Murder With Ganache: A Key West Food Critic Mystery (9 page)

Battered, beaten, I’m obsessed

with flour water butter heat.

I’m addict, artist, marbled meat,

and you, the passion I’ve repressed.

—Sophie Strauss

Ray bumped our boat alongside the sailboat. Connie took the helm, and Ray leaped onto the second boat and tied ours off to one of its rusted cleats. Then he reached a hand out to help Allison hop across the gap and come aboard. The old boat shivered and rocked with the addition of the extra weight. Allison crab-walked over to her son and crouched down beside him.

“Probably be best if the rest of you stay where you are,” said Ray. “I don’t know how sturdy she is, and we’d hate to sink her.” He went over to Allison, knelt down, talking softly, and pressed his fingers to Rory’s wrist, and then his neck. He whispered something else to my stepmother, then walked back to our boat.

“He’s unconscious but breathing,” he said.

“Oh thank god,” said my mother, struggling to extract her phone from her purse. “We should call for help right away.”

Ray nodded at Connie, who was already on the radio, explaining our situation to the Coast Guard. “Connie’s got that covered.”

The radio crackled back with instructions to pull into the old harbor alongside the
Yankee Freedom
. EMTs would meet us on the dock, a plan that flooded me with relief.

“What the hell happened to him?” my father asked. He clenched his fists, scanning the horizon as if searching for someone to blame. “What does it look like? Did he fall or what?”

“He’s got a gash in the back of his head that looks nasty. It’s clotted up a little, but still oozing. And he’s soaking wet. He’s got to be freezing. The faster we get him some medical attention, the better.”

Then I noticed the pink footprints that Ray had made on the deck of the sailboat. Rory’s blood. My stomach pitched and I swallowed hard. Ray climbed into our motorboat.

“And,” he said, lowering his voice so Allison wouldn’t hear—though she could surely see it for herself as she crouched beside him—“his palms are marked up, like he was pulling on a rope or a chain. His face is scratched up and his neck is red too, almost as if someone tried to strangle him, drown him like an unwanted kitten.”

Connie and I gasped. Now I felt really sick.

“We could wait until they get out here, but as long as we’re careful, I think I can get us to land faster than a rescue boat would find us. The emergency medical folks will be waiting for us at the dock. But I’ll need someone’s help,” he said. “I don’t think it’s smart to leave Allison over there.” He smiled apologetically at my father. “She isn’t much of a sailor.”

Sam and my dad rushed to the side of the boat, which rocked and sloshed, nearly capsizing all of us.

“Easy, fellas,” said Ray, holding up a hand and then waving them back to their seats. “Hayley, maybe I can get you to scamper over and apply pressure to his wound. You’re smaller than the guys.” He stripped off his Windbreaker, followed by the T-shirt he had on underneath. He handed the shirt to me. “Keep the pressure steady, but don’t move his head. I’ll tow this tub into the harbor.”

“Got it,” I said.

My father removed his jacket too. “Cover him up with this, Hayley. God knows how long he was in the water.”

I boarded the sailboat and explained the plan to my stepmother.

“I’ll take good care of him,” I promised.

As we changed places, I hugged her, watching a mixture of despair and fatigue wash over her face, taking the place of the elation that had shone there once she saw that Rory was breathing. She crawled back to the motorboat and Ray helped her to board. After tucking my fleece and my father’s coat around Rory’s unconscious form, I pressed the T-shirt to his head, trying not to imagine what might have been exposed by the three-inch gash. Bones? Brains? I didn’t dare look too closely for fear of what I might see. I took a deep breath of cold air, and tried to find a place to pat him where the flesh wasn’t bruised and scraped. I picked up his hand, studying the palm. Impressions like the metal links of a chain were imprinted in his skin.

Springing back on the old sailboat, graceful as a cat, Ray tied it to the back of the motorboat. Then he weighed in the anchor, the chain clanking and complaining as he pulled it aboard. Once the sailboat was floating free, he returned to the wheel of the powerboat. Then the motor sputtered to life and I flashed a thumbs-up. He checked the towrope one last time, and began to guide our craft through the live-aboards, around the far side of Wisteria Island, and straight toward the old harbor.

“We’ll get you home safe,” I said to Rory, determined to keep up a comforting stream of chatter, whether he could hear me or not. Even though a parade of questions ran through my mind about what he’d gotten into and why, and why no one else had seen him lying injured on the boat, I tried to keep my words only positive.

“We’ll get that cut sewed up and you’ll be good as new. Your hair will cover it so no one will ever notice the scar,” I babbled as I stroked his arm. “Ray’s towing us in with his friend’s boat—he’s an excellent captain.”

By the time we chugged into the marina, an ambulance and two cop cars, lights flashing, were waiting in the cul-de-sac where the
Yankee Freedom
and
Hindu
boats were tied up. Two EMTs stood on the dock with a gurney. A small flock of seagulls and pigeons huddled on the roofline of the ticket booth; one of them flapped away, loosing a mournful cry. The police corralled curious onlookers who had gathered behind the paramedics—morning people holding steaming cups of coffee, dog walkers, crews from the Fury and Sebago pleasure boats. A charter captain helped Connie and Ray tie up to an open slip and pull the sailboat close to the dock. Within moments, the medics had boarded the boat and taken my place beside Rory. They braced his head and neck with a collar, shifted him onto a stiff board, and strapped him down.

“You did good,” one of them said, patting my back, as the other inserted an IV. They replaced the bloody T-shirt I’d been pressing to Rory’s skull with sterile packing. “We’ve got it now.”

Then they slid the board holding my stepbrother across the hull of the sailboat, transferred him to the stretcher, and rolled the stretcher to the ambulance. Allison scrambled into the back with one of the EMTs, and my father climbed into the cab with the other.

“We’ll call you,” he said as he slammed the door.

“We’ll be right behind you,” I yelled back. “Crap, I can’t believe this,” I said to the others. “Did you see the chain marks on his hands? Who the heck did he run into?”

“Someone bad,” my mother said. “I don’t think they planned for him to live to tell about it either.”

Officer Ryan emerged from the crowd and questioned us about where and how we’d found Rory. “We’ll take it from here,” he told Ray when we’d finished, gesturing to the old boat. “We’ll have our detectives look her over and try to determine what happened. Which of you boarded this craft?”

“Just me and Ray and my stepmother,” I said, pointing to the empty spot where Allison had been loaded into the ambulance with my brother.

“One of our detectives may call you in for fingerprints,” he said. “Good luck with your brother.” He touched my back and tipped his head, a worried frown on his lips. “And you take care of yourself.”

“You too,” my mother said. “Are you working a double shift?”

“I’m fine,” he said, and flashed her a thumbs-up. “We’re a little short-staffed. Spring break, you know.”

We left the sailboat in the old harbor for the police to investigate and puttered back to Stock Island in stunned silence. Once we reached the marina, my mother, Sam, and I sprang out of the boat and hurried over to the rented Kia. I directed Sam past the golf course and the animal shelter to the Lower Keys Medical Center, not far from where we’d landed.

“I’ll wait for you right out here,” Sam said as my mother and I rushed into the emergency department. Once inside, I hesitated, overwhelmed by the strong odor of disinfectant and unpleasant memories of other visits I’d made here.

Mom forged forward and explained to the desk clerk that we were relatives of the boy brought in fifteen minutes earlier. “We’re not blood relations. But related by marriage, you know? He might as well be blood—he means that much to us.”

“Take a seat, and I’ll see what I can find out for you,” the woman behind the desk said with a kind smile.

Ten minutes later, my father emerged from the patient care area. “He’s in X-ray right now, and then they’re going to transfer him to intensive care.”

“Will he be all right?” my mother asked.

“He’s in a coma.” My father shrugged, his face sagging with worry. “They aren’t making long-term predictions until they see the results of the CT scan. But he’s breathing on his own; that’s a really good thing. He went into shock and lost a lot of blood. As you know.” He waved at my T-shirt, stained from my stepbrother’s blood, and tried to smile. The matter-of-fact report did not match his crumpled expression. “The good news is they don’t feel that they need to airlift him out to Miami.”

“Poor Allison,” I said. “What can we do to help?”

“There’s nothing to do here. You should go get some rest, write your magazine piece, help Connie with the wedding. Maybe you can take a shift later. If I can convince her to leave his side. It might be a long haul.”

“I’m so sorry,” said my mother and moved forward to give him a quick hug before he could fend her off. At first he looked surprised and tense, but then he hugged her back.

“What did Rory’s dad say when you called?” I asked him.

“Shit!” my father said. “We totally forgot. That will tip Allison right over the edge. If you thought we had a bad relationship in our low moments”—he looked at Mom—“compared to their divorce, we were bosom buddies.”

The last thing I wanted to do was talk to Rory’s demanding and unpleasant father. But the urge to be of some use to my family was stronger. “I’ll call him,” I said.

“Thanks, but that’s my job,” said my father.

“Let Hayley do it, won’t you, Jim?” Mom said. “You have enough to worry about.”

My father glanced from her to me, and then slowly nodded. “Thank you. Tell him where we are and that Allison will speak to him later.” He blew me a kiss and then hurried away.

“That was sweet of you, honey,” Mom said. She tucked a loose curl behind my ear and leaned over to kiss my forehead.

“I feel terrible for them.”

“Darling, you don’t even want to imagine.” She fanned her face with her hand. “It would feel unbearable to have your own baby hurt like that,” Mom said. “It’s kept me up many, many nights, worrying about you . . .”

I squeezed her hand and cracked a smile. “After a while, you need to let go or go crazy, right?”

My phone rang as we exited the lobby.

Lieutenant Torrence’s name flashed on the screen. “You found him?”

“We’re just leaving the hospital. He was laid out on one of those wrecked boats off Wisteria Island with a head injury. He lost a lot of blood.”

“Tell him about the chain,” my mother prompted.

I cleared my throat and swallowed. “Your guys should be sure to look at his hands. It’s like he was fighting with someone who had a chain.” I got goose bumps saying the words out loud, remembering the clanking noise Ray made as he reeled in the heavy rusted links attached to the sailboat’s anchor.

“We’ve got forensics working on the boat now,” Torrence said. “And another team headed out to the mooring to canvass the other live-aboards. Usually in a case like this, somebody saw or heard something, though they may not realize its importance at the time. Anything else?”

“Tell him how kind Officer Ryan has been,” said my mother.

“Mom says to tell you Officer Ryan has been a peach.” I blushed, feeling silly and exposed. If I followed my mother’s lead, I’d run through all the eligible bachelors in the police department in no time.

Torrence laughed. “A peach. I’ll make a note of that in his personnel file.”

Suddenly I remembered the photo on Facebook. “Take a look at the Facebook page for the Courthouse Deli bench,” I told him. “Rory was there last night with some other kids—you’ll see him in the photo, the guy with the strawberry curls.”

“Your brother posted the picture?”

“No, it was someone else, maybe one of the girls. But she tagged him.” The Facebook equivalent of introducing someone to your friends or pointing them out in a photo album. I did not mention that Rory looked completely looped—he’d see that for himself. Sam pulled the Kia up to the hospital entrance. Mom got in the passenger seat, and I slid into the back, then slammed the door, still holding the phone to my ear.

“Recognize anyone else?” Torrence asked.

“No. But one of the girls in the photo did resemble the description the guy gave us last night. The girl he thinks stole the Jet Ski.” Was that only a few hours ago? It felt like days.

“Bransford’s on his way over to the hospital to interview your stepmother again. And Rory, of course, when he’s able to communicate. We’ll stay in touch.” He hung up abruptly.