Fatal Reservations (14 page)

Lorenzo’s mother’s face was stony, except for the uncertainty that flickered in her eyes, as though she was on the verge of calling security and having me thrown out. Had she even heard about the murder accusation? I had to talk faster, convince her I was on the right side. Lorenzo’s side.

“Honest to god, I’m his friend. And I really care
about him and I’m worried about him. He called me to pick up his kitty. Lola. She’s staying on our houseboat with our two cats. It was not love at first sight between them, but now she’s folded right into the pack. I’m afraid she may have some bad feline habits when he picks her up again.”

Her mouth relaxed a little. “He told me about Lola.”

I smiled. “She’s the sweetest little thing. But listen, I’m worried sick about him, but I said that already. He must have told you that the police think he might have killed the man who was murdered earlier this week in Key West. Apparently there’s some evidence pointing that way. And you can understand that him disappearing—well, it makes him look bad.”

The woman’s lips began to tremble and her eyes looked moist. She backed away from the screen door and motioned to me to enter. “I’m sick about all of this, too,” she said and led me into a dark living room with white carpet that had seen a lot of foot traffic. Two La-Z-Boy chairs upholstered in tropical prints faced the television—an old model, not a new flat-screen. A PBS mystery flickered on the screen. On the table between the chairs sat an old-fashioned keyboard, unattached to any computer or iPad or any other modern device. She saw me looking at the keyboard and gave a faint smile.

“WebTV. We’re probably the last subscribers in the world. But I never got used to the computer and Marvin Senior said he spent too much time staring at a screen at work to want to take it up at home, too. He was a stubborn man. And Marvin Junior took that from him. Can I get you a cup of tea? The water’s hot—I was about to pour when you knocked. Chamomile okay?”

“Lovely. Thanks,” I said as she waved me to one of the lounge chairs. She returned shortly with two cups
of tea in bone china with silver around the rims, and flicked off the television. I stirred a cube of white sugar into my cup and took a sip of tea, which tasted a bit like sweetened dishwater. I settled the cup into the saucer.

“Is this wedding china?”

She nodded and flashed a sad smile.

“Did Lorenzo ever mention the name Bart Frontgate?” I asked. “That’s the man who was killed.”

She shook her head, her lips tense again. “Nothing like that.”

She was scared to death, and I was pushing too hard. “What can you tell me about why he left Key West in such a hurry?” I asked in a gentle voice. “Was he concerned about something? Why was he here?”

“I don’t know anything about that man, Frontgate, or whatever,” she said. “He was worried about a girl. Someone who relied on him.”

“That’s why he ran?” I asked.

“He ran because he didn’t believe the police would look for the real killer. He thought they’d be satisfied with any suspect—even himself, and he had nothing to do with it. Clean up the mess, dump the trash into the bin. Tell the public the mystery was solved. And be done. Let the people think the murder was the result of a drunken brawl and that it probably didn’t matter too much who the real killer was. As long as someone was caught and punished.”

I noticed a photograph across the room on the table next to the TV, and I got up to investigate. Two men stood together, stiffly, a teenage Lorenzo, or Marvin Junior, as she called him, and a tall blue-eyed man with wide shoulders—most likely his dad.

“That was my husband, Marvin Senior,” the woman
said. “It may be the only photograph I have of the two of them together.”

“They didn’t get along?” I asked.

“I’m sad to say they did not,” she said. “Marvin Junior hated sports. He didn’t mind losing, but he hated the idea of beating someone else. And even more, he couldn’t bear hunting and fishing. He wanted no part of hurting other creatures. He was not a boy’s boy—you know what I mean?”

I nodded, thinking that issue seemed to cause more trouble between fathers and sons than any other I’d heard of. Men sometimes had an image of what their relationship with a son should be like, and it was hard to give that up and adjust to what was really there.

“My husband resented that Marvin Junior spent so much time with my mother. He never did forgive my mother for getting him started with tarot cards. But she was certain that he was gifted, that he had the sight. And he was so soft and sweet and he preferred the company of his grandmother to the rough-and-tumble boys in the neighborhood.”

“She was his respite,” I said.

Her eyes glistened with tears. “Marvin Junior adored my mother and he soaked up her attention, and he finally began to understand and accept that he did have an unusual vision.” She took a tissue from the box beside her chair and patted her face. “My husband was so relieved when he went off to college. But instead of studying, Marvin stayed up late nights and read cards for people in the common room.” She gave a soft laugh. “That didn’t do much for his GPA and he finally dropped out.”

I replaced the photo and went back to my chair. “Tell me about the girl he worried about. Not a girlfriend?”

She shook her head. “He believed she was in danger. Maybe doing something illegal, too.” Her forehead wrinkled with concern. “Nothing feels more important to him than helping people find their way.”

“Was it possible he believed this woman killed Frontgate?”

Lorenzo’s mother shrugged and covered her face with her hands. “He takes on the problems that people bring to him. He takes them too much to heart. It’s like he doesn’t have the filter that most people have, a shield to protect himself from other people’s heartbreak.”

Lorenzo’s mother stood up. “I was about to put a frozen dinner in the microwave. Would you like to stay for supper? I know it’s late . . . I got caught up in my programs. Or we could go across the street and get a blooming onion at the Outback. Marvin Senior and I used to do that every week and I miss it. But I certainly couldn’t order a whole one by myself.” She patted her stomach. “I can’t handle fried food the way I used to.”

Neither sounded at all appealing, even though I was hungry in spite of the snacks I’d packed. And the two pieces of cake I’d eaten—not saving one for her as I’d intended. “Thank you so much for the kind offer. I was hoping to catch the late ferry back to Key West. I’ll call a taxi.”

“I’ll take you,” she said. “Give me a minute to freshen up and I’ll be right with you.” She went into the back bedroom to get ready. I breathed a sigh of relief, pleased to have dodged the bullet of a frozen dinner or an oversized fried onion with mayonnaise-y dipping sauce. Neither of those options would be good company on the long, dark boat ride back to Key West.

Mrs. Smith led me to the elevator and we clunked
and lurched to the bottom level and trotted across the parking lot to her car. She gestured to a big old Buick stored under a carport next to a golf cart. The inside of the car seemed to be held together with duct tape. “Don’t mind the patch job,” she said, grinning as she slipped into the driver’s seat. “No way my husband was going to trade this car in. ‘Nothing new could be better than what I already have,’ he always said. Which I suppose was a good motto for a long marriage.” She smiled. “Are you married?”

“Not yet.” Which sounded dishonest. “Not even close. Maybe someday. My mom’s engaged, though.” I mentally clunked my skull for sounding silly. But the subject of marriage seemed to turn my head to mush.

She fired up the car, backed out of the carport, and headed out of the complex, waving to the guard as the arm protecting the driveway swung up. “Wait, how did you get in here?”

“Don’t be mad at him,” I said. “I was very persuasive. Said you were turning seventy-five and I was here to help celebrate.”

“Seventy-five, huh? You added five years to my total.” She laughed away my apology, then turned right toward Fort Myers Beach, where the ferry docked. We wound through a series of smaller streets, never setting tire on busy, crazy Route Forty-one.

“You could be a taxi driver yourself,” I said with admiration. “You seem to know all the back roads.”

“I don’t like to make left turns into oncoming traffic,” she admitted as she pulled up to the curb.

“Do you know where he’s gone?” I asked as I was getting out of the car.

She glanced over, her face quiet, and said nothing. She knew exactly what I was asking. She simply wasn’t going to answer. So I traveled four hours each way on a rolling sea for zippedy-do-da-nothing.

12

She had said that the very thought of him made her want to pan-fry her face, but I didn’t believe her.

—Jessica Soffer,
Tomorrow There
Will Be Apricots

It was hours after midnight when I finally staggered into our houseboat, feeling queasy and yet ravenous. Evinrude, Sparky, and Lola greeted me at the door. After a quick scratch hello behind three sets of ears, I marched directly to the refrigerator. The cats launched into a chorus of meows. “Shush,” I whispered, “you’ll wake Miss Gloria.”

I poured them each a tiny dollop of milk and rummaged around until I found some cheese, a decent-looking apple, and two pieces of leftover pepperoni pizza that Miss Gloria must have ordered for supper. Standing by the sink, I ate quickly, then noticed a package that had been left on the counter. Miss Gloria had scrawled a note on top.

Valentine’s package. You won’t believe how cute they are!

I tore open the wrapping, buzzing happily with the
thought that maybe Wally had recognized he’d overreacted and dropped off a Valentine’s gift after all. But instead of something romantic from him, or even last-minute, day-after holiday chocolates, my mother had sent white flannel pajamas with bright red hearts all over them. Sigh. A second note was clipped to my jammies, also in Miss Gloria’s handwriting.

She sent me the same! So cute! I washed and dried and ironed them so we could wear them right away.

I rubbed the fabric between my fingers. They did feel soft and cozy. So I slid them on, brushed my teeth, and fell into bed, determined not to think about Lorenzo’s problems. Or my own. Everything would look brighter in the morning. It always did.

A couple of hours later, I woke up with the vague foreboding that I’d heard a noise in the living room. The cats? I could see in the faint graying light that slipped through the slats of my window blinds that Lola was gone from the bed. The other two were splayed across my quilt, ears perked and eyes wide so they looked alert and worried. My heart began to pound. And I was rushed by memories of Miss Gloria’s terrible near-death experience last winter.

Miss Gloria. Oh my gosh. What if an intruder had gotten to her again? But having learned my lesson over the past fourteen months, I dialed 911 and whispered my address.

“Stay on the line,” the dispatcher said, so I tucked the phone into the pajama chest pocket. Then I grabbed the scrap length of two-by-four that I’d kept at the back
of my closet ever since Miss Gloria’s fright, and edged my door open.

“Get out! I’ve called the police!” I shrieked into the living room. “The cops will be here any second.”

And as if to underscore how serious I was, the sound of sirens screamed from the direction of the police station across the bight. With the piece of wood poised over my head, I peered into the living room. A tall man in black jeans and a black T-shirt froze, looking terrified, with Lola in his arms. Lorenzo.

Miss Gloria burst out of her cabin, also dressed in my mother’s Valentine’s Day pajamas and brandishing a wooden rolling pin. “Lordy, lordy,” said Miss Gloria. “What in the world is going on? You people could wake the dead.”

“Lordy, lordy is right,” I said. “The cops are gonna show up any minute. What are you doing here?”

Lorenzo’s eyes widened with fear. “I swear I’ll tell you all about it, but they can’t find me,” he said, clutching the white kitty to his chest.

“We’ve got to hide him,” I said to Miss Gloria, my brain still fuzzy with sleep and the shock of being awakened abruptly. “The back deck?”

She shook her head. “That’s the first place they’ll look. Come here quickly. Leave Lola with Hayley.” She grabbed Lorenzo’s forearm and hustled him down the hall. Then she flung open the trap door that led to the cubby containing our bilge pump. Last December, we’d installed a new pull and oiled all the hinges so the door worked easily, so that even a small person like her would be able to push it open if she was ever trapped again. “It won’t be comfortable, but it won’t be for long.”

He handed me the kitty and lowered himself into
the pit. Then he crouched down, folded himself into a ball, and signaled for us to drop the lid. Because of his height, the door wouldn’t quite shut, sticking up a quarter inch above the floorboards around it. Miss Gloria grabbed the heart-shaped rag rug that we kept on the floor in front of the kitchen sink and threw it over the opening. The kitty leaped out of my arms and dashed into the bedroom.

“There. Just don’t say a word until we give the all clear,” she called down to Lorenzo. “No coughing, no throat clearing, not even a hiccup.”

We heard the clomping of boots on our outside deck, and then banging on the door. Miss Gloria and I both scurried over and peered out. Two cops in blue uniforms from the Key West Police Department were waiting, right hands on guns, left hands holding two oversized flashlights. I flicked on the outside deck light and opened the door. A few bugs fluttered into the pool of light.

“You called for help?” asked the bigger man, dark haired and lanky. The other man, smaller and rounder, stood a foot back, his eyes scanning the room behind us and the boats to either side, following his flashlight beam.

“I thought I heard an intruder,” I explained. “But it turns out it must have been the cats.” I pointed at Evinrude, who lounged full-length on the coffee table, looking appropriately mischievous.