An Appetite for Murder (14 page)

“Later!” he barked at the redhead as we hurtled by. “Coffee!”

“Your father paid my retainer,” he explained once we were settled in cavernous leather easy chairs. “So let’s begin. A, my job is to ensure that your rights are protected. And B, I shall examine the evidence against you
so we can be prepared for any moves the police department might make. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

I nodded. “Though I don’t know what evidence there could be.”

It all sounded very serious and scary. I hadn’t thought about a camera in the clock and who might have been watching me over the first two visits. Nor had I considered the possibility that I could just walk out of the station. As far as I was concerned, this lawyer was already on his way to earning my father’s retainer. I should probably tell him everything. Even if there were things I might have ordinarily held back because I barely knew the guy, like the criminals did on TV. But I was no criminal. And I was way too nervous to sit there with my mouth shut and listen to him tell me more about how much trouble I was in.

“As I explained to the policemen, Kristen had more motive to want me murdered than the other way around. Apparently she slept with him first. Then I came along, and then he went back to her. The whole thing makes me sick.”

He cut me off. “Explain this business about a knife.”

“Yes, they have my knife and it looks like it’s plastered with poison. But Kristen wasn’t stabbed to death, so what difference does it make whether my cutlery was used to cut the pie?” My hands and lips were shaking and I could feel little gobs of spit gathering in the corners of my mouth. “Do you think they’ll give the knife back?” As soon as the question left my mouth, I realized how silly it sounded. My mind just wasn’t working.

Mr. Kane leaned forward from his chair and tapped the legal pad on the coffee table between us with an
expensive-­looking pen. “Miss Snow, I understand this is a stressful time—”

“Oh, please call me Hayley. All this Miss Snow business is frightening me half to death.”

He grimaced, the mustache undulating like a wooly caterpillar prepared for a cold winter. “Hayley. It’s important that you listen to me, because if you were to be charged with a felony, this would change your life.”

“You really think I’m going to be charged?” My mouth felt dry as a fever. Even while the detective had listed the reasons I might have for poisoning Kristen, I never thought they’d actually pin the murder on me. Or maybe I knew deep down it could happen, but didn’t want to face it.

“No, certainly not,” he said, preening a little as if he wanted me to be sure I understood the importance of his influence. “Not yet. And I’m taking that to mean that the evidence against you must be sketchy. Probably circumstantial and weakly circumstantial at best. Those cops were hoping you’d crumble, confess, and save every­one a lot of trouble. So let’s go back to the beginning, shall we? Tell me everything you know about this murder. Including,” he said in a lower voice, “whether you killed her.” He leaned forward to scribble something on the pad, and I strained to read it upside down.

Did she do it?

Which I couldn’t believe my own lawyer would write. “Of course I didn’t kill her!” I nearly howled. “I told you that already.”

“Yes, you told me that. But then why do you suppose they suspect you of committing the murder?”

“I’m sure my fingerprints are all over Chad’s apartment. But for crying out loud, I lived there for nine weeks. Wouldn’t they expect to find them? Of course that knife is going to have my fingerprints on it. I’m the only one who cooked or cleaned up or emptied the dishwasher. Before I moved in, Chad only ordered out or ate out. He doesn’t care about food.

“And stuff like hair and skin flakes and all the things you see on
CSI
—­they’ll probably bring that up next. No matter how good a job the housecleaning service does—­and Connie is the tops on this island—­something’s bound to be left behind. So what do we do now?” I asked. “I swear I never touched the girl. Or fed her any poison. I’ve never even made a key lime pie. To be honest, I’m totally freaked out by the idea of meringue.”

“Ms. Snow—­Hayley,” he broke in. “Settle down. Let’s go over the conversations you’ve had with the police, all the details.” A timid knock interrupted us.

“Come in!” he shouted. The redhead entered with two white porcelain mugs and set them on the table in front of us. He grunted his thanks without looking at her or asking me whether I took cream and sugar and waved at me to continue.

So I told him about my first visit to the station—­how it had been all chummy and
you must understand how much we appreciate your assistance
, and then how things had gone sharply downhill.

“We hit kind of a bumpy spot in our relationship when they trapped me in Chad’s apartment armed with a feather duster.” I couldn’t help snickering. “Me, I
mean. The cops had regular guns and whatever else those dudes carry on their belts.”

His smile faded. “Trapped you in Chad’s apartment? Explain.” I watched him write
breaking and entering
on the legal pad and a belated beading of sweat broke out on my upper lip.

Then I told him about going over to look for my things, including the recipes. I stole a glance at his face—­impassive. “And after I looked around, I was going to clean the place and get the heck out. But one of the neighbors ratted me out and called the cops.” I wished I hadn’t used the words “ratted me out”—­it made me sound guilty. “I went there as my friend Connie’s employee,” I added in a firm voice.

“And it never occurred to you to think how suspicious that might look, sneaking into the apartment where the murder took place?” Still not a friendly cell flickering on the guy’s face.

“Honestly? It sounds ridiculous when you put things that way, but no, I didn’t think along those lines.” I pressed my fingertips along my cheekbones, willing myself to hold it together in front of him.

“So here’s the thing.” He jerked his thumb at the door, as though the police were waiting right outside to take me in. He took a slurp of his coffee. “The cops are operating on a hunch—­the hunch being that you must have had a reason to want this young woman dead.”

“I understand that, but it isn’t true. Well, not exactly. I mean, she did steal my boyfriend and try to kill my job prospects. But all that said, I’m not a violent person. I
would never have wished her dead, never mind actually do her in.”

Another pained expression flooded his face and he scribbled on the yellow pad again.
Motive, yes
.
Unpremeditated?

“Their case depends on collecting enough evidence to prove that hunch to be true,” he said. “That means tracking all the leads they can turn up, looking for witnesses that either prove or disprove your presence at the time of the murder. We need to be working at the same time to prove the opposite—­that you couldn’t possibly have been involved.”

“Okay.” I bobbed my head. “How can I help?”

“I’m going back to the department later today to press Bransford hard about how close they are to having enough evidence to arrest you. Meanwhile, you should make a list of all the people I need to talk to about your relationship with the deceased and your whereabouts on the day of the murder. Any questions on that?”

“No questions,” I said. “Well, other than, if the evidence is so flimsy, why me?”

He slid his fancy pen back into his pocket and crossed the room to get a pencil from the desk drawer. Back in front of me, he ripped off the top sheet containing his notes and slapped the pencil next to the pad.

“Everything you remember.”

“The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.”

—­Calvin Trillin

After I’d made my list and explained that I’d been in Connie’s houseboat by myself the morning of the murder, working on my articles, and that I had no one to verify my alibi, even my expensive lawyer didn’t seem to believe this reprieve was any more than temporary. I waved off his offer of a ride and walked home, starving by the time I approached our dock.

Right now I could have used a little something from my mother’s comfort-­food repertoire. Since she wasn’t available, making a nice lunch and luring Eric over to share it was the next best thing. I rummaged through the refrigerator and found some white eggplants that I’d bought at the farmer’s market last week. I sliced and
salted them and, leaving them to drain in a colander in the sink, headed out to score some mozzarella.

I almost left my helmet home so I could whip up the Atlantic Beach side of the island with the wind tousling my hair and the sun warming my face. But notwithstanding moving to Key West with Chad when I barely knew him, I’ve never been much on taking risks. So I strapped the helmet on and drove up the usual way. I parked the scooter on the upper end of Duval Street with its gorgeous rug shop and art galleries and charming bars where the cruise ship tourists often don’t go, and dashed into Franco’s Deli for a large ball of fresh cheese. For the lunch I was envisioning, the rubbery white glob passed off as mozzarella by processed food manufacturers would not do at all.

Franco’s was bustling with lunch customers waiting to order their Italian heroes. Steam wafted from the trays displayed on the counter—­lasagna, stuffed shells, and meatballs in Sunday red sauce. I got in line and dialed Eric while waiting. When I’d first arrived in Key West, we designed a system for alerting him to when I really, really, really needed to talk, as opposed to when I’d sure like to or when I felt a little lonely and could use a chat. The latter two cases he did not consider emergency situations.

“Quick lunch, my house, half an hour?” I asked when he answered. “This is a three-­rooster alert. I was just released from the police station and had to ask my father to hire a lawyer.” I had dropped my voice so the other customers wouldn’t hear everything, but I picked up the volume again to describe the lunch I had in mind. “I’m
picturing a towering stack of fried eggplant, fresh tomato, and Franco’s mozzarella woven in between the slices, topped by a nest of arugula drizzled with balsamic vinegar.”

“I’m drooling,” he said. “Make it forty-­five minutes?”

I hung up and used the last few minutes of my wait time to take a few pictures of the food in the display case and the folks in white aprons behind the counter constructing sandwiches. Only then did my panicky thoughts overtake my mind. The last few hours felt surreal—­how could I have gotten into so much serious trouble for hardly doing anything wrong? I didn’t know pop squat about this lawyer, and certainly my father didn’t know him personally either. What if he decided I was guilty and insisted on making a plea bargain instead of proving my innocence? Remembering that he’d jotted “unpremeditated” on his pad made me especially nervous. That would be good news if a criminal had actually committed a murder, but I hadn’t. I could end up spending the best years of my life in jail instead of writing about food in paradise.

I bought my ball of cheese and sped back to the houseboat. Once home, I washed and dried the weeping eggplant slices, dipped them in egg and flour, and dropped them into a pan of hot oil. While they fried, I sliced tomatoes and mozzarella, and whipped up a vinaigrette with mustard, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. By the time Eric arrived, the towers of eggplant were fully constructed.

“Come on in,” I called. “The masterpiece awaits.”

“You are amazing,” he said, and folded me into a hug. “Which reminds me—­any word from
Key Zest
?”

“Not yet, but I only sent the application in this morning.”

We carried our plates and glasses of Orangina on ice upstairs to the deck off of Connie’s bedroom and settled into beach chairs. Eric glanced at his watch. “Tell me more about the big emergency. I don’t have much time, so better make it the short version.”

I described my third trip to the police department and how the lawyer had whisked me out after determining that the cops didn’t have enough evidence to arrest me. “The detective claimed I had a good reason to kill Kristen and no one to vouch that I was here on the boat that morning.”

Oh, such an exquisite relief to transfer the building anxiety from me to him. I sawed off a piece of eggplant, added a bite of the salad, nibbled, and swallowed. The eggplant was soft inside, crispy out, and set off perfectly by the sharp tang of the arugula and the dressing.

Then I described the dramatic unmasking of my knife.

Eric stopped chewing and stared. “Where the hell did the knife come from?”

“Chad’s apartment, I presume. I’m sure they collected it as evidence once they found Kristen murdered.”

“But why wait until today to wave it in front of you?”

“Maybe they ran out of leads. Or other suspects.” I could picture them abandoning other leads, more flimsy even than those that pointed to me, and narrowing their focus to the ex-­girlfriend. Me. There was probably a lot of pressure from Kristen’s family to solve the case. I stopped eating too and laid my fork on my plate.

“What’s your lawyer’s name?”

“Richard Kane.”

Eric gulped and turned a little pale.

“What? What’s wrong with him?”

“This eggplant is amazing,” he said, a little too brightly. “Did you do anything special to it before you fried it? And what kind of oil—”

“Look,” I said. “Never mind the darn recipe. Obviously, you know something private. As usual. But in this case, you have to tell me.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t,” Eric said.

“Shoot,” I growled. “Doesn’t it seem to you that we ought to be doing a little research and not leaving my entire defense up to a lawyer I’ve never laid eyes on before he burst into the KWPD this morning?”

Eric patted his lips with his napkin. “Yes. You absolutely have to think about protecting yourself. And gathering information that might help him defend you. He suggested that himself, didn’t he?”

I told him about the very short list I’d made to help the lawyer establish my alibi: one half-­demented old lady with whom I’d bonded over cats. And I described how someone at the Truman Annex had ratted me out as being on the premises the morning Kristen was killed—­or so the detective claimed.