Death in Four Courses: A Key West Food Critic Mystery (7 page)

“Darling, let’s get our seats. The day’s about to begin,” she said, pulling me away as if I were still five and balking on the way to my kindergarten classroom.

After Dustin had taken a solid half hour on center stage to express his grief over Jonah’s death and to assure the audience that the conference would continue with more energy than ever, the first panelists trooped onto the stage. The moderator turned out to be the narrow-faced unfriendly man we’d seen at breakfast, and his panelists were the women who’d been clustered around him—Yoshe King and Sigrid Gustafson, joined by Olivia Nethercut in a last-minute swish of midnight blue silk. They settled into a semicircle of chairs that had been set up in front of the faux
diner, all three women tilting forward like racers at the start line.

I tried to judge how the audience was feeling in the wake of last night’s tragedy. “Deflated” and “anxious” seemed the most accurate words to describe them. I’d overheard multiple horrified versions of Jonah’s death being discussed. And Mom hadn’t had to shush the ladies in front of us even once.

“Food writing as a fun-house mirror—Marcel Proust meets Bobby Flay,” said the moderator. “That is the title of this morning’s panel. I have to say, only Jonah Barrows would have understood what that means.” A wave of subdued chuckles rolled through the theater.

“I join Dustin in saying that we shall all miss him terribly, both this weekend and going forward. But never fear. We shall do the best we can to decipher and translate the organizers’ intentions for our panels, as Jonah would have done brilliantly. My name is Fritz Ewing and I’m the author of nine nonfiction and poetry books, most recently
Out of the Frying Pan
, a collaboratory memoir with chef Michael Bozeman. A
foodoir
, as it were.
Into the Fire
, a collection of poems about meat, is scheduled for publication next year.” He grinned and bowed at his panelists. “As you can quite imagine, those are not the titles I sent in with my manuscripts.

“Mr. Fredericks asked me to channel Jonah Barrows.” He touched his balding head and held out one sneaker-clad foot. “I’m afraid I have neither the hair nor the boots to make such a statement. So I’ve decided to lead off by asking our panelists to offer an opening
remark that best reflects the essence of their relationship to food writing. One sentence only, please, ladies.”

“That’s easy,” said Yoshe, the Asian cookbook author, jumping in before the other two women could speak. “Good cooking has a point of view.”

“A point of view,” said Fritz, tugging on one pink earlobe and grimacing. “Meaning the pot stickers talk back?” The audience tittered. “I’m going to get back to you on that. Anyone else?”

“A writer’s personality is revealed by her connection to food,” said Olivia. “Some people are feeders and some are withholders.”

I wrote that down and underlined the words twice. Feeders. Withholders. I knew which I wanted to be. Mom reached over to squeeze my hand.

“I see why you admire her,” she whispered. “And isn’t her outfit gorgeous?”

“I use food as a vehicle for my characters’ turning points,” said Sigrid. “In
Dark Sweden
, for example…” She paused, resting her pointer finger on her chin and looking out at the audience. “Dare I mention something that might be a spoiler in the denouement? I imagine you are more interested in food than mystery—am I right?” She nodded, hearing murmurs of agreement. “So, as I was saying, in
Dark Sweden
, the murderer reveals himself over a platter of raw oysters. Only the detective doesn’t realize it until much later because he’s so distracted by the distasteful act of swallowing something slick and slimy. He’s picturing how difficult it is to get inside the shell, and then how disgusting this creature is. In fact, he’s wondering who in the world
ever thought of eating an oyster, rather than paying attention to the conversation. At the moment he realizes how he’d missed this opportunity to clinch his case, he also understands that his finicky palate will continue to interfere with his job unless he opens himself up. Sort of like a reluctant mollusk,” she added.

The audience tittered.

“That’s at least three sentences,” said Fritz. “Maybe four? Or five? But we’ll allow it because you made us laugh. So basically all of you people are saying in one way or another that writers pretend to write about food but it’s really about something else?”

“It’s not a pretense,” said Olivia as she waggled a forefinger. “We write about food because not only is it necessary to our human condition, but we love and appreciate it dearly. The underlying messages betray themselves whether we intend to reveal them or whether we’d prefer that they remain concealed. And it’s not only food writers, by the way. It’s all writing. All good writing.”

Fifteen minutes later, I could imagine how sharply Jonah would be missed this weekend. Like Fritz, he’d have preened a bit like a bantam rooster. But I thought he would have pushed these writers harder to bare the embarrassing truths in their histories. He’d have insisted that Yoshe describe her point of view and then challenged her consistency over the range of her cookbooks. He’d have egged on each of them to say whether she was a feeder or a withholder, perhaps implying that Sigrid, whether or not she cooked for others, certainly knew how to feed herself. He would have
coaxed out the underlying competitiveness of these women and watched them nip tiny bites from one another’s flesh like birds tasting ripe tomatoes. It would not have been boring, as this first half hour threatened to be after those titillating introductions.

My mind pinged to this question: Was it possible that Jonah’s killer was on the stage? What kind of person would have the nerve to kill a prominent food critic, writer, and chef, and then sit before four hundred people and pontificate about recipes or the way food was woven into her fiction like a character? I couldn’t imagine doing this myself—wouldn’t a killer’s hands and eyes and words betray him or her? But I didn’t know any of these people well enough to rule them out.

Although tempted to return to the lobby to see if I could catch one of the women fresh off their panel for an interview, I didn’t want to miss one second of the second panel of the morning—a roundtable of three of the food critics I’d admired for years: Ruth Reichl, Frank Bruni, and Jonathan Gold. They marched onto the stage, Ruth tall and thin with a wedge of curls, Frank small and adorable with dimples that rivaled Detective Bransford’s, and Jonathan massive, with the tan and light hair of a Californian. Jonah Barrows had been set to moderate this panel too, but this morning the organizers had opted to let the three veterans go it alone.

“You have to have a certain bloodlust to be in this business,” said Ruth, “because a bad review is an arrow in the chef’s side. If you write a negative review,
the restaurant may actually have to close. Or at the least, the chef is fired.”

“Bloodlust,” I wrote in my notebook, and then circled the word as if it might bolt off the page. I’d discussed similar concerns with Eric over the past few months—would I have the necessary taste for blood that a critic seemed to need? And he’d reminded me to think about why I was drawn to the profession and focus on that: People deserved well-informed opinions about spending their money. As Jonah would have said, they deserved
truth
.

As this discussion wound down, I tapped Mom on the leg. “I have to get out,” I said. “I’m taking Yoshe and Sigrid to lunch.”

“That sounds wonderful,” she said. “What a terrific idea. Where are we eating?”

I didn’t have the heart to suggest that I’d feel less self-conscious talking with them by myself. And besides, maybe having her along would keep them off balance. Because what kind of investigative reporter brings her mother along to an important interview?

“I was thinking of
La Crêperie
,” I said. “I’ve never had a bad meal there. Wouldn’t that be awful, taking a food writer out for a lousy lunch? They’d think I didn’t have a clue.”

Mom and I hustled out to the lobby, where Sigrid and Yoshe waited. I hailed two pedicabs on Duval Street—bicyclists pulling rolling benches for tourists. No Key West native would be caught dead in one of these, but they’d be perfect for transporting the ladies to lunch. I settled Mom and Yoshe in the first
cab, behind a young Rumanian man with huge, muscular thighs.

“We’re headed to
La Crêperie
,” I said to him, and then climbed into the second cab next to Sigrid. Our bicyclist/driver pumped his legs hard to get the cab moving. “Considering how badly we feel about Jonah, I think it’s going well so far,” I said to Sigrid. “Don’t you?”

“It would have been nice if he’d asked us about our most recent work,” she said, sliding on a pair of large black sunglasses. “It’s so awkward to have to cram your own material into the discussion without being invited.”

An issue I hadn’t noticed her having any trouble with at all.

Our cabdriver dodged expertly between a turquoise golf cart loaded with drunken college students and two wobbly scooters and turned left on Petronia Street into the Bahama Village, where a large wrought-iron arch was the only vestige of the formerly bustling Bahama Village market. After a few more minutes of vigorous pedaling, he deposited us at the café across from the more famous—and more touristy—Blue Heaven. His forehead was dotted with beads of sweat and he was breathing hard. I paid the tab and added a generous tip for the load he’d carried. Mom and Yoshe descended from their cab and I paid that driver too, wondering how much of this might have to come out of my own small paycheck. Wally hadn’t said anything much about expenses, other than “keep them down.”

“This little restaurant used to be located on
Duval, but it burned to the studs a few years ago,” I told the women. “Both of the chef-owners are from Brittany, France. They rebuilt, and from what I’ve experienced, it’s better than ever.”

After a short wait, we were escorted to a small metal café table on the sidewalk, where we took a minute to study the menus.

“I can’t believe we are actually eating outdoors!” said my mother, tucking a white napkin over her lap. “Everything’s gray and frigid back home.”

“Have you tried the Croque Madame?” Sigrid asked me, and then read aloud the description of a grilled ham and cheese sandwich finished with a fried egg.

“That’s loaded with fat and cholesterol,” said Yoshe. “Don’t the salads look fantastic?” She pointed to the woman at the next table, who was eating a spring mix topped with avocado, strawberries, and pears.

Sigrid glared at her.

“I have eaten their Croque Monsieur. It’s delicious and comes with a nice green side salad,” I said, hoping that compromise would be oil on the rough waters between them.

The waitress, a blond woman with a French accent, swung by to take our orders—one sandwich with a side order of
frites
, two salads, one omelet. She spun away to the kitchen.

Before Yoshe could weigh in on the fat grams in Sigrid’s french fries, I said, “I’m curious about how you think the panel might have gone differently with Jonah at the helm. After all, he promised us full disclosure.”

“Threatened us is more like it,” said Sigrid.

“He wouldn’t have been satisfied with Olivia Nethercut alluding to what’s hidden behind her writing,” said Yoshe. “He would have asked her straight out what she didn’t have the nerve to say.”

“Really?” Mom’s eyes widened. “I thought that was so interesting. Did you agree with her comment that all writers show more than they intend?”

Sigrid snorted and smoothed her flowered dress over her belly. “I didn’t appreciate that—if I have something to say about a subject, I say it right out,” she said. “She made it sound like we’re all hiding things or too dumb to know what we’ve written.”

“I think the more interesting fireworks would have come outside of the panels,” Yoshe added. “Of course, you knew that Jonah and Dustin were an item?”

“They were?” Mom and I asked simultaneously.

“Was that recent?” I asked. “Dustin didn’t mention anything about a personal relationship with Jonah last night when we were talking to the cops. He didn’t act like a guy who’d just lost his boyfriend. In fact, he seemed most annoyed that Jonah might have irritated the conference sponsors.”

“Jonah dumped him in record time,” Yoshe said. “He isn’t going to brag about that.”

The waitress delivered our meals: Greek salads thick with feta cheese and Niçoise olives folded into buckwheat pancakes for Yoshe and me, a spinach and mushroom omelet for Mom, and the ham and cheese sandwich crowned with an egg over easy and an order of french fries on the side for Sigrid.

“Besides, if the conference sponsors aren’t happy,”
Sigrid said, plunging her knife into the sandwich so that yolk flowed like yellow lava over the ham onto the crunchy stalks of potato, “Dustin’s out of a job.” She carved off a large corner of her sandwich, mopped it through the pool of egg yolk, and wolfed it down. “And I don’t believe it was serious between them. For Jonah, nothing was ever serious outside of his work.”

As we ate, the conversation turned toward admiration of the food—the crispy tang of the buckwheat pancakes, the creamy feta, the fresh tomatoes. A vinaigrette with a secret ingredient. Extra garlic? Tarragon? Mustard? No one agreed.

“Tell us about your new project,” Mom said to Yoshe. “You didn’t get a chance to expand on its ‘point of view.’”

Yoshe blushed furiously and looked hard at Mom, like maybe she’d underestimated her. “What I meant by that is that no cooking occurs in a vacuum. In fact, the best recipes sprouted in some grandmother’s kitchen somewhere. Doesn’t matter whether she was Polish or Italian or a pioneer woman from Iowa. We need to learn from the women who came before us.”

Mom leaned forward eagerly. “When Hayley graduated from college, I gave her a box of my mother’s recipes—written in her own hand. And a few from my mother’s mother and my mother-in-law. Some of them are delicious and some simple and several just awful, but the point is, they demonstrate the history of these women in such a tangible, personal way. And it’s our history too—we’re all connected.”