“Nothing definite.” I frowned as she stirred her chili without first washing her hands. Bridget Peck was going to get a full report.
“Come on. They suspect it was murder, don’t they?” She studied me like an owl inspecting a field mouse.
I shrugged. “Why would someone want him dead?” I pitched her a softball, but would she swing?
Biting her bottom lip, she made a sucking sound. “He was a cantankerous, selfish, old coot.” She glanced over at Whip, who was attempting to feed Elliot with a piece of lettuce. In a whisper, she continued, “He was a bully, but he didn’t deserve to die.”
“No? Even though he shoved you and your kids into welfare?”
Spoon frozen in midair, her eyes widened. “How did . . .” She visibly relaxed. “Oh. I can’t believe I told you that.” She licked her lips. “I didn’t deserve what happened to me, but that doesn’t mean I’d commit murder. Forget it.”
“Didn’t you mention something about him sabotaging your chances at another event?”
She pushed her heavy-framed glasses higher on her nose. “He wouldn’t share the water hookup with me.”
“And?”
“And I had to walk the length of a football field to wash my produce and get the water I needed for my recipe.”
I was immediately suspicious. Why hadn’t she brought her own water, like many other contestants? “Did you tell the officials?”
Once again, she frowned at Lenny. “I most certainly did, but they merely issued a warning.” She threw the spoon onto a folding table covered with chip bags and candy wrappers. “What is taking those kids so blasted long?” Without a backwards glance, she marched off, her flowered skirt billowing behind her.
“The iguana goes!” She didn’t halt or slow though she clearly heard me. “Immediately!” Without turning around, she lifted a hand above her head and waved.
“She’s not so bad.” Whip washed his hands at the water faucet and added some antibacterial soap. “Just a bit desperate.”
“If you say so.”
Elliot’s tongue slithered through a hole in his cage.
“Yip, yip.” The Lenster wriggled with excitement.
“By all means, Lenny, say adios to the salmonella-spreading dragon.” I lowered myself until the reptile and I were eye to eye. “If you’re here when we get back, my friend, it’s the SPCA or the Taxidermy Brothers for you.”
I checked my watch. Another hour and a half left until chili cooks, young and old, ready or not, would bring their thirty-two ounces of chili to the officials’ tent for judging. Most folks would compete in the official ICA categories: traditional red chili, chili verde, and salsa. Plus the one we’d added with Bridget Peck’s approval: people’s choice.
Without delay, we hustled to the Prius, where I recovered my notebook, favorite gel pen, and a protein bar from my book bag. I tossed Lenny into the shotgun seat and slid behind the wheel. I checked my watch again just to be safe and proceeded to make notes on everything that had happened: Lucky’s body, tripping over electrical wires, who’d said what outside of his tent, and the mixed signals I’d received from Dani O’Neal, from her out-of-date outfit to her obvious lack of chili-cooking skills. A few minutes later, Lenny and I exited the four-door and continued on our hospitality tour of cooking tents and chili cooks.
A glance at Lucky’s tent showed the ME and the sheriff’s officers still hard at work collecting evidence. There would be a singular moment to share my astute observations with Detective Lightfoot. Until then pots needed stirring and cooks needed calming.
After six more tents of rattled but persistent chili cooks, a growl like that of an angry bear cub sprang to life from my canine companion. Russell, the huge man with the long wavy hair from the cook-off reception, was headed our way with two calico cats on leashes.
“Watch that dog.”
“That’s inventive.” I pulled out my cell. “Mind if I take a pic for Lenny’s blog?”
He placed a cat under each arm and posed. “My mother always walked her cat, Prissy, every day at four o’clock.”
“Smile, please.” I snapped away.
He lowered the cats to the ground. “They enjoy exploring, same as dogs, but I don’t let them out among the great unwashed.” The cats locked their maleficent tawny eyes on Lenny, hunting for signs of weakness.
My canine sidekick dropped his behind in the dirt. “It’s okay, Lenster, they won’t hurt you.” As soon as I spoke, they raised their backs and began to spit and hiss like furry teakettles.
Russell gave me a sly grin. “Your dog doesn’t like cats.”
“He likes friendly creatures of all makes and models.”
“Yip.”
“If you mean me, I’d be a heck of a sight more friendly if I hadn’t had to move my site first thing this morning.”
He had a point. “I apologize for all the trouble.”
Without taking their eyes off Lenny, the cats perched on their owner’s giant feet. “Weren’t your fault. Guess Lucky wasn’t so lucky after all.” The giant guffawed.
“Hardly seems fair to laugh.”
Russell came at me faster than a bobcat chasing a chicken. “Fair! That jerk stole Becca away from me when I was laid up in the dad burn hospital.”
“The blonde on his phone?”
“When’d you see her!” He erupted with anger, and my flight response flared.
“Meowww!” The cats began to wind themselves around Russell’s legs.
“Sorry, sorry,” he murmured in a baby voice. “Daddy didn’t mean to hurt you.”
I stepped back. “I thought Lucky stole Becca from Whip.” I glanced around for support, but I could see no one out in the open.
“Heck no. Whip dated her back in high school. That was just Lucky’s way of making him feel small.”
“Did Lucky play dirty?” My mind was spinning. How had Lucky, a middle-aged, dime-store cowboy, won the beautiful Becca from both Whip and this long-haired giant? Maybe Whip’s grief over his friend was all an act. And maybe Russell’s hatred of Lucky had turned to violence.
I took a deep breath, gathered Lenny into my arms, and prepared to run at the first threat of danger.
Carefully Russell untangled the cats’ leashes from around his legs. “What would you call it when the other fella can’t defend himself?” His anger fell away, leaving a mask of deep sadness.
“What did he do?” If I wanted him to spill the beans, I had to convince this guy I was harmless. I smiled with both dimples.
Suddenly his jaw clenched and angry fire filled his gaze. He lifted a fist the size of a tether ball above his head and shook it at the fates. “He tricked me.” With a sigh, his arm fell to his side. “Took my picture with some chicks in Little Rock at the last chili cook-off.”
“Sent one to Becca, huh?” My stretched nerves relaxed a bit.
“Not only that.” He sniffed. “He plastered them all over the Internet with crude comments I supposedly wrote.” The giant’s chin shook. “Don’t stare at me like that.”
“Like what?” I tried to use the dimples again, but my nerves prevented it. We were standing near the end of the row of shelters and tents. At that moment, not one solitary soul was in view. If his anger roared to life again, he could throttle me in a matter of seconds, long before anyone could rescue me. I took a few steps back.
“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t hurt a hair on your head, or anyone else’s—not even that teeny-weeny dog.”
It had been a long, stressful morning. I needed a place to calm down, and now. “Is that Detective Lightfoot coming this way?” I pointed off to the right over his shoulder.
“No, I wouldn’t hurt him.” He grinned, revealing straight white teeth. “But he is a perfect morsel for a mountain lion.” The giant with the cat-shaped heart dared to smirk.
This was too close fo
r comfort. “There were only nine reported mountain lion attacks last year in the United States,” I responded sharply.
He gave me a dismissive look. “True, little lady, but bobcats are everywhere.”
I wanted to scream. “Just don’t contaminate your chili with germs from your feline friends or you’ll be . . . d-disqualified.”
“Point taken . . . m-ma’am.” He gave Lenny a pointed look, laughed, and marched his cats toward the vendor booths, undaunted by my threat.
Once Lenny and I finished our tour of chili cooks, having answered their questions, calmed their fears, and proclaimed the enticing aroma of their recipes, we made our way to the vendor booths on the far side of the cook-off area. Many of the artisans and craftsmen were familiar, having sold their wares along Main Street during last year’s Cinco de Mayo parade and celebration. I made sure to stop by one of my favorites, a tent resplendent with yard animals, fish, and flowers created from recycled and repurposed scrap metal—steel, iron, aluminum, and copper. My heart skipped a beat when I saw the glorious horse head made of pliers, iron gate, and a flowing mane of twisted metal. If I were to win something like a chili cook-off one day—except, of course, the contest could have nothing to do with baking, canning, pickling, or food preparation of any kind—I’d purchase the magnificent horse head.
“One day,” I sighed.
“Yip, yip,” Lenny barked, making serious eye contact with a weenie dog made of copper springs.
I scooped him into my arms and kissed his pointy head. “I won’t forget you when the Wells Fargo wagon comes to town.”
At the end of the row of vendors, we found a fireworks booth filled with sparklers, poppers, bottle rockets, giant rockets on long sticks, missiles, and other strange things I failed to recognize. It was manned by none other than Frank Fillmore. “How do you find time to operate your booth and prepare for tonight’s spectacular, spectacular?”
He frowned in confusion at my reference to Moulin Rouge. “What’s the big deal?” He stuck up a thumb and pointed over his shoulder to the distant platform filled with gizmos and rockets. “I only have to check the wind velocity fifteen minutes before showtime and program any last-minute changes to my calibrations before I set the night sky ablaze.”
I picked up a box of sparklers and pretended to read the label. I didn’t know why, but I felt sorry for the guy.
“Something wrong?” Fillmore asked. “Or do you have a question?”
“Is this a sideline or a full-time gig?”
He grinned. “I’m a hobbyist, but it’s my passion.”
“You retired?”
A shadow passed over his face. “Technically, no. But at my age, it’s difficult to find someone willing to give me the opportunity to prove myself, no matter my years of experience.”
“What field are you in?”
He hesitated as if embarrassed.
“I only ask because you must be pretty smart to launch rockets without starting a wildfire or blowing yourself to smithereens.” I shrugged. “Unlike me. I’m challenged by my cell phone.”
He chuckled. “I’ve had at least three careers, most recently in human resources.”
No wonder his manner seemed at odds with his utilitarian coveralls. I swallowed down my pride. “A layoff brought me home from Austin,” I managed a crooked smile. “You know what they say. When God closes a door—”
“Yeah, yeah.” As he had the night before, Frank rubbed his forehead. “It’s just that the windows keep getting smaller and smaller.”
“Hey, I might be able to help out. After the show, I’ll make sure to include the name of your business in my Cinco de Mayo article for the Bugle. Plus, I’ll get the word out on social media that Fillmore’s Fireworks are fantastic.”
One corner of his mouth kicked up. “Maybe I should add fantastic to the name.”
I laughed. “Wouldn’t hurt none.” I dug in the pocket of my jeans, praying I’d find a wad of ones. “I’ll take, uh, four boxes of sparklers. Is it difficult to program your shows?”
“My displays are a bit sophisticated for their size.” He paused in order to take a handful of bottle rockets from a young couple, place them in a brown paper sack, and make change. “Anyone with basic computer knowledge could program most fireworks displays. This one doesn’t challenge me as much as I’d like, but it keeps my creative juices flowing . . . so to speak.”
He’d parked his white cargo van behind his booth. A sudden swish of a cat’s tail in the front window caught my eye. “Who’s that?” She was a fat orange tabby with a sweet face.
“Yip, yip,” Lenny complained.
“That’s Tabitha.”
“Ah.”
He chuckled. “I know what you’re thinking. What a boring, overused name for a cat. Right?”
“No.” I smiled. “If her name is overused, which I have no idea whether or not that’s true, I would have a better chance of calling her by the correct name.”
“Huh. So your dog wants to introduce himself to my Tabitha? Or does he want to test her claws?” Laughter erupted from deep in his belly. I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. He straightened a tower of sparklers and added more bottle rockets to his red, white, and green display.
His laugh was too contagious for me not to join in. “Oh, he wants to introduce himself and then lay down the law of the land. He’s bossy that way. But he’d never hurt her. Engage her in a game of tag? Most definitely.” I rubbed him behind the ears.
“Yip.”
I laughed at the innocent expression Lenny wore. “I wouldn’t want to place a wager on his ability to resist. Don’t think too harshly of him. I believe he’s jealous of cats and their independent natures.”
“May I?” He reached out a hand toward Lenny.
“Of course.” My long-haired Chi was a good sport as long as strangers refrained from petting him more than twice. Three times on Thursdays.
“I admire your freedom, my little friend. My Tabitha and I live in that van you see. She doesn’t get out as much as you do, I bet.”
“Oh, I like it. It looks very comfortable.” I was trying to make him feel better about his circumstances and failing miserably.
He frowned and shook his head, a disgusted look on his face. “I got it for a steal.”
“That’s great.”
“No, literally, they cheated me out of my money. The power locks and windows don’t always work.”
“That’s not cool.” The poor cat.
“Most of the time, I merely have to replace some fuses, but there’s always an occasion arises when I’m far from home that I have to take it into the shop.” With a twist of his wrist, he snapped open a paper bag and shoved the sparklers inside. “What’s the word on the dead guy?”
His abrupt change of topic threw me for a second. “I don’t know.” I shrugged.
“Sure you do. I saw you hanging around his tent, talking to that detective.”
“You think they’d tell me?” I crossed my fingers. If I wanted more inside information from Lightfoot, I had to prove I could keep facts and theories to myself. “Last I heard, they thought he might have fallen and hit his head.”
Lenny and I exited his canopy, and Frank placed an OUT TO LUNCH sign with a movable second hand on one of the tables. Suddenly he smiled. “Come on. I’ll show you the setup. What’ll it hurt?”
“What if other customers stop by? I wouldn’t want you to miss any sales.”
“Nah,” he said with a shrug. “It’s good for them to wait, builds excitement.”
The smile had transformed his face. I could see how proud he was of his work—how he needed and wanted to share what he’d created.
Lenny whined and I scooped him into my arms.
“Shh. It’s okay.” He licked my face over and over.
I didn’t think this guy Frank was b
lessed with a family and friends like I was. His was probably living the life of a loner, driving to remote locations, setting up fireworks shows for hours and days on end without any backup.
I followed him, leaving a fair amount of space between us for good measure. “Do you always work alone?”
“No.” He marched through the scrub and rocks like a man with a mission until we arrived at the display platform. “These gears and whistles all have Chinese names I can’t pronounce.” He chuckled. “I could try if you want me to.”
I shrugged. “No, that’s okay. How do you read the instructions?”
“Trial and error.”
“No. Way. That sounds like the perfect way to lose a thumb or your hearing.” I’d had a small bottle rocket explode in my hand. Things had sounded out of kilter for several hours afterwards.
“You’re right. That’s not exactly true. They come with both Chinese, English, Spanish, French, and Korean instructions. They even have languages you’d think they made up just to confuse the rest of us.”
I smiled. He looked as if he needed some encouragement. I didn’t know an awful lot about fireworks, but at second glance the platform he’d built as a launching pad for his show wasn’t that large, and the amount of fireworks—gears, rockets, fuses, and whatnot—didn’t look as if they’d give a show that lasted longer than ten or fifteen minutes. But what did I know?
“This looks like quite a setup. How long do you expect the show will last?”
He thrust his hands on his hips and cocked his head to one side. “How many minutes do you suppose Mr. Mayor Cogburn requested?”
I bit my lip to keep myself from checking my watch. “Twenty minutes?”
“No.” He chuckled again, but it sounded as if his vocal cords were grinding the words through a meat grinder. “That would have been too reasonable for the amount of money he agreed to pay.”
Frank’s bitterness was leaking out in spite of his attempt at civility.
“Mayor Cogburn can drive a hard bargain.” Lenny and I continued our way around the platform. “I hope you stood up for yourself.”
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