Fatal Reservations (19 page)

“For one thing, I probably didn’t want to know. And I felt I couldn’t disclose her secrets, as they were only my hunches. The more I saw, the harder it would be to hold everything in.” He drew in a big breath and straightened his shoulders. “After you ladies have a bite to eat, maybe you’ll run me over to the police station. Unless I confess what I know, I can’t see another way the police will get this information. It’s not fair for you to take the heat.”

Miss Gloria returned to the table with a plate of Ritz crackers and a small slab of blue cheese from the Restaurant Store. I retrieved a bottle of Key West pale ale from the fridge and divided it among three glasses. Enough for courage, but no so much we’d turn up tipsy at the KWPD.

“Speaking of the cops,” Miss Gloria said, “we ran into Detective Bransford at Sunset. He was trying to go incognito with a little dog and skintight jeans. You should have seen Hayley’s eyes goggle out. She
couldn’t stop looking at his arms. They are like sculpted marble, even I have to admit.”

“Did not!” I said in an outraged voice, slapping her hand. She just smiled.

“I’ve been holding else something back,” Lorenzo said, fixing his gaze on my face. “About you. I keep wondering whether to say something or keep it to myself and leave it for you to discover.”

“You have to tell me. Now you have no choice!”

He pushed his little glass of beer away and fiddled with the coffee cup. “It’s about Wally. And you. And Chad Lutz. I see you needing a strong partner. Someone who will insist on bringing out the best in you. Challenge you.” He pursed his lips together, puffed a bit of air. “Not sure either of those men can do it. That’s all.”

“Lutz is nothing but a bad memory,” I protested, waving the thought away with my fingers. “But Wally does challenge me. He goes over everything I write and insists that I make it better.”

“Professionally, yes,” said Lorenzo, touching his palm to my cheek.

“I don’t want to hear this right now,” I said, pulling away from him, clamping my hands over my ears.

“It does raise a question, though,” said Miss Gloria. “If Wally is the right man, why is it taking so long for you two to get together?”

“His mom’s been so sick; you know that,” I said, grinding my jaw and refusing to admit there was any truth to this bomb. Refusing to think about why this felt like a funeral and a balloon ride all mixed up together. “And everything at
Key Zest
has been in upheaval. I’m going to text Torrence and tell him we’re bringing you in.”

*   *   *

We drove over to the police department in Miss Gloria’s lumbering sedan in dead silence. I parked in front of the big pink stucco building and turned to face Lorenzo in the backseat. “We’re going with you.”

“You don’t need to,” he said.

“But we want to,” said Miss Gloria. “Are you planning to tell them about the fork?”

“I think I have to.”

She nodded gravely.

Lieutenant Torrence was waiting for us at the fountain. “I appreciate you coming in,” he said, swinging the heavy glass door open. “We’ll go up to the conference room, where we can chat. The others are waiting.”

He led us down the hallway to the back of the building, where the elevator was located. We all four loaded on and stood facing the door, not saying a word, our worried expressions reflected in the polished metal.

“Straight down the hallway,” said Torrence. “Hayley will remember.”

I took off ahead of the others, striding the length of the hall to the conference room that overlooked the parking lot. Bransford was there, along with the chief of police, who looked somber and stoic. He must be sick to death of having accusations of incompetence leveled at his police force in the local paper and the locally based blogs.

“Have a seat,” Torrence said as he closed the door behind us.

We sank into office chairs. Down the hall, we heard a series of sharp yips coming from the direction of Bransford’s office. He must not have had time to drop Ziggy off. I still couldn’t believe he had a dog. And such a cute one. I would not look at him, not even once,
I decided, as I felt a surge of heat sweep up my neck to my face.

Both the police chief and Detective Bransford crossed their arms over their chests.

“Hayley said—” Torrence began. “Wait. I don’t think you all know each other. Let me back up and make introductions,” he added, glancing at the three of us. “This is Detective Nathan Bransford; I suspect you already know him. And our police chief.” He turned back to the cop side of the table. “And here we have Hayley Snow, resident food critic; her roommate, Miss Gloria; and our tarot card reader, Lorenzo Smith.”

Lorenzo nodded formally at each of the men.

“Please go ahead,” Torrence told Lorenzo.

“I did not kill Bart Frontgate,” said Lorenzo in a low voice. “On that let’s be clear. But I believe I have information about your cemetery burglar. And possibly some information bearing on the murder case.”

“We’d like permission to record your confession,” said Bransford, holding up a small recorder.

“He’s not confessing,” I said brusquely. “He said he didn’t do anything. Did you not hear that?”

“As you like,” said Bransford, not looking at me. “Do we have your okay to record?” he asked Lorenzo.

Lorenzo nodded. “Cheryl Lynn Dickenson is one of my clients,” he began. “She has visited me on and off, but more recently it was more often. I’d say half a dozen times over the last few weeks. I grew very worried about what I saw in her cards and also the way she was behaving during the readings.”

“Describe her behavior,” said Bransford.

“Erratic,” said Lorenzo. “Jumpy. Edgy but excited.” He heaved a great sigh. “So when she did not return as
she promised several days ago, I went looking for her at her home. I knocked. No answer, so I went round the back. As the door was open, I went in.” His expression hardened. “That might be illegal if you did it, but I went as a loving and concerned friend.”

And then Lorenzo described how he found the fork in his client’s kitchen, and then panicked, thinking he needed to protect a fragile being. So he rinsed it off and returned it to the back of her silverware drawer.

“The implement was bloody?” Bransford asked.

Lorenzo nodded, but then held a finger up. “Well, I wouldn’t say bloody, but it wasn’t clean.”

“Exactly where was the fork?” Torrence asked.

Lorenzo fidgeted. “On the counter.”

And then the fibbing came in. I watched his face carefully to see if he’d give us away.

“But I also saw that she had a drawer upstairs in her bedroom full of goods that looked like the things you’ve been describing in the crime reports,” he said.

“Such as?” asked Torrence.

“Such as men’s watches and some cash. And iPhones and iPods and mini iPads.” He hung his head. “She also had a pair of night vision goggles, which I took with me and hid in my cat food bag. I can’t really explain that.” He glanced over at Miss Gloria and she nodded her support.

“You can’t explain that? Why in the name of god didn’t you call the police?” asked Bransford through gritted teeth. The police chief sat, watching all of this unfold, his neck cords pulsing with tension.

“Men like you won’t understand this,” said Lorenzo, “but my readings suggested she was in trouble. The constellation of her cards worried me deeply. Several
times the Devil turned up in combination with the Tower. And I began to see her surrounded with a bright red aura. And that image got stronger and so powerful, those minutes I was in her home. I was afraid for her life and all I could think was to protect her.”

“You’re right,” said Bransford. “We don’t understand that. Because a normal person would consider the fact that this woman was a thief, best case. And in the worse case, a murderer.”

Lorenzo shook his head. “I don’t believe that.”

“See, the police department can’t operate on the basis of woo-woo hunches,” Bransford said. He waited a moment. “Can you explain how the bloody fork got into the Dumpster where our officers recovered it later that same evening? Wrapped in your tablecloth?” Emphasis on the words
bloody
and
your
. He was such a bully. And poor Lorenzo was shrinking into his chair.

“I can’t explain that. After I left her home, I pedaled home on Olivia Street,” said Lorenzo, his voice a whisper. “Officers were stopping people at the corner of Eisenhower, but I was too upset to talk to anyone. I could only think things would get worse if they learned I’d been in her home. How would I ever explain?”

And now the heads of all three policemen were nodding.

“Help us understand your relationship to Bart Frontgate,” said the detective. “There are video cameras on Mallory Square; you must know this. We saw you fighting with him just last week.”

Lorenzo turned practically purple and fluttered his eyes. “Everybody fought with him—he was a most annoying man.”

“What was
your
disagreement about?”

Lorenzo folded his hands on the table. “He was harassing one of my clients.”

“Cheryl Lynn Dickenson?” Torrence asked.

Lorenzo nodded.

Bransford again: “So you were worried about her and went to her home. Is it possible that you wanted to save her, and this incident with stabbing Bart happened by accident? Is it possible that you blacked out and don’t remember the sequence of events? A neighbor saw you leaving her home right before the fork was discovered.”

“That’s preposterous,” I said. “You’re fishing now.”

“Then how did I drag his body to the bight?” asked Lorenzo, his eyes blazing. “And I can tell you right now, I do not own a boat.”

“A very good question,” said Bransford. “And I don’t recall mentioning a boat.” He looked at the other two cops and then back at us. “We are going to place your friend under arrest. Thank you for delivering him. Say your good-byes and the lieutenant will escort you out.”

“But he told you everything—he didn’t do anything wrong,” Miss Gloria protested.

I squeezed her hand. “We need to go. He’ll be okay. They won’t do anything awful to him, because they know we’d investigate and scream bloody murder.” I wished I’d used a different description. “Detective Bransford sounds like a tyrant, but this department knows better than to let him run the whole show.” I glared at Bransford and then said to Miss Gloria, “We can be more useful if we go home and find him a lawyer.”

“Call my mother, too?” Lorenzo asked. “Tell her
where I am. She won’t be surprised. But please, she doesn’t need the gory details.”

We both hugged Lorenzo, and then Lieutenant Torrence ushered us to the ground floor and out into the night. “I promise I’ll call you with any news I can share,” he said. “It feels lousy, I know, but you did the right thing.”

“You’re right, it feels lousy,” I said, my voice cool and unfriendly.

“What’s on your calendar for tomorrow?” I asked Miss Gloria on the way home. Just to make conversation, because she must have been feeling as flattened with exhaustion and disappointment as I was. I would not soon forget the haunted look in Lorenzo’s eyes as we left him with the phalanx of cops.

“Now that I know my way around the cemetery pretty well, I’ve started studying the meaning of the symbols on the gravestones,” she said, her face brightening. “I’ll be the only guide who can give a tour on that subject. Would you come over tomorrow for half an hour to listen to my talk? I know you don’t like the cemetery as much as I do.”

“You got that right,” I said. “We’ll be spending enough time in a cemetery for the rest of eternity. Why start early?” I forced a laugh.

Once we were settled back on the boat, I called Wally to tell him my article would be a day late because of Lorenzo’s situation. I vaguely hoped he’d be bubbling
with warmth or even offer to come over or take me out for a bite to eat or a nightcap—anything, really, that would demonstrate the spark that Lorenzo inferred was missing. But instead, he seemed distracted and distant.

“I’m glad the right thing was done,” he said after hearing my story. “Don’t forget the staff meeting tomorrow. You can bring the piece then.”

“I wouldn’t,” I said. “I was thinking about interviewing the owner of the floating restaurant before I write that review up—maybe ask him about what the permit process was like and get a statement from him about his exemption from the restaurant statutes. What do you think?”

“Maybe,” he said. “We’ll talk with Palamina about it tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry about the other night,” I said, staving off the end of the conversation. “You were right on that. And you missed the most amazing cake.”

“I’m sure it was delicious,” he said. “Have a good night.” And hung up.

Then I called Eric, feeling really blue. “Lorenzo needs a lawyer,” I said flatly. “The cops have him.”

Once I had gotten the name of the lawyer Eric had used last year, and given him a brief rundown on the day’s activities, I considered calling Mom. She’d be sick about Lorenzo’s arrest. And then she’d ask about Wally. And talking about the coldness that had permeated the conversation with him would only make it feel more real. I’d phone her tomorrow.

17

The flat-footed key lime pie should be repaired or replaced, and the poached fruit in a moat of sparkling wine was a little too Ladies Who Lunch for me.

—Pete Wells, “Expressing Himself with Joy,”
The New York Times

The next day dawned crisp and slightly brisk, with enough sun that the mercury would probably hit eighty by noon. There had been no news from Lorenzo, but I didn’t expect any. I could picture him in his orange jumpsuit behind bars at the jail, a target for derision and bullying from other more seasoned and hardened inmates. Hopefully Eric’s lawyer would manage an arraignment sometime today and extract him out of that awful prison.

I texted the owner of the floating restaurant, telling him I’d like to meet with him that morning to take a few photos before the review went live, and that I would love to chat with him for a few follow-up questions if he was available.