Chili Con Carnage (A Chili Cook-Off Mystery)

by Logan, Kylie

  It wasn’t my imagination. He emphasized the word that just the teeniest bit. The meaning was just as obvious to me as if he’d come right out and said, “Since you won’t tell me what’s going on, maybe Karmen will,” but before I had a chance to call him on it, an RV twice the size of ours and a hundred times fancier rolled around the corner.

  I heard Nick mumble something that sounded like, “Oh good, they’re here,” before he hurried over to the side of the Palace and directed the super-duper-sized vehicle to park right next door.

  “That’s no good!” I scrambled over to Nick’s side, waving to my right to get the RV to move farther away from our booth at the same time he waved to the left to get it to park closer. “You can’t let him park there,” I told Nick. “He’s going to mess up the flow of traffic to our booth. Tomorrow when the show opens—”

  “Not to worry.” When the driver stopped exactly where Nick indicated, Nick gave him the thumbs-up. “It’s only for today. It’s Carter Donnelly’s motorhome, the one he uses as a dressing trailer.”

  “Carter Donnelly!” Before, Sylvia’s eyes had sparkled with what might, in some alternate universe, have passed for a come-hither look. Now they gleamed with sudden interest. She scampered over, already craning her neck to check out the driver of the RV and whoever else might be inside it. “He’s not supposed to be here until Sunday. That’s when he’s judging the Homestyle category of the cook-off.”

  “That’s when he’s judging Homestyle, but not when he’s arriving. He’s supposed to be here . . .” Nick checked a watch that looked more pricey than a cop should have been able to afford. “He’s going to be here in a couple hours,” he said. “He wants to get some filming done today, before the Showdown gets too crowded.”

  “And this Donnelly character is . . . ?”

  It was the most logical question in the world, so Sylvia had no cause to give me an eye roll. The condescending little laugh she tossed my way along with it didn’t do much for my mood, either. “Come on, Maxie.” I couldn’t help but notice that she stepped closer to Nick at the same time she gave me a look that said she pitied the fool who was me. “Everybody knows Carter Donnelly. He’s got his own cable cooking show, his own restaurant in LA, a string of popular cookbooks, and another new book out that’s about wooing a woman with food. Everybody’s reading it. Everybody’s talking about it. It’s on the best-seller list.”

  “Oh, that Carter Donnelly.” I wouldn’t have known him if I tripped over him, but I wasn’t about to admit that to Sylvia. “I thought it was the other one. You know, the anchor on the network news.”

  “Because you watch network news.” Sylvia’s smile was a mile wide and twice as insincere.

  The last thing she needed was encouragement.

  Which is exactly why I ignored her.

  “Donnelly’s got a new show starting this fall,” Nick said, and since it was pretty obvious Sylvia knew all about this Donnelly character, I knew this was for my benefit. “He’s traveling the country filming what he considers Americana. You know, things like county fairs and cook-offs. He’s going to feature the Showdown on his first show of the season.”

  Good news for the Showdown. Even I knew that much. Celebrity chefs mean attention, and attention means better attendance, and better attendance means more customers for the Palace. If I ever came face to face with Donnelly, I’d have to remember to thank him.

  A middle-aged bald guy jumped out of the RV with a camera on his shoulder. “Just taking a few shots to get things lined up and see how the natural lighting’s going to work,” he said, and when he saw that the vendors around us were suddenly popping up like zits on a fourteen-year-old’s face, he waved them away. “Carter’s not here yet. He will be. And believe me,” he added under his breath, “you’ll know it when he is.”

  “You going to be filming right here?” I asked him.

  He answered without looking away from the viewfinder on his camera. “Here and all over the grounds. Donnelly is particular.” He glanced at me briefly. “I’ll set up the shots now just like I’m supposed to. He’ll show up in a couple hours and want to change them all. Hey—” He shrugged. “It’s a living.”

  I didn’t have to know exactly who Carter Donnelly was to know a publicity opportunity when I saw it. Maybe Sylvia was thinking the same thing. Maybe that’s why when Nick walked away and I hurried over to the RV to clean up and dust off the Chili Chick costume, she was already putting away those bottles she’d lugged over so she could restack the spice jars on the front counter.

  I turned the corner from the Palace to our RV and nearly plowed into the man right in front of me.

  “Roberto!” He was standing directly in my path so I had no choice but to stop on a dime.

  “Hey, chica.” Like I said, Roberto was moderately cute and he proved it with a smile that brightened up the long shadows between our RV and the one Carter Donnelly’s peeps had parked next door. “I was hoping I’d see you today.”

  “Here I am.” I tried for a smile, too, but let’s face it, when it comes to being phony, I’m not in Sylvia’s class. Truth be told, my ego had taken a beating the night before, what with ol’ Roberto being far more interested in tequila, a busty waitress, and brawling than he was in me. Call me overly sensitive. Go ahead. See if I care.

  I guess Roberto realized I wasn’t exactly happy to see him, because his smile faded and he ran a hand through his dark, short-cropped hair. “I’m looking for my phone,” he said. “I think I put it in your purse. You know, last night, before the trouble started at that bar.”

  “You mean before you started the trouble.”

  Water off a duck’s back. But then, that’s one of the things that made me decide Roberto wasn’t right for me, and it hadn’t taken more than thirty minutes or so of togetherness for the reality to sink in. When it came to other people’s feelings and needs, the guy was clueless. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been paying for my own Miller Lites at the bar all night.

  “I put my phone in your purse,” he said. “When you were in the ladies’ room.”

  Now that I thought about it, I’d just walked out of the restroom when I saw Roberto and some big guy with a long, gray beard and bulging biceps squaring off with each other near the table where I’d left my purse and one of those I-paid-for-it lite beers.

  “What, you knew there was going to be trouble and you didn’t want your phone to get broken?”

  Roberto shrugged.

  And I gave in with a sigh.

  When I had gotten to the Palace earlier, I’d tucked my purse under the front counter, so I went around to the back of the booth, pulled open the door, and pulled my bag out. It was my favorite denim hobo bag, and unlike Sylvia who carried a tiny clutch purse with just what she considered the essentials inside it, I pretty much had my life in my bag. I guess that was another thing I’d learned in Chicago: A girl never knew when she was going to have to pick up and run. There was no sense in taking the chance of leaving anything important behind.

  I plopped the purse down on the blacktop between us, stooped down, and dug inside. “Chocolate bar,” I said, pulling it out and setting it aside. “Lighter, wallet, makeup bag, pack of cigarettes.”

  “Hey, my brand!”

  Since I was looking in my purse, I didn’t so much see as feel Roberto come closer. Automatically, I closed my hand over the pack of cigarettes.

  When I shot him a look and stood up, he backed off. “I was just going to ask for one.”

  “The pack’s not open.”

  “So you shouldn’t mind sharing. Besides . . .” As I’d learned the night before, Roberto was not the brightest bulb in the box. The effort of thinking made his eyes squinch up. “You never even came outside with me last night at the bar to smoke.”

  “That’s because I quit a month ago.”

  “Then you shouldn’t care if I take your cigarettes.”

  I was quicker than him. Before he made a move to snatch the pack out of my hand, I had alr
eady tossed it back in my purse. “Exactly why I can’t open it,” I said. I lifted the purse and slung it over my shoulder, the better to keep it out of his reach. “If I open them, I’ll be tempted to smoke them.”

  He cocked his head. “Then you should just give me the whole pack.”

  “If I did that, I wouldn’t be able to prove to myself that I can carry them around and actually not smoke.”

  Like I said, not the brightest bulb. It took him a moment to mull this over, and when he finally had, he dismissed the whole thing as nothing with a shake of his shoulders. “Okay. Keep your freakin’ cigarettes. It’s not like I can’t buy my own. Just look for my phone, okay?”

  It wasn’t okay. Nothing was okay about a guy who pretty much ignored me when we were supposed to be on a date, started a fight in a bar, and wanted to cop my cigarettes.

  I let him know it with a laser look before I dropped the purse back on the ground and took another quick peek at the top layer of cargo. Latest issue of Soap Opera Digest (hey, a girl has to keep up), another chocolate bar quickly getting soft in the sun, a pack of gum, a datebook, my own phone, a couple dozen receipts I’d stuffed into my purse with the hopes that—someday—I’d sort them out.

  “Not here,” I told Robert. I grabbed my own phone and handed it to him. “Call it.”

  He did. And neither one of us heard a ring.

  “Like I said, not here.” I figured it didn’t hurt to point it out again, just in case he missed it the first time. “You must have put it in somebody else’s purse. Even as we speak, that poor woman’s probably wondering who the phone belongs to.”

  “Maybe. So maybe she should just answer it.” He tried his number again, listened for a couple seconds, then handed back my phone. “So, you want to hit the bars again tonight?”

  I tossed my purse back in the Palace. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Roberto smirked. “What, a little trouble with the cops and you run the other way? Hey, Maxie, come on . . .” He edged closer. “That’s not what I heard about you. You know, before I asked you to go out with me last night. I wasn’t expecting you to be the shy type.”

  It wasn’t what he said as much as it was the way he said it. Like what he’d heard about me was secret and sleazy.

  I shifted the chili costume from one arm to the other. “It would take more than a fight and a few cops to scare me away,” I said, and while I was at it, I stepped out to the front of the Palace. It wasn’t like I was afraid of Roberto. Heck, I’d dealt with plenty of guys in my time, and plenty of those plenty were plenty more intimidating than Roberto. But remember what I said about not being stupid. If I was going to reject the guy, I didn’t like the idea of doing it in the too-private privacy between the RVs. My fellow chili cook-off travelers might ignore Karmen’s shrieks, but if push came to shove with Roberto, I knew they’d have my back.

  “Now a boring guy . . .” Just so there was no mistake who I was talking about, I looked him up and down. “That’s something that really could scare me off.”

  “Hey!” He grabbed my arm and spun me around to face him. “Are you saying—”

  “I’m saying thanks but no thanks.” I yanked my arm out of his grasp and took a couple steps back, widening the space between us. It was the first I realized the guy with the camera was actually filming in front of the Palace. He wanted Americana? He was about to get an eyeful.

  “I’m saying no way,” I told Roberto. “I’m saying I’m not interested in a guy who cares more about his booze than he does about the woman he’s with. While I’m at it, I’m saying get lost, because you just grabbed my arm, and I’ll tell you what, Roberto, no guy touches me like that.”

  He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t have to. He closed the distance between us and the look in his eyes packed enough punch. “No girl talks to me like that,” he said.

  “My point exactly. Girl? You have the nerve to call me a girl? You’re a lowlife, Roberto.”

  “And you’re playing hard to get, right? That’s the only thing that could possibly explain the attitude.”

  Even I was surprised when I managed a smile. “The attitude is genuine. So’s the message. Hasta la vista, loser!”

  I turned and walked away, and honestly, I wasn’t sure where I was headed except that I was headed someplace Roberto wasn’t. Too bad my legs are so short and I can’t walk any faster. If I had, I wouldn’t have heard his parting shot.

  “Oh come on, Maxie,” he called out. “Everybody around here knows your reputation. Easy and not all that particular. Why do you think I asked you out yesterday to begin with? Don’t go getting picky on me now.”

  It was the proverbial straw that broke this Chili Chick’s back. I stopped, spun, and was up in his face so fast, Roberto didn’t have time to react. Me, I knew there was no use arguing with a man so stupid, and certainly no use trying to reason with him. Left with no options, I did the only thing possible.

  I grabbed the chili costume with both hands, and sent a clear message in the form of one quick bonk on Roberto’s head with the chili.

  CHAPTER 3

  The next couple of hours went by uneventfully, which was fine by me. I didn’t have to defend my reputation, dodge Crazy Karmen, and since I made sure to avoid Sylvia, I didn’t have to deal with her, either.

  While I was doing the avoiding of Sylvia, I hung out in the RV, cleaned up the chili costume—and had a brilliant idea.

  One of the Showdown traditions Jack considered sacred was sharing a meal with his fellow vendors the evening before every cook-off began. It was always potluck, and the menu depended on what the vendors had around. Or what they could afford. When I spent summers traveling the circuit with Jack, some nights we’d feast on pork stew that was nice and spicy thanks to the handfuls of cumin, oregano, and chili powder he’d toss into the mix. Other nights, we went all-American with hot dogs and chips. My favorite nights, though, were when Jack cooked up a pot of his famous chili.

  What kind of chili?

  Well, that all depended.

  Jack always started with what he called his “secret recipe” and took off from there, riffing like a jazz musician as the flavors blended and he decided to up the tempo with a pico de pajaro pepper or a pinch of Saigon cinnamon, or slow things down with a teaspoon or two of licorice-flavored epazote.

  I don’t know if anyone else ever picked up on it, but I caught on early in my teen years—the way Jack cooked chili told me an awful lot about what was going on in his life.

  See, I could always tell when he was in love because when he had a new woman to think about, he’d add a couple ghost peppers or a Trinidad scorpion pepper, and then his chili was spicy enough to self-combust.

  On the flip side, it was easy to tell when Jack’s love life was on the fritz, because then he’d make a chili with smoky undertones and just a hint of cocoa powder.

  When things weren’t going well at the Palace, his chili was long on beans and short on meat. And when he was feeling flush, he’d cook up a pot of Texas Red with nothing it in but brisket and spices.

  Jack cooked chili like he lived his life. Out there on the edge. Never two times the same. And though his friends encouraged it, he firmly refused to ever enter a pot of his chili in any competition even though everyone knew that Texas Jack Pierce made the rockin’-est chili this side of the Rio Grande.

  And lucky me . . . before I could get too melancholy thinking about all this, I remembered there was one more small container of one of his concoctions in the freezer.

  I thawed the chili, heated it, and snuck it out to the Palace in a small Crock-Pot to keep it warm, then returned to the RV to change back into the Chili Chick.

  My timing was just right. By the time I got out front, there was a small crowd gathered around a sleek black Lincoln sedan that had just pulled up in front of the Palace. I didn’t need to be a foodie TV fan to know that could only mean one thing: Carter Donnelly had arrived.

  Now that I saw him, I recognized the face that smi
led out from the covers of so many magazines at the grocery store. Carter wasn’t as handsome as he was boy-next-door good-looking, and obviously life in the food biz had been good to him. The cut of his clothes told me he shopped in places no Showdown vendor could afford. Heck, even his shoes fairly screamed money. Somewhere, an animal rights group was enraged by the death of the critter that had given its life for his loafers.

  “So that’s what the excitement is all about!”

  I was so busy watching the red-haired, ruddy complexioned chef make his grand entrance, I hadn’t registered the fact that Puff had walked up to stand next to me and was watching the action, too.

  Puff who?

  Puff. Simply Puff.

  If he ever had a last name, or a real first name for that matter, none of us knew it. Puff was the once and future hippie who’d been traveling the Showdown circuit for as long as I could remember. In all those years, he had barely changed one iota.

  Puff had always been as thin as a green bean and as serene as a Buddhist monk in mid-meditation. These days, the long, dark hair he wore pulled back in a ponytail was streaked with silver. He had a wispy mustache—also striped with silver—and eyes that were perpetually red. Between that telling sign and the sweet smell of the smoke that frequently wafted out of his trailer . . . well, it was easy to see how he’d gotten his nickname.

  He was a genuine loner who had the tendency to try and impress people (mostly women) with tales of a glorious past, real or imagined. But then, Puff’s specialty was the dried beans he sold from a trailer with a bicycle strapped to the back and a battered motorcycle he had hitched behind. Something told me that when he walked up to women in bars and introduced himself as the bean man . . . well, I guess he needed all the tales of glory he could imagine to help out.

  “He buys my beans, you know.” Since we were both staring at mega chef Carter Donnelly, there was no doubt who Puff was talking about. “Orders them for that restaurant of his in LA. My hutterite beans, he loves ’em. Won’t use anything else in some fancy stew he makes.”