Free Fatal Reservations by Lucy Burdette Page A

street toward the Westin pier. She perched the green palm hat on her head, though it was large enough that it fell over her forehead and just caught on her ears. She could hardly see from under it.
    “So what did we get from that conversation?” asked Miss Gloria. “Besides this attractive hat.” She giggled and shifted it to a rakish angle. “Your father’s going to go bananas for this.”
    “And let’s don’t forget the lovely bowl that set meback another twenty-five bucks. I can’t think of a thing I would serve in it.” I put the bowl on my head and we both snickered.
    “What I learned,” said Miss Gloria, returning our woven purchases to the plastic bag, “was there was no love lost between him and Lorenzo. Everyone knows that Lorenzo drags his stuff to Sunset in that cart hooked up to his bike. So if our weaver had a reason to get rid of Mr. Frontgate but wanted to shift the blame on someone else, it wouldn’t have been much of a stretch for him to see Lorenzo’s cart, grab the tablecloth, and wrap the murder weapon in it. And then dump it where he could be sure someone would find it.”
    I stopped on the crosswalk in front of the redbrick Custom House Museum and squinted down at her. “I haven’t heard that they’re looking for new detectives at the KWPD, but I’ll keep my ears open. You’d be a shoo-in.” I took her elbow again. “Although planting a bloody implement seems so obvious and cruel. And risky, too. He’d have to have a big grudge against Lorenzo, right?”
    “Lorenzo,” she said, “is like that perfect nerd from high school. The one who made all A’s and also ran the yearbook or the school newspaper. Maybe ran for treasurer of student council too. Someone who didn’t have his you-know-what together could easily resent him.”
    “Point taken,” I said. “Though if the man was killed down by Tarpon Pier—and that’s a big if—where was Lorenzo’s cart? Wouldn’t it have been at his house that time of night? Where would the murderer find the cart? There are just too many questions we don’t have answers to.”
    Around us, the crowd thickened as the timeapproached for people to abandon their Duval Street barstools and stumble, stagger, and weave toward the entertainers on Mallory Square. We fell in with the tide.
    The first performer we passed was Dominique, dubbed the Cat Man of Key West, who had probably been performing his act longer than most of the other entertainers. And he was also arguably the most popular. A slender man in capri pants, cat kneesocks, and a white Farrah Fawcett hairdo, Dominique charmed the customers who flocked to Mallory Square with a faux French accent and a stable of trained house cats.
    Eight cages of cats had already been unloaded with their backs facing the water and the sunset. He was setting up several padded stools and ladders and a tightrope that his cats would scramble across during the show. A cluster of tourists was pawing through the boxes of Cat Man merchandise for sale—T-shirts, socks, and postcards.
    “We’d better chat with him later,” I said to Miss Gloria. “He’s got his paws full.”
    Both of us grinning, we continued along the water and crossed the small bridge in front of the aquarium that led to Mallory Square proper. Vendors selling jewelry, artwork, and other Florida-related paraphernalia were laying out their wares on card tables. A trolley car set up as a bar was doing a brisk business in beer and mojitos. Now the humid sea air was thick with the scent of hot grease wafting from stations offering fried conch fritters, hot dogs, and popcorn. I could almost feel the oil settling on my skin.
    Further along on the pavement, performing grids had been marked off on the cement with heavy black ropes. The best location in the entire square—front and center, looking across the water to Sunset Key—wasempty, except for piles of flowers and cards and stuffed animals. The place where Bart Frontgate would have been