Revenge of the Chili Queens (19 page)

Talk about putting a damper on the mood!

Shaking off the bad vibes and the tiny drops of water that touched my face and my shoulders and the semi-professional-looking white blouse I’d worn with a black skirt and sensible black flats I didn’t own and had to “borrow” from Sylvia (hey, she was still asleep when I left the RV and she’d never know), I headed into the building.

As I have noted before, there must be big money in canned chili, and nothing proved it like the lobby of the world headquarters of Consolidated Chili.

Marble floor polished to a sheen.

Bank of elevators that whisked away groups of conservatively dressed people who talked in hushed tones and carried leather briefcases and Coach bags and their lunches in cute insulated sacks that had apparently been a handout at some corporate event because they were all alike—yellow with a picture of a can of chili on it and the word
Consolidated
arched over it in alligator green letters.

Somehow it wouldn’t surprise me to find out that it was against company rules to use a plain ol’ brown paper bag.

Chili cans that matched the gigantic sculpture out in the fountain dangled from the ceiling of the atrium at the
center of the lobby on invisible wires. The cans looked as if they were floating, flying, ready to swoop down on unsuspecting diners and snatch them up into the great big nothingness of taste that was canned chili.

Behind the massive desk where four receptionists fielded phone calls and handled visitors, the entire wall was lined with real cans of chili. As if they were stars and all the world was a stage designed for singing the praises of mass-produced, tasteless, soulless chili, a bright spotlight shone on them, accentuating their familiar red labels and the names I’d grown up hearing touted on TV commercials that always gave me the willies.

North, south, east, and west,

Consolidated Chili is the best!

Nothing proved the alluring nature of advertising better than the fact that I couldn’t get the words and the tune of the perky Tri-C jingle out of my head. No matter how hard I tried.

Of course a guard in a dark uniform, his expression as stiff as the collar of his white shirt, stopped me.

I explained that I had an appointment with John Wesley Montgomery, which wasn’t true but was better than telling the guard that I had to talk to his big, big boss because Montgomery might be mixed up in a murder. After all, it was Montgomery’s company that was producing Southwest Glory and Texas Favorite, using the recipes that had been stolen from Rosa and Martha by Dom, who’d gone undercover as a chef in both their restaurants.

Rosa and Martha—and who could blame them?—were about to blow the whistle on the whole dirty scheme, and Montgomery knew it, because they’d talked to him about how Tri-C’s newest concoctions tasted awfully familiar.

But wait!

Didn’t I think that Rosa or Martha might have killed Dom because one (or both) of them was mad about the stolen recipes?

Well, I did. But I had to hedge my bets.

Rosa and Martha weren’t the only ones with motive.

See, if John Wesley Montgomery knew that Dom could finger him in the recipe-rustling scheme, he might want to keep Dom permanently quiet.

And don’t forget, I had seen that trail of Tri-C handouts on my way to finding Dom’s body.

And as I followed that trail, I had been nearly run down by the sleek black limo that belonged to Tri-C’s president.

I had also been grabbed by a man at the Showdown, remember, who had warned me to mind my own business.

As for that figure on Dom’s balcony . . .

I puffed out a breath of annoyance. I wished I could have seen better. Shadowy figures aren’t much help. Not when it comes to a murder investigation.

Of course, I couldn’t tell the security guard any of that, so with a wide smile and a ring of confidence in my voice, I assured him that I had an appointment and that Mr. Montgomery was—even as we spoke—waiting for me. And when that guard went over to the reception desk so one of
the women there could call upstairs and check it out? That’s when I hightailed it into the nearest elevator.

I rode up to the top floor and wasn’t the least bit surprised when I stepped out of the elevator and onto a plush Oriental rug in muted shades of tabasco and jalapeño. The fresh flowers in vases all around the outer office were a nice touch, as were the mahogany desks of the three assistants outside a closed doorway with a brass plaque on it that told me I had found what I was looking for. In fact, the only thing that seemed out of place was the giant inflatable red chili next to John Wesley Montgomery’s door. It reminded me of the Chick, and I went over and gave it a pat.

“Can I help you?”

The voice that came from behind me was as chilly as the AC that poured out of a vent just above my head.

I turned and found myself face to sneer with a woman in a black suit and pearls. Her dark hair brushed her shoulders. Her glasses gleamed in the early morning sunlight that flowed in from the windows on the far wall.

“Great chili,” I said, looking back at the inflatable. “Just what this place needs, a little bit of fun!”

My guess is that she didn’t agree with me, because the woman’s blank expression never changed. “Can I help you?” she asked again.

I poked a thumb over my shoulder toward Montgomery’s closed door. “Appointment,” I said. “He’s waiting for me.”

Her perfectly plucked eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch at the same time her gaze fell to the tips of my shoes then slid up to the top of my head. Her lips pinched. “Oh?”

“Yeah. And really . . .” I fished in my gigantic denim hobo bag and pulled out my phone to check the time. “I hate to keep him waiting, and I’m already a minute late.”

“Oh?” This time, she didn’t wait for me to respond. The woman slipped behind the nearest desk and tapped on her computer keyboard.

“I don’t see that Mr. Montgomery has any appointments scheduled for this morning,” she said.

I waved away this bit of news as inconsequential. “He probably just forgot to tell you to put it on his calendar. We talked. Last night at the fund-raiser. You know, over at Alamo Plaza. And he asked me to stop by this morning and—”

When she picked up the phone, I nearly breathed a sigh of relief. She was buying my story!

Or at least I thought so until I heard her say, “Yes, Security? We have an unauthorized person here in the executive suite.”

“Oh, come on!” When she hung up the phone, I tried to reason with her. “All I want to do is talk to the guy.”

“That’s unfortunate because
the guy 
. . .” Her tongue twisted over the words. “Mr. Montgomery isn’t in this morning.”

“He must have forgotten our appointment,” I assured her.

To which she did nothing but give me a knowing little smile.

A second later, a couple beefy security guards showed up, and I threw my hands in the air by way of telling them they wouldn’t get a fight out of me. “Going,” I said and scurried toward the elevator. The two guards fell into step beside me, and the woman with the pearls brought up the
rear of our little procession. “But I’ll tell you what, when Mr. Montgomery finds out how you treated me, he’s not going to be happy.”

“Mr. Montgomery is always happy,” she replied, and I can’t say for certain, because I’d already stepped into the elevator between those two burly guards, but I could have sworn before the doors slipped shut, her lips pursed and she mumbled, “That’s one of the things I can’t stand about him.”

•   •   •

By the time I got back to the fairgrounds, the Showdown was in full swing. That day’s cook-off contest was for the traditional red category—that is, chili made with any meat and red chili peppers but with no beans or pasta added—and we anticipated a bigger-than-usual crowd. Texans are famous for liking their chili bean-less, and the contest that day would provide an opportunity for many of the state’s best to vie for the top prize.

When I got to the Palace, Sylvia was busy with customers.

But not too busy to notice my shoes.

Her lips pinched. “The least you can do is put them back where you found them,” she said.

I did when I went into the RV to change into the Chili Chick costume. Then, back out in front of the Palace, I finished forty-five minutes of hot and sweaty dancing before there was a lull in the crowd.

We were doing well that day; even this early, Sylvia needed to restock the jars of Thermal Conversion on the
front counter. Since the overhang at the front of the Palace offered a minimal amount of shade, I offered to help.

“So?” Unlike so many of our patrons, Sylvia knew exactly where to look to see into the mesh at the front of the Chick. “What did you find out? You were out investigating, weren’t you?” she added when I didn’t answer either of those first two questions fast enough. “That’s the only reason I can imagine you’d get out of bed early. Where were you? And what did you find out?”

It was a couple minutes before I could tell her, but that was because a big man in a big cowboy hat and big, big boots sauntered over. Like everything else in Texas, the fairgrounds was massive, and there was a rodeo going on for the weekend at the other end of it. From the look of the dust—and other stuff—on his boots, I guessed he was part of it.

“Lookin’ for the hottest peppers you have,” he said, and unlike Sylvia, he didn’t try to see into the mesh. He was too busy checking out my legs. “Although from the looks of things,” he drawled, “I think I’m already seein’ the hottest thing to come around these parts in a long, long time.”

“The peppers are over there.” I waved toward the counter and the display set up just behind it where we had bags of dried peppers arranged alphabetically (guess whose idea that was).

With thumb and forefinger, the cowboy knocked his hat a little farther back on his head. “All right, then, I can take a hint. You’re all business and no fun, hey, little pepper?”

Since I was not technically a little pepper, I figured I could ignore this.

“If you’re looking for heat, you might want to try Scotch bonnet peppers,” I told him.

He scratched a hand along his jawline. “Those are for sissies. I’m looking for something that packs a little more punch.”

“Three hundred fifty thousand Scoville Heat Units.” I jiggled a bag of Scotch bonnets in front of his nose. “That’s plenty of punch. A bell pepper is—”

“A bell pepper is zero. A banana pepper is somewhere around one hundred. You’re not dealing with an amateur here, little pepper. I know how Scoville Heat Units are used to figure the spiciness of a pepper. And three hundred fifty thousand . . .” His smile inched up a face that was as craggy as some of the desert we’d driven through on our way from Las Vegas to San Antonio. “Here in Texas, we can handle our heat.”

“Then how about Red 7-Pot?” We didn’t keep a lot of these around, and I needed to rummage through the display for the right bag. “They’re from Trinidad, and there, they say one pepper is enough to spice seven pots of chili.”

His eyebrows rose a fraction of an inch. “SHUs?”

“Seven hundred eighty thousand,” I told him.

“Gol darn!” He screwed up his face. “That’s girlie stuff!”

It was a shame he couldn’t see the sour look I shot him. “Then how about this?” I slapped another bag of peppers on the counter. “Moruga Scorpion. Two million SHUs.”

He rubbed his hands together. “Now you’re talkin’! Anything else? Anything more?”

There was. One more pepper. That last fiery step of the descent into spicy hell from which there was no escape. I sized him up. He wasn’t a kid, and that, at least, was in his favor. Young guys often think that how much heat they can take is a sign of their manhood. But we were in blistering territory here, and I didn’t like to think what kind of pain might result if some crazy cook decided that his manhood depended on the size of his SHUs. This guy was middle-aged. Old enough to be careful. At least I hoped so.

I put one more bag on the counter. “Carolina Reaper,” I said. “Starts out sweet. Right before it demolishes your taste buds. It’s a little hotter than the Moruga Scorpion.”

“I’ll take it!”

He reached for the bag.

I held it just far enough away so he couldn’t get it. “You’ll be careful?”

The man threw back his head and laughed. “Oh, honey! This is Texas. Careful ain’t in our vocabulary!”

It was all the advice I could offer, and he wasn’t going to listen, anyway. I turned him over to Sylvia and let her ring up the sale.

Once he was gone, Sylvia slipped out of the Palace to stand at my side. “So? Where were you this morning? And what did you find out?”

“Not much of anything.” I hated to admit it. “I tried to talk to John Wesley Montgomery, but his secretary claimed he wasn’t in this morning. Yeah, like I believe that!”

Sylvia tipped her head. “Montgomery? That canned chili guy? He’s the one who’s been at the fund-raisers,
right? The one who gets chauffeured around in that big black limo with the Tri-C plates?”

I nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see me. “Yeah. Dom worked for him, and he stole some recipes from Rosa and Martha and Tri-C is making the chili and putting it in cans.”

Sylvia, of course, did not understand the significance of this. Or feel the outrage that boiled through me at the very thought.

She turned to scan the fairgrounds, and I didn’t know what she was looking for. At least not until she clamped a hand on my arm tight enough to cut off my circulation.

“Well, of course his secretary told you Montgomery wasn’t in,” she said, pointing with her free hand. “It’s true. He couldn’t have been in his office. See! See, over there! That’s the fourth time I’ve seen it today. You do see it, right?”

I did see, and my heart thudded at the same time my brain whirled over the possibilities.

It was Montgomery’s black limo, and it was slowly cruising the perimeter of the fairgrounds.

•   •   •

Was Montgomery hanging around in the hopes of snaffling up a few more chili recipes?

Or was there an even more sinister reason for his visit to the Showdown?