Death in Four Courses: A Key West Food Critic Mystery
Page 1
MORE PRAISE FOR
AN APPETITE FOR MURDER
“What fun! Lucy Burdette writes evocatively about Key West and food—a winning combination. I can’t wait for the next entry in this charming series.”
—New York Times bestselling author
Diane Mott Davidson
“When her ex-boyfriend’s new lover, the co-owner of Key Zest magazine, is found dead, Hayley Snow, wannabe food critic, is the first in line on the list of suspects. Food, fun, and felonies. What more could a reader ask for?”
—New York Times bestselling author Lorna Barrett
“For a true taste of paradise, don’t miss An Appetite for Murder. Lucy Burdette’s first Key West Food Critic Mystery combines a lush, tropical setting, a mysterious murder, and plenty of quirky characters. The victim may not be coming back for seconds, but readers certainly will!”
—Julie Hyzy, national bestselling author of the White
House Chef mysteries and Manor House mysteries
“Florida has long been one of the best backdrops for crime novels—from John MacDonald to Carl Hiassen—and Burdette’s sense of place and her ability to empathize with a wide strata of Key West locals and visitors bode well for this new series.”
—Connecticut Post
“An excellent sense of place and the occasional humorous outburst aren’t the only things An Appetite for Murder has going for it, though: There is a solid mystery within its pages…. Not only does Burdette capture the physical and pastoral essence of Key West; she celebrates the food…. Although you might want to skip the key lime pie, don’t skip An Appetite for Murder. Let’s hope it is just an appetizer and there will be a feast of Food Critic mysteries to follow.”
—The Florida Book Review
“Burdette laces An Appetite for Murder with a clever plot, a determined if occasionally ditzy heroine, and a wealth of local color about Key West and its inhabitants. You’ll eat it up.”
—Richmond Times-Dispatch
“Burdette cleverly combines the insuperable Key West location with the always-irresistible hook, food…. Hayley is a vibrant young character to watch, and she writes scrumptious food reviews as well.”
—Mystery Scene
“Hayley herself is delightful. Exuberant and naive, rocking back and forth between bravado and insecurity, excitable and given to motormouth nervousness, she’s a quick study who has a lot to learn. I’m sure that many readers will be happy to make her acquaintance and follow her through future adventures.”
—Florida Weekly
Also by Lucy Burdette
An Appetite for Murder
DEATH IN
FOUR COURSES
A Key West Food Critic Mystery
Lucy Burdette
AN OBSIDIAN MYSTERY
OBSIDIAN
Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,
Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2,
Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124,
Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park,
New Delhi - 110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632,
New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue,
Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, September 2012
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN: 978-1-101-59950-1
Copyright © Roberta Isleib, 2012
“I Like Meat” by Roy Blount Jr. Reprinted by permission of the author.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
OBSIDIAN and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Printed in the United States of America
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
ALWAYS LEARNING
PEARSON
For my sister Sue,
who never seemed to mind how closely I followed
on her heels, and who, like Hayley, is always,
always ready for the next meal
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to Dr. Kiel Christianson for advice on how to think like a food critic, to Mary Kay Hyde for MK’s Screw the Roux Stew, Linda Juliani for the fudge pie, and Nikki Bonanni for the gnocchi.
The Key West Literary Seminar provided unlimited inspiration for this book, though any similarities to the seminar staff or the writers who appeared are purely coincidental. Thank you to Arlo Haskell for putting me in touch with Roy Blount Jr. And to Roy Blount Jr. for allowing the use of his perfect little poem “I Like Meat.”
Thank you to Steve Torrence, Cory Held, Fritz Ewing, Eric, Bill, and Toby for the use of their names for my utterly fictional characters.
I’m deeply grateful to the usual suspects—Chris Falcone, Ang Pompano, John Brady, Hallie Ephron, Susan Hubbard, Susan Cerulean, and Mike Wiecek—for reading, brainstorming, tweaking, and supporting! Thanks also to Ang for the photo that inspired the book cover and a last-minute read-through. And a big shout-out to all my mystery writer friends, especially my blog sisters at Jungle Red Writers, Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen, and Killer Characters.
Thanks always to Paige Wheeler and the good folks at Folio. Sandy Harding is a terrific editor and advocate—thank you! And thanks to all the other people at NAL/Penguin, seen and unseen, who’ve shepherded this book to publication.
A great big thank-you to librarians and booksellers everywhere who put books in the hands of readers, especially Sandy Long, head librarian for forty-one years at the EC Scranton Library in Madison, Connecticut, and Roxanne Coady, founder and owner of RJ Julia Booksellers in Madison.
I lost my father this year. He was an amazing champion of all my dreams. My love and thanks to you, Dad—I miss you every day….
>
Lucy Burdette
March 2012
Still, his diners are newly accessorizing the table setting: fork on the left, knife on the right, iPhone top center. It’s chew and review, toast and post.
—Ike DeLorenzo
Table of Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Recipes
Key West Food Critic Mystery
1
If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.
—Manuel Rouvelas
My new boss, Wally, slid his glasses down his nose and squinted over the top of the black frames. “Don’t even think about coming back with a piece telling us offal is the next big foodie trend,” he said. “I don’t care what’s in style in New York and L.A. We eat grouper and key lime pie in Key West, not entrails.” He leaned back in his weathered wicker chair, fronds of faux tropical foliage tickling his hair. “Clear?”
“Aye-aye, Captain.” I snapped my heels together and saluted; it wasn’t easy to be serious with a man wearing a yellow silk shirt dotted with palm trees. Our company uniform. Which made my complexion look a little sallow, but I would have worn the houseplant and the straw lamp shade that matched the other furniture were those required for the job.
Right before Thanksgiving, I was astonished and grateful to be hired as the food critic for Key Zest, the new Key West style magazine. They sure hadn’t planned on shelling out big bucks so I could attend the “Key West Loves Literature” seminar barely two months later. But after I explained how most of the top food writers and food critics in the country would be there and we’d look like foodie fools if we missed it, Wally finally caved. With the caveat that I kept up my schedule of local restaurant reviews and wrote a couple of snappy, stylish feature articles about the seminar as well.
At the time, that had all sounded doable. But right now I had big-time nervous jitters about meeting my writing idols and trying to sound smart. And I wished that my Christmas-present brainstorm for my mother had been something other than tuition to this seminar. She was completely thrilled to be visiting here from New Jersey, and who wouldn’t feel good about making her mother happy? But for one of my first major (and paid!) journalistic assignments, having my mom tethered to my side felt a little like looking through the oven door at a falling soufflé.
Wally fidgeted with his glasses, opened his mouth once, then closed it again. “Listen. I don’t mean to up the ante on this weekend, but I figure you’re a grown woman and you should know.”
My heart thunked to my gullet and despite the warm, dry air in the office, I felt cold. “Know what?”
“Ava Faulkner has been pressuring me—she’s trolling for a reason to let you go.”
My eyes bulged. Ava was Kristen Faulkner’s sister—the sister of the woman who’d stolen my boyfriend last fall and then gotten herself murdered. “But why? She can’t still think I killed Kristen. That’s all been settled.”
Wally smoothed a hand across his desk blotter. “She’s not a rational woman, Hayley. But since she owns more than fifty percent of the magazine, I have to listen to her. It’s just—I need your very best work this weekend.” He looked up and met my gaze. “If you can come up with something exclusive, like an interview with the keynote, all the better.”
“Thanks for the heads-up. Gotta go pick up Mom.” I saluted again, but my limbs felt boneless and my smile wouldn’t work. I’d e-mailed the main speaker at least four times to request a meeting, with less than stellar results.
I sucked in a big breath and ran downstairs to catch the waiting cab, determined to push Wally’s warning out of my brain before it reduced me to gelatin. My mother’s parental radar would pick up on the tiniest nick in my facade, and her worries would start seeping into my mind like water into cement sidewalk cracks. And then she’d spend the weekend working on me to move back home. Not going to happen.
Since I didn’t own a car, I’d considered picking Mom up on my scooter. But her terror of motorcycles dissuaded me, and besides, she didn’t travel light. I’d seen a lot bulkier loads carried on a scooter in this town than two women with an oversized suitcase—like the guy who passed me on White Street with two golden retrievers strapped to the back of his bike and one draped across his lap. But I could still picture my bungee cords snapping and the suitcase bursting, spreading Mom’s private essentials through the city streets for the homeless to pick over. Instead I slid into the backseat of a bright pink station wagon that smelled a little funky, even for a taxi. Then I noticed the oversized green parrot riding shotgun in the front, the Key West Citizen spread out to contain his droppings.
“Where ya headed?” the bird squawked.
“To the airport,” I said after a few seconds of stunned silence.
“Got visitors coming?” asked the cabbie as he gunned his engine, swerving around a golf cart full of whooping kids. The parrot lost his footing and tumbled, cursing, into the passenger seat.
“My mother,” I said, watching the bird edge sideways across the newspaper on the seat and climb back onto his perch. He pecked at a few feathers that had been dislodged in the fall, then swiveled his neck around to glare at me.
The cabbie’s eyes, brimming with sympathy, met mine in the rearview mirror. “Mom came to visit the first year I moved down,” he said. “Once she saw my apartment door off its hinges, leaning against the wall in the hallway next to all the empty beer bottles, she turned around and went back home.”
The taxi sped up Atlantic Boulevard, the road that hugs the outer edge of the island, lined with swaying palms and the bluest ocean on the whole East Coast. As we drove along parallel to the bike path, we passed the usual parade of outdoor enthusiasts—two well-tanned Rollerbladers in bikinis, a man being pulled on his bike by a large black dog, sunbathers crowding the ice cream and hot dog trucks parked alongside the road.
Like most things in the city, the Key West Airport is easy to maneuver. The taxi driver let me out and pointed to the small parking lot where he and his parrot would be waiting. I went inside and parked myself near the baggage claim, flipping through the displays of tourism pamphlets racked against the back wall. Minutes later, the puddle jumper from Miami skidded to a halt and the passengers poured out and filed across the tarmac, their boots and wool jackets contrasting with the short sleeves and flip-flops of the people waiting. Mom burst through the sliding glass doors, wearing enormous sunglasses and dragging a pink plaid bag.
“Hayley Elizabeth!” she squealed, flinging her arms around me. “I can’t believe I’m here! It was so stunning flying over the islands.”
“I know, I know,” I said, hugging her back.
“My girl.” She held me at arm’s length to get a good look. “You gorgeous thing.” She smiled until the skin crinkled around her eyes, and patted my curls—the same auburn as hers only messier—and then stashed her glasses in her purse. “Which way to the ladies’? Will you keep track of this while I run in?” She passed the carry-on to me. “The big bag looks just like this one. A matching set—like you and me.”
She grinned and click-clacked across the room in her smart silver sandals and wrinkle-free pantsuit. Light-years from my palm tree shirt and red sneakers, which I knew she’d noticed.
Once we’d wrestled her enormous bag off the luggage carousel, we rolled it out to the cab, where I introduced her to the driver and his pet bird. He hoisted the bags into the trunk and we set off.
“Excuse me, cabbie,” Mom said, once the car was in motion. “I just arrived from New Jersey. Would you mind turning off the air-conditi
oning and opening the windows?” Once he complied, she leaned out and snapped a succession of photos. “Hayley, can you smell that salt air? Did you tell me how pretty it was here?”
I grinned back at her. “I think I did, Mom.”
“So, what’s our plan tonight?”
“You have just enough time to say hello to Eric and Bill, unpack your stuff, and get showered and changed. I’m going to nip over to the conference a little early to get my bearings and stake out good seats.”
My old friend Eric and his partner, Bill, had graciously offered to put up my mother for the weekend in their guest room. She never would have let me spring for a motel, but on the other hand, I shared a tiny houseboat with a lovely older woman. Shoehorn my mother into that small space and I would have been diving overboard within twenty-four hours. Maybe twelve, with the extra pressure I was feeling. The taxi pulled up in front of Eric and Bill’s house, a cerulean blue one-story with green wicker chairs on the wide front porch and a secret garden in the backyard.
Bill, Eric’s partner of seven years—a tall, thin man dressed in black jeans and a white turtleneck—waved at us from a hammock strung across the far end of the porch. Their schedules hadn’t allowed for them to sign up for the whole food writing seminar, but they were excited about attending the opening party. And visiting with Mom. Eric had grown up in the same New Jersey town as I had, only seven years ahead and on the shabbier fringe of our neighborhood.
The front door burst open, releasing a yapping ball of gray-and-brown fur—Toby. Eric followed him out, cleaning his tortoiseshell glasses on his white oxford shirt. Mom leaped out of the taxi and dashed up the walk.
“When’s the last time I saw you?” Mom asked, squeezing Eric’s cheeks between her palms and pulling his head down so she could plant a kiss on his forehead. “Your mother wanted me to remind you to call her this week.”
He shook his head and rolled his eyes, draping his arm around her shoulders.
“Mothers,” he said to me as I came up the walk with the luggage. “They can never get enough.”