Chapter Twenty-Five

Food may just be fuel for some people, but for many marginalized communities, it represents community, connections, a way of expressing your culture in public without care or concern for how it might be received by those who do not share it.

—Mikki Kendall, “Hot Sauce in Her Bag,” Eater.com

We decided to split up the work: Irena would zip over to the boardwalks across town by the harbor known as the Key West Bight; I would check out the White Street pier on my way to the piers along Mallory Square and the Margaritaville Westin. These seemed like unlikely places to meet for something shadowy—too many windows overlooking the water, too many people potentially watching—but I’d take a quick spin around and then check the big concrete pier that ran parallel to the Navy’s Outer Mole, their private quay across the small Key West harbor. We would text each other if either of us found something related to Maria—either her turquoise scooter with the ¡VIVA CUBA! stickers on it or Maria herself.

The only other obvious fishing piers I could think of were those running on both sides of Palm Avenue, close to Houseboat Row. If we hadn’t located her in any of the other places, I could check that on my way home. Irena agreed that that would be as far as we would take it. Then either she had to call the police or simply settle in to wait for her cousin to return.

I started with the White Street pier, officially named the Edward B. Knight Pier, known for its poignant AIDS memorial and popular with locals as a good place to watch the sunrise with a dog. Even though it was well before the official sunrise, light was beginning to dawn, revealing a few early birds on the benches along the pier. I puttered slowly all the way to the end but saw no sign of Maria.

I continued across White Street to Eaton on my way to Mallory Square. At this time of the morning, downtown was not yet clogged with tourists and workers. I rode right through the parking lot off the square and drove over to the water, looking for a blue scooter or a small woman with raven hair. I managed to startle a few homeless men who were tucked in behind some palmetto bushes, and they stepped out, blinking and cursing. Homeless people are discouraged heavily from spending the night on public or private property, but not every person without a home chooses to hike out to the shelter on Stock Island to bunk down in a Quonset Hut with several hundred other folks. For the cops, it’s a delicate balancing act: tourists and residents versus the folks who need a place to rest overnight.

“Good morning,” I called. “I wonder if you’ve seen a woman with dark hair on a turquoise blue scooter this morning?” They just glared back.

No dice. A ghostly wave of seagulls and skimmers swerved across the water and landed on the pier. The sight of this square at this time of day couldn’t have been a starker contrast to the bustling crowds that gathered during the evening sunset celebration. I paused for a minute to listen—for what? I wasn’t sure. If I hadn’t been searching for a woman in trouble, this scenery would have felt peaceful, not spooky.

It wasn’t legal to ride a scooter or a car or even a bicycle on Mallory Square or the piers along the Margaritaville resort, but I wanted to cover as much territory as quickly as I could. And be ready to bolt if I needed to. Within minutes, I reached the water closest to the Truman Little White House, near my ex’s condominium complex. I peered over the edge of the dock to check on the boats bobbing along this stretch—mostly Danger snorkel tour boats, a few small yachts, and two rental fishing crafts. No sign of a woman in distress. Remembering that my access to the other side of the Navy Mole was blocked by a cut in the concrete and that the gates to the Truman Annex would be locked this early, I circled back alongside the Custom House Museum to Whitehead Street and over the access to the new city park via Southard Street.

I paused by the new park and the controversial amphitheater and squinted at the walkway across this small harbor. Maria should not have had access to the Outer Mole, the pier belonging to the Navy. Occasionally, cruise ships docked there, but the passengers were not allowed to disburse on their own. Rather, they were ferried back to Key West by trolleys or conch trains.

I tried not to think of the body that I’d seen in the water at the other end of town during that frightening time leading up to my friend Connie’s wedding when my brother had disappeared. We’d found a runaway girl, floating, her hair drifting out like a mermaid or a Gorgon, but not breathing.

The sky had lightened enough that I could see the details of the Coast Guard’s Ingham, a hulking gray battleship, retired now except for tours and occasional cocktail parties. I checked the bike and scooter racks near the eco-discovery center but found only a couple of old bikes lacking critical parts, such as one of the tires. Sometimes even a good lock took you only so far in this town.

But my heart sank as I spotted a scooter parked at the end of the road leading to the battleship that looked much like what Irena had described as Maria’s. I considered hopping off my own scooter and starting along the pedestrian dock toward the Westin cut. The posted sign said motorized vehicles were forbidden here, too. On the other hand, if I found Maria in trouble—or if a killer was still lurking—I wanted to be able to move quickly.

From this side of the cut, I could see my ex’s condominium complex again, the same buildings that backed up to the Truman Little White House. A few lights had flickered on, but most of the apartments were still dark. I wished I were back in my berth, a purring cat stretched along my side. I drove along the edge of the foliage, one hand on my phone ready to punch 911 if needed, and headed down to the end of the pier, where the pass-through ended. This was definitely a fishing destination. When I first arrived on the island, I’d been astonished to see a man dressed as Elvis casting his line into the water.

Why in the world would Maria have come out here in the pitch-dark? Something to do with her brother’s killer—that was the only reason I could imagine. Which made the urgency for me not to do something stupid more salient in my reptile brain. My heart began to pound harder and my mouth felt suddenly dry. I made it all the way to the end without seeing any sign of her, nor of any possible assailant. I crossed the last few yards of concrete to the water.

Just on the other side of the jetty, where one of the water sports companies stored their standby Jet Skis, I spotted something bobbing in the water. Not something, someone. A glob of seaweed and assorted trash obscured the face, but the hair was coal black like Maria’s.