Death in Four Courses: A Key West Food Critic Mystery by Lucy Burdette Read Free Book Online Page B

carrying their own cups of coffee. Their smiles faded when they saw my face.
    “The keynote speaker died last night. But I can’t really talk about it,” I said, holding up a hand. “I can’t afford to get upset. Too much work to do.”
    “Died of what?” Connie asked. She ran her fingers through her short hair, still damp from the shower, until it stood up like a hedgehog’s.
    “Drowned.” I grimaced, flashing on the peculiar textureof his skin and his fishy lips and eyes. “I found him. I swear I’ll fill you in about everything tonight.”
    I slid out from under my comforter, hugged Connie, kissed Miss Gloria on the top of her head where the pink skin showed through her thinning white hair, and hurried into the shower. While soaping and rinsing, I worked to push last night’s events out of mind and instead focus on the opening paragraph of my piece on Jonah’s lecture. He’d made a lot of interesting points and I hated to think they’d be lost in the brouhaha over his death. And if I lost my focus, my job would be next.
    I worked a teaspoon of hair product through my curls and dressed in jeans, a peach-colored swing top, and my mother’s sandals, which rubbed painfully on yesterday’s blisters. I applied a couple of Band-Aids to the backs of my heels and tucked some extras into my pockets. While packing the conference program, Jonah’s book, and two notebooks into my backpack, I found the chunk of the strawberry-rhubarb coffee cake Eric had given me yesterday. I packed this on top so it wouldn’t get more crushed, then hopped on my scooter and drove down Southard to the office.
    Early last fall, Wally had rented a small attic space for the magazine above Preferred Properties Real Estate. Two enormous palm trees outside the only window blocked most of the light, but our receptionist, Danielle, decorated so it felt like a cozy tropical haven instead of a cave.
    Both Wally and Danielle were at their desks by the time I arrived. And both were wearing their
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company yellow shirts.
    “Good Lord, Hayley. Jonah Barrows died last night?” asked Danielle before I’d even struggled out of my helmet and sweater. “Is that coffee cake?” She pointed at the plastic-wrapped package I pulled out of my pack.
    “I’ll share,” I said, and cut it into three equal sections. I nibbled on mine—the strawberries made it moist and sweet; the rhubarb lent it tang.
    “How did this happen?” asked Wally, reaching for his piece. “The e-mail said it was an accidental drowning, but there’s no water near the Audubon House. Did you get the real story?”
    “Every time I walk along the dock by the old harbor, I imagine how easy it would be for someone to push me over.” Danielle shivered. “I can’t swim a lick—I’d be a goner. Like that poor woman who was shoved into the path of a subway train in New York City.”
    “Down, girl. Your neuroses are showing,” said Wally. “We’re in Key West. Let Hayley tell us.”
    So I explained everything—Jonah’s provocative lecture, the squirming panelists, my discovery of the body in the dipping pool, the missing statue. “How am I supposed to write about foodie trends with all that happening?” I asked in a wobbly voice. Because it was hitting me that Jonah might well have died exactly during the moments that I was trying to save him.
    “You take the day off,” Wally said. “I’ll come up with something. I can use your press pass. It’s going to be super important to get a piece written up on Jonah and his life work. What he meant to people … his major contributions … and of course any hints aboutpersonal issues that might be behind the death. We’re the hometown news—
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can’t be late to the party.” He popped the last chunk of the coffee cake into his mouth and gave me a thumbs-up. “I can try to explain to Ava that you had a personal emergency.”
    And she’d take that as exactly the kind of evidence she was trolling for to fire me.