Death by Devil's Breath Read online

  “Murder?” Another couple steps and Jarret was almost all the way to the door opposite the one I’d come in. “Dickie’s . . . Dickie’s dead?”

  “As a doornail.”

  “Oh. That’s too . . .” And before he could say what it was too much of, Jarret turned and raced out the door.

  Curious, I took a moment to peep into Dickie’s dressing room, too, and I have to admit it wouldn’t have bothered me—I mean even knowing the guy who’d recently used it to don the tasteless clothing for his tasteless shows was dead—if not for the fact that there was a stack of eight-by-ten photographs of Dickie looking up at me from a nearby table.

  He was smiling, and the autograph scrawled on the top picture said, “Keep up the laughs.”

  Poor Dickie sure wasn’t laughing now.

  Convinced there was nothing of any interest in Dickie’s dressing room, I went the other way, and as it turned out, my timing was pretty bad. Just as I got backstage, the main door of the auditorium swung open and a couple uniformed cops walked in with the chili contest contestants. Something told me they wouldn’t be happy that I’d been poking around, and I ducked behind the curtain.

  “It’s all been checked and dusted for prints,” one of the cops told them. “So you can go ahead and pack up and get your stuff out of here.”

  Karl Sinclair walked in first. “Which means no contest,” he grumbled.

  His sentiment wasn’t echoed by either Tyler York or Brother William, who followed behind. The dark-haired woman, I noticed, never moved a muscle. She toed the line between the outside entrance and the auditorium like she’d been flash-frozen, and her eyes wide, she glanced around.

  “You can come in,” the cop said and waved an arm. “It’s time to clean up your stuff and clear out.”

  I’m pretty sure the woman wasn’t listening. Her gaze landed on the spot onstage that was still sprinkled with Devil’s Breath chili, and her skin paled.

  “Come on, miss,” the cop said, louder this time, and when she still didn’t move, he raised his voice. “Bernadette, are you listening? You can come in now, Miss Kromski!”

  The name slammed into me like an out-of-control cement truck, and it was my turn to freeze. Well, except for my heart, which started a cha-cha of epic proportions inside my chest, and my brain, which whirled with the possibilities (all of them bad) of this sudden turn of events.

  Now everything made sense! The death ray looks. The woman’s knowledge of the basic ingredients in one of Jack’s all-time best recipes.

  The last time I’d seen Bernadette Kromski was at a Showdown when I was thirteen or fourteen years old, and since I hadn’t put on an inch since and I’d always worn my dark hair short and spiked, I suppose it was easy for her to identify me.

  But it was no wonder I hadn’t recognized her from the get-go. Back then, she was a big-breasted, long-legged goddess, and though she was still plenty tall, the years had added a few pounds and rounded her shoulders. I’d bet anything her chestnut hair was natural and the golden tresses I remembered her with came straight out of a bottle.

  Bernadette Kromski!

  When I gulped, I hoped the cops didn’t hear me.

  See, I suddenly knew why she looked like she wanted me to go up in a puff of smoke—Bernadette Kromski hadn’t forgotten and neither had I. We were archenemies!

  CHAPTER 5

  Bernadette Kromski is Evil Incarnate.

  I do not use those capital letters lightly.

  She is devious. She is underhanded. She is nasty.

  And I knew if I was going to look into Dickie Dunkin’s murder, I’d have to start with her.

  After all, it was her chili that Dickie had been eating when he went from alive to deceased.

  And then, of course, there is the whole Evil Incarnate thing.

  Finding Bernadette once she’d packed up her cooking pots and left Creosote Cal’s wasn’t all that tough. A little shmoozing in the admin building (aka the blacksmith shop) with Ruth Ann and I had my hot little hands on the contestants’ info. According to her entry application, Bernadette lived right there in Vegas and worked at a little place not too far away known as Bibi’s Bump and Grind.

  Like I expected anything else?

  I lied through my teeth and told Sylvia I was going to get something to eat, peeled out of the chili costume, and headed out to streets as hot as a Naga Viper pepper. Bibi’s was pretty much what I expected, a low-slung brick building with a neon sign above the door where a bouncer read the newspaper and didn’t look like he was too particular about who he let in.

  Until I walked up.

  The guy was six-six and at least three hundred pounds. The muscles that bulged on his arms had muscles. I wasn’t just another of the middle-aged men who’d walked into Bibi’s before me, and that sent up enough of a red flag for him to give me a quick once-over.

  “They’re not hiring,” he said, and before I could tell him that wasn’t why I was there, he added, “And you’re too short anyway.”

  I had long ago come to terms with my lack of height so I did not take this personally. At least not too personally.

  Which was why I was able to give him a dazzling smile. “You should see me in my stilettos.”

  His eyes lit. “Stilettos, huh?” I guess I warranted a second glance because his gaze skimmed my black shorts and the sleeveless purple top I wore with them. “I’d like to see that.”

  “So maybe you’ll get the chance.” I patted the gigantic denim hobo bag I had slung over my shoulder. In truth, my stilettos were back at the bordello along with the rest of my Chili Chick costume, but this guy didn’t have to know that. “When I’m done inside.”

  Another once-over. “Done doing what?”

  I couldn’t think of a lie that was anywhere near convincing so I opted for the truth. “I need to talk to Bernadette. We’re old”—I nearly choked on the word—“friends.”

  The bouncer checked his watch. “She goes on in a few minutes.”

  “So I’ll only talk to her for a few minutes. Then if you have time and you want to see me in my stilettos . . .”

  Since I didn’t finish the thought, I didn’t exactly promise anything, right?

  The bouncer waved me inside.

  A minute later, I was in the backstage dressing room, where six women in various stages of dress, undress, and OMG-you’re-really-going-to-wear-that-leopard-print-unitard-in-public were just heading out for their next turn in the spotlight.

  Bernadette was down at the end of the long, narrow room cramming her dark tresses into a blond wig. She wasn’t wearing much of anything else except a neon blue bikini and a garter belt, and though I’m certainly not passing judgment, I could say without a doubt that the years had not been kind to her. The Bernadette I remembered was leggy and lean. Today’s Bernadette had a bit of a belly, and the skin on the underside of her arms flapped. There was a tattoo on her left thigh. Before she could notice me and call in the bouncer to toss me out on my keister, I flattened myself against the door to let the other dancers leave and closed in on her.

  “Hey, Bernadette, long time no see.”

  She froze, but just for a second. Then she went right back to adjusting the wig. It had two long braids, and once she made sure the golden curls sat just right on her head, she flipped one braid over each of her breasts.

  “What the hell do you want?”

  It was pretty much the welcome I’d expected, but then, the way I remembered it, Bernadette wasn’t much for being polite. Fine by me. The way I remembered it, I never had been, either.

  “Just thought I’d pop in and say hello. You didn’t bother to stop to chat at the Showdown this morning. I thought that maybe you didn’t remember me.”

  Her top lip curled, she gave me a quick look. “You’re hard to forget.”

  I pretended this was the compliment I was
sure it was not meant to be. “A lot of people say that. The bouncer at the door is already looking forward to seeing me later.”

  “He’s a first-class idiot.” Bernadette did not bother to mention if she’d always thought this of the bouncer or if his interest in me was what qualified him for the title.

  “I would have come right over and said hello. At the Showdown, I mean. But I didn’t recognize you.” That was the truth, though I didn’t bother to mention the belly or the flabby arms. “It’s been a long time.”

  She slathered on dark red lipstick and smacked her lips together. “Not nearly long enough.”

  I have a thick skin so none of this bothered me. Especially since I didn’t give a hoot about Bernadette or her opinions. I was tempted to tell her that the feeling was more than mutual, but I had an alternative motive for being there, remember. I mean an alternative to just making Bernadette’s life miserable. As far as I was concerned, that was noble work and would have been reason enough if I didn’t have poor, dead Dickie to think about, and poor, stressed-out Tumbleweed to consider and poor, worried Ruth Ann to care about.

  Hoping not to look too anxious, I took a moment to study my surroundings.

  There were dressing tables lining both sides of the room, each with a bare, anemic lightbulb hanging above it and a chair pulled up in front of it. The dancers I’d waded through on my way over to visit Bernadette were all far younger than she was, and that would explain why their tables were heaped with lipstick and mascara, and Bernadette’s included those things as well as under-eye concealer, a heavy-duty foundation, and a couple sets of false eyelashes. Still, I guess age had its privileges because Bernadette’s costumes weren’t strewn over the back of her chair like the other dancers’ were. In addition to the last dressing table in the farthest corner of the room, Bernadette also had her very own closet. Even as I watched, she ducked in there and came out holding a blue-and-white gingham gown that looked like something straight out of an old Western.

  “You must be disappointed,” I said, when she closed the closet door and pulled the dress over her head. “I mean, about the Devil’s Breath contest being canceled.”

  She barely bothered with a shrug. Instead, she adjusted the cotton petticoats under the wide skirt of her dress, and for just a second, she allowed her gaze to brush mine. “I’m disappointed I didn’t see Jack at the Showdown. I was sure as soon as he saw my name on the list of regional winners, he’d come running.”

  It was an interesting theory considering that my dad had been missing for something like eight weeks and no one had a clue where he’d gone. I guess Bernadette hadn’t heard the news.

  “You think?” I asked her.

  There was a cigarette burning in a nearby ashtray and Bernadette grabbed it and took a puff. In the close confines of the dressing room, the smoke trailed toward me and I hauled in a long breath, hoping to catch a bit of it without looking too desperate. I’d given up my pack-a-day habit even before I joined the Showdown in Taos, but there were times—this was one of them—when I was dying to slip back to my old ways.

  The breath lodged in my throat when Bernadette said, “Maybe that’s why you’re here. You know Jack is going to come running and you wanted to get here before he did. What are you going to do this time, little girl?” Her eyes were wide and her mouth pulled open to expose teeth yellowed from years of smoking. Suddenly, I wasn’t missing my bad habit so much anymore.

  Bernadette leaned closer. “Do you think you can scare me away?”

  “I think I was surprised to find out you live right here in Vegas. So did Dickie.”

  “Dickie.” She rolled her dark eyes.

  “You knew him?”

  Bernadette shot me a look. “Who says?”

  This was one of those questions better left unanswered. “I’ll bet the cops asked you the same thing.”

  “You didn’t see them haul me away, did you? Not like they did Yancy Harris.”

  “He didn’t do it,” I told her.

  “Good. He’s good people. Not that you would understand what that means. I like Yancy.”

  “But you didn’t like Dickie.”

  “You’re trying to put words in my mouth.”

  “Your chili was in his mouth when he died.”

  Bernadette checked her reflection in the mirror. “If my chili was poisoned, all the judges would be dead.”

  This, I knew, so there was no use acknowledging the obvious. “Why did you hate him?”

  “Who says I did?” Apparently, Bernadette didn’t really care. She twitched away the question with a lift of her shoulders and shot me a smile I imagined she usually saved for the guys in the front row who were ready, willing, and able to stuff ten-dollar bills in her G-string. “Everybody who ever met him hated Dickie. Just like everyone who ever met you.”

  “Except Jack.”

  She tried to pretend this didn’t sting, but don’t think I didn’t notice the way her jaw stiffened. She covered up the reaction by bending closer to the mirror to check her makeup. “You didn’t come over here to tell me all about how you’re daddy’s little girl. Admit it.” She whirled to face me. “Jack sent you.”

  “You think?”

  “I think that after all this time, he didn’t want to walk right up to me at the Showdown this morning. He didn’t know what to say.” She touched up her mascara. “It’s sweet, really. He’s a little shy.”

  Not hardly. Jack could be a lot of things, including flashy, as charming as hell, and as unreliable as getting an Internet signal in the RV that Sylvia and I used to travel the Showdown circuit. What he’d never been was shy.

  “You know Jack,” I said, as noncommittal as can be. “If there’s one thing he loves even more than chili—”

  “It’s a beautiful woman. Yes.” Admiring her reflection in the mirror, Bernadette smoothed her hands over her hokey gown. “Some things never change. Some men never change.”

  “I thought we were talking about chili. And about how Dickie died.”

  “I had no reason to kill him.”

  “I’m sure that’s what you told the cops.”

  She touched a comb to the blond wig. “You were there, too.”

  “Yeah, but I never even knew Dickie existed until we got to Vegas.”

  Her smile was sleek. “I heard that during his show last night, Dickie made fun of your precious Tumbleweed. A girl with your temper and your psychotic tendencies . . . well, I imagine that just sent you right over the edge.”

  “Except Dickie wasn’t eating my chili when he kicked the bucket.”

  “You’re accusing me of killing him!”

  “If the shoe fits . . .”

  She barked out a laugh. “Not a chance! Except for the fact that he used to come in here once in a while, I never knew Dickie. And when he did come in . . .” As if she was remembering the scene and not liking it at all, she narrowed her eyes. “Cheap bastard never tipped more than a dollar or two. Even for a lap dance.”

  “That must have made you mad.”

  “It made me poorer than I should have been.”

  “And that made you mad.”

  “That made me send one of the other girls over when he asked for a private dance. Sorry.” She tossed her comb down on the dressing table. “I’m sure you’d love to see me led away in handcuffs, but it’s just not going to happen. If the cops thought I did anything wrong, they would have brought me in for more questioning by now.”

  “So who do you think could have done it?”

  Her gaze shot to mine. “You’re asking me for an opinion?”

  “I’m saying you were right there onstage, not twenty feet from where Dickie ate the laced chili. You might have seen something.”

  “And if I did, I’d be sure to tell you all about it.”

  Believe me, I did not fail to catch the not-so-subtle cy
nicism in her voice. “I don’t really care,” I told her with a casual shrug of my shoulders. “Like I said, I never met Dickie so it’s not like it matters to me who offed the guy. But Jack and I were talking and—”

  “Jack?” Her eyes lit. Yeah, like a hyena’s do before it chomps into some poor crippled wildebeest. “He wants to know what I saw? What I heard? That’s why he sent you here?” Her dark brows dipped over her eyes. “But why doesn’t he come around himself and ask?”

  Why, indeed.

  I shrugged like it went without saying. “He didn’t want to muddy the waters. You know, with a bunch of emotion. He thought if I talked to you first—”

  “Then he could get the basic information before he came and saw me himself!”

  By now, Bernadette’s eyes weren’t just gleaming, they were as bright as the searchlights that raked the night sky over Vegas. She pulled her chair out from the dressing table, turned it, and plunked down, her elbows on her knees. “Tell me, what did he say? Tell me everything he said.”

  “About Dickie.”

  “About Dickie, about the murder.” Bernadette giggled like a schoolgirl. “About me.”

  Since I didn’t know what to say, it was a good thing she didn’t give me a chance to say anything. Her cheeks flaming, Bernadette reached for a pair of stockings studded with silver sparkles and pulled up her skirt.

  This close, I saw that the tattoo on her thigh was a frilly heart with the name Jack written in the center of it.

  My stomach swooped. My brain froze. Or at least it would have if it wasn’t so busy gyrating over the fact that the woman seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with my father.

  She slipped on her stockings, then snapped them onto the garters. “When will he be coming by?”

  He.

  Jack.

  The father who’d fallen off the face of the earth when I was still back in Chicago and he was in Abilene with the Showdown.

  Obviously, Bernadette didn’t know that. Just as obviously, I knew it was a weakness and jumped to take advantage.