Topped Chef(20)

Then I remembered an article I’d read online last month. “Could it have been a case of autoerotic asphyxiation? Or maybe someone tried to make it look like that…” My words trailed off as Torrence and the other cop exchanged shuttered glances.

“Why did you show up at the harbor last night?” Torrence asked.

I pinched my eyes closed and tried to stay calm. Tried to tell myself he was only doing his job. “Not that my love life is any of your business, but I had a date with Detective Bransford. I was waiting at the restaurant and he kept texting to say he’d been delayed. When he finally called with the news that he wasn’t going to make it, he told me he was detained at the harbor. So I took a ride over that way on the way home.”

“But why would you?” he asked. “Swing by the harbor, I mean, not go out with Bransford.” His face softened, and he almost smiled again.

I snickered. “Though that’s probably a good question, too, right?”

Seeing the other cop’s face harden, I slumped forward, elbows to knees, wishing I had an easy answer. Old-fashioned curiosity—a Pavlovian urge to rubberneck—seemed like the wrong response. And I didn’t very much like that about myself either.

“I packed up the steak the detective had asked me to order and the chocolate lava cake, thinking he’d be hungry later and glad to have the food.” I wiped my eyes and heaved a great sigh before looking back up at Torrence. “I wish I hadn’t gone. I wish I hadn’t seen what I saw. It was gruesome. And if that was Sam Rizzoli, I’m sorry for him. It was an ugly way to go out—someone must have been really, really angry to leave him like that. Whoever it was,” I added lamely.

Torrence turned his chin over his shoulder to the place where the rest of the cast and crew waited. “You’re certain you didn’t notice that one of the other folks here might have had a beef with Rizzoli?”

I shook my head. “I’ll be glad to let you know if I remember anything different.”

“We’ll be in touch,” he said, as he pointed across the room at Randy Thompson and gestured for him to approach.

I got up, feeling relieved to be off the hot seat, but a little battered.

“What was your relationship with the late Sam Rizzoli?” the second officer asked Randy as I walked away.

“Not good,” I heard Randy say defiantly. “Lousy. But I didn’t kill him.”





7


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.

—Hayley Snow



If Eric had been in town instead of vacationing in Miami, I would have called him and invited him for lunch and thereby scored an informal counseling session. He had a way of jollying me out of the worst sort of funk, and as a psychologist, he understood how to handle people better than most anyone else I knew. He would have known which parts of the last twenty-four hours I really needed to vent about and which might simply fade away with time. And he’d have tips about how to get the picture of the hanged man out of my head.

My second best option was Lorenzo, the tarot card reader. I almost always felt calmer after talking to him, too, though the process was less easy to define. Raisin-sized raindrops began to splat onto my face as I reached my scooter. I pulled a crumpled blue windbreaker from my backpack and slipped it on. I doubted Lorenzo would be at his card table on Mallory Square if this weather kept up. But he’d given me his phone number back when I first moved to Key West so I dialed him up anyway.

“Lorenzo, it’s Hayley Snow. What time will you be setting up shop?”

“Probably not happening today. I’ve got a meeting of the Mallory Square board later this afternoon. And the forecast is awful. Maybe tomorrow?”

My stomach rumbled, a familiar combination of hunger and disappointment. The idea of having him over for lunch popped into my mind and then out of my mouth before I could lose my nerve.

“How about lunch?” I asked brightly.

“Lunch?” He sounded surprised, yet pleased. “Why not?”

Now that I had an important guest, next came the problem of what to make. I craved something simple and warm—comfort food—to offset the gloomy weather and the deflating morning. The dish I would have prepared if I had been competing in the contest sprang to mind. “Do you like fish chowder?”

“Sure,” he said.

“It’s a red sauce base, not the creamy white New England kind,” I added.

“Better and better,” he said.

I gave him directions to Miss Gloria’s houseboat, and then hung up and punched her number into my phone. “Hey, it’s Hayley. Okay with you if I asked my friend Lorenzo to pop over for lunch?”