Death In Four Courses Part 5

"We enjoyed all of it," I said, looking at the silverware and napkins and crumbs littering the table. "Besides, she doesn't want random people bothering her while she eats. And dessert will be here any minute."

"Well, I'm going over, then," said Mom as she pushed her chair away from the table. "It's only polite to say h.e.l.lo. And it's not like she's some kind of rock star or top-level politician who needs to guard her privacy."

What choice did I have but to follow?

"Ms. Nethercut," Mom gushed when she reached her table. "I'm Janet Snow and this is my daughter, Hayley." She pulled me forward. "We're both attending the food writing seminar and we just loved your panel discussion today."

"Thank you. I'm delighted to be part of the conference," said Olivia. Her polite smile, I thought, did not invite further conversation. And she did not introduce us to the woman sharing her table, who was busy thumbing through messages on her smartphone.

"I arrived just in the nick of time on Thursday-any later and I would have missed Jonah Barrows," my mother burbled. "My gosh, even the airport in Key West is adorable."

Olivia nodded without enthusiasm. "I flew into Marathon this time."

"Have you eaten here before?" Mom asked. "We just loved the trio of hummus. Though actually the croquettes were my favorites-these light little patties of crusty mashed potatoes with a tiny bite of hot pepper. They quenched the fire with a dollop of sour cream and chopped green onions in exactly the right way. Hayley's boyfriend ordered those-such a guy thing-but we were all crazy about them. He's a detective with the local police department and just adorable."

I gritted my teeth to keep from correcting the boyfriend comment. Olivia Nethercut would not care about the status of my relationship, which after tonight hovered near ground zero. Better to jump on the food bandwagon and then steer Mom away as quickly as possible.

"The pita bread with the trio of dips was the best we've had outside of Athens," I said. Mom flashed me a grateful smile. "They put tons of lemon in the plain hummus, while the red pepper version was just the right spicy."

"Hayley's the food critic for Key Zest magazine," my mother announced to Olivia and her dinner partner.

"I'm sorry to say I haven't heard of that one," said Olivia.

Although she had heard of it-when I'd introduced myself the night before. But who could blame her for losing that fact in the discovery of the murder that followed?

"Local rag," I said before my mother could inform her it rivaled the New York Times.

Across the room, I noticed the waiter delivering the dessert we'd ordered to our table. "I would love to talk to you at some point over the weekend if you're available," I said to Olivia. "I'm doing stories on some of the folks here at the conference. What would be the best way to get in touch with you?"

She took an elegant ivory card from a small black satin bag and handed it over. "Text or e-mail-I'll get either."

"Wonderful!" I said, running a finger over the raised printing. "I'll be calling. We hope you enjoy your dinner." I gripped Mom's elbow and steered her back across the room.

"You see?" Mom said as she slid into her seat and unfolded her napkin. "You just need to put yourself forward a little more. Now you've got an interview with a hotshot."

"She didn't really agree to anything," I said, though I did feel a hopeful glimmer of possibility as I tucked Olivia's card into my worn leather wallet.

My mother divided the desserts between our plates and spooned in a bite of the bread pudding, studded with enormous, fresh blueberries and garnished with vanilla ice cream.

"This is outstanding," she said. "And I don't even care for bread pudding. Would you say that a critic should always order the restaurant's specials?"

I sighed. "I suppose. If that's what they're steering people toward, you ought to taste it, right?" But I had little appet.i.te for either the bread pudding or the chocolate crepes, too wound up about both the conversation with one of my foodie idols and the evening with Bransford. Beginnings were hard-whether it was a relationship or the dream job you were desperate to succeed at. Endings were worse.

As we started our walk back to Bill and Eric's house, I deflected Mom's suggestion about a second go-around of dessert at the Better Than s.e.x Restaurant by pointing out that both of us had been forced to unhook the top b.u.t.tons of our pants during dinner. After the detective left, of course.

We walked the length of Duval Street instead, Mom marveling at the young black boys playing a keyboard and singing at the top of their lungs who reminded her of the Jackson Five in their heyday. We cut away from the crowded bustle of Duval and headed into the residential neighborhood where my friends lived. It was after ten by the time we arrived at Eric and Bill's small cottage. We let ourselves in, surprised that all the lights were blazing. Toby the wonder dog threw all his fifteen pounds of wiry dog flesh at our knees, yapping with outrage.

"I'm home," Mom warbled cheerfully. "Is everybody decent? Hayley's here too. Dinner was amazing. Killer croquettes and the most stunning hummus. And oh, we actually talked with Olivia Nethercut. And Hayley's Nate is just adorable."

"He's not 'my Nate,'" I grumbled.

No one answered.

We walked through the kitchen to the open-air seating that overlooked the garden. Bill was pacing by the fan palms in the backyard, yelling into his cell phone.

"I don't need a lawyer tomorrow. I need one now!"

7.

That's something I've noticed about food: whenever there's a crisis if you can get people to eating normally things get better.

-Madeleine L'Engle Bill slammed the phone back into its receiver and sank onto the couch, burying his face in his hands. Toby leaped up onto the cushion beside him and tried to lick between his fingers.

"What's happened?" I asked. "Why do you need a lawyer?"

He explained in a hoa.r.s.e whisper that three cops had arrived at the house earlier.

"For what?" Mom and I asked in unison.

"They wanted Eric to come to the station." He glanced up at us, struggling to hold back the tremor in his voice. "To be questioned about the murder of Jonah Barrows."

Mom and I exchanged horrified glances.

"Your boyfriend was one of them," he added, and I winced. Bransford had left dinner with us to pick up Eric and hadn't mentioned it? Not that I'd expect to get the update on every detail of his police business, but good gravy, he knew Eric was one of my best pals. Surely he could have given me a heads-up. It was hard to see how dating a cop in a tight-knit community was going to work out, no matter how cute he was.

"They dropped him off five minutes ago," Bill said, his voice so tight it almost broke. "He went directly to our bedroom and closed himself in."

"So, what were they questioning him about?" I asked.

"He wouldn't tell me anything," Bill said. "But I've never seen him look so bad."

"He withdrew like that when his dad died," Mom said. "That was such a shock. They all took it hard. Because of the unfinished business about the divorce, I suppose. If you don't get these things sorted out at the time they happen, they fester. Eric barely spoke to his mom when he came home for the funeral."

"But he's a grown man now," I said, feeling a little impatient with Mom's amateur a.n.a.lysis. "This behavior makes no sense."

Mom nodded and planted herself on the couch next to Bill, circled one arm around him, and reached for his hand, ignoring Toby's warning growl. "He probably needs a little time alone to digest what happened. That's all."

Bill straightened his slumped shoulders. "But doesn't he understand that I'm worried sick too? It's not just him anymore."

"What can we do?" Mom asked, patting his knee. "How can we help?"

"I can call Detective Hotshot and find out what the h.e.l.l's going on. That's what I can do." I pulled my phone out of my purse and punched in Bransford's number, which shunted me right to voice mail. "He is so not my boyfriend," I muttered while his "away from my desk" message played.

"It's Hayley Snow," I said after the beep. "I'm concerned about my friend Eric Altman. I'm at his house now. Could you kindly call me when you get a chance?"

"Say something nice about the date," Mom fussed from across the room. "She didn't even let him pay," she told Bill.

"Dinner was lovely," I choked out, rolling my eyes and deciding not to explain to my mother again that professional ethics demanded that I expense the meal. I slid the phone into my purse and went over to take a seat across from Bill and Mom. "Did Eric even know Jonah?"

Bill shrugged and wiped his face on his sleeve, looking as forlorn as I'd ever seen him. I hoped he was overreacting. After all, the cops had let Eric go after a short conversation, right? Maybe this mess involved one of his therapy patients, in which case he wouldn't be allowed because of professional ethics to divulge anything. Even to Bill.

"Okay if I try to talk to him?"

Bill shrugged again. "You can try."

I popped up, crossed the porch, and went through the kitchen, Toby bouncing behind me, his toenails clacking on the Dade County Pine floor. Remnants of dinner had been abandoned on the speckled gray granite counter-a nice piece of grilled salmon, barely eaten, potato salad, and haricots verts. I continued down the hall to the guys' room and tapped on the closed door.

"Eric? It's Hayley. We're all worried. Is there any way I can help?"

I paused to listen but heard nothing. Possible he was snoozing already, but not likely. He was a night owl and a restless sleeper, even in the best of conditions. Besides, Bill said he'd just arrived home. No one drops off to sleep that fast. Except for my ex-boyfriend, Chad, after you-know-what. Which had always been a point of contention and not worth one nanosecond more of my brain time. I shook my head to clear those unwelcome thoughts and tapped again, with a little more force. "Eric? We're here to support you, whatever you're going through."

"Thanks for that. I appreciate you guys coming over. I'll be fine."

He didn't open the door or offer to talk things over. What was the right thing to do? Would it help to remind him I'd been through something similar? Maybe he needed one more little nudge.

"We could brainstorm-"

"Right now what I need is s.p.a.ce." His voice sounded flat and hopeless and utterly definite.

"You got it," I answered, and retreated down the hall to the others, stopping first to put the potato salad into the fridge. It looked too good to abandon to the ravages of botulism. Then I dipped a finger into a small bowl of mustard sauce-light and spicy with a touch of honey-considering what to say to Bill. Just the facts, I supposed.

"Like you said, he needs s.p.a.ce." I wrinkled my nose and sat back down. Toby jumped up beside me and pawed at my hand until I scratched behind his ears. "This isn't like him. Isn't he the guy who always, always wants to talk things over?"

"Always," said Bill. He closed his eyes and rested his head against the cushion behind him.

Mom started to straighten the magazines on the coffee table, looking as helpless as I felt. There wasn't enough of a mess to clean up to contain her anxiety.

"Do you have b.u.t.ter and chocolate in the house?" she asked. "If anything will bring him out-"

"Fudge pie will," I said, moving Toby off my lap and getting up to help. If Mom and I had one thing in common, it was the urge to cook and eat during a crisis. Even the whiff of crisis brought a surge of recipes to our minds. I wasn't the least bit hungry after our enormous dinner, but just making the pie would feel therapeutic. And it would be something tangible we could leave behind as a token of our love and support.

I cleaned up the remnants of their dinner, tucking the plates and silverware into the dishwasher and sc.r.a.ping a few leftovers into the dog's bowl. Toby rooted through the food, pushed the green beans to the side, and snapped up the fish. Meanwhile, Mom melted three squares of unsweetened chocolate and a bar of b.u.t.ter in the microwave and began to beat some eggs. Bill paced a few laps around the living room and collapsed back onto the couch.

"I can't understand how the Jonah Barrows business would have anything to do with Eric," I said as I greased a gla.s.s pie pan with b.u.t.ter and turned on the oven. "What could possibly lead them to even consider the possibility that he knew something about Jonah's death?"

"Or killed him," Bill called from the couch, his face darkening like a summer afternoon thundercloud.

He sprang up and strode off the porch into their small garden. We watched him lope down the path past the potted basil and purple impatiens, then past the three-tiered fountain and the ceramic-tiled concrete bench, over to the towering traveler palm and an even taller stand of black bamboo. A gust of wind blew, rustling the stiff stalks of bamboo and causing them to rattle like old skeletons. Bill bolted back up the stairs, Toby circling through his feet, yapping with excitement.

"Maybe he did know him. Why else would he be acting so weird? If the police call you in for questioning about a murder, why wouldn't you tell them everything you know and be done with it?"

I could answer that question from personal experience. I'd had nothing to do with the murder of Kristen Faulkner, but under the pressure of the police investigation, I'd felt guilty as h.e.l.l. If they'd had time to press me a little bit longer before I hired my buffoon of a lawyer, I probably would have confessed. My skeevy lawyer told me there have been hundreds of lawsuits filed-and won-against police departments for the kind of psychological pressure that caused innocent people to buckle.

"You think it would be easy-you didn't do it, so just say so. But you panic. And you start feeling and acting guilty even if you aren't."

"But why wouldn't he simply say he didn't know the man? Why lock himself away like this? It makes him look bad." Bill leaned on one of the barstools facing the kitchen counter, looking pale and shaky. "Remember how he came down with that terrible headache at the party last night and had to rush home? Since when does he get migraines? What if wasn't a headache at all? What if he fought with Jonah Barrows and something terrible happened between them?"

Mom dropped the whisk and clapped her hand to her mouth, her eyes shining with sudden tears. "Oh my gosh, this is my fault. I'm the one who told the detective that Eric went to the grapefruit bitters table right around the time that man died."

I shook my head. "If he didn't know Jonah, he certainly wouldn't have killed him."

I stirred the beaten eggs into the cooled chocolate and added vanilla and flour, feeling sick to my stomach and, for once, speechless. Maybe he was involved somehow.

"Surely it was an accident, then," said Mom. She poured the batter into the pan and slid the pie into the oven. "Our Eric would never hurt someone on purpose. And he's not the kind of man who would run away from trouble."

"In seven years together, he's never shut me out," said Bill. "No matter how bad things got. I'm beginning to wonder if I know him after all." Bill got up, snapped a leash on his dog's collar, and stormed from the house.

Mom and I waited the twenty-five minutes it took the pie to bake, hoping Bill would return and Eric would get lured out of his room by the incredible scent of warm chocolate. But neither happened. We pulled the pie from the oven and hunkered on the back porch, listening to the night rustling, waiting for the dessert to cool. Finally we served ourselves small triangles and loaded dollops of French vanilla ice cream on top. Not that we needed rich pie on top of what we'd already consumed at Santiago's. But it was hard to know what else to do. We both picked at our third dessert of the night.

Mom dropped her fork on her plate and pushed it away. "It feels like rain," she said. "I hope he didn't take the dog too far." She sighed. "Should I pack up and come home with you?"

As cramped as Miss Gloria's houseboat would feel with three of us shoehorned in, I had to agree it was time for Mom to clear out. Whatever was going on with Eric, entertaining a houseguest would not be an a.s.set in hashing things through. Even well-meaning and goodhearted company like my mother. She would straighten the kitchen and cook little treats and natter cheerfully about the weather and the interesting people she'd seen on the streets of Key West, but right now the guys needed privacy.

"I think that's a good idea," I said. She went into the spare bedroom to pack while I called a cab and alerted Miss Gloria and left a note for my friends.

B and E: Mom came home with me for tonight at least. Let us know what we can do. The pie tastes amazing with vanilla ice cream. And maybe a shot of whiskey on the side. I drew a little smiley face and a row of x's and o's and stuck the paper to the refrigerator, where it would be hard to miss.

At the sound of the taxi's horn, I carved off a piece of the pie for Miss Gloria, wrapped it in foil, and helped my mother carry her stuff out to the front stoop. Ten minutes later, the taxi driver dropped her at Tarpon Pier and I pulled in behind on my scooter. As we walked up the finger, the moon glided out from its cover of clouds, causing sparkles of light to dance on the water like a thousand pearls of tapioca. We could hear the deep cowbell clank of the wind chimes on the Renharts' boat, and the answering silvery notes from Connie's front porch. Miss Gloria bounced out on the deck to meet us and I hoisted the suitcase from the dock to her porch.

"What fun having your mom visit-it's a hen party!" Miss Gloria said, clapping her hands. Ninety-seven pounds of exuberant welcome. She reached for the foil packet Mom was carrying and peeked inside. "And good heavens, you brought chocolate too!"

Hard to imagine all was not right with the world.

8.

Unlike cooking, where largely edible, if raw ingredients are a.s.sembled, cut, heated, and otherwise manipulated into something both digestible and palatable, writing is closer to having to reverse-engineer a meal out of rotten food.

-David Rakoff Just after six the next morning, I dressed quickly and scribbled a note for Mom, telling her to hire a cab and meet me at the conference at nine. Then I grabbed my backpack and headed out on my scooter in search of Cuban coffee. It felt strange to be riding in the morning darkness, a little lonely, a little spooky-and chilly. It had rained half the night, and then the front cleared out, leaving colder air and wind. I wished I'd worn an extra layer.

I was feeling bone-dog tired too. Miss Gloria's couch was as lumpy as I'd expected and my housemates had snored through the night in stereo. And I was edgy-Bill had texted me around midnight, thanking me for being understanding and respecting their privacy. And for the chocolate pie, which he rated five out of five stars. But he didn't mention Eric, nor had there been any word from him.

On top of that, I had gotten a worrisome text message from Bransford: Thx for dinner. Sorry can't say more about your friend. Encourage him to hire a lawyer.