Death by Devil's Breath (5 page)

“This has got to stop happening.” Tumbleweed plopped into a chair and dropped his head into his hands. “People dying left and right. The Showdown’s gonna get a bad name!”

He was right, and he didn’t need me to tell him so. I left Ruth Ann holding her husband’s hand and closed in on Nick.

“You were out there with the security guys. What are they saying? What do you think?” I asked him.

He toed the line between what was considered onstage and what was technically off, stepping closer little by little to where a team from the Clark County coroner/medical examiner’s office studied the bowl of chili at the end of the judges’ table. Dickie, it should be noted, had been removed from the abovementioned chili by Nick, who hurried onstage the moment he realized there was trouble and tried CPR to no avail. Dickie’s body was sprawled on the floor, his arms splayed at his sides, his face red and greasy, his eyes open, glazed, and staring up at the chandelier that looked like a wagon wheel.

“I wish I could hear what they were saying,” Nick grumbled.

“Who cares what they’re saying! You got a nice, close look at Dickie. What do you think?”

He shot me a look. “You don’t want to know.”

“Because you think there’s something fishy going on.”

“I think that Devil’s Breath chili was strong enough to take paint off walls.”

“Maybe, but I don’t care how hot they are, peppers can’t kill you. Not even Trinidad moruga scorpions and those are the hottest peppers in the world. I mean, not unless you sat down and ate a whole lot of them all at one time. Admit it, Nick. You’re thinking what I’m thinking. And I’m thinking Dickie was poisoned.”

Nick’s grunt was all the answer I needed.

I tossed a look over my shoulder to where Yancy and Osborn had their heads together and Hermosa sobbed in Reverend Love’s arms. The whole female bonding thing actually might have been a touching scene if the good reverend wasn’t trying to flag down a passing cop. When that officer ignored her, Reverend Love rolled her eyes, gave Hermosa three quick pats on the back, and did her best to attract the attention of another cop.

“They all hated him,” I said, watching as that cop, too, ignored the reverend. “And who can blame them? You heard Dickie at the show last night. He made fun of each and every one of them, and this morning, Dickie and Osborn, they got into a scuffle. You saw it. You stopped it.”

Nick spun to face me. It was the first I saw that his efforts at first aid had cost him—at least when it came to his wardrobe. Like he’d been shot, there was a wide streak of tomato on his charcoal gray suit that started at his heart and smeared all the way across his ribs. As far as I was concerned, his tie was no big loss. It was a way-too-conservative maroon-and-charcoal stripe that now included dots of red, bits of pepper, and dashes of grease that gave me a glossy wink when the light hit them. There was a smutch of peppery sauce on Nick’s chin, right above the spot where a muscle jumped at the base of his jaw.

“Don’t,” he said, and whether he was referring to the delicate subject of murder I’d brought up or the fact that I yanked my green long-sleeved T-shirt down over my hand and swiped at the gunk on his face, I wasn’t sure. I kept on wiping, even when he did his best to duck out of the way.

“It’s going to burn,” I told him, then realized it probably already did. Even after I got rid of the chili, Nick’s jawline was red and inflamed. Don’t ask me how I thought I had a snowball’s chance in hell of finding any right then and there, but I looked around for a remedy. “We need alcohol. Or hand sanitizer.” I barked out a laugh. “If Sylvia was here, we’d be all set. She always has it with her. Hand sanitizer, that is, not alcohol. Germs, you know. They’re lurking everywhere.”

But I don’t think Nick did know. Or if he did, I’m pretty sure he didn’t care. Then again, his mouth pulled tight and his eyes watered. When I took another swipe at his face, he winced.

That’s when I noticed that one of the paramedics had left his first aid kit open behind where he and a couple other guys were looking over Dickie’s body. I darted out to the stage, and just as I suspected, there were packets of disposable alcohol pads in the kit. I grabbed a couple, tore one open, and as soon as I was in range, I slapped it on Nick’s face.

He batted my hands away but don’t think I didn’t notice that he held on to the wipe. “Don’t.”

I pretended I didn’t know what he was talking about, and just to prove it, I pulled out the batted-eyelash arsenal. It’s not like I thought Nick would find this especially attractive. In fact, I’d think less of him if he did. But I knew it would annoy the heck out of him. Which was precisely why I did it.

“Don’t what?” I asked. I ripped into another packet with my teeth and handed a fresh wipe to Nick.

He dabbed his skin. “Don’t start seeing bad guys where there aren’t any, and don’t start assuming a crime has been committed. We don’t know that. And while you’re at it, don’t start coming up with half-baked theories and don’t—”

I opened my mouth to defend myself and snapped it shut again when he stepped into my personal space and glared at me. Any other guy would have looked pitiful and a little pathetic with that patch of inflamed skin outlining the angle of his jawline. But then as I’d come to find out in the weeks I’d been with the Showdown, Nick wasn’t any other guy.

“Don’t,” he said.

I crossed my arms over my chest. “There’s nothing wrong with being curious. Besides, you must have had a few suspicions of your own. I see you didn’t do mouth-to-mouth on Dickie.”

It was true, and it proved he was thinking exactly what I was thinking, and what I was thinking was that since there had been no violence done to Dickie, the culprit just might be poison; Nick touched the alcohol wipe to his lips. “What I do and don’t do has nothing to do with you. If you think you can go around and investigate—”

I twitched away his criticism with a lift of one shoulder. “You mean, just like I did last time?”

“Last time, you were lucky.”

Arms uncrossed, pressed to my sides. Fists clenched. Chin up. “I was smart.”

“You took too many stupid chances.”

“And found out who the killer was.”

“Well, I don’t care what happened here, there’s no way I’m going to stand by and watch you try to do it again.”

“So you admit it! You
do
think Dickie was poisoned!” Poking a finger at Nick’s nose to emphasize my point probably wasn’t the best idea. Since he ground his teeth together as if he might bite it right off, I moved fast and tucked my hand behind my back. I was just about to ask what kind of poison Nick thought it might have been when one of the cops onstage waved him over.

I would have followed if he hadn’t thrown me a look as dangerous as a pot full of ghost peppers.

I kept in my place and watched him talk to the cops, and since I couldn’t hear anything, I got bored. I gave Sylvia a quick call, not so much because I thought she was worried, but to tell her what was going on and remind her that I’d be a little busy from now until I-didn’t-know-when and she’d have to work the brothel alone. Big points for me—I did not mention that if it had been a real house of ill repute and Sylvia had been the only one there, chances are there wouldn’t have been much business.

That taken care of, I strolled over to where the Devil’s Breath contestants waited. Yes, I admit it, I wouldn’t have had the nerve if the nasty, dark-haired woman hadn’t been busy being interviewed by a detective, and I figured I didn’t have to worry about going up in flames thanks to her dirty looks.

I took the chair next to Brother William, whose lips moved over a silent prayer while he fingered the beads of a rosary.

“So what do you think?”

Brother William’s lips froze. “I think it’s terrible,” he said. He was a young man with short-cropped, rusty-colored hair and his cheeks were stained with tears. “Terrible for that poor man, and terrible for us. The monastery, that is. We hoped a contest win would lead to getting some publicity for our chili mix, and that would boost sales. The added income would help with the monastery’s expenses. We may be men of God, but we still have utility bills. I suppose that’s the lesson to be learned. If you put your trust in material things . . .” His thoughts faded along with his voice, and he went back to his prayer.

It wasn’t hard to decide on a next move. Karl Sinclair stood over near the red stage curtain. He was on a phone call, and even though I couldn’t hear the words distinctly, there was no doubt that Karl was not a happy camper. His baritone rumbled like a freight train. I know an opportunity when I see it; his back was to me, so I closed in.

“Son of a—” Sinclair swallowed the rest of what he was going to say to the person on the other end of the phone. “You can’t let them pull the endorsement, Fritz. Not just because some fool of a comedian happened to pick the wrong time to keel over dead. I would have won the Devil’s Breath contest. You know it and I know it. Nobody makes chili as hot and as good as mine.”

His head bent, he listened to whatever it was Fritz had to say. “Yeah, well, I’d like to see you take that to the bank,” Sinclair spit out. “If you can’t talk them into continuing the negotiations, then it looks like I’m going to need to find another agent. What’s that?” Sinclair’s shoulders shot back. “Yeah, well, same to you,” he growled and ended the call.

When he spun around, Sinclair’s expression went blank. “Oh.” He gulped in a calming breath, shoved his phone back in his pocket, and looked past me toward the activity going on out front. He even managed a quick smile designed, no doubt, to make me think everything was hunky-dory. Yeah, just in case I didn’t hear the shouting match on the phone. “Are the cops saying anything? They’re going to let us continue on with the contest, right? When can we get started again?”

“Really?” I crinkled my nose and stuck out an arm, pointing to the stage. “There’s a guy out there who’s dead and all you can think about is you?”

“About me. About the title. About the big, fat endorsement deal my agent has been working on with one of the major canned chili companies. Damn!” There was only so long he could hold it together. Sinclair paced out the area between the curtain and a painted backdrop of Creosote Cal’s Saloon complete with whiskey bottles, a lady of the evening in a gown with a plunging neckline, and a bald fat guy wearing an apron behind the bar. Mumbling, he came back in my direction. “Thanks to that stupid fool of a comedian—”

“Something tells me Dickie’s having a worse day than you are.”

“You think?” Sinclair didn’t look convinced, and honestly, I wasn’t surprised. Any guy who billed himself as the World’s Greatest Chili Cook (which was clearly not true since Jack made the best chili on earth) had to have the ego to go along with the hype. “Tell that to the bank that approved my new mortgage on the basis of that promised endorsement. I was a shoo-in for the title and you know it. Everyone knows it. Karl Sinclair is the greatest . . .”

My stomach might be able to tolerate hot chili, but there was only so much Karl Sinclair I could take. He was still singing his own praises when I turned my back on him and looked around for Shiny Guy.

I found him sitting by himself in a quiet corner, texting away.

“Hey.”

His fingers flew over the keyboard, and he barely spared me a glance.

“We haven’t met. I’m Maxie.”

He tapped out a few more words. “Tyler York.”

I thought about Brother William’s and Karl Sinclair’s reactions to the tragedy. “You must be pretty bummed, huh?”

“Bummed?” He finished his message and finally gave me his full attention. “About . . .” Somebody called for a stretcher, and Tyler’s gaze moved beyond me to the commotion onstage. “Oh, you mean about the dead guy.”

“Not something you see happen every day. Guy. Chili. Dead. Pretty nasty stuff.”

His shrug pretty much said it all. “It happens.”

“Not so much.”

“Well, it did today.”

“And ruined the contest.”

“The contest, sure.” He stood in all his unsullied, untouched by tomato sauce, unspattered with grease glory, and the smile Tyler shot my way was as blinding as his white apron. “There’s always next time,” he said.

Part of me admired the incredibly adult way he handled the disappointment. But I’d spent my whole life around chili cook-offs and chili cooks, remember, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that chili is the center of their universe. Cooking chili, eating chili, dreaming up new ways to serve chili and new things they can add to make their chili just a little different and just a little better . . . that’s what chili cook-off contestants are all about.

Yup, there’s an unalienable truth about chili cooks and chili eaters—they are a passionate bunch.

And Tyler was as blasé as I’d seen Sylvia when the Showdown vendors got into a really heated discussion about if real chili had beans in it.

Fishy?

Plenty.

Don’t think I didn’t notice.

“So . . .” If I do say so myself, I did a pretty good job of pretending that I was just passing the time. “Since the contest is going to be canceled, how about sharing your cooking secrets? You’re a regional Devil’s Breath winner, and that must mean you make really good, really hot chili. What kind of poison do you put in yours?”

I didn’t actually expect him to cop to the crime right then and there, but hey, it would have been nice. When all I got back from Tyler was a blank look, I burbled out a laugh. “Poison! What am I talking about? I mean peppers, of course. What kind of peppers do you put in your chili to kick up the heat? Devil’s tongue? Yucatan white? Or are you a habanero kind of guy?”

Tyler’s smile was as stiff as meringue. “Peppers? I use hot ones.”

The joke was pretty lame, but I didn’t let on. “No, I mean it. Seriously. Not Trinidad scorpions. Nobody in their right mind would put those in a contest chili. Unless you add just a tad for kick and flavor.”

“Maybe.”

“Oh, come on! I was looking forward to tasting the Devil’s Breath. The least you can do is share.”

He gave me a wink. “My recipe is a secret,” he said, and he turned around and walked away.