“I doubt that,” she said, ice in her voice.
“Is there some place we could sit a minute?” Miss Gloria asked.
“Who are you?” asked Mrs. Rizzoli, but my roommate only folded her arms across her chest and planted her legs like a miniature bodyguard. In a sparkly pink sweatsuit. It was hard not to laugh. Then I thought of Turtle and the chuckle died away.
“We’ve had three violent incidents now,” I told her, counting them off on my fingers. “Your husband was murdered. An attempt was made on one of the other judge’s lives.” Miss Gloria looked at me with wide eyes but I motioned her off. “And today a homeless man was beaten nearly to death.”
Miss Gloria’s eyes grew even wider. This was news to her, too. “And you didn’t even mention the lady that got sick at the cooking show,” she added.
“We need to know what you’re hiding before someone else gets killed,” I said to Mrs. Rizzoli. My gaze locked on hers until she finally looked away.
“Over here,” said Mrs. Rizzoli, and stomped ahead of us to a grouping of Adirondack chairs partially hidden by palm fronds in the side yard. When we were all three seated, she dropped her face into her hands. “He’s right. We have been involved. But it was only a way to protect myself.”
“From what?” I asked.
She looked up. Her eyes filled and she dashed a tear away.
Miss Gloria rustled through her fanny pack for a tissue, and then leaned over to pat Mrs. Rizzoli’s knee. “Go ahead, tell us, dear. It will help the healing to get the truth out.”
“When did this start?” I asked.
Her eyes found mine and then she heaved a great sigh. “The night Sam actually brought his girlfriend into our restaurant—and practically did her right on the bar in front of all our friends and acquaintances, that’s the night I went out with Buddy. He used to work in our kitchen. You know how handsome he is—and charming.”
I bit my lip and nodded. Only I would never have described Buddy as charming, more like abrasive and self-absorbed. And not even all that appealing physically. I suppressed a snicker, thinking of Randy’s comment about Buddy’s hair impersonating roadkill.
“You said he used to work in your kitchen. Why did he leave?”
Mrs. Rizzoli said, “It’s not unusual—there’s a lot of turnover in this business.” She put a hand to her forehead. “I don’t suppose you should be surprised to learn that a man has a drinking problem if you meet him at a bar when you’re both blotto,” she said. “To be honest, I think he missed a number of his shifts and the manager finally canned him.”
“So Buddy was unreliable?”
“That’s pretty much it,” she said. “I think he actually finds cooking in a restaurant beneath him. He doesn’t want to fry and plate hundreds of orders of yellowtail snapper—he wants to invent crazy dishes and then boss other cooks around who are making his creations. He’s ferociously ambitious.”
“Did your husband know that you and Buddy were seeing each other?” I asked. “Because from what I could tell in the Topped Chef competition, Sam didn’t seem to have anything against him. In fact, he was very complimentary about his food.”
“Honestly?” Her eyes filled again, which caused Miss Gloria’s lips to tremble in sympathy. “I don’t think he cared. When he broke his big news the other day, I don’t think he even realized that I already knew he was cheating.” Her hands began to shake—sadness? Anger? Or heartsick with the sheer humiliation?
“That’s not right,” said Miss Gloria. “What kind of a marriage is that?”
I wasn’t entirely sure her presence on an interview was turning out to be an asset. If we felt too sorry for Mrs. Rizzoli, it would get tougher to ask the hardball questions. I decided to switch direction.
“Do you remember when Sam was asked to be a Topped Chef judge?” I asked. “You mentioned that he’s not much of a foodie.”
“A couple of weeks ago, anyway,” she said. “Maybe two? He was tickled to be invited. It didn’t take much to pump up that man’s ego. When Deena Smith called, he took it as a sign that he’d climbed another rung in the Key West culinary scene.” She wrinkled her nose. “Which partly explains why he was so angry about your restaurant review. When you criticized his establishment, you pricked his balloon—and then some of his hot air ran out.”
“You say Buddy’s ambitious. Ambitious enough to kill someone to get what he wanted?”
Her eyes bugged out. “You think Buddy killed Sam? That’s absurd.”