The Great Chili Kill-Off

by Livia J. Washburn

  “Not all of it,” Phyllis answered honestly. “I still don’t know what’s at the very bottom of things, although I can make a guess.”

  “You need to tell that Texas Ranger, first thing in the morning.”

  Phyllis thought about the promise she had made to Chuck Snyder and said, “We’ll see.” Felicity was expecting to be let in on the scoop, as well. Phyllis wasn’t sure she wanted to share what she had figured out with either of them just yet, not until she was sure she was right.

  “But there’s nothing I can do about it tonight,” she said as she closed the laptop. “Nothing except get some rest. Tomorrow will be a big day.”

  Carolyn looked at her and said, “I have a hunch you’re not just talking about the finals of the Great Chili Cook-Off.”

  ◄♦►

  By morning, after a few hours of sleep, the theory Phyllis had put together the night before had crystalized in her brain. As she examined it in the light of a new day, she was more convinced than ever that she was right. She had to have proof, though, and to get that she would need help.

  Sam was already outside the War Wagon with his pickup, getting ready to move his grill to the big tent for the finals. Phyllis pitched in to help him. She didn’t say anything about what she had been thinking. If she shared her theory with him, it would distract him from the contest, and she didn’t see any reason to do that.

  They had everything loaded up and Sam was about ready to leave for the tent when Sergeant Martin Culbertson walked up. “Good morning,” he said, nodding to both Phyllis and Sam.

  “I reckon whether it is or not is sort of up to you, Sergeant,” Sam said dryly.

  “I thought I’d stop by and wish you luck in the finals today,” Culbertson said. “Also, I’d like to have a word with you when the contest is over, so I’d appreciate it if you stay around where I can find you.”

  “Don’t leave town, is that what you’re sayin’?”

  “I’d appreciate it.”

  “Sure,” Sam said. “I’m not goin’ anywhere. The contest will take most of the day, and after that I won’t be in any hurry to go anywhere. We’re not headin’ back to Weatherford until tomorrow.”

  Culbertson nodded and said, “Just so we understand each other.”

  “We do,” Sam assured him.

  Culbertson touched a finger to his hat brim and said, “Mrs. Newsom,” then turned to walk off.

  Sam glanced at Phyllis and said, “You look like you’re so mad you’re about ready to chew nails.”

  “He’s going to arrest you for Hammersmith’s murder,” Phyllis said. Her voice shook a little from the depth of the emotion she felt. She couldn’t help it. “That’s what he was telling you.”

  “I know,” Sam said calmly. “I think he feels a mite bad about it, though. That’s why he didn’t go ahead and clap the cuffs on me right now. He’s gonna let me finish out the competition because he doesn’t really want to arrest me. I’m the only suspect he has any actual evidence against, though.”

  “And it’s purely circumstantial! He knows he can’t make a case, but he’s going to put you through that anyway. It’s not right.”

  “Well, who knows . . . Maybe he’ll find the real killer before the day is over.”

  Phyllis came close to telling Sam right then and there about what she had figured out, but in the end she kept it to herself. When he climbed into the pickup, she told him, “I’ll be over at the tent later with Carolyn and Eve. As soon as Carolyn’s contest is over this morning, we’ll be your cheering section.”

  He grinned at her. “Eve’s probably waved a few pom-poms in her time, but I don’t know about Carolyn.”

  Despite everything, Phyllis had to laugh at that image. She lifted a hand in a wave as Sam drove off.

  Then she got to work.

  She told Carolyn and Eve that she would be back later and then walked toward Cactus Bluff’s business block. If anything, the town was even more crowded this morning. Phyllis supposed some chili aficionados came in just for the final day of the competition. She noticed more news media trucks, as well. This was the high point of the year for the semi-ghost town.

  Phyllis had just reached the sidewalk when someone behind her called, “Mrs. Newsom! Phyllis!” She knew the voice instantly and wasn’t surprised when she turned and saw Felicity, Josh, and Nick coming toward her.

  “Good morning—” Phyllis began.

  “Don’t think you can get away from us,” Felicity said. “This is the last day of the contest. This murder gets solved today, and we’re sticking with you until it is!”

  Phyllis managed not to groan, but she had to make an effort. Having the trio from Inside Beat around was going to make things more difficult. On the walk over here, she had decided that she would have to take Chuck Snyder into her confidence because she needed his help, but Felicity and her two faithful followers would just complicate things.

  “I’m just taking a walk,” she told them. Actually, she’d been looking for Chuck, but she hadn’t spotted his Jeep yet. “And then I’ll be going over to the tent to spend the day with Sam while the competition is going on. I’m afraid I’m not going to be doing anything newsworthy.”

  “I don’t believe that for a second,” Felicity snapped. “Look, we helped you solve that other case, didn’t we? Let us give you a hand with this one.”

  Phyllis thought about it for a moment and then nodded. “Actually, there is something you can do,” she said.

  Felicity leaned forward with an eager look on her beautiful face. “What is it?”

  “All the chili cooks who are in the finals will be setting up in the tent this morning. You probably need to interview them anyway. While you’re doing that, check to see if any of them are using a Lydecker 6500 grill.”

  Felicity’s carefully arched eyebrows rose as her eyes widened. “Is that important?”

  “It could be very important,” Phyllis said, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial tone as she went on, “It’s the same type of grill that Joe D. Hammersmith used.”

  “OMG,” Felicity breathed. “Of course! We can check that out, can’t we, guys?”

  “A Lydecker 6500,” Josh said. “Got it!” He turned to Nick. “Can you remember that, too, and get a shot of it if we find one?”

  “I can get a shot of anything,” Nick said.

  Felicity asked, “Will that be the murderer? The man who’s using a grill like that?”

  “I don’t know yet,” Phyllis said, “but it’s important, I can tell you that much.”

  Felicity nodded and said, “All right, now we’re getting somewhere. Come on.”

  They were getting somewhere, all right, Phyllis thought as she watched the trio head for the big tent. They were getting out of her hair—and out of possible danger—which was all she’d been trying to accomplish by sending them on this wild goose chase. She had no idea how many Lydecker 6500s they would find—or if they would find any.

  But now she was free to continue her search for Constable Chuck Snyder.

  Before she could do that, Hiram Boudreau came out the front door of the Boudreau Hotel and stopped to greet her with a big grin.

  “Good mornin’ to you, Miz Newsom,” he said. “Where’s that feisty little friend o’ yours?”

  “You mean Eve, of course.”

  “A good name for the lady. Of course, I’m Hiram, not Adam, and Cactus Bluff’s not exactly the Garden of Eden—”

  “Eve’s back at the trailer with Carolyn,” Phyllis said, not particularly wanting to know where Boudreau was going with that line of thought. “Either that or they’ve already headed over to the big tent for this morning’s competition.”

  “Well, then, I’ll go find ‘em and wish Miz Wilbarger the best of luck. I’m not judgin’ this morning, so I don’t have to be quite so impartial anymore. Of course, as the Grand High Poobah of Cactus Bluff, I still can’t play favorites, even though I might want to.”

  “I’m sure Carolyn would rather win or lo
se fair and square,” Phyllis said. “She’s competitive, but she always wants the contests she enters to be fair.”

  “That’s the way to be, all right.” Boudreau lifted a hand in farewell and moved off along the sidewalk with a little natural boogie in his stride. Phyllis watched him go and then shook her head.

  As she turned away, she saw the constable’s Jeep roll to a stop along the sidewalk nearby, parking in an unloading zone in front of the hotel. Chuck climbed out, nodded to Phyllis, and asked, “Have you seen that Ranger this morning?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have. He came by the trailer earlier to tell Sam not to leave town after the finals this afternoon.”

  “Uh-oh,” Chuck said. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “I know. I think there’s so much pressure on him to make an arrest that he’s going to take Sam into custody, even though it’s obvious that he’s no killer.”

  “Obvious to us, maybe. Juries really put a high degree of trust in forensic evidence these days, though. You’d hate to think that an innocent man could be convicted on the basis of a fingerprint, but stranger things have happened.”

  Phyllis knew that was true, and it was one reason she didn’t want Sam to be arrested. She had faith in the legal system, but at the same time she knew it could take some wildly divergent paths at times and result in miscarriages of justice.

  “I’m working on making sure that doesn’t happen,” she said, “but I have a question for you, Constable.”

  “You might as well call me Chuck,” he said. “We’re sort of in this mess together.”

  “Two questions, actually: do you keep a record of all the traffic citations you write? And where is Hiram Boudreau’s house?”

  “The mayor doesn’t have a house,” Chuck said, answering the second question first. “He lives here in the hotel, on the top floor. It’s all one suite up there.” Chuck pointed upward to indicate the hotel’s top level, then rubbed his chin. “And sure, I keep copies of all the citations. They’re in a file cabinet in my office, over in the town hall.”

  “Have you ever written a ticket for Joe D. Hammersmith? A speeding ticket, maybe?”

  Chuck frowned and shook his head. “Not that I recall. I told you, nobody speeds in Cactus Bluff during the weekend of the chili cook-off.”

  “This probably would have been some other time of year, not during the cook-off.”

  “No, I’m still drawing a blank. Sorry. Is it important?”

  “It could be,” Phyllis said, trying not to show the disappointment she felt. This wasn’t a vital part of the theory she had built, but it was involved, and she was afraid that if one element collapsed, it would lead to more and more breakdowns until the idea proved to be worthless. “Is there a chance someone else might have written a ticket like that?”

  “Well, sure. Ken Bristol might have.”

  “Ken?” Phyllis said. “The man who works for the security company?”

  “Sure. He works part-time as a deputy constable, too.” Chuck smiled. “I can’t be on duty around the clock.”

  “No, of course not. Is he your only deputy?”

  “Yeah, between us we handle the job. And he can write traffic tickets just like I can. I can go over to the office and check the files if it would help.”

  “It could help a lot,” Phyllis said.

  “All right. Where can I find you?”

  “I’ll be at the tent in a little while.”

  Chuck nodded. “I’ll find you there.”

  He left the Jeep where it was and walked across the street. Phyllis looked around, then took a deep breath and went into the hotel.

  Chapter 21

  Even though most people who came to Cactus Bluff for the Great Chili Cook-Off brought their travel trailers or motor homes, this was still the one weekend of the year when it was impossible to get a room at the Boudreau Hotel. Phyllis had read on the competition’s website that reservations needed to be made at least a year in advance, and even that usually involved just getting on a waiting list.

  Because of that, the lobby was crowded, and for once Phyllis didn’t mind getting into a mob of people. That made it less likely anyone would notice her.

  The Boudreau Hotel had started its existence as the Cactus House back in the late Nineteenth Century, when the mines were booming and so was the town. It was a four-story brick structure that took up half a block, with balconies attached to the upper three floors. Over the decades it had fallen somewhat into disrepair, but after Hiram Boudreau had bought it, he’d had the place remodeled, repaired, and refurbished. According to the website, it still had all of its Old West charm. The lobby featured marble floors, a lot of polished wood and brass, old-fashioned ceiling fans and chandeliers, and an assortment of potted palms, cacti, and other plants. On one side of the lobby was the arched entrance to the Gold Nugget Bar. Even at this early hour, the bar appeared to be doing quite a bit of business.

  Phyllis wasn’t interested in drinking. She walked past the bar to a curving staircase with a gilt balustrade. People were going up and down the stairs, laughing and talking, so she joined the stream of jocular humanity and headed up.

  With each flight of stairs, the steps grew less crowded. By the time Phyllis started up from the third floor landing toward the fourth floor, she was the only one on the stairs, which made sense if Hiram Boudreau was the only occupant on the hotel’s top level.

  There was a short hallway at the top of the stairs, situated so that most of the space on this floor was to Phyllis’s left. There were doors on both side of the hall, but when she tried the one on the right, she found it unlocked and quickly saw that it led into a small storage room. She closed that door and turned to the one on the left.

  It was locked, which came as no surprise. Hiram Boudreau might own Cactus Bluff, but that didn’t mean he would be comfortable going off and leaving his living quarters wide open. Phyllis fiddled with the knob for a few minutes but couldn’t get it open. She had never learned how to pick a lock. She’d told Sam that just because they worked sometimes for Jimmy D’Angelo, that didn’t make them private eyes, and her inability to break into Boudreau’s suite was proof of that.

  The window at the front end of the hallway looked out on the balcony, though. Phyllis went to it, saw that it was the kind with old-fashioned thumb locks, and twisted them open. It took her only a moment to lift the pane, and since she was wearing jeans she had no trouble stepping over the sill onto the balcony.

  From up here, she could see the broad sweep of the valley in the morning light. She felt a little like a character in one of those Western novels Sam read. A cattle baroness, maybe, surveying her ranch.

  That flight of fancy lasted only a second. She had more important things to think about. Aware that people could see her up here if they happened to lift their eyes that far, she moved hurriedly along the balcony toward several more windows that opened onto it. These windows had to be in Boudreau’s suite, and Phyllis could only hope that one of them would be unlocked.

  The first one wasn’t. She made a face and went to the next one, found that she couldn’t get in there, either. That left just one window. If it wouldn’t open, she would have to abandon this idea and hope that whatever evidence Chuck might turn up would be enough to convince Sergeant Culbertson of the truth—or at least to keep the investigation going and not arrest Sam.

  Phyllis reached down and grasped the bottom of the last window. It resisted her efforts to lift it. She stepped back and heaved a frustrated sigh.

  “Why, Mrs. Newsom, what’re you doin’ up here? If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were tryin’ to break into my suite.”

  Phyllis took a quick step back from the window and half-turned toward the far end of the balcony where she had emerged from the fourth floor hall. Hiram Boudreau stood there, a puzzled look on his whiskery face, dressed as he had been when she encountered him down on the sidewalk a short time earlier, in combat boots, cut-off jeans, t-shirt, and straw hat.


  “Mr. Boudreau, you startled me,” Phylis said as she tried to still her racing heartbeat.

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to do that. I just got curious when I looked back and saw you talkin’ to the constable, then you went into the hotel.” Boudreau grinned as he came a step closer. “Actually, I’ve never minded classy ladies tryin’ to sneak into my room. I just figured it’d be a lot more likely it was your friend Evie I found up here.”

  “That’s not it at all.” Phyllis saw movement behind Boudreau, felt her heart jump again in alarm, and then relief surged through her as Constable Chuck Snyder stepped through the open window onto the balcony. She took a breath and said, “I was trying to get in so I could look for more evidence to prove you murdered Joe D. Hammersmith, Mr. Boudreau.”

  Boudreau’s jaw sagged as he stared at Phyllis. She saw hate and anger flash in his eyes, though, and that reaction confirmed the educated guesses she had made. He controlled it, but not quickly enough to keep her from noticing.

  “I think the heat’s been too much for you, ma’am. You’re not thinkin’ straight. Ol’ Joe D. and I were good friends. There’s no way I’d ever hurt him. Besides, he was the defendin’ champion of the cook-off. His dyin’ was bad for business.”

  Phyllis nodded and said, “That why I knew you had to be really desperate to do such a thing as sabotaging the propane tank on the bottom of his motor home. Hammersmith had to represent a bigger threat to you than any damage his death might do to the cook-off. You need the money from this competition to keep going, because you’re just about broke, aren’t you?”

  Phyllis was trying very hard not to look at Chuck, who had frozen about ten feet behind Boudreau with his hand on the stun gun holstered at his waist. Chuck was breathing shallowly and not making a sound. So far, it seemed that Boudreau wasn’t aware of his presence.

  “How in blazes do you figure I’m broke?” Boudreau asked. “I told you, I sold my oil company—”

  “A/B Explorations, I know,” Phyllis said. “I also know that your partner Harlan Anders didn’t want to sell and that he died while undergoing treatment for cancer. He would have passed away soon anyway, but the corporation that put in an offer for your company was threatening to withdraw it. Anders didn’t want to sell, so you helped him along somehow.”