A Tale of Two Biddies (19 page)

“Richie. Richie!” Alice tore at her hair. “I made one little mistake. One little slip. And leave it to Richie, he was on it like a hawk on a baby bunny. I was wearing one of Margaret’s stupid pink sweaters, and I stopped for ice cream and I asked for chocolate. I’m not a complete moron,” she added, her voice rising an octave. “I covered and made a joke about it. But Richie—”

“Richie started thinking,” I said. “That’s why he brought out that old picture of you and Margaret, and that’s why he wrote on the back of it. That’s why at the gazebo on Monday night, when Richie was dripping wet and you brought him tea, he asked if you were Alice or Margaret. He wanted you to know that he hadn’t forgotten, that the twelve thousand dollars you’d already given to buy his silence wasn’t nearly enough. That’s why you lied about the fight you said Richie had with his girlfriend, too, to send me off looking in the wrong direction. Poor Richie!”

Alice’s face twisted and she spat out the words, “He asked for it.”

“Did Margaret ask for it, too?” I wanted to know.

Alice’s bottom lip quivered and she grabbed a fat skein of pink yarn from the counter and pressed it to her heart. “She’s making all this up, Hank,” she insisted. “Ask Bea. Ask her. That day she was here, she heard Margaret talking to me from the cottage. Chandra heard it, too. Just because Margaret doesn’t happen to be around right this very minute—”

Believe me, I’d thought through this part of the problem carefully. I remembered the morning Chandra and I had stopped in and how Margaret just happened to call out as Alice was putting yarn under the front counter. I slipped behind the cash register and felt around below the counter. The remote control that operated the recorder back in the cottage wasn’t hard to find.

“Where’s the peanut butter?” Margaret’s voice called out.

Only I was pretty sure it was really Alice who’d made the recording.

“She wouldn’t listen.” Tears streamed down Alice’s wrinkled cheeks. “She wouldn’t listen to reason. She wanted to take the shop away from me. She wanted to take my knitting. I couldn’t let her do that. Don’t you see? Margaret was never as good a knitter as I am. I couldn’t let her do that.”

• • •

“Are you serious? She actually buried Margaret out at Dan Peebles’s new house so when they poured the foundation . . .”

Kate didn’t finish her question. She didn’t need to. It was Monday evening and the League of Literary Ladies was gathered for its weekly book discussion meeting. This week, we’d opted for my front porch instead of the library, and I sat back in the wicker rocker, a glass of Wilder wine in one hand. “They’re going to start digging up the foundation tomorrow,” I told the other Ladies. “Poor Dan Peebles, another house of his gone.”

“Oh, I don’t think he’ll mind so much,” Chandra said. “After what you told us about him and Didi christening the property . . . this will just give them another chance.”

We all laughed, and thank goodness, that lightened the mood. We’d spent all day regretting the fact that we hadn’t done more for Richie, and that we hadn’t seen what was right in front of our eyes sooner.

“Just like in the book.” Luella patted the copy of
A Tale of Two Cities
on her lap. “People getting people mixed up with other people. People switching identities and getting all mixed up.”

Kate nodded. “Margaret and Alice.”

“And Guillotine really being Boyz ’n Funk,” Luella added.

“Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton.” Chandra sighed.

I was glad she brought up the book because it gave me a chance to ask the question that had been bugging me all week. “You didn’t actually read the book, did you, Chandra?”

Since her face turned the same color as the rosé we were sipping, I didn’t really need an answer.

“There’s an animated version,” Chandra admitted, then burst into a laugh. “I know the story because I watched the cartoon!”

If nothing else, we had to give her credit for ingenuity. We clinked our glasses together.

“Oh!” I sat up. “And I forgot to tell you what I heard this afternoon. Either Richie’s death hit Dino really hard or there’s something about the air on the island. Dino made a huge contribution in Richie’s name to Mike Lawrence and his family.”

“A change of heart and a change of fortunes. That is something to celebrate!” Luella said. Again, we raised our wineglasses and I found myself thinking that in spite of two murders, sitting here with the other Ladies, watching the smooth swell of the lake across the street, listening to the birds cheep and a golf cart whirr by . . .

I watched the cart buzz past and was just in time to catch a glimpse of Jerry Garcia’s butt when he slipped over the porch railing.

Even that wasn’t enough to sour my mood.

See, this really was the best of times.

Turn the page for a preview of the next book in Kylie Logan’s Chili Cook-off Mysteries

DEATH BY
DEVIL’S BREATH

Coming August 2014 from Berkley Prime Crime!

T
he way I figured it, I had about three minutes.

The seconds tick, tick, ticked away and before I could waste another one of them, I squirmed in my seat, cocked my leg at a funny angle, and stretched the toe of one stiletto toward the evening purse that was on the floor in front of to the empty seat to my left.

Success!

Or not.

My shoe snagged the sequin-covered purse just as my thigh muscle protested. I winced and morphed the expression into a smile when Jorge LaReyo, the man who ran the tamale stand at the Chili Showdown and who was sitting on my right, happened to glance my way. I counted on that smile to distract him and gave the purse a little nudge. Lucky for me, the floor in the theater of Creosote Cal’s Cactus Casino and Hoedown Hotel was faux hardwood. The purse slipped, skittered, and slid to a stop directly in front of me.

Head up and gaze never leaving the stage three rows ahead of me, I dipped and grabbed, then sat back, unsnapped the little golden clasp at the top of the purse, and dared a look down. That’s when I grumbled a curse. The stage was brightly lit, but out here in the theater seats, the lights were dimmed. Teeth gritted, I pretended to be interested in the proceedings up there in the spotlight at the same time I slipped my hand into the purse and felt around.

“It’s an ordinary deck of cards!” Up on stage, the man billed as “The Great Osborn” waved a deck of cards still in its box above his head, then showed it to my half sister, Sylvia, who he’d called up from the audience to help with the trick. “I’m going to take the cards out of the box.” He did. “And then I’m going to make one of them magically disappear. But not until my lovely assistant here . . .” He wiggled his eyebrows at Sylvia and got a laugh from the audience. “Not until she chooses five cards and, without looking at them, places them facedown on the table.”

The Great Osborn was middle-aged, and his belly hung over the royal blue cummerbund he wore with a black tux that was a little threadbare at the elbows. When he looked from the brightly painted prop table to Sylvia, his eyes gleamed.

But then, Sylvia was known to have that sort of effect on weak-minded men.

It was her fairy-tale-princess looks that did them in, of course. The honey-colored hair that was pinned into a knot at her nape, the elegant line of her neck, the high cheekbones and perfectly bowed lips. The pink dress dusted with sequins didn’t hurt, either.

Of course, the sparkly dress was exactly why she’d been invited to help The Great Osborn with this particular trick in the first place. From the magician’s vantage point on stage, it was impossible to miss a woman in the audience who twinkled like a drag queen on steroids.

Lucky for me.

Sylvia’s moment in the spotlight gave me the three minutes I needed.

Three minutes that were quickly slipping away.

“Lose something?”

I didn’t have to glance to my left to know when Nick Falcone slid into the seat next to mine. But then, the temperature in the auditorium shot up a couple dozen degrees at the same time an army of goose bumps popped up on my arms and a shiver cascaded through my body.

Ex-cop. Now head of Showdown security.

Deliciousness personified.

Attitude.

How could a girl have any other reaction?

This girl, it should be noted, kept her cool in spite of it all.

Hand in purse, I cast an oh-so-casual glance in Nick’s direction, biting back my disappointment when all I felt inside the purse were the essentials: wallet, tissues, contact case.

“Just looking for my lipstick,” I told Nick, then I pretended to be interested when The Great Osborn looked at each of the cards on the table and asked a man sitting in the front row to write down the names of the cards as he called them out. Finished, he slipped the cards back in the deck and had Sylvia take the list and search through the deck for the original five cards she’d chosen.

“But there are only . . .” No one could do wide-eyed wonder like Sylvia. How she made herself blush a color that perfectly matched her outfit—and on cue—was anybody’s guess. She went through the entire deck one more time before she surrendered and put a hand to one cheek. “Only four of my cards are in the deck!” she gasped.

“That’s because . . .” With a ta-da sort of motion, The Great Osborn opened the box the cards had come out of and extracted the missing card. “It’s here!” he said, and smiled and bowed when everyone applauded.

Except for me, of course. But then, clapping would have been a little hard since one of my hands was still in the purse.

And Nick. He didn’t clap because he was too busy leaning in nice and close. His hot breath brushed my ear when he whispered, “It might help you find your lipstick if you looked in your own purse.”

He never had a chance to notice the frigid smile I shot his way in response. That’s because the trick was over, and The Great Osborn kissed Sylvia’s hand and shooed her back to her seat.

Nick got up and sidled out of the row. Sylvia waited until he’d exited and, flush from her triumphant stage appearance, sashayed back to her seat.

That left just enough time for me to replace her evening bag exactly where she’d left it.

“So?” Funny how she could twinkle even when the lights weren’t trained on her. “What did you think? How did I do?”

“Shhh!” I said, even though it didn’t matter. The Great Osborn took his final bows and Creosote Cal himself strolled to the center of the stage and told everyone it was time for intermission.

“But don’t you go far,” he said, his pseudo-cowboy twang in keeping with the boots, the jeans, and the ten-gallon hat that fit in with the Wild West theme of Cal’s hotel in Vegas where we’d be opening another Chili Showdown the next day. “Y’all are gonna get your booth assignments in a few minutes, and then we’ve got a real treat in store for you. Hang on to your funny bones, pardners, because Dickie Durbin is up next.”

I popped out of my chair, but dang, I couldn’t get away from Sylvia fast enough. Not when Jorge and the other folks to my right were being slowpokes about getting out to the aisle.

She knew I was stuck, and Sylvia pounced on the moment. “The Great Osborn said I was a natural,” she purred.

I’m not a big believer in batting my eyelashes but this seemed as good a moment as any to give it a try. “A natural what?” I asked her.

I guess the way she puckered her lips made them need freshening up, because she got her lipstick out of the purse, the one that only moments before had been in my hot little hands.

From the other side of the aisle, I saw Nick raise his eyebrows.

I ignored him.

I was getting pretty good at it. The ignoring part, that is. In spite of his deliciousness and all. Nick and I had actually been thrown together a time or two only a short while before, when a Showdown roadie was murdered and I (yes, that’s right, little ol’ me) solved the crime. Nick wasn’t happy. About me investigating, and especially about me taking credit where credit was certainly due. But then, if there was one thing I’d learned about Nick in the weeks since I’d joined the Showdown to take over my missing father’s chili and spice truck, it was that Nick was never happy.

Far be it from me to try and be the one to bring some sunshine into his life.

“There’re my two favorite girls!”

Tumbleweed Ballew was one of only two people in the world I’d let get away with that kind of happy-family horse-hockey when it came to talking about me and Sylvia. The other was his missus, Ruth Ann, and when they closed in on us, they were both grinning like prom queens.

Tumbleweed and Ruth Ann were the administrative heart and soul of the Showdown, and they’d been family friends for years, since back before I was even thought of, when my mom showed up looking for work at Texas Jack Pierce’s Hot-Cha Chile Seasoning Palace and stole the job—and Jack’s heart—from Sylvia’s mother.

“We’ve got booth assignments!” Ruth Ann and Tumbleweed wore matching outfits: jeans, denim shirts, vests with long leather fringe on them. Ruth Ann had an envelope in her hand and she waved it in front of me. “Bet you can’t wait. You checked out Deadeye when you got here, didn’t you? Isn’t it a hoot?”

The simpering smile that I’d thought was a permanent fixture on Sylvia’s face melted around the edges, her lower lip protruding. “I think
tacky
is a much better word. Honestly, Tumbleweed,” she turned to the seventy-year-old, “how did you get talked into this whole fake western thing? It’s going to make us look—”

“Like we can actually get into the spirit of things and have a little fun?” I refused to wilt beneath the acid stare that came from my half sister. That didn’t mean I ignored her. It was plenty fun to goad Sylvia. In fact, it was one of the joys of my life. “Get with the program! This is Vegas! Everything’s supposed to be over the top. And it’s all for fun!”

“Fun.” She rolled her baby blues. “A wing of the building that’s meant to look like a western town.”

“Yeah, the town of Deadeye,” I reminded her.

A shiver snaked over Sylvia’s slim shoulders. “Sweet. And what’s the point of Deadeye, anyway, except to make more work for us? If we’ve got to move all our merchandise and supplies out of our trucks and into one of those hokey little booths—”

“There’s a sheriff’s office, a blacksmith shop, a general store. Even an undertaker.” When Tumbleweed chuckled, his belly shook. “These next few days are going to be more fun than a pillow fight! Visitors will get to walk down the main street and stop into each of the little shops to do business with our vendors.”

“And there’s this. . . .” Once again, Ruth Ann waved the envelope in her hands. “Here’s your assignment.”

In Sylvia’s world, time was money, and she didn’t like to waste either. She plucked the envelope out of Ruth Ann’s hands and opened it. When she read the single piece of paper inside, her jaw dropped. “The bordello? You’ve actually assigned Texas Jack’s stand to the bor . . . the bor . . .”

“Now, now, honey.” Tumbleweed put a hand on her shoulder. “It ain’t like we’re casting you two girls in a bad light or anything. It’s just that we looked the place over. You know, earlier in the week when we got here.” He leaned closer. “It’s the biggest space in Deadeye,” he confided. “And the nicest. We wanted to make sure you girls got the best spot.”

“Well, I think it’s hilarious and who knows . . .” Because I knew it would annoy her, I poked Sylvia in the ribs with one elbow. “Maybe we’ll end up getting a little action. Hey, what happens in Vegas—”

I didn’t get the chance to finish; Sylvia had already walked away.

“Seriously.” I shook off the bad vibes of Sylvia’s annoying Sylvia-ness. “We appreciate the plum spot. I can’t wait to see it.”

“There’s a bar along one wall where you can set up your spices,” Tumbleweed said.

“And even a red velvet fainting couch!” Ruth Ann grinned. “You’re going to love it, Maxie, honey. And Sylvia . . .” She looked toward where Sylvia was making her way toward the ladies room. “She’ll come around.”

“Yeah, like in about a million years.” This didn’t bother me especially. After all, it wasn’t news. Sylvia was and always had been a stick-in-the-mud. You’d think a woman who had been arrested for murder back in Taos and owed her freedom to me finding the real killer would relax a little and get over herself. But then, we were talking about Sylvia.

I decided right then and there that it didn’t matter. The night before the opening of every Showdown was always a party and I wasn’t going to let thoughts of Miss Tighter than a Tick spoil my evening. Especially not in Vegas. “You ready for tomorrow morning?” I asked Tumbleweed.

His grin traveled from ear to ear. “Devil’s Breath chili judging first thing in the morning! I’ve got to admit, having it be event numero uno was a stroke of genius.”

“And your idea!” Ruth Ann wound an arm through her husband’s and smiled up at him. She was a dozen years younger than Tumbleweed and as stick-thin as he was beefy. When I was a kid and fantasized about the perfect family that I did not have, I always thought of Ruth Ann and Tumbleweed. Unlike my own parents—divorced going on twenty years—they’d stayed together through thick and thin. I always thought they were the perfect couple, and over the years nothing had made me change my mind.

“Karl Sinclair is here, you know,” Ruth Ann purred. “That ought to attract plenty of attention to the Showdown.”

Sinclair was a showman extraordinaire. He billed himself as the champion of hot chili and had a legion of followers from all over the world. Well, tomorrow’s event ought to prove if he had the chops to go along with his reputation. Four regional winners coming together to earn a national title that was as hot as . . .

Well, as hot as Devil’s Breath.

See, in the chili community, Devil’s Breath is an all-encompassing name for the hottest of the hot. I, for one, was thrilled that this special category had been added to the cook-off for the weekend show, along with the usual divisions: traditional red chili (made with any meat and red chili peppers but absolutely no beans or pasta), chili verde (made with any meat and green chili peppers but absolutely no beans or pasta), salsa, and homestyle (made with any combination of ingredients including beans and pasta). The Devil’s Breath contest was garnering us plenty of publicity and putting us on the map here in Vegas, where, let’s face it, you have to be over-the-top to get noticed. Since I love chili—the hotter the better—and since after the contest, attendees could donate money for charity and get a taste of each of the finalists’ recipes, I couldn’t wait.