Death by Devil's Breath (12 page)

“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!”

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.

I got over there just as Osborn added a twist to a long blue balloon and it popped in his face.

“Do it again! Do it again!” The urchin in front of him figured the exploding balloon was part of the act. She clapped her hands and shrieked.

Yes, there was a whole lot of shrieking going on.

Osborn blew up another balloon, twisted it a few times, and handed it off to the kid. When he was done, he stepped back and, with one hand pressed to his chest, gasped for air. That’s when he noticed me. “You’re not one of the guests,” he said.

“No, but I need to talk to you.”

A boy of five pushed me out of the way. “I want a butterfly!” he yelled.

His plastic red nose twitching, Osborn made the kid a butterfly, twisting the balloon this way and that while his gaze traveled over the army of kids who raced through the yard and skimmed the thirty or so adults who weren’t even pretending they could control them. “They won’t be happy if they figure out you’re a party crasher,” he said.

“The party givers, you mean.”

Osborn’s blue Afro twitched when he nodded.

“I get it. I don’t want to ruin the gig for you. You could make a balloon animal for me,” I suggested. “Then they might think I actually belong here.”

He blew up a pink balloon and twisted it.

It popped.

Osborn mumbled a word he shouldn’t have said at a kids’ party. “I hate balloon animals,” he added with a look toward the adults, who by this time were oblivious to the sounds of bursting balloons. “Why can’t I just do card tricks? I’m really good at card tricks.”

I had seen his card tricks onstage at Creosote Cal’s and I wasn’t sure
really good
applied, but I didn’t point that out. Just so he couldn’t tell me to shut up and mind my own business, I waited until he was in the midst of blowing up another balloon before I started in again. “You and Dickie had a fight yesterday. You argued about ticket sales to your shows this weekend.”

Osborn gave the pink balloon a couple twists. “So?”

“So now Dickie’s dead.”

He glanced at me. “What happened to your chin?”

Once I’d got back to the RV the night before, I’d realized the wound I’d sustained thanks to my run-in with Yancy’s fence wasn’t nearly as serious as I’d feared when it happened. I’d taken care of it. Plenty of soap and water. A slathering of Neosporin. It might have been a little less conspicuous if I could have found some regular old bandages and hadn’t had to go next door and ask Johnny Purdue, who ran a stand that sold cold drinks, if he had any he could spare. Not only did Johnny have bandages, but he had little kids. My injury might have been a little less noticeable if not for the Angry Birds bandage.

“It doesn’t matter what happened to my chin. What happened to Dickie, that’s what’s important.”