The sparse grass around the three-tiered crypt had been flattened by the boots of the cops and the rescue crew. Someone had replaced the rectangle of stone behind which Cheryl Lynn had lain, and cemented it in. I watched an ant scurry up the wall, wander in loops around the fresh cement and then around the family’s name, written in crabbed script.
This was no random death. It took too much effort to kill a grown woman and then drag her here, open the crypt, and hoist her body inside.
I decided to try Lorenzo’s mother again, to see if she’d remembered anything useful. After I dialed her number, she answered on the first ring—not like my generation, who considers the bleat of a phone call highly intrusive. Most of my pals won’t even listen to a voice mail, much to their mothers’ annoyance. I identified myself.
“Have you heard something?” Her words rushed out. “I am so worried.”
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m in the cemetery, looking at the crypt where Cheryl Lynn was found. I’m wondering if the place the killer left the body was a random choice or whether it was a statement of some kind. I’m also wondering how someone even got into the cemetery. I’m sure the gates are locked at night.”
“Maybe it’s like Gramercy Park in New York City,” said Lorenzo’s mother. “Special people who live nearby and own adjacent property have keys to the garden. It’s a very exclusive neighborhood. I used to walk by the park when I visited the city and imagine living there.” She chuckled. “Leave it to Cheryl Lynn to have figured out the angles. She’s been in bad trouble over the years, but this is the worst of it, of course.”
I felt the jerk of an emotional whiplash. Over the years? My face felt suddenly flushed. “Didn’t you tell me Lorenzo only met her recently?”
“Well, I can’t be certain,” she stammered, sounding completely flustered. “Maybe I’m mixing her up with another of his clients?”
“If you know something, you should tell me. People are getting murdered down here.”
A long, loaded silence. “Lorenzo told me that her cousin’s death had nearly pushed her around the bend,” said Mrs. Smith finally. “And she was getting crazy about it again lately. He was so worried. I begged him to come and live with me. He could find work somewhere here in my town. That island is toxic,” she added. “Has he ever talked to you about the current that runs around the outside of Key West?”
“Yes, yes. It sucks you in or spits you out,” I said, still trying to picture Lorenzo living in that little retirement community in Fort Myers. I couldn’t. “Are you saying that Bart Frontgate was Cheryl Lynn’s cousin?”
“Oh no,” said Mrs. Smith. “The girl who died years ago was her cousin. Or some relation—I may have it wrong.”
I paused again. “How long had he known her? Please tell me the truth here.”
His mother said, “Known her? Whoever really knows anyone?”
I waited her out.
“Maybe fifteen years,” she said. “But it was all professional.”
I waited some more.
“They made a connection because they both lost their parents. He has clients every once in a while where the walls between them come down and his river of loss just flows into theirs. I don’t think he ever felt it more strongly than with her. The veil is very thin, if you know what I mean.”
“I don’t know exactly,” I said. “What do you mean?”
“He can be so attuned to other people’s sorrow. Sometimes he loses track of his boundaries. I need to go,” she said sadly. “My stretch-and-tone class is starting in five minutes.”
Once I had retrieved my scooter from where I’d parked outside the sexton’s office, my phone rang. It was my father. For once I was relieved to talk to him. He have an outsider’s opinion, and he loved being asked for advice. In a matter of minutes I had filled him in on all the goings-on over the last few days.
“I’m so worried about Lorenzo,” I added, echoing what Mrs. Smith had said. “He doesn’t have a violent bone in his body.” Seemed like I’d been trying to tell that to everyone I knew over the last few days.
But my dad took a harsher view. “Honestly, Hayley, it sounds like your friend may have killed two people.” I tried to interrupt, but he barreled over me. “You’ve helped him find a lawyer. You’ve taken in his pet. That’s all you can do, even if you do consider him a friend.”
“But he wouldn’t have killed Cheryl Lynn,” I said. “He was deeply, deeply troubled about her. His mom says she practically grew up with him.” Which she hadn’t said exactly, but I believed that was the gist of her meaning.
“Sweetheart,” Dad said. “I would lie, too, if you were in that much trouble.”
I felt prickles of gratefulness but also a swell of despair.
He cleared his throat. “I hate to be this blunt, but … let’s see, maybe I should use one of your cooking metaphors.” He chuckled at his own humor, but I dreaded what was coming. “We saw nothing but a mille-feuille of oddballs and misfits in Key West when we visited last year. I know you love that place, but I’m afraid it will only drag you down. You can always come home, stay with us a few months if you need to.”
I said nothing. Moving in with them would feel good for about twenty-four hours. But he meant well.
He finally sighed. “Stay out of trouble—will you please promise me that, Hayley Snow?”
“Okay, Dad,” I said quietly. “I’ll stay out of trouble. I will.”
24
To eat passionately is to allow the world in; there can be no hiding or sublimation when you’re chewing a mouthful of food so good it makes you swoon.
—Kate Christensen, Blue Plate Special
I called Lieutenant Torrence again with yet one more idea. I wouldn’t be breaking my promise to my father; I’d be turning information over to the police. “Lorenzo’s mother says her son knew Cheryl Lynn for years,” I told him. “She said he cared about her. She said that they connected emotionally because they both suffered tragic losses in their childhoods—”
“I do appreciate your loyalty. And your doggedness,” said Torrence, cutting me off with a laugh. “You never give up on a friend. But in this case, the loyalty is misplaced.” His voice was definite, no room for wiggling.
“I just can’t picture Lorenzo as a murderer.”
“No one can. And I’m sorry your friend disappointed you. But you know this by now, Hayley: No one looks like a murderer on the outside. Or I should say, the people who look that shady usually aren’t,” Torrence said. “People have deep recesses that can cause them to behave in terrible ways. And unfortunately, Lorenzo is no exception. Don’t you know what you see is not always the truth about what’s at the core?”
Of course I knew that. And Bransford had insisted on the same kind of thing. Cops have such a downer view of human nature.
True, Lorenzo’s problem was beginning to feel like most situations in Key West. There’s a top layer, easy to see and easy to think you understand. But dig a little deeper and you’ll find layers and layers and layers. And looking from above, you might have no idea what’s bobbing around in those depths. Visitors to Key West think what they see is what they get—all jolly, have a beer, act a little crazy. For example, suppose they slide onto a barstool on Duval Street and settle in for a drink. How would they possibly know its history? How would they know that the owner beat the stuffing out of a tourist just last week because he was saving that same stool for his wife?
They wouldn’t.
But in Lorenzo’s case, I wasn’t convinced that much darkness lay underneath. So I forced myself to think of what else I could do to get at the truth about the two deaths. Could one person have wanted them both gone? Or were they unconnected? And who wanted to frame Lorenzo?
I decided to buzz back over to the library’s Florida history room to see if they kept copies of the Key West High School yearbooks. If Bart had been floating around this island that long and Cheryl Lynn had, too, maybe I’d find something that would tie them together. If the year
books didn’t turn up anything useful, I would try to find the man who’d made Bart Frontgate those special juggling forks—the ones that killed him in the end.
All my leads felt slim, unlikely to lead to a solution. But I wasn’t going to give up on Lorenzo until the final door clanged shut on death row in the Florida state penitentiary. I squeezed my eyes shut to push back the tears and parked in the lot behind the Key West library. I made my way down the back hallway and then into the Florida history room. The elderly librarian was puttering at his desk.
“Hello again,” I said, my voice brighter than I felt. “Could you please point me toward the Key West High School yearbooks?”
He squinted and huffed a little breath of air. “May I ask for what you’re looking?”
“I work for Key Zest,” I said, annoyed that he would question me. Weren’t librarians supposed to be nonjudgmental? But holding back wouldn’t help the situation, so like a good reporter, I made up a story. “I’m researching a story on Key West natives. Where our high school graduates imagined they would end up, and how many leave and then return to the island. Or stay on. I thought the yearbooks would be a good place to start.”
“We don’t keep them here. You might try the high school library. They might keep that kind of record,” he said, sounding doubtful. And then muttered, more to himself than to me, “Why in the world a run on high school yearbooks? Hardly worthy of my shelf space.”
Feeling discouraged and put off, I hopped back on my scooter and rode up the island to the high school, which sits out on busy, unscenic Flagler Avenue, not far from the strip of grocery stores and the few pitiful big-box stores the island offers. An enormous conch shell had been placed out by the parking area—the high school mascot, of course. A noisy gang of kids burst out of the front door, laughing and tussling with one another, but I wasn’t able to move quickly enough to catch the door before it closed behind them. As with most schools these days in the wake of terrifying shootings, the front door was locked. I pressed a button alongside the intercom and explained my mission, including a slight stretcher about an article on the history of cheerleading in Key West High School. Then I held my Key Zest press credentials up to the camera.
“I’ll send Officer Ryan to escort you in,” said the disembodied voice from the speaker on the wall. “Building closes in fifteen minutes.”
Within several moments, Officer Ryan appeared at the door with a wide grin on his face. “Hayley Snow,” he said, “it’s good to see you. Staying out of trouble?”
I smiled back and nodded. He sounded like my father. Surely he had heard about my latest escapades.
“How’s your brother doing?” Officer Ryan had been a peach last winter when my stepbrother, Rory, visited with my family—and quickly disappeared into the spring break scene.
“Really well,” I said. “Once his father abandoned the ludicrous idea of military school and he and my stepmother started working together, Rory’s been thriving. As usual, it’s parents who screw things up.”
“Hmm, that’s kind of a bleak outlook.”
I had to laugh—this was the attitude I’d been accusing cops of. “What I mean is, trouble at the top leaks down and shows up in the kids. You’ve got a new job assignment?” I asked, changing the subject. “I hope you weren’t demoted.”
He smiled, showing the full range of his dimples. “Actually, I asked for this—I love working with teenagers. There’s still plenty of room for change. And if I can make a connection now between them and the police department, it makes our job easier in the future,” said Officer Ryan. “What brings you back to high school?”
I shuddered. “Perish that thought. I wanted to look through some yearbooks, for an article I’m writing on the history of the Sunset Celebration.” I stopped, hoping that he wouldn’t ask me how the Sunset Celebration had anything to do with the high school. And hoping he didn’t compare notes with the woman who’d buzzed me in, who thought I was writing about cheerleading. Or the Florida history librarian, who’d gotten an even more convoluted story.
“Come on, follow me. I’ll show you the library.” He glanced at his watch. “School closes in less than fifteen minutes, so hope you can work fast. How is the founding of the Sunset related to this school?”
“It shouldn’t take more than fifteen,” I hurried to say. “It’s not exactly the Sunset thing, actually. I’m working on a project about the history of Key West students, how many stay on the island, how many leave, how many leave and then come back. And the kinds of trajectories that their work lives take.”
All baloney, and from the wide eyes he flashed back, he pretty much saw through me—that I was making stuff up as I talked. I had a feeling that if he hadn’t known me already, he would have marched me right back outside. He led me to a windowless cubby containing a beat-up table and four metal chairs. All the high school publications, including hundreds of yearbooks, were arranged on bookshelves around the outer edges.
“Can I help you look for something?”
“Thanks, but I’ll be fine.” If I told him what I was looking for, I’d end up spilling the whole story. And then he’d warn me off it, like all the other men in my life.
“Text me if you have any questions or problems,” he said. “You still have my phone number? I’ll check back before we lock up and make sure you find your way out.” He waved and headed down the hall, his radio crackling about a fracas on Duval Street.
Though the books were not perfectly ordered, I found the shelf containing the volumes for the years that Bart would have been in attendance. As I leafed through, the pages released the powerful scent of mildew. Finally I found a photo of Bart Frontgate, aka Bartholomew Gates. As with many school yearbooks, individual photos lauded each senior. And under each portrait was a quotation. Bart’s photo was marked by a quote from Alan Wilson Watts: “Man suffers only because he takes seriously what the gods made for fun.” I wondered whether he’d chosen that quote to represent himself or whether the yearbook staff had done the choosing.
Candid photos taken at various school events were arranged on the same pages as the senior mug shots. In one photo, taken on the sidelines of a football game, Bart and a second uniformed player had their arms thrown around two girls. Bart and one of those girls were laughing; the other faces I was not able to make out. But the girl laughing with Bart was absolutely a young and beautiful version of Cheryl Lynn. If they hadn’t ended their lives as friends—both murdered—they’d started out that way. I searched for Cheryl’s photo but found no mention of her; she must have been in a later graduating class than Bart.
Toward the back of the book, another photo had a caption indicating that Bart had been voted “class clown” by his graduating class. As a performer on Mallory Square, he’d pretty much lived up to that moniker, until his life took a darker and murderous turn. Maybe that twist had come only recently, but more likely the darkness had been building up for a while. Hadn’t Torrence once told me that victims are most often murdered by people they know? At least now I could be certain that Bart had known Cheryl for many years, though I wasn’t any more clear about why either of them had died.
As I flipped through the remaining pages to the section on class highlights and memorials, a staticky announcement crackled over the loudspeaker: The school building was about to be locked up for the night. I pulled out my phone and snapped pictures of the pages on which Bart had appeared, and a few of the pages at the end that I hadn’t had time to read.
Eric called as Officer Ryan escorted me out of the building. I waved good-bye to the cop and trotted to my scooter. “Please come for dinner,” I begged Eric. “My mind is a train wreck. I need a shrink to sort me out. Not a real shrink,” I hastened to add, not wanting him to think I’d broken my long-term embargo on therapy. “But with Lorenzo back in jail …” The reality of how bad things looked for Lorenzo punched me hard, and I gulped for air.
“What are you serving?” he asked. “Bill just happens to have a board meetin
g tonight, so I might be free.”
“How about walnut and spinach pesto? We still have some of that fancy Mario Batali Italian pasta that Mom sent for Christmas. And fudge left over from yesterday. And I’m making baklava for Connie, so it should be ready to test by the time you arrive. And salad, with Miss Gloria’s little tomatoes and herbs.”
“Enough,” he said. “I’m coming already. What time?”
I made a quick stop at Fausto’s on White Street to load up on butter, walnuts, pistachios, and basil. I’d moved the phyllo dough from the freezer to the fridge last night in preparation for today, and I’d loaded up on local honey at the Artisan Market last week. I didn’t mind knocking off work early, because cooking helps me think. And between the rough draft of the article about the cemetery, which I’d promised to Palamina in the morning, Lorenzo’s troubles, my father’s comments, and my high school expedition, I had a lot to chew on. And lord knows I wasn’t really working anyway.
I plopped three sticks of butter in a pan and turned the front burner on low to melt them. Then I pulled my Cuisinart from the pantry shelf to the counter and began to grind walnuts and pistachios with a bit of sugar and cinnamon. When all the ingredients were ready, I unwrapped the phyllo pastry and spread out the first thin sheet in my 9 by 13 inch baking pan. Using a silicone brush, I began to paint the pastry with butter. Then I layered another sheet on top and painted again.
A mille-feuille of oddballs, my father had said. Maybe he wasn’t so wrong about the thousand layers. New visitors to Key West think the action is all about Duval Street. But if they stay long enough, they discover the fabulous art and the music and the food. And if they stay even longer and dig a little further, they find the island history and the conflict between saltwater Conchs (born in Key West) and the freshwater (moved to the island later), all connected by thin lines to the snowbirds. And the tourists float above all of that history. And sometimes the new people act like they discovered the place, like Christopher Columbus thought he discovered Florida and Cuba. As if no one lived there before he showed up. And some of that is reflected in the cemetery, with the way the old established families have elaborate plots, like the Gates family’s, near where Cheryl Lynn’s body had been discovered.
Fatal Reservations : A Key West Food Critic Mystery (9780698192003) Page 20
