Chili Con Carnage (10 page)

I didn’t intend to. Find interesting things, that is. I’m not exactly an art lover to begin with and my mind was a million miles away from the ceramics and the handwoven baskets spread out on tables and colorful woven blankets all around the fairground entrance. Even if I had the money to spend (which I didn’t), I wasn’t much of jewelry wearer, either. And as far as paintings . . .

I was standing in front of a guy putting the finishing touches on his version of the entrance to the fairgrounds in lurid shades of purple and blue and wondering how on earth his mind worked and what on earth his eyes saw, when a voice called out from somewhere behind me and brought me spinning around.

“Hey, Alphonse! Nice work, buddy!”

Yes, hope springs eternal, and Alphonse is not so common a name. I remembered what I’d learned from Joey P, the bartender at El Rancho, about the artist who’d gotten into the knock-down, drag-out with Roberto the night before the murder, and headed out in search of.

It didn’t take me long to locate Alphonse. He was, after all, as big as an aircraft carrier, and just like I remembered, he had a long, gray beard that spread out over his immense stomach and a black leather cap atop his head. Wisps of gray hair hung from the back of it.

He had a chain saw in his hands, and he was putting the finishing touches on a gigantic wooden sculpture that looked like a . . .

I cocked my head one way, then the other.

Bird? Flower? Tuna? Honestly, I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t waste a moment thinking about it. As soon as Alphonse cut power to the chain saw and took off his safety glasses, I closed in on him and his work of art.

“It’s beautiful,” I said.

“Not nearly as pretty as the women here in New Mexico.” When he looked me over and smiled, I saw that there was gap between his front teeth. “You lookin’ to buy?”

As if I needed a better look at the bird . . . er . . . tuna, I backed up a couple steps and made him wait long enough to think I was actually considering it. “Maybe,” I said. “Depends what you’re asking.”

“Thirty-five hundred.”

“Dollars?” So much for my blasé-art-buyer persona. I wasn’t exactly sure which came first, my mouth falling open or Alphonse realizing I was a poser and instantly losing interest.

“I might want to buy it,” I blurted out, even though he’d already turned his back on me. I walked around to the other side of his setup, a card table up front under a pop-up tent, a couple rows of shelves to display wooden sculptures of smaller proportions than the tuna . . . er . . . flower, and a big open space at the back where he was working on that particular gigantic sculpture and had a few others displayed.

I put a hand on the snout of a wooden bear—and removed it fast when Alphonse shot me a death-ray look. “Actually, I walked over here because you look familiar,” I told him. “We’ve met.”

He grabbed a broom and swept wood shavings into a pile. “I doubt it.” Just to be sure, he leaned on the broom and took another look at me, nice and slow. “I may be old, but I ain’t dead. I’d remember a chick as cute as you.”

“When so many women must admire your work?” Okay, so yeah, this was a little blatant. So was the way I sparkled up at Alphonse. But see, it worked. I knew that because I saw some of the starch go out of those Grand Canyon–sized shoulders. “I think . . .” I pretended to, then snapped my fingers and pointed his way. “You were at El Rancho Tavern the other night.”

His beard shivered, and Alphonse spat on the ground. “If you’re here about that front window, I told Joey P, it was the other guy that started it. He’s the one that should pay.”

“I bet anything he’d love to be able to. Only see . . .” I scooted closer to the mountain that was Alphonse. “Roberto is dead.”

Alphonse’s mouth fell open and his gaze snapped to the fairgrounds and the Showdown sign that hung above the entrance. “You mean that guy that was killed at the chili cook-off the other day? That was the same guy from El Rancho?”

To show him how right-on he was, I gave him the thumbs-up. “I figured once you saw Roberto’s name in the paper—”

“No. No.” Alphonse got out a dustpan, swept up the wood shavings, and tossed them in a nearby trash can. “I didn’t know the guy, see. Never saw him before in my life until he started acting like a jerk at El Rancho and we got to tussling. Didn’t read about it in the papers, either. Not that it would have mattered, ’cause like I said, I didn’t know the guy. I’ve been busy, working on a few pieces for this show. I haven’t even been watching TV. But I heard about the killing. You know, around. Even if I had ever heard the name, it wouldn’t have meant anything to me. On account of what I said. That I never knew the guy. What did you say his name was?”

“Roberto. And you never met him before. But you were fighting. To me, fighting always seems sort of personal.”

“Not at all.” Alphonse swept more wood shavings into a pile and gathered it up. “It was just one of those things, you know? Just a couple guys who had too many pops in a bar and got into it with each other. There was nothing more to it than that.” He looked over the sculpture at me. “I’m an artist, not a fighter. At least not most of the time. But that guy . . . what did you say his name was? Roberto? That Roberto guy brought out the worst in me. But hey, it was over just like that. No hard feelings, you know?”

I didn’t, because I’d been there, and I saw the way the cops had to keep Alphonse and Roberto from ripping out each other’s throats, and that was after the fists stopped flying.

That’s apparently not what Alphonse was thinking about, because he chuckled. “No way I’d waste my time worrying about a loser like that, anyway,” he said, and he grabbed a small, soft brush and whisked it over the . . . thing. “I’ve got a reputation in this town. Why would I want to risk it by mixing it up with some roadie from a chili show?”

Why, indeed!

I knew I wouldn’t get anything else out of Alphonse. Nothing else useful, anyway, so I thanked him for his time and strolled over to the next booth. It belonged to a Native American guy who had a display of the most beautiful woven baskets. I know what I said, I’m no expert when it comes to art. But I know pretty when I see it, and I picked up one small basket and turned it in my hands, admiring the workmanship. Just as the artist came over, Alphonse started up his chain saw again.

“It can’t be easy having a booth next to that guy,” I said, and I practically had to scream to be heard over the buzzing and whirring.

“You got that right.” The basket artist took it in good stride. “And to think, I was supposed to be next to some lady who makes soap. Soap. Soap sounds nice and quiet!”

“Supposed to be?” I set down the basket so I could give him my full attention. “What do you mean?”

“When they rent space for a show like this . . .” Apparently, he figured it would be easier to demonstrate than to try and scream the information. He reached under the table where his baskets were displayed and brought out an eight-by-ten map of the art show. Each of the vendor setups was marked with a rectangle. He pointed to his. “That’s me,” he yelled. “And that’s—”

Alphonse turned off the chain saw and the artist grinned. “That . . .” He pointed to the rectangle next to his. “That’s Sally Blun, the lady who makes the soap.”

It was the name written on the rectangle and I looked from it to Alphonse. “Then how—”

“The how was the easy part.” The artist put away the paper. “The why is what’s got me confused. Heard the day before we set up that Alphonse Rettinger paid Sally one hundred bucks for her place at this show. It’s not exactly a prestigious show and none of us figured we’d be doing great business, but we thought it would be good exposure for our work. Alphonse, he doesn’t need exposure. Everyone around here knows who he is. Weird, huh?”

Weird?

He had no idea.

Alphonse paying for a spot outside the Showdown grounds was just as weird as Alphonse knowing Roberto was a roadie. Yeah, after he swore up and down that he didn’t know the guy.

When I got back to the Palace, there was another line out front, and this one was longer than the one that had been there earlier in the morning. The vultures were circling again, and that wasn’t fair to Gert. There was no use telling each person individually to get lost, so I climbed up on the two-foot-high concrete base of the nearest light pole, the better to read them all the riot act. That was the first I realized what was really going on.

There was Gert, all right, still in the Palace, still smiling and helping customer after customer. And why were all those customers there in the first place?

Because world-famous chef, Carter Donnelly, was standing out front—right where the Chili Chick usually did her routine—and greeting each person who walked up.

“Thanks for stopping by,” I heard him croon to a middle-aged woman in black shorts and a yellow tank top when I hopped down from my perch and made my way over there. “It’s a great little place and their spices are nice and fresh.”

With both feet back on the ground, it was impossible for me to see over the heads of the crowd, but Carter must have turned to another customer, because I heard his voice again. “Yes, sure. I’ll be ordering some of Texas Jack’s spices for my restaurant in LA. They’re the best, you know. You’re going to love ’em!”

With all the oohing and ahhing and chefly hero-worshiping going on around me, it wasn’t easy getting to the front of the pack, but hey, I’m small and wiry. I sidled between two women who had their cell phones out so they could snap pictures of Carter and waited until he was done posing before I stepped up beside him.

His eyes lit. “Hey, it’s the Chili Chick!”

This was not the welcome I thought I’d get from the guy whose crisp white shirt I’d ruined with Jack’s chili. I tipped my head. “How do you know I’m the Chili Chick?” I asked, because if he wasn’t sure, I was going to deny it as fast as I possibly could. “Last time you saw me . . . er . . . her, she was inside the Chili Chick costume.”

“Oh honey!” Carter’s gaze slid down the length of my body. Like I said, there’s not much to me; it didn’t take long. I was wearing khaki shorts and, since I figured I’d spend the day behind the counter at the Palace, one of the polo shirts with Texas Jack’s face embroidered on it.

When Carter’s gaze made it all the way back to my face, he had a photo-op-worthy smile on his face. “I’d recognize those legs anywhere!”

As compliments went, it was a good one. From a reasonably good-looking guy. But even that wasn’t enough to thaw the iceberg of suspicion in my stomach. I looked around and there wasn’t even one TV camera in sight. “What are you doing here?” I asked him.

“Looks like I’m selling spices for you.” Another customer stepped to the front of the line, and Carter’s welcome was friendly enough, but he refused to autograph the guy’s program. He did pose for a picture, though. I waited until he was done.

“But why?” I asked. “After what I did to your shirt—”

“Please!” When a woman stepped up, Carter gave her a peck on the cheek and posed for a picture with his arm around her. “It was just a shirt,” he told me when he was done. “And a shirt doesn’t count for much of anything, not when you think of the poor man who died here the other day.” As if he realized this was probably not something we should be talking about in the midst of an adoring crowd, Carter told his fans he’d be back in a jiffy, took my arm, and led me around to the side of the Palace where we could have at least a smidgen of privacy.

Once we were there, his gaze automatically traveled to the RV that was still parked nearby and draped with yellow police tape. “It’s all so horrible,” he said, and he might have been thinking about murder, but he didn’t let go of my arm.

When I took care of that by stepping back and out of his reach, Carter shot me a million-dollar smile of apology.

“Truth be told, I feel bad,” he said. “About how your Palace had to be closed down because of the investigation. In a small way, I feel I was partially responsible, seeing as how the victim was found in my motorhome. Or at least how he would have been found in my motorhome if he hadn’t tumbled out of it on top of you. Believe me, I know what being closed down for a day can do to your bottom line. I understand the challenges of being a small-business owner.”

I am not a reader of
Forbes
magazine. Or even of
People
, for that matter. I don’t have the time, and I don’t really care what people who make too-much money do with the too-much money they make. But even I knew this was a line of bull. “Something tells me your restaurant in LA isn’t exactly a small business,” I reminded him.

“Well, maybe not these days. But we’ve all got to start somewhere, right? I opened that restaurant six years ago, and believe me, I had plenty of sleepless nights. Not three years ago, I thought I’d have to shut the doors because the money ran out.”

“You obviously took care of the damage control.”

“And turned things around completely.” Carter’s shoulders shot back. “Once the restaurant took off, I got the TV show, and once that became a hit, the book contracts. So you see, I believe there’s always a way up. Even for a little guy.”

“Only this . . .” I put a hand on the Palace. “This is one little guy who isn’t you. So why would you possibly care?”

Carter laughed. “Hey, in spite of what you might have read in the fine-living magazines . . .” He waited for me to tell him about everything I had read, but since I didn’t read magazines that featured houses I’d never be able to afford, clothes I wouldn’t want to wear even if they didn’t cost way too much, and food nobody in their right mind would ever eat, I had nothing to say and he went right on. “I’m not that much of a perfectionist, and I do have a heart.” As if to prove it, he laid one hand on his chest. “Believe me, I understand the challenges of business ownership.”

“So you came over to here to help out? Out of the goodness of your heart?”

“Is that so hard to believe?”

It was. Which was why I asked him, “And you did all that for the Palace, even though my sister is the one who was arrested for Roberto’s murder?”

As if he wanted to make sure no rabid fans had followed us, Carter peeked around the corner of the Palace, and I guess the coast was clear because he leaned in nice and close. He smelled like some aftershave I knew I couldn’t afford. Or pronounce the name of, for that matter. “I’ve been asking around, and nobody around here seems to believe she’s guilty,” he said. “And me? I know better than to say anything one way or another. Not until there’s a thorough investigation and a trial. But I will say I’ve seen cops in small towns like this make rush judgments. Why on Earth would your sister have any reason to kill a roadie?”

I shook my head. “It’s a long story.”

Carter gave me a careful look. “Are you telling me she did have a reason?”

“Sort of. Well, yes, kind of, but not really. They knew each other a long time ago, Sylvia and Roberto, and the cops think she was still mad at him for something that happened back then.”

“Only you don’t agree.”

“I don’t understand.” It was the first I realized it myself. “I mean, really, ten years and you’re still carrying a grudge? Roberto wasn’t worth it. No guy is.”

Carter crossed his arms over his chest. Apparently, he owned a boatload of crisp white shirts, because he had another one on that day. His initials were embroidered near the pocket.

“You’ve been burned.”

He wasn’t talking cooking.

And I wasn’t feeling like baring my heart—or my past—to a man I hardly knew. “It only stands to reason,” I said.

He gave in with good grace and a warm laugh. “I’ll take that as a yes. And since you’re being so honest with me, I’ll be just as up-front with you. I stopped by the Palace today because I knew if I did, the crowds would follow. I just wanted to help.”

In a mirror image of his gesture, I crossed my arms over my chest, too. “Why?” I asked.

“I told you. I thought—”

“Yeah, I know all that. You’re a good guy. You understand. You might even care. But a big shot like you doesn’t usually pay attention to small potatoes like us.”

I’ll bet when Carter filmed his cooking show, he didn’t need stage lights. His smile was that bright. “Maybe I’d just like to get to know the Chili Chick a little better.”

It was another bit of blatant schmoozing, and I basked in the glow, even though I didn’t believe it any more than I believed the last compliment he’d given me about my legs.

“Something tells me I’m not your type,” I told him.

“Who says? And how do you know what type I like, anyway?”

“Uptown girls. Plenty of makeup. Nails always done. Purses. Expensive ones. I don’t even know the designers’ names because I don’t pay attention to that kind of bull.”

“Which might be exactly why you are my type!” He took a couple steps closer and I stood my ground. I hoped my message was loud and clear: Even though he was a star—and a rich, good-looking one—I was not a pushover. I guess he got the message because he laughed. “Truth be told, I’m feeling a little proprietary. I mean about that poor guy who was murdered. He did fall out of my dressing RV, after all.”

“He did, didn’t he?” It wasn’t like I hadn’t thought of this before. After all, that image of Roberto as he toppled onto me was sure to be etched in my mind for years to come. It’s just that I hadn’t thought about it in exactly this way.

It was my turn to give Carter a careful look. “Have you asked yourself why?”

The way he screwed up his mouth told me he didn’t know what I was I was getting at.

“Why your RV?” I asked, hoping to explain. “Why was Roberto’s body put there? The cops said that wasn’t where he was killed. According to what I heard, the murder happened back around the RV in a spot where nobody would have seen it.” I waved in the general direction. “Then the killer—and you notice I’m not saying it was Sylvia because there’s no way in hell she ever would have had the guts to do anything like that—the killer dragged the body all the way around over here.” The RV wasn’t far away, so I led the way over there.

“The killer had to haul the body up these steps.” There were two of them, and I demonstrated with an invisible body, careful not to touch the yellow tape. “And put Roberto inside.” I pantomimed my way through this maneuver, too, pretending to open the door, stuff Roberto’s body inside, and slam the door shut.

“You were the one who was supposed to change before you started filming. So you were the one who was supposed to go in there first.” I stepped back so I could see Carter’s face when I added, “That body should have fallen out on you, not me.”

Good thing we weren’t ready to roll on an episode of his TV program; Carter would have needed a quick visit from his makeup artist to put the color back in his cheeks. That pretty much told me this was something he hadn’t thought of before. Before he could recover—and maybe pretend like it wasn’t the big deal I knew it was—I pounced.

“Who would want to scare you like that?” I asked him.

“Scare? Me?” The man might be God’s gift to the cooking world, but he was one heck of a lousy actor. I guess he knew it. More important, I guess he knew I knew it, because his smile dissolved. “You think . . .” Carter swallowed hard. “You think that poor man’s death could possibly have something to do with me?”

“I don’t think anything.” I knew there were people—Sylvia came to mind—who believed this to be one of the truths of the universe, and even though my half sister wasn’t around to point it out, old habits die hard; I jumped in to save face. “What I mean is that I don’t think anything about the murder. Because I don’t know anything. But this . . .” I paced a zigzag pattern through the dust. “This opens up a whole new world of possibilities. Nobody could have known I was going to open that door. They thought you were. Which means Roberto’s body should have fallen out on you.”

Just when I thought Carter couldn’t get any paler, he went and proved me wrong. Hey, I didn’t hold it against him. At least when Roberto and I had gone one-on-one, I had the Chili Chick costume between me and him. If Carter had opened that door . . .

My stomach soured. “Somebody doesn’t like you,” I told him.

He seemed honestly surprised. “I don’t know who. I mean, I suppose there are people who are jealous. Plenty of them. I’m successful. I’m wealthy. I’ve got a name and a reputation and a book on the best-seller list. But believe me, I haven’t stomped on any of the little people on my way to the top.”

Just the way he said it and the words he used—
little people
—told me that, of course, he had stomped with both feet, and that he was so completely unaware of it—and of the people who’d taken the stomping—that he was bound to have enemies galore.

“But why Roberto?” I asked myself more than him. “I kept thinking that him being the victim, that was because someone had it in for him. But maybe that’s not true.”

“You think someone had it in for me.” I think Carter would have liked to phrase this as a question, but he couldn’t escape the logic. It was only just a theory, but he knew it was a very real possibility. “You think someone killed this Roberto character because of me? I’d hate for that to be true. I’d hate to be responsible for another human being’s death.”