audience. “I know it’s not always possible, but fresh and local ingredients make a huge difference to your meals. Sometimes it’s better to change the menu if you can’t find the right stuff,” he said, and then plopped half a stick of butter into the pan that now contained hot bacon grease. When the butter had melted, he dropped in some minced garlic, scallions, and green peppers, followed by a double handful of shrimp. They sizzled and spat.
“For instance, those flabby Southeast Asian crustaceans?” His lips formed a horrified O. “Absolutely deadly. Those are a never for me!”
By the time Randy had completed his shrimp and grits dish, I thought he’d won over the studio audience completely. He was relaxed and charming and the smell of his food made my stomach leap with anticipation. But Chef Adam’s face looked blank and Toby’s expression was bemused rather than enchanted. One of the assistants came forward to divide his dish onto three plates.
“Do not forget to have fun while you’re planning the menu and cooking for company,” Randy said, waggling his finger at the audience and grinning again. “It should never be a drag to entertain.” He placed a plate in front of each of us and stood back like a proud father.
I nibbled the cheesy grits first, then cut into a perfectly cooked pink shrimp. “This is sublime,” I said. “I adore the bacon and the bits of green pepper. So buttery and rich. And not the slightest bit fishy.”
“I like it,” said Toby. “But I’m not bowled over.”
Chef Adam tasted and then clattered his fork onto the plate. “It’s definitely heavy. Bordering on greasy,” he said. “There’s a month’s worth of cholesterol just in this one dish.” One of the cameras zoomed in on the food in front of Chef Adam, while another caught the disappointed grimace on Randy’s face. “To me it tastes like a grand cliché of Southern cooking. Paula Deen squared.”
Assistants rushed in to whisk away the dishes and maneuver Randy out of the way, so that Henri Stentzel could take her place and prepare to replicate the seafood fra diavolo that she’d prepared the first day of the contest. She was more nervous than she’d been earlier in the week, as I could tell from the sloppy way she chopped her onions. Her hands shook so badly that the jalapeño peppers came out in large chunks. And finally she cut a chunk of skin out of her finger and began to bleed into the onions.
Deena rushed forward with a Band-Aid and a replacement onion. Once patched up, Henri resumed chatting about the steps she was taking to make the spicy red sauce, but she stammered and stumbled over her words. It was painful to watch. When at last she was finished, an assistant produced more clean plates and ladled us each a taste.
Toby spoke first. “This doesn’t appeal to me quite as much as it did on the first day we tried it. There isn’t the same brightness to the dish.”
“It’s almost as if the chef’s anxiety has infused her food,” said Chef Adam. “It lacks luminosity.”
“Luminosity?” I asked, and then bit into a pepper so large and hot that tears sprang to my eyes. I signaled to Deena for a glass of water, sipped, and swallowed. “Maybe go easy on the peppers next time,” I suggested, trying to temper my advice with a smile. “Aside from my tongue blistering, I’m not having the same reaction as my colleagues. I find Chef Stentzel’s food solid and compelling.”
“But?” asked Chef Adam. “It sounds like you have a but…”
I tipped my head to one side and then the other, trying to press out the crackling knots of tension gathering in my neck. “But I think we want to choose a chef whose personality is luminous, along with the food. I want to see that right here in Chef Stentzel’s presentation, because I have enjoyed her cooking.” I emphasized personality and want, and then swallowed nervously. “But I admit that today I don’t.” I didn’t dare make eye contact with her because I knew she’d be shooting me angry daggers of death.
“And now, chef Buddy Higgs will take center stage,” Peter crowed as Henri slunk away.
Buddy strode out from the shadows of the pantry, leaned forward, looking past us to make eye contact with the studio guests just as Randy had. He began to speak. “To my mind, excellent cooking—cooking that rises to the level of a television experience—should challenge both the chef and his diners. I don’t want to waste precious minutes in the lives of TV viewers by preparing something they could get by paging through the recipes of Fannie Farmer or Irma Rombauer. Allow me to show you what I mean.”
He headed to the refrigerator and returned with two large, live lobsters, pincers and antennae waving. “Anyone can drop a crustacean into a pot of water and microwave melted butter on the side. With that menu, the biggest challenge is containing the di
ners’ mess.”
The lobsters scrambled for purchase on the marble countertop. The crowd looked on, mesmerized as Buddy chose a cleaver from the knife rack. There was a collective gasp as he hacked off the heads of the lobsters, and then cut the bodies into pieces. A few customers booed his brutality.
Notwithstanding the crustacean carnage, Buddy himself looked more appealing than I’d seen him this week—his toque was starched, his jacket immaculate, and his checked chef’s pants fit perfectly. Even his hair was clean. Honestly, he looked and sounded professional. And utterly ruthless.
“On the other hand,” Buddy said, “a grilled lobster with olive oil sea foam, jalapeño caviar, and edible sand garnish doesn’t require a PhD in cutlery to consume—but it challenges even the most jaded taste buds. I promise you that those spheres of jalapeño caviar will burst with flavor in the mouths of your dinner guests, leaving a lasting impression.”
He lit the gas grill next to the stove top, brushed the lobster sections with olive oil, and laid them on the grill. “In this style of cooking, there is no room for repetitive, boring food. The plate is our canvas—if we even need a plate.” He chuckled. “Remember the mojito I offered several days ago? Who else would serve a cocktail in a spoon? In this case, I serve my lobster on edible sand, which is constructed of seaweed, crispy Panko crumbs, and a dash of miso oil.
“To make the sea foam, heat olive oil with glycerin flakes until they dissolve. Add salt, and then whip.” He mixed his ingredients, poured the mixture into a stainless steel can that resembled a whipped cream canister, and shook it. He had the full attention of the audience now. They craned around each other to see each step of what he was doing, appearing totally wowed. By the time he’d finished cooking and arranging the plates, the dinner he’d made looked like a beach scene in miniature.
“Voilà!” he exclaimed. “Chef Buddy’s seafood à la Key West.”
Topped Chef: A Key West Food Critic Mystery Page 20
