The Big Chili (6 page)

T
he next night
I
went to
J
enny
B
raidwell's place. Jenny had been my college roommate for four years, when we had challenged our intellects and our social lives on the Lake Shore campus of Loyola University. I majored in English but decided, in the end, that I didn't want to teach, and that was how I ended up doing secret catering and working at a real estate office, occasionally tutoring young people who didn't get
The Scarlet Letter
or
Moby-Dick.

Jenny had majored in elementary education, and she was now a respectable third-grade teacher. She had a cute two-bedroom apartment in a twelve-story building in the center of town, and while I liked my space better, I did admire Jenny's sense of style. She had inherited some rustic-looking furniture, which she highlighted with little country accents
like a whimsical goose wearing an apron and a wooden magazine rack with a dotted-swiss skirt.

When I walked in, I waved to Jenny, who was tying her sandy red hair into a ponytail in front of her hall mirror; we were distracted from our meeting by a dark-haired child, who launched himself at me and began patting my pockets. This was Henry, Jenny's nephew, who knew that I sometimes carried Baggies full of cookies on the off chance that I would encounter a small boy. Jenny babysat for Henry fairly often; his father sometimes had the night shift at the post office, and his mother, Jenny's sister, had an evening class twice a week.

I pried his hands from me and forced him to give me a proper hug. “Hello, Sir Henry of Pine Haven.”

Henry shook his head. “I'm Sir Henry of
Weston
.”

This was true. Henry lived a town over. “I stand corrected, Sir Henry of Weston. And what are you seeking in my pockets?”

“You know,” said Henry. “Stop tickling me.”

“I'm not. I'm just brushing some dust off of your clothing. There's so
much
, Henry.” He giggled and then screamed, so I finally let go of him and let him find the cookies. “Only two before dinner, or your parents will never let me see you again,” I warned. “You need Aunt Jenny's healthy dinner— What are we having, Aunt Jenny?”

“Hot dogs,” Jenny said drily. “And frozen French fries.”

“You need Aunt Jenny's
minimally
healthy dinner to stabilize you before you consume more sugar.”

“Stabilize,” said Henry, who liked learning words. He was newly six, but had the brain of an older child. “What's
stabilize
?”

“You know—to strengthen and balance you. Like the big
blocks at the bottom help to stabilize those giant towers you like to build.”

“Huh.” Grasping his cookie bags in one hand, Henry took my hand in his other and led me to Jenny's rather cluttered dining room table, where she had cleared a corner for him and given him some Play-Doh. “Look,” he said. He pointed at a strange blob of clay sitting on a base of tinfoil.

“It's kind of a hideous color, dude.”

Henry laughed. “Hideous,” he said.

I sent an apologetic look to Jenny, whose lips curled in disapproval. “How did you get that shade?”

Henry shrugged his little shoulders. “I mixed orange and brown.”

“And what is that supposed to be?”

“A kind of monster guy.”

“Well, he's pretty scary, Henry. You have done well. Now eat your cookies and never darken my door again. I need to speak with your aunt on official business.”

Henry giggled and took out some more Play-Doh. Jenny and I moved into the kitchen, where I asked her for the latest news.

“There's always gossip at a school,” she said. “I learned this week that one of the kids' mothers is leaving his dad for the father of a different kid in the same school. It's embarrassing, the things some people do,” she said.

“Yeah. While they're telling their children to lead moral lives.”

“Exactly.” Jenny and I exchanged self-righteous expressions, and then I shrugged.

“I can't really judge anyone. I did something bad.”

This got her interest. She had been prying apart frozen
French fries to set on a baking sheet. Now she paused and looked me in the eye. “What happened?”

I told her the tale: Bingo. Alice Dixon. The chili. Detective Jay Parker. How the fact that I sometimes made food for her school events and allowed her to let on she had made it herself was actually something I did for a lot of people—and something I had done for Pet Grandy.

Jenny pursed her lips, finished her French fries, and put them in the oven. “So what's the big deal? You're clearly not a murderer. And you said the cops don't suspect your friend. So you're in the clear.”

“But I lied, Jenn. To the police.”

“You didn't
lie.
You just didn't tell them a detail, because it has no relevance.”

I sighed. “See, you're just defending me now because you're my friend. But I have to tell them, don't I?”

She was working on the package of hot dogs now. The things some people ate. . . . “Well, clearly it's bugging you, Li. So why not go to the cops now and say you couldn't tell them because your friend's reputation would have been ruined, and could they please keep it under their hats.”

“Yeah, I don't know if the police make promises like that.”

“You should not tell,” said Henry, standing in the doorway with a stern expression on his little face. He had a tiny chocolate mustache that made him look like a wise Poirot.

“Henry, kindly stop eavesdropping and go back to your clay.”

“I'm not ebesdropping. I was just listening. And you wouldn't want to make that lady sad and lose all of her friends. They all like her because they think she's a good cooker, but
they would all be mean to her if they found out she was pretending. This is like an episode of
Arthur
,” he concluded.

I didn't watch
Arthur
, but it was disheartening to know that my life resembled the plot of a children's cartoon.

“It's not that simple, Henry.”

He looked disappointed. Jenny started frying her hot dogs in a pan. How had I never noticed her minimal culinary skills when we lived together?

Jenny wanted to talk without her nephew around. She pointed away from us. “Hen, go look in the floor of my closet. I need one of the skeins of yarn from in there. It's blue. Oh, and there might be some old toys there that I was going to throw out. You can check them out, see if you want them.”

Henry disappeared so quickly that I wondered if I had seen him at all. Then he was back, restoring my belief, holding two plastic-sealed action figures and
not
a skein of blue yarn. “These are brand-new Batmans,” he said, breathless and mildly indignant. “Why would you throw dese guys away? I like guys like dese!”

Jenny shrugged. “Okay, okay. I guess they're yours, then, buddy. Maybe those two action guys would like to fight your blob monster.”

This was clearly the best idea Henry had heard all day. I helped him open the ridiculous hard plastic packaging, and he carefully removed the Batman and the Robin toys, along with their plastic accessories, then disappeared into the dining room.

“Dinner in ten minutes, Henry,” Jenny called.

There was no response, but we could hear distant sounds of battle, which were mainly a series of
Aaaaaaghhhhh
noises.
I did hear one “That is hideous!” and a warning that someone should “never darken my door again.” Henry learned fast.

Jenny snapped her fingers at me. “Hurry up; let's solve your problem before he comes back. And then we can talk about our latest crushes. I am assuming you must have one, even though Angelo ruined you for love.”

“Fine. Solve my problem.”

“Why not just send the cops an e-mail? Just word it carefully and apologize and say that it was a delicate situation.” She brushed a stray red hair out of her face; her green eyes held no irony.

“That seems weird, though, like I'm avoiding a face-to-face meeting. Like I'm hiding something. You should see the looks on their faces when they ask you questions, Jenn. It's disconcerting, even for innocent people.”

“Probably
only
for innocent people. If you have enough gall to murder someone, I'm guessing you're not bothered by a few questions. Ugh. These look gross. But they'll taste good, don't worry.” She started putting the hot dogs into buns.

“And the thing is, the longer I wait, the harder it gets to do anything, because every day that goes by is another day I waited to tell them, which will also look weird.”

She nodded. “I see your point. And what if coming forward starts to make you look suspicious? Like you crave attention or something? Don't criminals do that?”

“I don't know what criminals do. I just want this to be over so I can go back to my life.”

“I'm with you. I would be freaked out to watch someone just drop dead in front of me.”

We left things unresolved and joined Henry with our plates
of dogs and fries. As Jenny predicted, they tasted good, despite the grease and salt. It was comfort food, which had been our specialty in college, the land of pizza and chocolate chip cookies.

While we ate I gazed at Henry's action guys, whom he had left knee-deep in Play-Doh. They were frozen there, trapped until Henry decided to set them free. What amazing power children had, simply because of their imaginations. I felt imprisoned in a way similar to the plastic Batman: frozen with indecision and trapped by the choices I had already made.

Later, Jenny and I did the dishes while Henry played. She confided that she had liked a man at work and had dated him several times, but had recently broken it off. “Can you imagine?” she asked. “He asked me out, paid all this attention to me, took me out on dates, but never mentioned that he was married. I had to hear that from a coworker. It was more than embarrassing.”

“What a jerk! Can't you get fired for something like that? Him, I mean—not you.”

“I don't know. He's actually one of the administrators, which makes it worse.”

“Ugh. I hope people realize that you had no idea.”

Jenny nodded. “Some of my friends passed the word. But still. I turn red whenever someone looks at me. Thank God I didn't sleep with the man.”

She sighed, putting away the last dried dish. “Henry never did bring my yarn, and I need to start making snowflakes for our Christmas show.”

“It's October.”

“Yeah, which means Christmas is around the corner for
teachers. We plan in advance, Li. These darn things take a long time to make, but they're really pretty, and the kids love to see them.” Her face warmed at the idea of happy children.

“Great. So you'll be holed up in here making snowflakes by hand, and I'll be lying low, hiding from the police and making secret food for people. Maybe we
both
have agoraphobia.”

She laughed. “We're not in college anymore. Maybe your parents just don't realize that we can act like adults. Henry!”

He appeared, a toy in each hand. “What?”

“Remember the other thing I needed from my closet?”

“Ah!” He darted away again in his warp-speed way. Then he returned with a skein of pale blue yarn. “Here ya go. Sorry about dat.” He handed Jenny the yarn and began to retreat.

I grabbed him before he made it out the door and gave him a sound hugging, with a kiss on his messy hair. He wiggled and complained, which made it somehow more satisfying. “You're the best, Henry.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, shaking his head as he left the room.

“He loves it,” Jenny whispered.

I left half an hour later; Jenny was disappointed, since we'd had a good conversation going, but I saw her eyeing the blue yarn. She was probably calculating just how many snowflakes she'd have to make per day to cover her classroom ceiling by December.

Henry saw me to the door. “Say hi to your dog for me,” he said. “And thanks for the cookies.”

“You're welcome, Sir Henry of Weston. Keep Pine Haven safe with Batman and Robin.”

I held out my hand for a high five, and he slapped it incredibly hard. “Ouch, Henry.”

“Sorry.”

I gave him a crushing hug, waved again to Jenny, and left. Jenny and I, to my disappointment, had not solved my dilemma. At least it had distracted her from asking about my love life or commenting on my past with Angelo; but her idea of sending a personal e-mail to Jay Parker was oddly appealing.

As I drove home I saw flashing blue and red lights in my rearview mirror; heart beating rapidly, I began to pull over, but the car flew past me. I sat for a moment, recovering. The thought of meeting with the police, in that instant, had been terrifying. For a split second I had feared they suspected me and were coming to take me away.

I sighed and pulled back into
traffic.