Death by Devil's Breath (4 page)

Curious as to how it was going, I watched the first contestant stir his pot. I have to admit, it was a little strange to see a man in monk’s robes at a chili cook-off, but from what I’d heard, Brother William had all the right reasons. His monastery back in Minnesota was looking to make some extra cash, and they’d decided a chili mix was just the ticket. In fact, I’d heard they’d already chosen a name for their mix: Devil’s Breath with an Angel’s Touch. Cute marketing. We’d see if his recipe lived up to it.

The second man at the table was Karl Sinclair, he of the giant touring motor home with his picture painted on the side of it. Karl was a perennial Showdown contestant, and he’d won a few titles in his day. My opinion? The hype got him further than his cooking ever would. But then, Karl was pretty good at hype.

The third man was someone I didn’t recognize from the circuit, a young guy with golden hair that gleamed in the stage lights. In fact, everything about this guy was shiny, from his perfect setup to his glistening chili pot. He wore khakis and a pristine white shirt, the sleeves rolled above the elbows, all topped with a white (how did he keep it so clean?) apron. I watched him mix, sniff, and add a little salt to the chili pot, thinking that he looked more like a model in a cooking magazine than a contestant at a cook-off.

But hey, who was I to judge? I’d had people tell me I looked more like a bartender at a biker spot than a woman who sold chili spices.

The fourth and final contestant . . .

My gaze swung toward the woman who chopped peppers down at the far end of the table. Tall and in her forties, she moved with ease, like she was perfectly at home with a knife in her hands. For a couple seconds, I watched her graceful movements: the quick, efficient way she diced the peppers and the way she swept them off the cutting board and into her chili pot. She blew a curl of dark hair out of her eyes, put a hand to the small of her back, and stepped back for a moment’s rest.

That’s when she looked up and her eyes met mine.

What was that I said about her being good with a knife? Well, she was plenty good with daggers, too, because that’s exactly what she shot in my direction. If looks could kill, I wouldn’t just be dead, I would have been drawn, quartered, and buried deep.

I sucked in a breath and glanced over my shoulder, sure she must be aiming that death ray look at someone behind me, but there was no one else around.

No one but me in the crosshairs of a perfect stranger.

Or was she?

My eyes narrowed, I exchanged her look for look, thinking there was something vaguely familiar about the set of her shoulders and the tilt of her nose. She was taller than me, I could tell that all the way from over where I stood, and quickly, I rummaged through my mental Rolodex. Tall, middle-aged women. Tall, middle-aged women with dark eyes and hair. Tall, middle-aged women with dark eyes and hair who looked like they would like nothing better than to see me go up in flames.

Just like her pot of chili was just about to do.

The woman realized her pot had boiled over just a second after I did, and she snapped to attention to take care of it and released me from the tractor-beam hold of her Evil Eye.

Fine by me. I didn’t have a clue who she was, but believe me, I intended to find out.

I would have done it right then and there, too, if just as I stepped toward the stage, I didn’t hear The Great Osborn’s voice ring through the auditorium.

“You really should mind your own business, Dickie.” Osborn and Dickie Dunkin stood toe to toe, and hey, I was never one to miss out on any excitement. Anxious to find out what the beef was, I scooted toward the stage, where just the night before, they had both performed for the Showdown crowd. “And while you’re at it, why don’t you take those stupid jokes of yours and stick ’em where the sun don’t shine!”

“That would be at my Saturday night show,” Dickie countered. This morning he was dressed in khakis and an oatmeal-colored golf shirt that made his face look pastier than ever. He propped his fists on his hips. “There won’t be room for sunshine in here on Saturday,” he purred. “Because my show is going to be sold out. Unlike the shows of the rest of you losers.”

This time, he wasn’t just talking to The Great Osborn. Hermosa was there in a flowy purple caftan and Dickie shot a look her way as well as one toward Yancy, who was already seated at the judges’ table.

“Not talking about you, Reverend!” Dickie called out when Linda Love walked onto the stage and slipped into her seat. “You, you’re not a loser like the rest of ’em. You’re a real doll!”

Reverend Love smiled in the polite sort of way people do when they’re not sure what they’ve gotten themselves into.

Hermosa, it should be noted, did not. In fact, she marched around to the front of the table, shot one look at the reverend, and poked a finger into Dickie’s stomach. “Watch it, Dickie.” Another poke for good measure. “If you’re going to call anybody a doll—”

“It’s you, honey lamb!” Dickie smacked a big, wet kiss on her cheek. “You’re my one and only.”

“And you’re a real big mouth,” The Great Osborn growled. He put his hands on Hermosa’s shoulders and stepped her to the side so he could face Dickie. “How about minding your own business for a change?”

“How about you keeping your mouth shut, and your hands off my girl,” Dickie shot back.

“Oh yeah?” Osborn took a step toward him and after that . . .

Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it a melee. It was more like a little pushing and shoving, like kids on a schoolyard who are afraid to take a couple real swings and, instead, opt for trying to look like tough guys instead of actually acting like them.

Osborn threw a punch that missed Dickie by a mile.

Dickie ducked out of the way, tripped over his own feet, and stumbled back against the judges’ table. Styrofoam bowls and plastic silverware went flying.

By the time Dickie righted himself, his face was an ugly shade of purple. He curled his fingers and raised his hands toward Osborn’s throat.

That is, until Nick hopped onto the stage and stepped between the two men.

“That’s it. To your seats.” Talk about looks that could flash-freeze a perp at twenty paces! His shoulders steady and every muscle tensed, Nick glanced back and forth between the two men. “Now!” he barked.

Turned out Dickie and Osborn could move pretty fast for a couple middle-aged guys.

A few more seconds and it was all over. Osborn took his seat at the far end of the table closest to the audience; Dickie took his seat on the other end, next to Reverend Love, who along with Hermosa was already putting the place settings back where they belonged.

Excitement over, Tumbleweed stepped to the center of the stage, rubbed his hands together, and glanced from contestants to judges, and when he realized everyone was where they were supposed to be and no blood had been shed, he heaved a sigh of relief. “It’s time to start,” he said. “We’ll get the auditorium doors open and get folks in here.”

I scampered up to the stage, set down the little container I’d brought with me, and whispered in Yancy’s ear that the lime juice was near his right hand, where he could easily grab it, then I ducked backstage before anybody could point out that I was somebody who didn’t belong there.

From there, I stepped back to watch visitors file into their seats. A few minutes later, the judging officially began.

So here’s the thing about a chili cook-off. The way it works—or at least the way the Showdown contests always work—is that the person in charge of the contest (in this case, Tumbleweed) takes a bowl from each judge over to the contestants, one at a time. Each contestant ladles one scoop of their chili into a bowl and that chili is then delivered to the judge for tasting. As for what they’re supposed to be judging, according to the orientation Tumbleweed gives the judges before each contest, they are supposed to look for things like good flavor, the texture of the chili, the aroma, and how skillfully the spices are blended. Of course, for this special Devil’s Breath category, heat mattered, too.

When everyone was settled, Tumbleweed got the first scoop from Brother William, delivered it to The Great Osborn, went back for another, and so on.

“They’re not actually going to eat that stuff, are they?”

Since I knew Nick was a philistine when it came to chili, I tried to be understanding. That didn’t mean I didn’t throw a look over my shoulder when he came up behind me. “Spicy is what chili is all about.”

“The only thing spicy is good for is burning your lips and scalding your insides.”

Like I could miss an opening as good as that?

I looked up into Nick’s eyes. Even all the neon in Vegas couldn’t compete with that vivid blue. “What’s wrong with burning your lips?” I asked him.

He looked down at me. “It all depends if you’re talking a little burning or too much.”

I leaned back. Just a little. Just a hairsbreadth closer to his chest. “Is there such a thing as too much?”

Nick barked out a laugh. It was the first I realized his gaze had moved up the stage, where The Great Osborn had just swallowed his first spoonful of Brother William’s brew and his lips puckered and the tips of his ears turned red.

Nick laughed. “Guess that’s my answer.”

And here I thought we were talking about something other than chili.

I crossed my arms over my chest and turned my attention back to the contest, watching as Hermosa swallowed a taste of chili, coughed, and pounded her chest.

Yancy was next. He popped a spoonful of chili in his mouth, let it sit on his tongue for a couple seconds, swallowed, and smiled when he looked into the wings. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he knew exactly where I was standing when he sent that silent thank-you for the lime juice.

Next up, Reverend Love, and it seemed she was not one to take chances. She put a tiny bit of chili on the tip of her spoon and carefully touched it to the tip of her tongue. She let it settle in, flicked her tongue toward the spoon again, and her mouth fell open with surprise. As soon as she was done writing down a few comments on the score sheet next to her, she took a drink of water.

“Amateur,” I grumbled. “Water doesn’t help.”

“So now you’re a chemist?”

This time, I didn’t dignify Nick’s question with so much as a glance. “You don’t have to be a chemist to know spices. The capsaicin in peppers is what’s hot, and when you taste it, then drink water, all the water does is spread the hotness all around your mouth.”

“So now you know about hot lips and hot mouths?”

This time, I wasn’t going to rise to the bait. But then, I was pretty busy watching Dickie, who spooned up a mouthful of chili and called out, “You guys are wimps! No wonder none of you are going to be up there with me and the reverend when she makes Vegas history on Sunday. You have to be bold to make it in this town. You have to be daring!” And with that, he swallowed down two more big gulps of Devil’s Breath.

Dickie’s cheeks turned fire-engine red.

His shoulders stiffened.

He took another taste.

So, okay, the guy was a total jackass, but I had to give him credit; he knew how to handle his Devil’s Breath.

And so it went.

Karl Sinclair’s chili elicited much the same responses except from The Great Osborn, who after one taste, had to excuse himself from the table so he could stand backstage, pound his chest, and cough.

The shiny guy with the pristine apron got a thumbs-up from Yancy, and the woman contestant . . . well, she caught sight of me, and after that, I’m not sure what was hotter, the looks she shot my way or her chili.

No matter. Like all the other chilies before hers, she got pretty much the same responses, a little choking, a little gagging, a whole lot of red faces.

“You guys are lightweights,” Dickie called out and took another taste of the woman’s chili. “You think this stuff is hot? You don’t know hot! Hermosa, now there’s one hot chick! And hot—” Another bite and Dickie sat back in his chair. “There’s a restaurant here in town that serves only hot food. It’s got three seating sections: daring, wild, and downright crazy.”

He hauled in a breath. “And then there’s the place where all the chili is free.” Dickie pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his brow. “This place . . . and the chili is free and . . .” There was a glass of water nearby and he glugged it down so fast, the water dribbled over his chin. “All the chili you can eat is free, but . . .” His shoulders dropped, his arms fell to his sides.

“Water is ten dollars a glass.”

It was the last thing Dickie said before he fell, facedown, into his bowl of chili, and the last bad joke he’d ever tell.

CHAPTER 3

So much for selling bowls of Devil’s Breath for charity.

Within a couple minutes, hotel security showed up. The local cops weren’t far behind. They interviewed the folks in the audience, and I watched as, one by one, they were told they could go and the cops turned to one another and mumbled, “That one didn’t see anything, either.”

As for the judges, the contestants, Ruth Ann, Tumbleweed, Nick, and I (the one who didn’t belong, but luckily, no one had noticed that yet), we were herded backstage and told to stay put and wait.