The terra-cotta floor gleamed in the low light. It amazed Liz that this was the same kitchen where only hours before she had helped Pierre prepare dinner. She thought she heard a sigh, but it was just the wind. The kitchen seemed a lonely place without Pierre’s bustling presence. Pierre had been working at the Indialantic since before Liz was born. He’d gone to the same French cooking school as Julia Child and he’d given Liz her first cooking lesson when she was only six years old. He’d even had a stool made for her with her name painted on it so she could reach the counter and be his “sous-chef.” The stool still stood in the corner of the Indialantic’s huge original Spanish-style kitchen, now updated with stainless steel appliances.
Another thing Pierre and Liz shared, besides a passion for cooking, was a love of mysteries. Her first Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None, had come from Pierre, its pages well-worn and dog-eared. The book still held a place of honor on Liz’s bedroom bookshelf.
Pierre was the same age as Aunt Amelia, and since she’d come back to Melbourne Beach, Liz had noticed him forgetting to add key ingredients to the dishes he’d been making for decades. She tried to make it a point to go to the kitchen during the prep stage and taste everything before it was served, adding any missing items when Pierre’s back was turned. When she had confided in her father and Aunt Amelia about her suspicions of Pierre’s memory loss, they’d tried to get him to see a doctor, but he refused to go. Pierre was proud of the fact that, in eighty years, he’d never been to a doctor—not even when he cut off the tip of his pinkie finger while deboning a chicken. Luckily, one of the hotel’s guests at the time was a retired nurse. She’d stitched it back on, as good as new.
Homeopathic remedies were Pierre’s go-to cure for a myriad of ailments. He used herbs from his kitchen garden years before they came into vogue. Instead of Neosporin and a Band-Aid, Pierre had applied aloe and a mystery poultice to Liz’s childhood boo-boos, then, as a distraction, they continued to bake gooey cinnamon buns or letter-shaped sugar cookies that spelled new words for Liz to learn. She wished she could return the favor and restore Pierre’s memory, and she made it a point to look up what herbs might improve his memory loss.
Liz exited the kitchen via the door leading outside to the south garden. A heady scent of mint and rosemary rose from the ground as she passed Pierre’s herb garden. In the distance, a light mist hovered over the ocean.
She took a path west toward the outside entrance of her father’s apartment. Through the panes of glass in the arched Spanish Revival window was the welcoming glow of her father’s desk lamp. He was at his desk in his usual, hunched-over position, pouring over an open law book. Since she’d been back, Liz had acted as his sounding board. Her father rehearsed closing arguments in front of Liz to see if she thought they needed tweaking from a stylistic writer’s point of view. They never did. Many a time, Liz sat in the back of the courtroom, watching her father in action. His lean, six-foot-two frame, graying hair at the temples, and green eyes that matched Aunt Amelia’s, made him an impressive figure, but it was when he opened his mouth to defend a client that he truly shined. Her father was on heart medication, which was the reason he’d retired as the county’s leading public defender. She had tried to get him to lighten his caseload, but he was a sucker for a good sob story, occasionally getting hoodwinked by a bad guy or gal. In his estimation, if he could save one innocent person from jail, then he’d done a good job.
Aunt Amelia had encouraged her nephew to hang his shingle on the side entrance of the Indialantic—Fenton Holt, Esquire—reassuring Liz that the best thing for a strong heart was a passion for living.
Originally, she and her father had lived in the caretaker’s cottage on the part of the Indialantic’s property that faced the Indian River Lagoon. When Liz left for college, her father moved from the caretaker’s cottage into the hotel to be closer to Aunt Amelia. The cottage was then rented to one of Aunt Amelia’s fellow actresses from Dark Shadows, Millicent Morgan, who played the spunky, gap-toothed barmaid at Collinsport’s Blue Whale Tavern. Sadly, Millicent had recently passed away and now the cottage remained vacant.
She knocked on her father’s door, then walked in. He never locked it.
“Lizzy, you’re a sight for sore eyes.” Fenton rose and took five long-legged strides, then embraced Liz like he hadn’t seen her in years, let alone a few hours. It reminded Liz of the panic her father must have felt when she’d called him from the hospital in Manhattan.
“What are you doing still working? Thought you’d have your feet up, watching reruns of Law and Order,” she said, glancing at the tower of papers ready to spill off his desk.
“About to close up shop. I have a new case I might need your help with, but you’ll have to go undercover.”
Liz laughed. “I’m game.”
“And why are you still hanging around the hotel? Shouldn’t you be home with your feet up, or better yet, at your desk with your feet on the floor, writing your next blockbuster? You have a gift, Lizzy—you shouldn’t squander it.”
“Can’t seem to get on track. I do have a title now, though. What do you think? Read This and Do the Complete Opposite of What I Did for a Happy, Guilt-free Life.”
“Catchy. I do like
