“Of course,” I said, giving her a quick squeeze. “That’s what maids of honor are for—heading off disaster in whatever form it takes.”
8
The salt, the sweet, the brine, the crunch. It was a culinary car crash of depravity.
—Elissa Altman, Poor Man’s Feast
All afternoon, I thought about Lorenzo’s words: Let go of feelings to which you are attached. Are you waiting for someone else to rescue you? Walk your talk.
I finally drummed up the nerve to call Nate. Considering how our date failed to materialize, shouldn’t he have called me first? But since he hadn’t, Lorenzo’s reading had convinced me that I had to take the lead, to be more direct. Whether we ended up in a relationship or whether we didn’t, I shouldn’t allow him to intimidate me. I punched his number into my phone. He answered on the first ring. I instantly considered hanging up. Foolish idea since everyone in the universe now has caller ID. Especially the cops.
“Oh hi. It’s Hayley. I was wondering how you’re doing? Did you get any sleep at all last night?”
Silence, but then he cleared his throat. “It was a long night.”
That was all he could give me?
“Long night for me, too,” I said. “Though your half of the lava cake helped cushion the pain.”
He chuckled but fell silent again.
“I was hoping you might have more information about the murder. And hoping that you’d be willing to share.” My voice sounded a little wobbly but I soldiered on. “I know you must think this is none of my business, but Rizzoli was a judge in the contest I’m involved with—as you know perfectly well. Since your guys were crawling all over the set this afternoon. Don’t you at least think I deserve to know if that puts the rest of us in danger?”
“Nice to talk to you, too,” he said, finally laughing. “And I am sorry about the dinner. In fact, I ended up eating a peanut butter sandwich last night, all the while thinking about that steak. And you. And the chocolate lava cake, though I suspect I wouldn’t have gotten much more than a taste.” He laughed again, a deep, charming laugh that loosened the knots of tension in my belly.
“You’re saying I’m a glutton?”
“I’ve seen you eat—can we leave it at that? And I was planning to call you, but we’ve been flat-out crazy busy here.”
“With Sam Rizzoli’s hanging?” I asked. “Have you arrested anyone?”
I heard him sigh and close his door. “Right now we’re narrowing suspects down, particularly considering the political opponents of the commissioner. Really, that’s all I can say. But if we thought you were in any danger, I’d be the first to let you know. You have to trust me a little.”
“You have to give me something to go on,” I said back, keeping my tone light as a feather so he might imagine I was joking. Though I wasn’t. Trust could not be a one-way street.
“Yes. It was Sam Rizzoli,” he finally said. “And it was murder.”
* * *
After I’d helped Miss Gloria clean up from lunch, I got dressed for the first event of this weekend’s Key West Food and Wine Festival, the Mallory Square Stroll. This would be a quick and dirty way to develop material for my restaurant review column. Maybe I’d even be able to persuade Wally to swap out this story for my online review of Just Off Duval, considering that its owner had been murdered. Of course, plenty of people would have already seen it, but it seemed tacky to pile on to the man’s already significant misfortunes.
I’d decided to skip the opening “Barefoot on the Beach” cocktail party and go directly to the first stop on the stroll: the Conch Shack on Duval Street. Right away that struck me as a good move as I watched a crowd of boisterous people tumble off a trolley car and hip-check bewildered tourists out of their way to reach the shack. I’d have to eat and drink quickly to catch up with these folks. A Food and Wine Festival volunteer handed out sheets of paper listing the restaurants we’d be visiting and the munchies and wine those establishments would serve.
The Conch Shack was an open-air restaurant with no seating other than a single row of stools lined up outside the open windows. Menus had been painted on the bright blue and yellow walls, declaring “Home of the Best Ever Conch Fritters” and “Cheap Beer!” Inside the small kitchen, two men in straw hats and shorts manned the deep fryer. The heavy smell of seafood hitting hot oil hung in the alley alongside the shack. I fought through the rowdy crowd that had descended from the trolley, snagged a glass of Chardonnay, and then slid a small plastic cup off a passing waiter’s tray. A fist-sized conch fritter drizzled with a pale green sauce filled the cup.