Fatal Reservations (11 page)

I ducked into the ladies’ room to freshen up.

On the way back out, I heard Wally’s voice rise over the rumble of conversation from the other diners.

“Can I speak frankly? Hayley’s reviews are the one thing you don’t have to micromanage at
Key Zest
. She’s improved one hundred percent since she started, especially since getting that monkey Ava off her back.”

“What did I say?” asked Palamina, all surprised innocence.

“Nothing direct, but I get the sense that Ava’s distrust of Hayley may have taken root in you.”

I felt my face grow hot and I froze, not wanting to show up at the table immediately and let on that I’d
overheard their discussion. Wally was putting my submerged fears into words. I tensed for the worst.

“Not at all,” said Palamina. “I was only trying to make a few suggestions. Keep in mind that you may not be in the most—how can I put this?—unbiased position.” Her voice remained pleasant but firm. “Hayley is adorable and eager. But she’s young and a bit impulsive—don’t you think? I worry about her decision making, that she loses her focus.”

“Did you know that Paul Woolston of the
Times
reads her stuff every week? He loves what she does,” Wally said. “He told me that not only does she understand food; she understands why people eat it. What they crave and what they tend to turn away from—and the psychology behind those decisions. And that’s unusual in a food critic. Particularly a critic who’s not working in the rarified stratosphere of a major newspaper in a big city.”

Palamina shrugged, the expression on her face neutral. “We’ll have to see how it goes, right?”

I retreated farther into the hallway that led to the ladies’ room and counted to a hundred. Then I adjusted my shirt, ran my fingers through my hair, and marched back to our table.

“I am so looking forward to this dinner,” I said brightly, then took a swig of the sake that had been left near my place setting. My eyes burned as the alcohol seared my throat and I choked and spluttered. Ray returned from calling Connie and slapped me on the back. “Watch it there, maestro.”

The first course was delivered and we began to eat.

“Have they solved the murder yet?” Ray asked. “Spooky that the body washed up right near Tarpon
Pier. Is your friend the tarot card reader really involved?”

Wally shot me a warning look, which I read as, “Stay out of it.” A man with a round, pleasant face and a close-cropped salt-and-pepper beard approached the table, a woman with lovely silvery curls following him. They waited for us to finish our discussion.

“I’m sure he had nothing to do with it,” I said. “And I won’t stand by and watch him get blamed for something he didn’t do. That’s all I’ll say.” I cracked a tight smile at the man standing by.

“Good evening, folks,” the man said. “Thanks for coming out this evening.”

I recognized his smooth baritone voice from the city commission meeting—this was the owner of the restaurant, Edwin Mastin. He’d gotten a haircut for opening night.

“We are the owners, Olivia and Edwin Mastin,” he said. Olivia waved and beamed.

“We’d love your feedback, both good and not so good,” Edwin assured us. “With a new restaurant, there are always things that can be improved.”

“You must have spent some time in Japan,” I said. “You don’t see shabu-shabu on a menu very often. Or puffer.”

“We won’t have that on the menu regularly, but our chef insisted that we carry it for the opening and my wife agreed,” he said with a friendly smile. He patted her on the back. “She’s the Japanese expert. I would have been fine with fried fish and steamed shrimp, but she convinced me that our town needed something different.”

“I thought Key West could use something a little
more challenging,” Olivia said. “We’ve got plenty of seafood restaurants on the island already.”

He waved his arm at the bustling dining room. “I believe she was right. Again. Although I see you’ve chosen some of my favorites, too.” They moved aside so the waiter could deliver our main courses, including the landlubber dishes I’d ordered.

“Your waiter mentioned that you not only run the restaurant, but you catch the fish as well?” Ray asked.

Edwin smiled. “Unfortunately we’re getting too busy to spend as much time on the water as we’d like. We’ll leave you to enjoy your meal.” He hesitated. “I couldn’t help overhearing—another murder is a real shame for this island. That kind of publicity hurts all of our businesses. So I can only hope the police wrap this up soon.”

“Me, too,” I said, “me, too.”

Once the Mastins had moved on to the next table, I asked Palamina, “How did your meeting with Commissioner Greenleigh go?”

She made a face. “I really got nothing of substance. It was like a puff piece in a magazine, only in person.”

I nodded, trying to look sympathetic. But feeling a tiny bit of pleasure that she had run into the buzz saw that could be Key West politics.

We powered through most of the food, especially enjoying the process of cooking the thin slices of beef in a pot of simmering broth. When Wally insisted that his lips started tingling after tasting the tiniest bite of puffer, none of the rest of us tried it. We ordered one bean cake just to say we’d sampled dessert; then I collected the check.

We saw Palamina off, and the three of us returned to Houseboat Row. “Come in for cake?” I asked Ray.

“I’d better get going. But I’d love to take a piece to go for Connie.”

I rushed into our galley, cut two pieces of raspberry cake, wrapped them in foil, and sent him off. “Are you hungry now?” I asked Wally. “Or should we wait on dessert?”

He patted his stomach. “Let’s wait a bit.” He sat on the couch and tapped the seat beside him. All three of the cats leaped up and nuzzled his hand.

“Scram, you guys.” I scraped them off the upholstery, then sat, and he circled his arms around me and leaned in for a long kiss, which turned into another, and another.

“I’ve been looking forward to that,” he said with a smile. “Missing you.” He brushed a curl away from my forehead, leaving me tingling from my head to my toes. After a few more kisses, the conversation with Palamina, and Lorenzo’s dilemma, and my mother’s unhappiness, all floated away. I even began to forget that I had a senior citizen roommate.

The screen door banged and Miss Gloria burst into the living room. We leaped apart, straightening our clothing and our hair. I was sure my cheeks were flaming red; I felt like a teenager caught necking with a boy in the living room by my parents.

When I had collected myself, I looked up and noticed the contraption on Miss G’s head that had replaced her bobbing hearts. A black band circled the crown and her forehead, and a webbing of straps crisscrossed her white hair to hold the band in place.
Attached to all that was something that looked like a small pair of binoculars.

“Good gravy, what are you wearing?” I asked.

At the same time Wally said, “What in the world are you doing in those glasses? You look like a sea creature.”

“Night vision goggles,” she said with a smirk. “Hayley kept nagging me about how well I could see, and my sons did, too. And so I started to believe them, even got a little worried about driving at night. But it turns out there’s no need in the world to be concerned. Because these are amazing.” She slipped the contraption off her head and handed it to Wally. “Try them out—you’ll see.”

“Where did you get them?” Wally asked as he peered through the lenses.

“They were in a bag of cat food,” she said. She picked up Lola and began to rub her ears.

“Come on, like a prize in a Cracker Jack box?” he asked. “Publix or Winn-Dixie?”

“Hayley brought the bag from Lorenzo’s place—for Lola.” She giggled, ignoring my warning eye bulge. She handed the white cat to me, took the glasses from Wally, and snapped them into place, resembling for all the world a miniature creature from another planet. Looking puzzled, Wally turned to me.

“Lorenzo asked me to take care of his kitty for a couple of days,” I explained. “Yesterday I went to his place to pick up the cat and some of her cat food.”

“I reached into the bag to feed the cat, and presto,” said Miss Gloria, “came out with these.” She patted her head.

“What in the world would he need night vision goggles for?” Wally asked. “Does he play paintball?”

“He doesn’t strike me as a paintball kind of guy,” Miss Gloria said, giggling again. She swung around to peer out of our side window. “He’s totally nonviolent. Look, I can see right into the neighbor’s bedroom. Mr. Renhart is having a nightcap.”

“Stop that.” I scrambled off the couch and tapped Miss Gloria’s shoulder. “Come on, someone’s going to call the police and report a Peeping Tom.”

“Oh, wait,” said Wally, rubbing his chin with his fingers. “I just read in the paper this week that the cops think the cemetery burglar is using goggles during his robberies.”

“No way. You can’t think Lorenzo robbed all those homes,” I said indignantly.

“What, then? Why hide those glasses in a bag of cat food?” he asked, his tone even. “Why have them at all? I think you should turn these in to the cops.”

“They could have nothing to do with anything,” I protested. I took the goggles from Miss Gloria and placed them on the counter.

Wally got to his feet, too. “So your friend is hiding criminal evidence in his pantry and you don’t see anything fishy?”

“Criminal evidence? There must be dozens of reasons why a person would need night vision goggles. And more reasons why he might have concealed them in the pantry.”

I just didn’t know what they were.

When it became clear to me that Wally was acting like a turkey, and clear to Wally that I wasn’t prepared to call the police, he left without a piece of cake or a good night kiss. Then Miss Gloria retired to her bed,
leaving nothing but me and the cats. I sure didn’t want to spend the night ruminating about the way the evening had ended with Wally, with him angry and me annoyed, and every bit of sexy warmth ebbed away. One thing might help a little.

I snapped Eric’s rubber band around my wrist and went into the galley to cut a mammoth-sized piece of raspberry cake. As I ate, my thoughts kept wandering back to Lorenzo.

Where had he gone in such a hurry? How much did I really know about him? Why would someone hate him enough to set him up for murder? And most perplexing of all, why did he have night vision goggles stored in Lola’s cat food?

9

But the next day, I pressed an ice bag to my head and lapped at my café Cubano like one of Hemingway’s dazed polydactyl cats.

—
Norman Van Aken,
No Experience Necessary

The three cats woke me up earlier than I would have preferred, prancing across the bed and playing a vigorous game of leapfrog that ended in attacking my toes through the quilt. When I rolled over and buried my head under the pillow, Evinrude pinned the little white kitty down and batted her until she screamed.

“Knock it off, Evinrude!” I yelped once I had identified the perpetrator. “Good gravy, you’re the senior animal here. You’re supposed to be setting an example.” He walked up to the head of the bed, purring and tail twitching, and then tapped my cheek with one paw.

“Okay,” I grumbled. “Give me one more minute.”

Halfway through that minute, the memory of how
last night had ended flooded my brain. A sickening weight of disappointment settled into my gut. I needed to get over myself. Maybe fixing a big breakfast would help. I threw on my most cheerful fluffy pink bathrobe and shuffled out to the galley, cats filing behind me. Miss Gloria had left a note on the kitchen table.

Gone up the finger to have coffee and muffins with Mrs. Dubisson. Terribly sorry if I caused trouble with Wally over those silly glasses. Love, Miss G.

Well, she had caused trouble, but maybe it was a case of pulling the curtain on a devastating fault in my relationship with Wally. Maybe— I needed to eat first before examining the grim details.

I gave the cats each a ration of kibble, then pulled two eggs out of the refrigerator, along with a bar of good cheddar and a quarter stick of butter. Then I rustled through the freezer until I found several pieces of whole-grain wheat bread from the Old Town Bakery. I chopped up half a small onion and soon had it sizzling in the butter, while NPR fed me the day’s news. Once the whipped eggs were starting to solidify in the hot butter, I scraped the cheddar into the middle of the omelet and folded it over. The toast popped out of the toaster, a lovely medium brown, and I buttered that, too. Then I poured a big mug of Miss Gloria’s coffee and took my breakfast out to the deck. The bigger cats trotted after me, looking hopeful, and Lola fell in behind them. It wasn’t taking long for her to adjust to her new surroundings, the in-house pecking order, and the feline routines.

As I ate, I tried to convince myself that the argument last night hadn’t sounded the death knell for me and
Wally. It wasn’t only that he was disappointed in me. I was disappointed in his reaction, too. If he didn’t understand how important it was to stand up for your friends, what did that mean for our future? Nothing good.

I used the last corner of toast to soak up a leftover bit of melted cheese, then put the plate down for the cats to lick. As I sipped on the coffee, Schnootie, the next-door neighbor’s gray schnauzer, burst out of their boat and began to bark furiously at my felines. Mrs. Renhart hurried out of the cabin and snatched up the little dog.

“Sorry, Hayley,” she said. “One day maybe she’ll get used to them.”

I shrugged and smiled. “I bet she will.” Which I didn’t believe, really. She would be a senior citizen confined to her doggie bed and she’d still woof her fool head off at any resident cats.

“It’s one of those days when I’m just glad to be alive,” my neighbor crooned. She buried her face in the dog’s fur. “And having a silver beastie makes it even better.” She grabbed the dog’s paw and waved at me, and then at Evinrude, and went back into her boat.