Chili Con Carnage (A Chili Cook-Off Mystery)

by Logan, Kylie

  “There’s a chance of rain tonight,” Luella told her. “But nothing for the rest of the week. Will you and Margaret join us for dinner?”

  Another blast of wind kicked up over the lake and brought with it the distant rumble of thunder. “Thank you , but . . .” In no time at all, Alice headed back the way she’d come. “I’d better help Margaret get our picnic settled over in the park. Just in case it starts to rain and we need to pack up in a hurry.”

  “Nice lady,” I said when she was gone.

  “A real sweetheart,” Chandra confirmed. “So’s her sister.”

  “And you’d better be really careful every time either one of them is around,” Kate advised, then laughed when she saw the look of disbelief on my face. She grabbed onto my arm. “I’m just saying. Hasn’t anybody told you? The Defarge sisters—”

  “Are the biggest gossips on this or any other island,” Luella said. “There are a lot of people around here who believe that’s why they opened their knit shop in the first place. You know, so they’d have a ringside seat right downtown and they could keep an eye on everyone and everything that happens around here.”

  “They know your business before you know your business,” Chandra added. “And there’s nothing they like better than telling the world.”

  By the time they were done with their warnings, my smile was tight. “Then it’s a good thing I don’t have any business worth discussing.”

  “Right.” Kate split the word into two syllables. Right before she grabbed her dinner dish and took it with her when she went to the boat in the next slip to chat with its owners.

  “Anything you say.” Chandra had already finished her plate of food, but when she walked down the dock to visit with some of our neighbors, she took the bottle of red wine with her.

  “Good luck with that,” Luella said, and she, too, walked away, leaving me alone on the dock and wondering what had just happened.

  For like a half a second.

  That was when I realized I wasn’t alone, and the reason they’d all pulled up stakes and fled was suddenly all too evident.