Death In Four Courses Part 10

After a small silence, talk turned to where the party would move next. Once I'd demolished my tart and taken a few tiny sips of the dessert wine to satisfy the wine lecturer, I said good-bye to my tablemates and slipped out. Not that anyone begged me to join them. Besides, I had more work to do than I could fathom, and a late-night hangover would not help. Olivia Nethercut followed right behind me, stumbling slightly on the last step.

She grabbed the railing and caught her balance and we made our way out into the crisp night. "Do you think that detective is single?" Olivia asked.

"The detective? Oh, Bransford." I nodded. "I believe so. Probably divorced."

"Maybe I'll give him a call. He was definitely hitting on me," she said. "You know that feeling you get when someone is doing their job but at the same time sending the signal that if it was after hours, they'd jump your bones?" She smiled and tripped down the street toward Duval.

Mom was still awake when I got home at eleven, standing by the deck rails and looking out at the harbor. The water had picked up to a good chop, but she was handling the rocking like an old salt. It felt like high school days, when Mom waited up most nights when I was out. I never quite figured out if she was checking on my state of mind. Or just lonely. Tonight with almost three gla.s.ses of Dennis Jensen Vineyard wine down the hatch, I might not have pa.s.sed her high school sniff test. Luckily, I'd eaten enough to sop up some of that alcohol before driving home.

"How was your night?" she called when she spotted me coming up the finger.

I hopped from the dock to the boat. "Food was amazing. And the company most entertaining." I described my chat with Olivia, and then Sigrid's mention of Jonah's attack on her novel and his new franchise. "But the tension we noticed between Yoshe and Sigrid while we were at lunch? We definitely didn't make that up. Though Sigrid's conclusion was that rabid fans killed them both."

"Convenient," Mom said with a laugh. "She only wishes she had a few fans like Yoshe did. I'm glad you had fun. What was the best thing you ate?"

I told her about the braised oxtail stew with its partner gnocchi swimming in gravy.

"Sounds delicious," she said. Her eyes narrowed as she looked me over from top to bottom. "But you seem a little down."

She patted the seat beside her. Might as well tell all-she'd sit here grilling me until I spilled out the truth. I sat.

"On the way out of the dinner, Olivia mentioned that she thought the detective hit on her today. She's planning to call him."

"Your detective? That would surprise me," Mom said. "Sounds more like a figment of her imagination than anything else." She squinted and brushed a strand of hair off my forehead. "I never would have said that she was his type. Besides, he's sweet on you. I'm sure of it. And she must be closing in on forty, don't you think? Even though she's very glamorous, she's getting long in the tooth. Like me."

"Forty's not old," I said, grinning. "You're older than that and you're in the prime of your life. Miss Gloria and Lorenzo are right, you know. You should consider dating."

She started to say something but stopped, her face frozen. Then she bobbed her head and clucked her throat clear. "Well, I might as well tell you." She took my hand and squeezed the fingers. "I am dating. I mean, I've gone out a couple of times with a very nice fellow. The other ones hardly count...."

"The other ones?" I stuttered, my mouth feeling too dry to form the words cleanly.

Mom laughed. "It's a jungle once you get started on Match-dot-com. All these fellows winking at my profile. It took me a couple of weeks to realize I could pick and choose. I wasn't obligated to chat with someone or even have coffee, if their profile wasn't appealing."

"M-M-Match-dot-com?" More stuttering.

"I started with eHarmony," she explained. "It seemed more civilized. I thought those nice people would screen the men for me and tell me exactly which ones I was compatible with. But I couldn't make it through the questionnaires." She giggled. "They wanted so many details. I figured any man who was willing to fill out this much information on a form couldn't possibly be my type. Sam seems like a dear man, but I'll keep you posted. If it really turns into something, I'll introduce you next time you're home. Or bring him down here." Her expression brightened. "Now, that would be fun! Don't worry. We'd get our own place."

I watched in horror as her face blushed a fierce pink.

14.

I wonder if a certain sort of chromosomal stodginess can ever really be completely leached out of the Michelin guide and the system.

-Frank Bruni I woke up before anyone else to the sounds of the Renharts fighting about the size of their electricity bill. Last night on the way home from dinner, I'd seen them sitting by the open window of the Bull and Whistle Bar on Duval Street. He'd had his arm slung around her shoulders and they were singing along with the featured Elvis impersonator, who undulated onstage in a blue-sequined jumpsuit. But this morning, without beer and music and the congeniality of a Duval Street bar, their marriage had lost some l.u.s.ter.

I twisted restlessly on the sofa bed, hovering on the edge of a headache myself from too much wine. And too much information from my mother. This was the kind of day I could have happily spent in bed with the Sunday papers or a good novel or best of all, a couple of new cookbooks. But my bed was occupied by a snoring parent. Instead I dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt and zipped down the island to Key Zest.

After making a pot of coffee, I rummaged through the minirefrigerator and came up with half a blueberry m.u.f.fin, probably Danielle's. She had a terrible time resisting the baked goods at the Old Town Bakery on her walks to work, but she was almost always. .h.i.t with buyer's remorse part of the way through eating them.

Then I started to rough out the review of Santiago's Bodega. I'd been studying reviews from well-known restaurant critics, searching for how they described the nuts and bolts of the food while adding the stamp of their personalities. I wanted to write the truth. I wanted to use zingers that would capture readers' attention. But without hurting anyone's feelings. Maybe the combination was impossible. For the next forty-five minutes, I struggled to hammer out the first paragraph, despairing of ever getting it right. My cell phone rang-Mom.

"Good morning, darling!" she chirped, probably relieved to have dumped the details of her secret life on me. While I was, to be honest, still reeling.

"You've been scooped," she said. "Do they still call it that? Go online to the Metro section of the New York Times, page one."

I saved the file I'd been working on and clicked over. "Tropical Tapas Make Key West Top Ten: Santiago's Bodega by Olivia Nethercut," the headline blared. She'd reviewed the same restaurant where we'd seen her two nights ago, including a few of the dishes we'd suggested, even using some of our words. My spirits sank to a new low as I read her piece.

"The best chickpea dip outside of Athens ... pita bread as a litmus test of the meal to come ... Maybe not a standout in New York City, but a fin's distance above the compet.i.tors swimming in this small fishbowl."

I couldn't really blame Olivia for writing the review-she had chosen to eat there, not gone on our recommendation. And she hadn't asked for our help or our opinions-probably hadn't even realized she was including them. All that said, I was going to have to learn to be more ruthless and guard my words in front of the compet.i.tion.

"Don't feel too bad about it," Mom said. "It's a tough business and chances are your audience is entirely different from the Times. But anyway, that's not why I called. Did you check your e-mail? Did you hear that the panels this morning have been canceled? The only thing left standing is lunch at one p.m. And then the tribute to Jonah and Yoshe afterward. Can you imagine how mad all the attendees are going to be at Dustin? Well, I suppose he made the best decision he could. Shall I meet you there?"

"Fine," I said. "I'm going to turn off my ringer until lunch, okay?"

Half an hour later, the Key Zest landline rang, and my mother's cell phone came up on the caller ID. What now? She knew I was working-but what if it was something important? So I picked up, feeling ha.s.sled and annoyed. And underneath that, worried.

"Have you checked your messages?" Mom asked.

I tried not to snap churlishly. "I'm working, Mom. I turned the ringer off so I wouldn't get distracted. Some of us don't have alimony for life to fall back on." I was sorry I said those words the moment they tumbled out. Mom was silent for a moment.

"And I didn't want to bother you, but I thought you'd want to know: The police arrested Eric for Jonah's murder. Bill hired a lawyer who's headed to the jail at the sheriff's department. He told Bill to stay home and wait for him to call with news."

"I'll meet you at their house," I said, and she hung up. I saved the file I was working on and ran down the stairs and out to my scooter. Business was starting to pick up a little on Southard Street, mostly people having breakfast, or mainlining coffee, or in line at the ATM. It's easy to run through your cash on a Sat.u.r.day night in paradise.

Mom arrived at Bill and Eric's place at the same time as me, looking utterly confident on her pink scooter. We knocked on the door and barged right down the main hall despite Toby's yapping protests. Bill was sitting on the couch on the back porch, the newspaper spread across his lap, his face devoid of expression, eerily calm.

"Oh, poor Bill," Mom said, plopping down beside him, grabbing his hand, and pressing it to her lips. "You've had a horrible week! What in the world happened?"

Bill sighed, folded the paper, and shifted a couple of inches away from Mom. "As I said in my message, two police officers picked Eric up this morning. Our lawyer thinks it's likely that he will have to spend the night in the clinker, this being Sunday. Hard day to get the cogs of justice rolling. I hope he doesn't have to share a cell with one of his patients." He barked out a strangled laugh and brushed away the Yorkie, who was leaping at his knees.

"So you've already got a lawyer," Mom said, throwing a worried-sick glance my way. "What else can we do for you?"

"Nothing really."

The dog raced to the door, yapping, and then careened back to Bill.

"We could take Toby out for a spin," I suggested. This worried me most of all-usually Bill channeled their dog's needs like an experienced psychic.

Bill shrugged. "Fine."

I snapped the leash onto his harness and he trotted out ahead of Mom and me, lifting his leg on a bougainvillea just off the front porch. We followed him around the block, stopping to let him sniff and relieve himself, and bark at the neighbor's tortoisesh.e.l.l cat and a squashed Cuban tree frog he found in the gutter.

"I think Bill's in shock," I said. "I hope his lawyer is competent. The one I had last fall was a real loser."

"How in the world could Eric be mixed up in this murder?" Mom wondered. "And why isn't he speaking up for himself? This isn't how he'd tell one of his own clients to handle a crisis."

When we returned to the house, Bill was on the phone, pacing back and forth across the porch as he talked. "I have no idea, Edna," he said squeezing his face into a horrible grimace. "He won't tell me anything. Yes, I'll call you the minute I hear something." He dropped the phone into the receiver and collapsed onto the couch with a heavy sigh.

"Eric's mother. I don't know what to say to her," he said. "Your son may be a murderer? But I'll keep you posted?"

"It's so upsetting to be completely in the dark," I said. "He still wouldn't say why the cops would think he's involved?"

"Nothing. Not one word," said Bill with a deep frown.

"What if I call Edna back and ask her if she remembers anything about this Jonah?" Mom asked. "You know she lives in the same neighborhood as me at home. I wouldn't say we were ever close-close because Eric's mom worked and I didn't have to." Her gaze flicked over to me, then back to Bill, unleashing in me another surge of guilt over the ill-considered alimony comment. "But I always liked her-we were friendly."

"I don't want you two to get more involved than you already are," Bill said. "I'm sure with our lawyer's pressure, the police will find out what really happened and clear Eric. If Mrs. Altman knows something about Jonah Barrows, she'll tell the detective."

"Nonsense," said Mom. "Citizens have to fight for themselves. Eric isn't helping his case by keeping secrets. I'll express my condolences and explain that we're looking for leads to the real killer."

I didn't really like the idea of my mother meddling, but what were the chances that Mrs. Altman would spill her guts to a random cop calling from Key West? Not good. I plucked the phone from its cradle and brought it to her. She carried it out to one of the wicker chairs facing the garden and dialed.

"Edna, how are you? It's Janet Snow. I'm in Key West, visiting Hayley. Can you imagine? What's the weather like up there?"

"Mom," I warned. "Just get to the point."

But she put a finger to her lips, listening intently to the high-pitched rant on the other end of the line.

Back in our neighborhood of immaculate split-level homes with neat lawns and elaborate swing sets, the Altmans' weedy yard and peeling tan paint had plain stuck out. Mr. Altman had bolted for a new life in California when Eric was five. But unlike my father, once he started his second family, he quit paying regular child support and rarely contacted his son. Mrs. Altman took a job in the local hardware store and covered her despair with a hearty cheerfulness when she was out in public. Obviously Eric couldn't confide in her about his problems-she had all she could manage just to keep their family fed and housed. And he knew it. But every once in a while both of them talked to Mom when their emotional dams were ready to burst.

My mother explained to Mrs. Altman our thoughts about Jonah's murder and how, of course, Eric couldn't have killed him-he didn't even know him. Then she listened for a few more minutes.

"Is that right?" my mother was saying, a shocked note in her voice. "When he lived in New York? And you're certain his name was Jonah?"

She murmured into the phone for several more minutes. "No, no, I can't think that it would help for you to run down here." Bill made a wild slashing motion across his neck and my mother smiled and nodded. "I swear, Edna, we will get to the bottom of all this. We will make sure Eric doesn't go to jail." She finally hung up and let out a big whoosh of air. "That was something," she said. "More than I expected, really."

"Tell us," I said.

"Well. Edna says that Eric had a connection with a man named Jonah that went way back. She isn't sure what exactly their relationship was-Eric was in graduate school in New York and he didn't tell her much about his life. He was coming out back then and it was hard on everyone, especially him. And her." She smoothed the fabric on Bill's shoulder and looked at me. "You probably don't remember, but he was on an honesty binge for a couple of years. He began to needle his mom about family secrets and the way she and his father never talked about things that were important and difficult. He told her that keeping quiet because it was easier was just wrong."

"He's mellowed since then," I said, thinking this sounded an awful lot like what Jonah had preached to the opening-night crowd.

15.

It's a cabbage rather than a rose, a tangy ring of bologna rather than a sirloin. Side effects may include heartburn.

-Dwight Garner Within a few minutes, we'd hammered out a plan with a new urgency. None of us could believe that Eric was involved with Yoshe's death. He had little interest in Asian cooking. He was not a celebrity stalker. Their lives would not reasonably have intersected prior to this weekend. But if we could find out what had happened to Yoshe, we might find out what really happened to Jonah, and thus clear Eric.

Bill would stay home to field phone calls with potential news. Someone needed to stay put, and frankly, he seemed flattened by Eric's arrest, drained of vitality like a root vegetable that had spent too many months in the crisper. Mom would ride over to the Key West library and do some research on Yoshe's background, looking for a possible connection between the deaths, including the franchise that Sigrid had mentioned. Before this, Mom had felt awful about Yoshe's death. But now she was on a personal mission: No neighbor of hers was going to suffer with her son in prison if there was anything she could do about it. For my part, I would return to Key Zest, finish my review, and surf the Web for information about Jonah's activities in the late 1990s, back when Mrs. Altman thought Eric might have met him.

After half an hour glued to my keyboard, I finished the review draft for Santiago's Bodega. I e-mailed it directly to Wally so I couldn't obsess any further or make grim comparisons between my own work and that of Olivia Nethercut. When I'd been in the business as long as she had, I could beat myself up about the speed and brilliance of my writing. Now it felt like a victory just to get a story finished.

I typed "Jonah Barrows" into the Google search bar and came up with the usual potpourri of intriguing but useless links-a kid with a similar name had won a chocolate-pudding-eating contest. Samantha Barrows had appeared as a character on Days of our Lives. And Jonah Barrows himself had ten thousand something fans on his Facebook fan page, and twice that number of Twitter followers. Sidestepping the temptation to get sucked into reading all the posts and tweets these fans must have generated, I skimmed over news headlines from the 1990s about the crack epidemic in New York City, various murders, and the death of a New York University undergraduate. How could any of this be related to Eric? Waste of precious time. I set up a Google alert so I would be informed of any new developments that came along about Jonah.

Then, wishing I wasn't so curious but unable to stop myself, I typed "Detective Nathan Bransford" into the search bar. I scrolled through several pages of news about crimes and public relations in Key West before coming across this headline: "Miami Rookie Police Officer's Wife Held by Hostage."

The article explained that a Miami drug dealer out on bail had gone to the home of the arresting officer and taken his wife hostage. After twelve hours of failed negotiations, a SWAT team entered the home through a bas.e.m.e.nt window and shot the alleged dealer to death after a barrage of gunfire was exchanged. Officer Nathan Bransford's wife, Trudy Bransford, was not injured in the incident.

Whoa. I couldn't imagine the guilt and rage that he must have experienced, realizing that his wife's trauma and then her decision to leave him were directly connected to his work. This was much worse than a garden-variety nasty divorce.

Stomach gurgling a hungry lament, I rummaged through the office refrigerator, looking for something else to tide me over to lunch. Wally had tucked a tin of mixed nuts into the far reaches of the bottom shelf with his name printed on the label in neat block letters. Clearly off-limits. I scooped out a small handful and smoothed over the top to disguise my looting. With my brain feeling slightly fortified and a little less sluggish, I returned to the computer and brought up the Match.com Web site. Spying, yes-and I would have melted from embarra.s.sment if anyone caught me. But I couldn't help myself-I'd been dying to look ever since Mom had mentioned this last night.

A small colored box popped up on the screen, asking for my age range and zip code. I typed in forty to fifty, and 07922, my mother's information. Another box materialized, asking me to register with the site to begin trolling for prospects. But a page was shadowed behind the registration form, including photos, screen names, ages, and cities of local prospects. My mother was one of the prospects: Let.i.tSnow, 46-Berkeley Heights. I groaned and closed the window on the computer.

Pacing around the small office, I tried to force my focus back to helping Eric. Obsessing about Bransford and my mother's dating life was not helpful. Then I thought of calling Stan Grambor, the psychologist who shared Eric's office s.p.a.ce. We'd met at Eric and Bill's open house after their recent home renovation. I remembered finding him low-key and approachable-the kind of shrink I'd consider hiring if I ever considered hiring a shrink to replace Lorenzo. Not likely.

He answered the phone on the first ring. "Stan, it's Hayley Snow. I'm a friend of Eric Altman's." I explained how we'd met and then plunged right in to describe Eric's arrest and what had happened to Jonah Barrows. If anyone could keep a confidence, it ought to be Eric's suitemate.

"That's dreadful! I'm stunned. How can I help?"

I explained that my team and I were collecting information that might help the cops find the real killer. No need to tell a psychologist that my team consisted of me and my mother. And Bill, who was essentially deadwood at the moment. And that the cops couldn't be less interested in my theories.

"The problem is, he refuses to exonerate himself. So I'm wondering how he seemed to you over the past few days."

"He was quiet this week," Stan said. "And busy. He didn't have time to schedule lunch as we often do. Houseguests, he said. You know how that goes!" He brayed with laughter.

I sure did-Mom. "Can you think of any reason why he wouldn't try to defend himself?"

Stan cleared his throat a few times. "Let me puzzle over that a minute. Hmmm."

In my limited experience, shrinks don't jump to conclusions quickly. They like to sift through all the data and then generate a tentative hypothesis and then- "The best question might be, whom is he protecting with his silence?" Stan said. "It could be himself. But more likely, someone close to him?"

I thought of Bill, who was acting almost as oddly as Eric himself. Eric would do anything for Bill. But since Bill had never entered the Audubon House grounds, I didn't see how he could have killed Jonah. Nor did he know him. "Maybe Eric was quiet this week for some other reason. Was he especially worried about any cases? I know you can't tell me specifics."

Stan hummed tunelessly to himself, like the hideous canned music you're subjected to when you're put on hold trying to straighten out a bill. He stopped humming and said, "He asked me in pa.s.sing if I'd ever lost a client."

"And then?"

"I haven't, but I told him what a supervisor once told me-if you stay in this business long enough, it's bound to happen. Some folks you just can't save. They are too far down the tunnel and simply can't see the smallest flicker of light." He clicked his tongue and sighed. "Then my ten o'clock came in and I never did get to ask Eric why he'd inquired. I'm sorry. It sounds like I should have been paying better attention. I hope I didn't miss anything-I haven't seen news about a suicide in the Citizen."

"Speaking of that," I said, "there was a second death related to the food writers' conference-a woman found on the rocks below her third-floor balcony." I felt my throat close up with the memory of finding the body. "We've been trying to imagine what frame of mind she'd have had to be in to throw herself off."