by Kylie Logan
Praise for the Chili Cook-off Mysteries
DEATH BY DEVIL’S BREATH
“The second Chili Cook-off mystery is a spicy blend of a feisty heroine, colorful casino performers, and a deadly chili contest. The highly likable cast of characters and their hilarious hijinks make this series a blue-ribbon winner.”
—RT Book Reviews
“Cozy mystery lovers will be delighted to read this spicy mystery. It is a fast-paced page-turner of a read . . . with engaging characters.”
—MyShelf.com
“Witty dialogue, numerous suspects, and a strong development of characters highlight the strength of writing by an author . . . [who] continues her record of entertaining readers with insightful characters and laughter.”
—Kings River Life Magazine
CHILI CON CARNAGE
“Maxie is an edgy firecracker of a main character, and I can’t wait to see the trouble she gets into on the Showdown tour. I’m also anxious to meet her dad, the infamous Texas Jack Pierce. I’ve always found that chili gets better with time, and I predict that this fun new series is going to continue to get stronger and stronger!”
—Mochas, Mysteries, and More
“This is a fun mystery in a unique setting, and Maxie’s dedication to finding her father promises that there will be an enjoyable future for readers in this new series.”
—Kings River Life Magazine
“I am always excited when I find a new book by Kylie Logan. To not only find a new book but a new series is heaven. She draws you right into the story and you can’t help but read the book to the very end . . . This is a fun, fast-paced read . . . If you like your mystery hot and spicy then you should be reading Chili con Carnage.”
—MyShelf.com
“The mystery aspect of the novel was well-thought-out and planned. Maxie is a sort of no-nonsense character and her investigation proves that . . . I’m looking forward to the next book in the series as much for the family drama as I am for the mystery . . . A great first effort!”
—Debbie’s Book Bag
“As the first in a series, this is a solid mystery, introducing readers to an interesting setting and a unique cast of characters.”
—CA Reviews
Berkley Prime Crime titles by Kylie Logan
Button Box Mysteries
BUTTON HOLED
HOT BUTTON
PANIC BUTTON
BUTTONED UP
League of Literary Ladies Mysteries
MAYHEM AT THE ORIENT EXPRESS
A TALE OF TWO BIDDIES
THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HARLOW
Chili Cook-off Mysteries
CHILI CON CARNAGE
DEATH BY DEVIL’S BREATH
REVENGE OF THE CHILI QUEENS
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
REVENGE OF THE CHILI QUEENS
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with Connie Laux
Copyright © 2015 Connie Laux.
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eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-59280-9
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / August 2015
Cover illustration by Miles Hyman.
Cover design by Diana Kolsky.
Logo design by © Paseven/Shutterstock.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.
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Oscar and Ernie have already had a book dedicated to them so this one is for Casey!
Acknowledgments
I am one lucky author.
Each year, I get to spend an entire week with my brainstorming group. In the fall of 2013 we spent that week in beautiful Chautauqua, New York. Among the trees quickly morphing into gorgeous shades of red and bronze, the four of us took long walks, shared meals . . . and talked. We talked and talked and talked. In our brainstorming group, each member has two sessions during the week in which to discuss any aspect of her current work in progress or some future planned book. Sometimes we come with full-fledged ideas that just need some fleshing out. Other times, we come to the table with problems with characterization, or questions about plot. In my case that fall, I’d started writing Revenge of the Chili Queens and had a few chapters done, but I was at a loss for what else was going to happen in the rest of the book.
Brainstormers to the rescue! We talked out my plot and what had happened in the two previous books in the Chili Cook-Off series. We made notes and threw out possibilities and finally, we made a trip to the store, bought a poster board and a pack of sticky notes and got to work, writing down scene ideas and plopping them into what looked to me like an endless amount of empty chapters. It didn’t take us long before we had the skeleton of the story and after that, the details just naturally fell into place.
Thank you, brainstormers Shelley Costa, Serena Miller, and Emilie Richards. You saved my chili on this one!
I’d also like to thank my family, especially David, who was left at home that brainstorming week with a new-to-us cat and a dog we’d just taken in to foster. I’m happy to report that everyone made it through the week in one piece!
As always, my thanks to the folks at Berkley Prime Crime and to Northeast Ohio Sisters in Crime, a great group of sisters and misters who are always supportive and enthusiastic.
Contents
Praise for the Chili Cook-off Mysteries
Berkley Prime Crime titles by Kylie Logan
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
Almost-Authentic Chili Queens Chili
A preview of And Then There Were Nuns
CHAPTER 1
They say there is nothing hotter than Texas in July.
They are not only dead wrong, but that collective they owes me an apology, a clean blouse—since my white cotton peasant shirt embroidered with bright flowers was already wringing
wet—and a tall, icy margarita.
Those perfect-haired, big-smile, smooth-talking weather forecasters on TV didn’t offer much consolation. They said the record high temperature for San Antonio in October was one hundred degrees, and that it looked like over the next few days, that record would be broken.
By the way, that record was set way back in 1938.
Didn’t it figure.
See, 1938 or thereabouts was exactly what we were trying to recreate there on the plaza outside the famous Alamo.
The year 1938, and the reign of the San Antonio Chili Queens.
“Are you just going to just stand there, or do you plan on doing some work tonight?”
My half sister, Sylvia, zipped by and tossed the comment at me, dragging me out of dreams of the AC back in the RV we used to travel the country with the Chili Showdown, the event that wandered from town to town all over America, hosting chili cook-off contests and showcasing chili in all its glory, as well as chili fixins and all the must-haves that go along with a good bowl of chili, stuff like beans and sauces. Too bad she was carrying a head-high stack of plastic bowls and she couldn’t see the look I shot her way in return.
Work?
In this heat?
The words I grumbled are best left unreported.
But never let it be said that Maxie Pierce isn’t one to pitch in. Especially when that pitching in meant reenacting the role of one of the city’s famous Chili Queens, those wonderful women who were part of a tradition here in San Antonio for more than one hundred years. The Chili Queens cooked pots of steaming chili in their homes, then, once the sun went down, carted them to plazas around the city to feed the customers who couldn’t get enough of the bowls of spicy goodness. For all those years, the Chili Queens were at the center of San Antonio nightlife. Along with them, the plazas filled with diners and musicians, with talk and singing and music that continued into the wee hours of the morning.
Of course I would work. But not because Sylvia asked me to.
Chili, see, is in my blood. Just like it’s in the blood of my dad, Texas Jack Pierce, a man who’s been missing for a few months and whose place Sylvia and I had taken behind the counter of the Hot-Cha Chili Seasoning Palace where he sold dried peppers and spices and chili mixes that were famous from one end of the country to the other. So it’s only natural, even though I’m not from San Antonio and nowhere near old enough to have ever had contact with any one of the original Chili Queens, that I definitely feel a connection.
I bet there were plenty of nights they melted in the Texas heat, too.
I lifted the hem of my flowing black skirt and headed into the nearby tent where Sylvia and I would be serving chili to the crowds of people gathered that night for a charity event.
Read with the Chili Queens.
That’s what they were calling it, and this night—a Monday—the event was raising money for a local literacy center. On Tuesday, we’d be there with a bunch of warm-and-fuzzy types collecting money for an animal shelter; on Wednesday, the food bank people; and on and on through the week. The whole celebration ended on Sunday evening with a beauty pageant back at the Chili Showdown at the fairgrounds.
Charities aside and beauty queens ignored, I had a proud tradition to uphold.
Chili. It’s my life. And I do everything I can to promote it in all its wonderful, glorious, spicy-good incarnations!
The thought firmly in mind, I sidestepped a stack of folding chairs that still needed to be set up around the tables under the tent designated for the Palace, and headed over to where Sylvia—dressed the way I doubt any real Chili Queen ever would be, in a flowered sundress in shades of pink and purple—was doing a last-minute check of our prep area.
“Chili. Spoons. Bowls. Napkins.” Just as I walked up, her jaw dropped and her baby blues bulged. “Napkins. There are no napkins. Where are the napkins?”
Rather than tell her not to worry (because Sylvia was going to worry no matter what; she’s just that sort of high-strung), I spun around and headed over to where we’d stacked the supplies we’d brought over to Alamo Plaza that afternoon.
“Napkins,” I mumbled to myself, and dug through a mountain of packing boxes in search of them. I found what I was looking for and gathered pack after pack of napkins into my arms.
“Need help?”
At the sound of the voice, I stood and found myself looking up into a pair of luscious dark eyes, a cleft chin, and a smile that lit up the quickly gathering twilight.
“Help?” I am not easily upended by good-looking guys. It must have been the heat that caused my voice to crack. “I’ve got it. Really.” As if it would prove my statement, I hugged the packs of paper napkins closer to my chest. “Thanks.”
The man turned his smile up a notch and added a wink to go with it. While he was at it, he strummed his right hand over the strings of the guitar looped around his shoulders. “No problem, senorita.” He made me a small bow that was corny and gallant all at the same time. “I’m at your service.”
I gave him a quick once-over, but it didn’t take even that long for me to realize he was one of the entertainers who’d been hired by Tumbleweed Ballew, the administrative power behind the Showdown, to add a bit of authenticity to the evening. He fit the part. Tall, and with hair the color of the crows I’d seen around the city. “You’re . . . ?”
“Glad I stopped over.” Another of his smiles sizzled in my direction. “You’re Maxie, right?”
“You know me?”
“I’ve heard about you. But aren’t you supposed to be . . .” I’d given him a quick enough once-over, but when he looked me up and down, he took his time. “I was expecting the chili costume,” he said. “From what I’ve heard, it’s really something, and you . . .” Another once-over made heat rush into my cheeks. “You’re something in that costume.”
I wasn’t about to deny it.
“I’ll wear the Chili Chick costume at the Showdown over at the fairgrounds every day this week,” I told him. “But in the evenings when we’re here as part of the fund-raisers, we’re supposed to dress like the old Chili Queens. This outfit . . .” I put a hand on my long, black skirt. “It fits with the whole Chili Queen thing. A giant red chili costume, fishnet stockings, and stilettos? They don’t exactly go with the re-creation.”
“Maybe not, but . . .” He let go a long whistle. “It sure is something I’d like to see.”
“So stop at the Showdown.” Believe me, I wasn’t being forward. The whole point of me wearing the Chili Chick costume and dancing outside the Palace was to draw in customers. And this guy would be a customer, right?
“I’ll be there,” he promised. “But only if you’ve got plenty of spice.”
He was talking about chili and the dried peppers we sold at the Palace, but the way his eyes sparked gave his words a certain little spicy kick of their own.
I told myself to keep my mind on peppers. “Abedul peppers to zia pueblo peppers,” I said.
“And selling pepper and spices, business is good?”
“We’re smokin’ hot!”
Another long look and he grinned. “I have no doubt of that. So . . .” Another strum of the guitar strings and he stepped away. “I’ll stop in at the Showdown this week to meet the Chili Chick, and later when I have a chance, I’ll come back here and get a sample of the chili you and your sister are handing out. But only if your chili is good.”
Who was I to miss an opening as perfect as that?
Heat flickered in my smile. “My chili is very good.”
His eyes gleamed. “I bet it is. I’ll be back later for some,” he said, and he strummed the guitar again and walked away.
“Chatting? You’re chatting?”
Sylvia’s high-pitched question came from right behind me and made me jump.
“You were supposed to be getting the napkins.” She grabbed the
m out of my arms.
“I was doing a little PR,” I told her. “Drumming up business.”
“With the entertainers. Who are working here just like we’re working here. So you know he didn’t pay his one hundred dollars for the ticket to get into the event and sample all the different chili, and how much you want to bet he’s not going to leave an extra donation even if he does come back here to our tent?”
I peered around the plaza, and in the glow of the thousands of twinkling white lights that had been strung between the tents of the fifteen organizations that were handing out chili in honor of the Queens, I saw the guitar player stroll over to the tent directly across from ours and accept a bowl of chili from a hot young cutie standing near the entrance. The banner over their heads announced that it belonged to Consolidated Chili Corp.
Call it gut reaction—my eyes narrowed, my mouth pulled into a frown.
“Get over it!” This from Sylvia, and this time, she wasn’t talking about tall, dark, and luscious Mr. Hot Guitar Player. If I ever needed any proof that she was not worthy of working at the Hot-Cha Chili Seasoning Palace (I didn’t), she provided it when she looked where I was looking and poked me in the ribs. “They’re a huge corporation and they give people what they want.”
“Mass-produced canned chili?” The very thought made me shudder. “They don’t belong at an event dedicated to the memory of the Chili Queens.”
“I heard they donated a bundle to be part of the week’s festivities. You know, for the publicity,” Sylvia informed me. “And look . . .” She wedged the stack of napkins under her chin so that she could retrieve something from the big square pocket on the front of her sundress. “They’re handing out the cutest stuff. You know, as a way to advertise the big Miss Consolidated Chili pageant that will happen over at the Showdown on Sunday.” She dangled a bottle opener in front of my eyes.
It took me a moment to focus and see that the bottle opener had Consolidated Chili written on it in red letters.
“And coasters,” Sylvia added, pulling one of those out of her pocket, too. It was made of heavy cardboard and featured a picture on it that I—along with millions of other people—instantly recognized thanks to the commercials on TV. A can of Consolidated Chili’s chili.