An Unthymely Death (17 page)

 

 

 

 

My encounter with Pete Hitchens wasn’t quite as pleasant. He came tearing into Thyme and Seasons the next afternoon. “Mustard seeds,” he puffed, heading for the shelf of bulk herbs. “Gotta have more mustard seeds.” Unlike Homer, Pete is plump, red-faced, and mostly bald, with a fringe of gingery hair around his ears and a gingery mustache across his upper lip. He seems to be out of breath most of the time.

“I’ve got plenty of yellow seeds, and mustard powder,” I said, “but I’m all out of brown seeds. I expect them in sometime next week.”

“Next
week!
” he wheezed apoplectically. “I need them brown seeds
now!
I been studyin’ on Homer’s beer mustard, and I figgered out why it always wins. I aim to make me some jes’ like it, only better. This year, I’m gonna get me a whole bunch of blue ribbons.”

“I’m really sorry,” I said. I wanted to ask why he hadn’t made his mustard in time to age it, but thought it might inflame him further. “Whole Foods in Austin always carries mustard seeds. It won’t take you more than an hour to drive up there and—”

Pete glared at me, his red face getting even redder. “I don’t relish drivin’ all day jes’ fer a few seeds. That’s what I get fer dependin’ on small-time bidness folks. Shoulda known you’d let me down in my hour of need.”

I rose to defend myself. “Around contest time, lots of people buy mustard to cook with. I had plenty yesterday, but—”

“You ain’t got none now,” he growled, “and that’s what counts.” Muttering under his breath, he paid for several ounces of yellow seeds and mustard powder and stalked out, slamming the door behind him.

“Are you all right?” Ruby wanted to know, sticking her head through the door. “What was all that ruckus?”

“That was one of your contestants,” I said. “The hot-tempered one. Seems he’s trying to copy his competitor’s beer mustard and ran out of seeds.”

“This is getting more interesting by the minute,” Ruby said. “I can’t wait to see how it turns out.”

“Better wear your bulletproof vest,” I advised. “If this guy gets as upset over losing as he does when he can’t get what he wants, you might need it.”

 

 

The day of the contest dawned sunny and hot, and the TV weatherwoman was predicting that the mercury would hit a hundred before the sun went down. But long before that, we’d know for certain who’d won the Mad for Mustard competition. Would Homer make a clean sweep of the field, or would Pete make a comeback?

The contest entries close at ten A.M., and the judging takes place between ten-thirty and noon. When I got there at nine, the tables for all the entries were lined up in a double row down the middle of the judging tent, with the Division Two dishes arranged on one side, and the Division One mustards on the other. With my
Enterprise
press badge pinned to my T-shirt (which was already pasted to my back with sweat) and my reporter’s notebook in my hand, I strolled along, taking note of the variety of mouthwatering dishes.

It looked like this year’s Division Two competition was going to be outstanding. Maylene Grudge had entered a salad made with oranges, red onions, avocado, and yellow peppers, with an orange-honey mustard dressing. Genevieve Schultz had entered her famous Grilled Chicken with Rosemary-Mustard Marinade, and Prissy Taggert had cooked up a dish of Spicy Sautéed Veggies that she’d learned to make when her husband, Alva, got sent to Bangkok for a year. Percy Grimes had entered—again—his family’s old-fashioned gingerbread. Sniffing appreciatively, I made a note to get the recipes for some of these dishes. The judges were going to have a very difficult time selecting winners.

But on the other side of the table, it appeared that Ruby and the two other Division One judges might have things easy, after all. Pete had already brought his mustards and the contest monitor had set them out, one or two entries in every category, along with plastic cups filled with mustard, plastic spoons for the judges, and several bottles of water—also for the judges, who would certainly need them. But Homer’s entries hadn’t arrived yet. It was certainly odd for him to be late, especially since he’d filled out all the paperwork the night before. By nine-fifteen, everybody was beginning to frown at their watches and ask, “Where’s Homer? How come he ain’t here?”

A few minutes later, we found out why. Ollie Benbow dashed into the tent, waving his arms. “Homer’s been in a wreck,” he cried. “His pickup was run down by a garbage truck. It was totaled.”

A dismayed chorus of
oh-no
s filled the tent.

“But Homer’s gonna be okay,” Ollie assured us. “Just a few broke bones is all, and some cuts caused by flyin’ glass. The doc says he’ll be outta the hospital tomorrow.”

A sigh of relief swept the crowd. “Attaboy, Homer!” somebody shouted. “Way to go, you old sonuvagun,” somebody else yelled. “Let’s hear it fer Homer!” And all of Homer’s Mustard Mavericks began to cheer.

Ollie stood there, waiting for quiet to settle again. “That’s the good news,” he said at last, his face gloomy. “The bad news is that Homer’s contest mustards was riding in a box on the front seat. They’re all smashed to hell and gone—nothing left of ’em but a puddle o’ yella mustard and broke glass all over the pavement.”

People stared at each other in stunned silence. “No mustard!” Ralph Rattle lamented. “Well, hell, we might jes’ as well go on home. There ain’t gonna be no competition this year.”

And all of Homer’s backers began to mumble and mutter and discuss things grimly among themselves. I couldn’t blame them. They were no doubt vastly relieved that their friend was okay, but they had to be grieving the loss of all those wonderful, one-of-a-kind gourmet mustards, the fruit of Homer’s hard work and creativity. And it certainly looked as if Ralph was right, and this year’s competition was going down the drain. In the unforeseen absence of Homer Mayo and his mustards, Pete Hitchens would have his once-in-a-lifetime chance to grab a fistful of blue ribbons.

But that isn’t how it turned out. Two minutes before the deadline, Pete hurried into the tent carrying a cardboard box filled with a half dozen or more pots of mustard. As everybody watched, speculating about what was going on, he handed the box over to the contest monitor. A few minutes later, the new entries—
Homer’s
entries!—were arranged on the table, and Ruby and her three fellow judges were ushered in. And within the hour, to the delight of the Mustard Mavericks, Homer Mayo’s mustards had taken all five blue ribbons.

I turned around, expecting to see Pete throw a temper tantrum, the way he’d done the year before, only more so. But as the prizes were announced, he just stood there with a big goofy grin pasted on his red face. And when the judges had given Pete his five red ribbons, all the old guys in the bleachers stormed the floor, hoisted him onto their shoulders, and marched around the tables, shouting and singing, “He ain’t too old to cut the mustard anymore.” And then this band of grumpy old geezers, with Pete still riding on their shoulders, disappeared in the direction of the hospital, to take the champion his well-earned blue ribbons. And no doubt they’d manage to smuggle several six-packs of beer, a big bag of pretzels, and—of course—mustard into Homer’s hospital room, as well.

And how did Pete just happen to have all those pots of Homer’s mustard handy, exactly enough to replace the ones that got smashed in the wreck? Well, it took a bit of superior sleuthing on my part to dig up the details, but eventually I found out that Pete had been collecting Homer’s famous mustards on the sly, from friends, family, wherever he could get his hands on them. He aimed to analyze them and try to figure out why they took so many blue ribbons. In the end, he had several pots of each of Homer’s mustards. He’d boxed them up and brought them along with him to the competition, intending to dispose of them after the prizes were all awarded.

But that was only part of the explanation. So Pete had Homer’s mustards. But he certainly didn’t have to enter them in the competition, thereby spoiling his own chances of winning. Why did he do it? Some said it was because he didn’t want to disappoint the crowd, which had come to see another no-holds-barred mustard competition. Ruby suggested that he did it out of a burning desire to test his mustards one more time against the best that Homer could offer. “What’s a hot dog without mustard?” she asked rhetorically. “What’s a contest without competition? What good is winning first place if there’s nobody around to take second?”