Minutes later, she arrived in my room, wearing her pink sweatshirt with the Florida Keys outlined in rhinestones. Both of the cats, her black Sparky and my striped Evinrude, trotted in her wake.

"One coffee, heavy on milk and light on sugar, comin' right up," Miss Gloria sang out. Evinrude hopped onto the bed, b.u.t.ted my hand with his head, and began to purr. Miss Gloria settled the steaming cup on my bedside table. "How was the conference?"

"Anybody up?" called a voice from the dock before I could tell her the story.

"I'll let her in," said Miss Gloria, bustling out to the living room to greet our neighbor Connie.

"Could have been better," I muttered, pulling myself to a seated position and reaching under the bed for my laptop. Sipping the coffee, I turned on the computer and flipped to my e-mail. At the top of the queue was a message from Dustin Fredericks to all the attendees of the food writing seminar. The subject line read Urgent communication from the director! I opened it up.

"I write to inform you that Jonah Barrows slipped and fell last night and accidentally drowned. We deeply regret his pa.s.sing but know he would want the conference to continue as planned. We have made the decision to dedicate the weekend to Jonah and his legacy. So in addition to the events already in place, we are planning a final session on Sunday honoring his life and his work."

The confirmation of his death went down like a mouthful of sour milk. Though I shouldn't really be surprised, considering what Jonah had looked like-limp and sodden and pastry white-as we extricated him from the pool.

Miss Gloria and Connie came into my room 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 texture of 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 s.p.a.ce 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 Key Zest 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. .h.i.tting 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 pa.s.s. 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 about personal issues that might be behind the death. We're the hometown news-Key Zest 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. I'd worked too hard to land this job to fold up like a paper napkin. "Absolutely not. I'm up for it. I'm going over to talk to folks now." I gathered my things and started for the door.

"Don't forget your restaurant review," Wally called after me. "We still need that."

I turned back to look at him-he was smiling. A month on the job and he already had my number. Ambitious even if it killed me. "Got it covered," I said with a smart salute.

I left my scooter in the office parking lot and walked the few blocks down Southard to Duval. Early morning was actually a good time to see the city-street-cleaning crews had swept away the detritus of the parties from the previous night-the Mardi Gras beads, the broken beer bottles, the pizza crusts-along with its accompanying odors. The streets were peopled by roosters and joggers and a few of the homeless folks who'd spent the night in places not conducive to sleeping in, but none of the evening crowds of revelers were up this early.

I crossed the street to avoid the powerful smell of a deep-fat fryer from a fast food grill serving greasy breakfasts and headed east on Duval Street to the San Carlos Inst.i.tute. I spotted Dustin on the sidewalk outside the building, talking with a cl.u.s.ter of the conference organizers and Officer Torrence-fully recognizable because of the mustache and the wide shoulders in spite of his street clothes. I ducked my head and scuttled by, not wishing to rehash my discovery of Jonah's body. Or get sucked into more questions on the unfortunate death. Besides, I had a lot to do before Mom arrived and distracted me from my Key Zest business.

Having my mother here with me cemented the connection I felt between food and love. Between food and taking care of someone you loved. Or might want to love. Between food and guilt. I appreciated her enthusiasm and confidence in me, but I wasn't convinced she understood how important this weekend was for my career. She'd understand if I explained that I was in danger of getting fired if I didn't produce something brilliant, but she'd also worry. And hover, motherly rotors a-whapping.

I climbed the white marble steps circling to the second floor above the lobby. In the large room across from the stairway, a sumptuous continental breakfast had been laid out for the conference speakers and attendees-pastries, fruit, an egg ca.s.serole with onions and sausage, three kinds of juice, and coffee. I imagined that anyone providing food for this seminar would be hypervigilant about its quality. Who'd want a roomful of restaurant critics and food writers wrinkling their collective noses at your offerings? Or worse still, suffering a wave of food poisoning?

I loaded a plate with a little of everything and looked around for someone to chat with. A group huddled in the far corner of the room included three of the conference speakers and several others. Their body language was not welcoming, but if I let that stop me I'd gather nothing but uninformed suppositions from the home cooks and fringe writers attending the conference. I pictured Ava Faulker poised to can me, and then wedged into the s.p.a.ce between a well-known Asian cookbook author and Sigrid Gustafson, the author of three novels centering on Scandinavian food, whom I'd seen in the bathroom at the reception the night before.

I surfed into the first silence. "Good morning," I said brightly. "I'm Hayley Snow with Key Zest magazine, headquartered right here in town. We're so happy to have you visiting."

There was the smallest pause and then they continued to talk as if I hadn't appeared-about the pitiful state of advances in book contracts and whether e-books were truly the way of the future.

"Surely not for cookbooks," said Yoshe King, a small dark-haired woman in a sequined tunic and black leggings. "Who wants to look at a recipe on an iPhone?"

The novelist scowled. "Haven't you heard of Epicurious, darling? And the apps that are being developed are nothing short of miraculous."

I ate a little of my breakfast, waiting for another break in the conversation, and telling myself not to take the cold shoulders personally.

"I adored your most recent cookbook," I said to Yoshe when I got the opportunity. "It read like a novel. Sheer pleasure! I tried the Asian noodle salad with sticky ginger tofu cubes-I swear it's the only time my guy hasn't refused tofu outright."

In fact, I didn't have a guy and if I did, I wouldn't force tofu on him, but she wouldn't know that. "We're running features on conference panelists in our magazine for the rest of January and I'd love to do one on you and your work. Believe it or not, most of our articles are starting to get picked up by the a.s.sociated Press."

Finally she beamed, slid a business card out of her pocket, and handed it over. "Thanks. It would be my pleasure."

I turned to the rotund woman next to her, Sigrid the novelist. "Your latest novel," I said, "was like eating a great meal. I savored every word."

She simpered. "Why, thank you."

Though I had admired her novel for its meticulous wordsmithing, it read more like the p.r.i.c.kly Scandinavian top chef Jonah had scorned in his opening remarks than the romance-laden comfort food I preferred when I wasn't working. My ability to manufacture bologna seemed to be expanding with each minute on the job.

On the other hand, yes, I was feeding them lines, but at the same time, I wasn't. Every overwrought word was true. Because underneath the writers' posturing and jostling for position, in each of their books, I recognized their true love for food. This was my tribe. If they'd only let me join them.

"I was so sad when I came to the end," I added to Sigrid. "Any chance I could talk with you later about your creative process and how you manage to make food such a vibrant character in your fiction?" This woman perked up too, her multiple chins wobbling as she thanked me. She took her colleague's card from my hand and jotted her cell phone number on the back.

"Perhaps I could take you to lunch?" I asked. Both of the women nodded.

The conversation veered to Jonah and his unfortunate demise. "Someone said a local writer had to dive into the swimming pool and pull him out," Sigrid reported breathlessly.

"I was the one who found Jonah," I said in a quiet voice. "It was really more a decorative pool than anything. I only got wet up to my knees. He got unlucky drowning in water that shallow."

Yoshe nibbled on her lower lip. "Is it possible that he had a heart attack or an embolism, fell into the pool, and was in too much distress to save himself?"

"Anything's possible," I said, thinking Bransford would kill me if I started to blab about the missing broken bird statue or the blow to Jonah's forehead.

"He looked-so pale he was almost blue." I sighed. "Other than that, I don't know what really happened."

"Awful," said Sigrid. "I'm not saying this has anything to do with it, but Jonah was chugging those little cans of caffeinated drinks all evening. While we were waiting to go on with him backstage, I'm certain he had two of them."

"He could just as well have been drinking alcohol," said the man who'd been standing by silently. I thought I recognized his face from the conference program-he called himself a culinary poet.

"Have you glanced through You Must Try the Skate?" he asked. "That book is positively riddled with allusions to impulse control. And who chose that ridiculous book t.i.tle?" he added. "He practically had to have been drinking to go on about bringing up the curtains on the rest of us, the way he did last night. All of us have skeletons we'd rather not rattle-he simply chose to dump his on the unsuspecting public. If I had known this was an invitation to a public encounter group, I would have declined."

Note to self: Interview this fellow alone later. I dug in my pocket for a business card, but found I'd given out the last one. Then before I spotted her and could head her off, my mother bounced into the middle of the group.

"Oh, Hayley, here you are! I've been looking for you-" She stopped and stared at the women next to me, her mouth dropping open. "Yoshe King! Hayley, you never mentioned you knew her. Oh, Miss King, I have your book right here. I've been preparing your recipes since Hayley here was a little girl. You should see the pages-absolutely paper-thin and covered with stains from your sauces. In fact, I bought a brand-new copy at the bookstore downstairs." She rustled through her enormous straw bag and pulled out a cookbook the size of a dictionary. "Would it be too much of an imposition to ask you to sign it?"

She handed the book over and then pinned me in a hug. "It's so much fun to be attending this conference with my daughter. Do any of you have children? What a treasure to have been able to hand down my pa.s.sion for food to Hayley. You'll be hearing about her-mark my words. Soon she'll be up on the stage with you, rather than in the audience." She took her signed book back and thanked Yoshe.

"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 cla.s.sroom.

5.

As for greed and envy, no one can accuse a man who serves such copious portions, who relishes the company of others, who gets hurt if you don't drink with him and who gives such enveloping drunken bear hugs ... of h.o.a.rding and withholding.

-Julian Sancton After Dustin had taken a solid half hour on center stage to express his grief over Jonah's death and to a.s.sure 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 cl.u.s.tered 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 t.i.tle 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 t.i.tles I sent in with my ma.n.u.scripts.

"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 t.i.ttered. "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 sh.e.l.l, 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 t.i.ttered.

"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 embarra.s.sing 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 compet.i.tiveness 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 t.i.tillating 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 ma.s.sive, 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 bloodl.u.s.t 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."

"Bloodl.u.s.t," 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 Creperie," 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 Creperie," 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 sungla.s.ses. "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 cafe 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 cafe 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.