"Where waj the money?” Ruby asked.
"In a garage in Waco," Charlie said. "In a safe that belonged to Jerry Jeffs uncle.”
"Waco is a long way to go to hide your money,” McQuaid said.
"Not if you want to keep it from your about-to-be-ex,” Charlie replied pragmatically.
"You said you found something else in the stash,” I reminded him. "Besides the money.”
“Yeah. Two letters. Blackmail letters. Written by Edna Lund to Jerry Jeff Cody.”
"Wow!” McQuaid straightened up. "Have you got them with you?”
"Are you kidding?” Charlie gave him a look. "I’ve already dropped them off at the county attorney's office. But I can tell you what's in them. The first is a polite offer of half of the ranch if Jerry Jeff will probate the original will. The second letter, which was written a few weeks later, is a trifle nastier. Lund threatens to turn him in to the IRS if he doesn’t go ahead with probate.”
“Well,” I said, "that ought to just about nail it. I’m sure the county prosecutor is jumping for joy. He’ll use it to argue that it wasn’t a crime of impulse, after all, and go for first degree.”
"What I want to know is how Edna found out that J J was cheating on his taxes,” Ruby said.
“I’m guessing that her father knew about it and told her," Charlie said, “out of spite. Old man Lund was that sort of guy.”
Ruby folded up the empty cardboard pizza box and pushed it into the wastebasket. "What’s going to happen to Edna, do you think?”
"She’s already been charged with attempted murder in China's case,” McQuaid said, "and she'll no doubt be charged with the Cody killing in the next day or so. Her father’s death will probably be investigated, as well. Edna said something that made China think she might have had a hand in that."
"There’s something I’m still curious about, China,” Charlie said. "Did you ever find Miss Velma’s will?”
"Talk about wild goose chases,” I said.
McQuaid chuckled. "That’s one of the interesting ironies of this case. Miss Velma is like a three-year-old with an attention deficit disorder. When China and Joyce and I got eveiything sorted out, we realized that the old lady hadn’t been talking about her will. She was trying to tell us about Harmon Lund’s will—about that codicil.”
"You see,” I said, "Lund’s will wasn’t with all the other client files. It was in a separate carton with Miss Velma’s private papers. She seems to have put it there to keep it for Edna.”
"For Edna?” Charlie asked, surprised.
"We’re guessing, of course,” I said, "but we think Miss Velma must have been sympathetic toward Edna, who was going to lose her inheritance through her father’s irrational act. Velma very likely expected Edna to destroy the codicil, and she didn't intend that the file copy be found. So she hid it in a box of her personal papers, intending to hand it over to Edna when the time came. By the time Eidna began looking for it, however, Miss Velma’s memory was no longer reliable.”
"But Monday night, when she was being moved into my room for safekeeping,” McQuaid said, "Miss Velma had one of her intermittent flashes of lucidity.” He looked at me. “She’s taking some sort of herbal pills MaeBelle gives her—ginkaboo, or something like that. It seems to be helping.”
"Ginkgo,” I said. "Ginkgo biloba. It increases the flow of blood to the brain.”
"Yeah, whatever. Anyway, she heard Joyce and me talking about Jerry JefFs death. She put two and two together, and realized that Edna held a powerful motive to kill him. But when she started to tell us about it, Edna came into the room. Miss Velma got a vacant look and began babbling about her will and Bunny and a bunch of other stuff.” "But Edna wasn’t fooled,” I said, finishing out the story for Charlie. "She knew precisely what Miss Velma was talking about. So she came looking for me to make sure that / didn’t find it.”
"Speaking of Bunny,” Ruby said, "did you hear what’s happening to her?”
We hadn’t, so Ruby filled us in. The Manor’s director was now its former director. Liz McKenzie, the board president, had made a couple of phone calls to San Antonio, then held a stormy session with Opal Hogge, and followed that with an emergency board meeting. Apparently, Harmon Lund had made one of his phony promises to Opal, agreeing to rewrite his will and leave a substantial sum of money to the Manor in return for preferential treatment. When Angie walked in and found Opal shaking Miss Velma, the administrator was trying to get her to reveal the whereabouts of Lund’s will.
“So Opal is out of a job,” Ruby finished. "The board fired her. What’s more, they are conferring with the county attorney to see whether she should be charged with a crime. Which means, I suppose, that she’ll never get another job in a nursing home.”
"Not necessarily,” Charlie said, in his best legal tone. "I seriously doubt that a charge will stick, given the tenuous nature of the evidence. The most the board can do is withhold a recommendation, and if a potential employer asks why, offer a discreet word of warning. And I do mean discreet. Anything else could open the Manor to a lawsuit.” "But what about justice?” Ruby demanded. "You don’t mean to tell me that the law is powerless to keep people from abusing other people! ”
"Justice is a big, sick bird,” Charlie said.
Ruby looked confused.
"An ill eagle,” I explained. “Old law school joke.” "Justice can't keep people from doing bad things,” Charlie said. "That's what cops are for.” He paused significantly, glancing at McQuaid. “Did you tell her? How’d she take it?”
"Tell me what?” I asked. "Take what?”
McQuaid stirred uncomfortably. "Well, I—”
"You better tell her,” Charlie cautioned, "before she reads it in the newspaper.”
"Reads what in the newspaper?” I asked.
McQuaid sucked in his breath, twitched his mouth, and finally said, "I’m replacing Bubba. As chief of police.” "Like hell!” I exclaimed.
"Only temporarily,” McQuaid soothed. "Until the Council finds another sucker. I mean, until they hire somebody.”
"Butyou can'tY' I said. "You’re disabled. You're handicapped. You’re — ”
"Just what the Council was looking for,” Charlie said with a grin. "Let Kerrville have its woman chief of police. Pecan Springs has found itself a chief in a wheelchair.” There was a long silence while I contemplated this news. "How long?” I asked finally.
McQuaid shrugged. “Not very. I told them they’d better get a move on. I've got a honeymoon coming up.” He grinned at me. "Who’s pushing the bride down the aisle?” "Forget that,” I returned. "Who gets to steer the groom?”
Charlie chuckled. "And just how are you two mobility- impaired lovers going to manage your honeymoon?” He eyed my traction rig humorously. "Are you taking that with you?”
“Oh, Lord,” I groaned. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
“That’s okay," Ruby said comfortingly. “You don’t have to wony about a single thing, China. I’ll handle all the details. We’ll have the wedding in the garden behind the shop, so there won’t be any doors to maneuver your wheelchMrs. through. We can invite a lot more people that way, too. And afterward, we’ll have the reception at—”
"No!” McQuaid and I roared, in concert.
"I’m just trying to make it fun for you,” Ruby said. "You don't need to get excited."
"Fun!” McQuaid said, in an irritable tone. "It sounds like we’re going to have to run away and get married, just to avoid the crowd.”
Charlie looked from one to the other of us with an amused quirk of his eyebrow. "Run, huh? Now, that I want to see.”
Resource**, References, and RecipesUntil a decade or so ago, the chile pepper belonged to the Southwest, and that’s where you had to go to find them. These days, however, you can buy many kinds of peppers, in many forms, all over the country. The Chile Pepper Book, by Carolyn Dille and Susan Belsinger, lists twenty-three different varieties, all widely available. The most common— Anaheim (mild), j
alapeno (very hot), serrano (very hot), and habanero (fiery)—may be found fresh or dried in your supermarket produce section. If you prefer mailorder shopping, Penzeys, Ltd., (P.O. Box 933, Muskego, WI 53150) will send you a catalog that lists a dozen or so different dried peppers (whole, crushed, and ground), with information about each. If you plan to grow your own, an excellent seed source is Shepherd’s Garden Seeds, 30 Irene St., Torrington, CT 06790. They carry peppers you’ve never heard of, described in mouthwatering (or eye-tearing) prose, with growing and harvesting tips and recipes, even. The Pepper Garden, by Dave DeWitt and Paul Bos- land, is a first-rate guide to growing peppers, with chapters on drymg, roasting, pickling, smoking, and freezing your crop, and a couple of dozen seed sources. They also tell you how to tie a rutra (a string of chiles), how to grind chile powder, and how to fend off the pests who prefer your peppers. If you would rather cultivate the inner chile, you can subscribe to Chile Pepper magazine (1-800-959- 5468). There you will find hot articles, reviews of hot books, lists of hot shops all over the country, and ads for products with names like Viper Venom, Maddem’n Hell Sauce, Habanero Hurricane, and Raging Passion. And if you’re thinking of getting into chiles in a big way, it’s Fiery Foodd magazine that you want (P.O. Box 4980, Albuquerque, NM 87196). With all these resources, a true chile- head is always cool.
But hot is healthy as well as tasty. Capsaicin, the chemical that makes you sweat, can also reduce joint pain and the pain of shingles and sore gums. If you have a cold, eating peppers clears your nasal passages and relieves the pain and pressure of clogged sinuses. Peppers have no fat, lots of fiber, and plenty of vitamin C and beta-carotene, not to mention quercetin, a phytochemical that has been shown to reduce the risk of some cancers.
Now, as to chili. There are plenty of great chili books out there. My personal favorites include Bill Bridges’ The Great Chili Book; The Chili Cookbook, by Norman Kolpas, and Jenny Kellner’s The All-American Chili Book: The Official Cookbook of the International Chili Society. But in case you can’t wait to start cookin’, here are three recipes, that may be of special interest to readers of Chile Death. The first recipe is named for the slow, lazy river that flows through the LBJ ranch near Johnson City, Texas, and is said to have been a favorite of Lyndon and Ladybird. (Pedemales, in Texan, is pronounced Pu/^-nal-is.) The second chili recipe is heretical, because it comes from Oklahoma and contains peanuts—the less said about it the better. The third is . . . well, you’ll see.
Pedernales Chili
lb ground lean beef
large onion, chopped
cloves garlic, minced 1 tsp ground oregano
tsp ground cumin
tbsp chili powder
#2 cans tomatoes 2 cups hot water salt to taste
Brown ground beef in heavy iron skillet. Add onion and garlic and cook 4—5 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and simmer one hour. When cool, skim fat. Better on the second day, when the flavors have mellowed. Serves eight.
Ruby's Aunt Harriet’s Peanut Chili, Oklahoma Style
V2 cup peanut oil 2 cups onion, chopped 5—6 cloves garlic, minced 2 lb ground beef 115 oz. can stewed tomatoes V2 cup strong black coffee % cup chopped roasted peanuts V2 small can tomato paste 2—4 tbsp chili powder 1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp ground cumin % cup whole roasted peanuts V4 cup chopped cilantro lA cup chopped green onions
Heat peanut oil in large pot, add onion and
garlic and saute until tender. Add ground beef and brown. Stir in tomatoes, coffee, chopped peanuts, tomato paste, chili powder, salt, and cumin. Simmer until thick (30 minutes, more or less). Stir in whole peanuts. At the table, pass cilantro and green onions to go on top, and extra peanut butter, in case anybody’s interested. Serves four.
Pokey Clendennen’s Mountain Oyster Chili
(Adapted from a recipe in Bill Bridges’ The Great American
Chili Book)
2 lb calf fries,0 washed, skinned, and diced butter or margarine 1 large onion, chopped 4 cloves garlic, minced
tbsp ground cumin
tbsp chili powder, to taste
1 15 oz. can stewed tomatoes 1 tsp salt
flour for thickening
In an iron skillet, cook the fries in butter or margarine for a couple of minutes. Add onion, garlic, and cumin and continue cooking until browned. Stir in chili powder and salt. Add stewed tomatoes, cover, and cook gently, stirring occasionally, for about two hours. If nec-
°Calf fries are the, um, ancillaiy appendage to a young steer’s sexual apparatus. If you suspect your guests of being squeamish, don't tell them what’s in this dish. The less they know, the better they’ll like it.
essaiy, add water. About ten minutes before you’re ready to serve, thicken with a flour and water paste. Serves four.
You will notice that none of the three previous recipes call for beans. For those of you who nuut mix beans with chiles, here is an acceptable way to do it:
Chile Bean Salad
1 15 oz. can pinto beans 1 15 oz. can kidney beans 1 15 oz. can garbanzo beans
cup chopped celery V2 cup chopped onion
Vs cup chopped green bell pepper Vs cup chopped red bell pepper Vs cup chopped yellow bell pepper Va cup coarsely chopped cilantro
Anaheim or poblano chiles, roasted, peeled, seeded, and coarsely chopped
Rinse and drain beans. Combine in a bowl with the rest of the ingredients. To dress, marinate for six hours in this dressing:
2 tbsp olive oil
Va cup red wine vinegar
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp chili powder, or to taste
1 tbsp minced fresh oregano (1 tsp dried)
V2 tsp ground cumin
• • •
In the Resources section of earlier books in this series, you may have read about Chinas Garden, the herbal quarterly published by China Bayles and her friends. That newsletter has been superceded by Partners in Crime, a newsletter published occasionally by Susan and Bill Albert, containing information about all of the Alberts' books. For the current issue oi Partners in Crime, and to put your name on the mailing list for forthcoming issues, send a one-time subscription fee of $3 to Partners in Crime, PO Box 1616, Bertram, TX 78605. You may also visit the Partners in Crime website, at http://www.mysteiypartners.com.
Chile Death Page 27
