Death by Devil's Breath Read online

  Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t had lunch, and when Yancy got up to grab a couple more beers, I scooped up another handful of Fritos. “Reverend Love and Hermosa and Osborn sure did.”

  Yancy opened my beer and sat back down. “And you wonder why one of them didn’t jump right up and tell the cops that there’s no way good ol’ Yancy Harris would ever poison Dickie Dunkin.”

  “It crossed my mind.”

  With his fingertips, Yancy tapped out a beat on the metal tabletop. “Truth?” He didn’t wait for me to answer; he knew that’s exactly what I was looking for. “I think we were all in shock so none of us could be expected to be thinking straight. The good reverend, she proposed a solution to the problem, and nobody had the good sense to jump in and say it couldn’t possibly be right. But after we had a couple minutes to come to our senses . . . well . . .” He tipped back the bottle and drank some of his beer. “I think each of them—I mean, the reverend and Hermosa and Norman, that’s Osborn’s real name, you know—I think each of them knew they didn’t do it, so naturally when Reverend Love thought it was me . . .” A shrug finished the thought and said all he needed to say.

  “But if each of them knew they didn’t do it and you know you didn’t do it . . .” I let the thought hang in the air between us for a while before I asked, “So who do you think did do it?”

  Another shrug was his only answer.

  It was my turn to rap out a beat on the table. Mine wasn’t nearly as rhythmic as Yancy’s. But then, I was starting to get frustrated. “Do you think this has anything to do with Reverend Love’s big wedding ceremony on Sunday?” I asked him. “You and Hermosa and Dickie and Osborn, you were all fighting about who was going to sell the most tickets and participate in the ceremony. Osborn and Dickie went at each other before the judging started, remember.”

  “Osborn and Dickie going at each other had nothing at all to do with that silly contest Cal came up with. Mark my words about that. Come on, Maxie, you’re a smart girl. Two guys jawing at each other, puffing out their chests, and acting like big macho men. What do you think it was really all about?”

  “A woman.”

  Yancy laughed. “A woman who was right there to watch it all.”

  “Reverend Love?”

  This time he didn’t just laugh, he roared. “Now there’s a visual! Reverend Love with either Norman or Dickie! No, no, not the reverend. Hermosa. Norman and Dickie, they are—well, they were—both in love with Hermosa.”

  Maybe another drink of beer would help this make sense. I sat back and sipped and thought it over. “But last night, Dickie made fun of Hermosa’s singing.”

  “It was his thing. His shtick. You know? My guess is that Hermosa knew it was coming and played along. After all, it gave her a couple extra moments in the spotlight. And I’ll tell you what, Hermosa loves her time in the spotlight.”

  “So The Great Osborn and Dickie and Hermosa . . .” When it came to middle-aged people, it was hard for me to wrap my head around these sorts of passions. “Who was with who?”

  “Well, Hermosa and Osborn used to be a couple. Lived together for a while. Then a couple weeks ago when I got to work one night, I heard all this yelling and carrying on. Turns out Hermosa dumped Osborn. Right before he was set to go onstage. Told him that she was in love with Dickie and he was moving in with her.”

  I whistled low under my breath. “That might give Osborn . . . er, Norman . . . that might give him a motive to want Dickie dead.”

  “Yeah.” Yancy made a face. “If you thought Hermosa was worth fighting for!”

  I made a mental note of it. “And then there’s the ticket sales, too,” I reminded Yancy. “All of you were competing to sell the most. Do you think—”

  “That somebody would kill Dickie over something like that?” Yancy shook his head. “Besides, I always sell out my shows. And the others, they hardly ever do. Especially Dickie. There was a time folks thought his teasing people in the audience was funny, but not so much anymore. Kindler, gentler. You know, all that. So it just goes to figure, if anyone was going to get poisoned because of the contest, it should have been me.”

  “But you and Dickie weren’t even sitting next to each other. So it’s not like somebody could have meant to poison you and poisoned him by mistake.”

  I think the way Yancy screwed up his mouth said that even though he’d proposed the idea, he’d never actually thought it was a possibility. Now that he thought about it, he realized it was pretty darned scary. “Anybody who would kill anybody because of how many show tickets they sold, well, that’s just crazy.”

  “As crazy as poisoning a bowl of chili?”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. “That’s not crazy, it’s evil. Imagine doing that to another human being.”

  “It happens all the time.”

  He was about to take another drink, and he shot me a look over his beer bottle. “People have their reasons, I suppose. So I guess the thing we should be asking is, did any of the people at the contest have a reason to kill Dickie? I mean, other than Osborn because he might have been jealous about Dickie and Hermosa. For instance, those other contestants—”

  I cut him off with a shake of my head. “I don’t think so. Whoever killed Dickie must have known that the murder was going to put an end to the Devil’s Breath contest. Karl Sinclair, he lost some big canned chili endorsement because of it. The way that man believes his own hype, if he did kill Dickie—and I don’t see any reason why he would—he would have waited until after the contest was over. Then there’s Brother William. Why would he kill Dickie? He’s a holy guy, and besides, no contest means no chance of winning and he’s convinced that means the sales of his monastery’s chili mix are doomed.”

  “And that woman?” Yancy asked.

  I tsked my opinion and that should have told him all he needed to know, but he still waited for more. “The jury’s out on her,” I told him. “I knew Bernadette a long time ago, and I know she’s a sneaky, sly, nasty individual.” I thought about the altar with Jack’s pictures on it. “I’m for sure not counting her out.”

  “She’s a good looker.”

  I would not go so far as to agree with him on that.

  “And then there’s Tyler York,” I reminded him. “He’s too good to be true.”

  Yancy laughed. “And that makes you suspicious of him right off the bat.”

  “You got that right.” I laughed, too. After I got more Fritos. “The only other people in that room were me and Nick and Ruth Ann and Tumbleweed.”

  “Those two, Dickie made fun of them at the show the night before.” Yancy didn’t need to remind me.

  “Maybe, but that’s not a reason to kill somebody. Then again, at the show last night . . .” I sat back, letting my memory linger over everything that happened when Dickie took the stage. “He pointed you out in the audience. He said something to you, something like, ‘You see what I mean, Yancy. You see what I mean.’” I sat up like I’d been zapped with an electrical current. “Dickie knew, didn’t he? Dickie found out your secret, just like I did.”

  Yancy glanced away. “I told you, nobody knew. Nobody knows now. Nobody but you and me.”

  “Dickie did.” I was so sure of this, I pinned Yancy with a look and waited for him to squirm. “Dickie Dunkin knew you weren’t blind. He made a point of mentioning it during his act. Was he . . .” I swear, nothing people did anymore surprised me, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t be outraged. I’d already gritted my teeth when I remembered how much my chin hurt. The ice was melted, but the wet paper napkin soothed my skin.

  “Was that Dickie’s way of saying he was going to tell?” I asked. “That he was going to spread the news?”

  Yancy’s shoulders drooped. “Not exactly. What that was, was Dickie’s way of reminding me that it was time to pay and if I didn’t—”

  “Blackmail!”
r />   Yancy nodded. “Dickie Dunkin was a low-down, dirty creep.”

  “He knew you weren’t blind.”

  “He suspected. I don’t know how. He never said. Then a couple years ago, he set a kind of trap, a rope strung up backstage just an inch or so above the floor. It was sure to trip me if I didn’t see it. I thought I was all alone. I thought I was safe. But Dickie, he was watching from a dark corner and he saw me step over the rope. That’s when he jumped out and told me I’d have to start paying him or he’d tell Creosote Cal and the rest of the world.”

  From what I’d seen of Dickie in action, I can’t say this was a surprise. He made fun of his coworkers. He made fun of total strangers. Dickie Dunkin had a mean streak a mile wide, and finding out he was also greedy, well . . .

  I didn’t want to miss a second of Yancy’s reaction so I kept my eyes on him when I said, “You know, Yancy, that gives you a really good motive for murder.”

  “Yes, it does.” He folded his hands on the table in front of him. “But let me tell you a couple things. Number one, I didn’t do it. And number two, if I did . . . well, if I did, I would have done it a long time ago. Dickie’s been getting money out of me every month for a couple years. Why would I wait until now to get rid of him? And why would I do it in such a public place? Come on, Maxie. Give me a little more credit than that.”

  He was right and I was grateful for his honesty, his beer, and his Fritos, and I told Yancy as much. I didn’t have to tell him that his secret was safe with me because I guess he already knew that. After I called a cab and just as it pulled up to the front of his house, he put a hand on my arm.

  “Thanks,” Yancy said and winked.

  I told him I’d see him back at Creosote Cal’s and left, and on the way back to the hotel, I thought about everything I’d learned that day. I liked Yancy and I would have even if he hadn’t given me beer and Fritos. I had to admit that I admired his ingenuity, his flair for promotion, and the sheer audacity it took to pull off a hoax like the one he lived in public every day.

  But I also had to admit something else, and it made me so uncomfortable, I squirmed against the taxi’s sticky faux leather seat.

  If a guy would pull off a hoax like pretending he was blind, I wondered what else he had the nerve to do.

  CHAPTER 8

  Never let it be said that I shirk my job. Well, not totally and completely anyway.

  The next morning, I worked like a dog at the Palace. In fact, I was so busy, I never had a chance to pick up the Chick costume from the folks who were ridding it of the itching powder. Instead, I handed out samples of the (pretty ordinary if you ask me) chili Sylvia had made the night before, helped customers choose their spices and peppers, packed bags, rang the register, and dodged Sylvia’s unending questions about my chin and how it got scraped and what I’d been doing and who I’d been with and why I hadn’t come right to her for help when I returned to the RV because I knew that she cared about me.

  Finally just before noon there was a lull in both the crowd and Sylvia’s nauseating attempts to pretend that, like a real sister, she actually cared. Seeing my opportunity, I volunteered to go to the food truck we usually worked from for some extra Texas Jack T-shirts. Once inside—and out of sight of Sylvia’s prying eyes—I took a deep breath and glanced around.

  If I was a no-good, sneaky, underhanded half sister, where would I hide my father’s prized chili recipe?

  See, Jack’s recipe was what I’d spent the last week searching for.

  Oh yes, she denied it, all the while batting those golden eyelashes of hers. But I knew Sylvia had discovered the basic recipe for Jack’s world-famous chili in one of his old notebooks, because back in Taos (the last stop on the Showdown tour), I’d found both the notebook and the little bits of paper left near the spiral binding that showed that a page had been torn out. I also suspected what she planned to do with the recipe. Sylvia used to write for a foodie magazine back in Seattle. And before that, she had dreamed of becoming a chef.

  She was out to make a name for herself in the world of food, damn her! And there was no better way to do that than to amaze and astound the culinary universe with Jack’s secret recipe.

  Which Sylvia, no doubt, would take full credit for.

  Which, have no fear, I wasn’t about to let happen.

  When Sylvia wasn’t around, I’d already looked through the RV and I’d gone through her clothes and her shoes and her purses. Like the sparkly evening bag she’d carried with her the night before the Showdown opened.

  No luck then, no luck now.

  I finished with the last of the cupboards where we stored paper plates and cups and came up empty and I grumbled a curse. Sylvia of the perfect hair and the perfect teeth and the perfect skin might be more . . . well, more perfect than me, but no way was she as smart. Or as cagey. The answer to the mystery must have been staring me right in the face.

  If only I could think what it was!

  I surrendered with a sigh and dug Texas Jack T-shirts in various sizes and colors out of the shipping box we stored them in, and I already had them stacked in my arms and up to my nose when someone knocked on the door of the Palace.

  “There you are! Just like Sylvia said you’d be.” Ruth Ann popped her head inside. The rest of her followed. “Always working. You girls are such treasures. Your dad would be so proud!”

  In truth, I think Jack would be more astounded than anything else. In the exactly seven weeks, two days, and four hours since Sylvia and I had officially been in charge of Texas Jack Pierce’s Hot-Cha Chili Seasoning Palace, we had not killed each other.

  At least not yet.

  But if I didn’t find that recipe soon . . .

  I would have dropped the T-shirts right then and there and given the Palace another good reconnoiter, but Ruth Ann didn’t give me a chance. She pressed a piece of paper into my hand.

  Since I was holding all those T-shirts, it was a little tough to see what it was.

  “Address.” Like it was some big secret, Ruth Ann whispered, “It’s the house where The Great Osborn is working a private party today.”

  I would have scratched my head if I’d had a free hand. “Is there a reason I care?”

  Ruth Ann’s smile was as bright as the Nevada sun. “Well, of course you care,” she assured me. “Because you’re going to solve the mystery. You know . . .” We were the only ones inside the Palace and there was nothing outside but a couple acres of blacktop parking lot, but still, Ruth Ann leaned in. “You’re going to find out who killed Dickie Dunkin.”

  “And I’m going to talk to Osborn—”

  “Because he was there, of course. Because he’s a suspect! Just like everyone in that auditorium is. Well, everyone but me and Tumbleweed and you and Nick. We know none of us did it. In fact . . .” She scooped the T-shirts out of my arms and headed out the door. “I’ll take these into Deadeye and I’ll tell Sylvia I ran into you and I begged you to come over to the blacksmith shop and help me out with a project.” Over her shoulder, she gave me a broad wink. “Pretty clever, huh? Sylvia won’t have the nerve to question it, and that will give you a few hours to investigate. You can get over to that party and talk to Osborn. What do you say?”

  I say I’m never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and time away from work equaled time away from Sylvia, and time away from Sylvia equaled time to further look into Dickie’s murder, and maybe when I got back from time away from work and time away from Sylvia and time looking into Dickie’s murder, that might equal more time to search for Jack’s recipe.

  With all that in mind (believe me, it wasn’t easy to keep it all straight), I hurried around to the front of the hotel to hail a cab. Less than a half hour later, I found myself in a neighborhood called Silverado Ranch and in front of a house where cars packed the driveway and more of them were parked out front. Since the action appeared to be going on
in the backyard, I followed a path around some thirsty-looking shrubs to the back of the two-story stone and stucco house.

  I was just about to step around the corner of the house when the air around me filled with flashes of neon green. Green tentacles slapped my arms and something soft and slightly sticky settled on my shoulders.

  Startled, I shrieked, ducked, put my arms around my head to protect myself, and screeched some more.

  That is, until I heard a high-pitched voice call out, “Gotcha!”

  I plucked away the green goo that crisscrossed my face and found a redheaded boy of ten or so who jumped up and down a couple feet in front of me. He had a can of Silly String in one hand, and with the other, he pointed at the neon mess that covered me head to toe. “You’re old. You weren’t fast enough. Gotcha! Gotcha! Gotcha!”

  Don’t get me wrong. I love goofing around with Silly String just as much as the next person. What I don’t take kindly to is annoying children. While the kid was still laughing his fool head off, I yanked the can out of his hands, emptied it out on the top of his head, and marched off, plucking Silly String from my clothes.

  I shouldn’t have bothered because, as it turned out, I’m pretty sure no one would have noticed.

  Pink Silly String hung from the chairs placed in a semicircle near the aboveground pool. Yellow Silly String clothed the jungle gym and swayed softly in the hot breeze that blew through the backyard. Silly String zinged through the air above my head in multicolored, gooey rainbows propelled by the children who ran through the yard in packs. They shot one another. They shot the family dog. They shot their parents who were gathered around the barbeque grill, sipping their cocktails and—don’t ask me how—talking to one another above the noise of prepubescent squeals.

  “A kid’s party,” I mumbled to myself. “Osborn’s working a kid’s party.”

  He was, indeed, though I have to say, it took me a couple minutes of staring at the clown making balloon animals over on the back patio before I recognized his belly paunch. Then again, baggy yellow-and-blue-plaid pants hide a multitude of sins, as does a coat with one green sleeve, one yellow sleeve, a blue front, and a red back.