The 27-Ingredient Chili Con Carne Murders: A Eugenia Potter Mystery

by Nancy Pickard

  She picked up her toast, took a bite, and sighed again. It wasn’t like her to feel melancholy. But she still greatly missed Sindhu, her noble weimaraner, so cruelly murdered some time ago, following the annual baked bean supper. She missed Harvard Northcutt and Cole and Regina Cogswell, too, on days like this. Once upon a time, she would have been able to walk down to Harvard’s cabin to share coffee and wonderful conversation with him, or meander in the rain down to the Cogswells’, where she’d be warmed by sunny smiles from both Coley and his beloved Regina. Small comfort that all three of those human friends had been older than she when they died—like Sindhu, they died too young, and too soon, and it was small comfort to recall the part she’d played in revealing the identity of their killer. She missed them, and others, and still resented very much that she never had the chance to say good-bye to any of them.

  “If only we knew ahead of time,” she mused. “But if we knew, would we feel worse because we couldn’t keep it from happening?”

  Mrs. Potter caught herself woolgathering—“and in the worst, maudlin way again!”—and jerked her attention back to the stove, to check that the soup was simmering nicely without boiling over.

  It was then, ten minutes before the soup was cooked, that the telephone rang, changing first her day and then her life, and bringing into her cottage the bad news that seemed at first like very good news to Mrs. Potter.

  CHAPTER 2

  Mrs. Potter grabbed the telephone as eagerly as if it were a door she might fling open to admit a welcome visitor. “Patrona?”

  “Ricardo! Buenos días. Cómo estás tú?”

  She recognized instantly and with great affection the deep, melodious voice of Ricardo Ortega, her ranch manager of nearly twenty years. Patrona or la patrona were the Spanish honorifics by which she was known at Las Palomas. They were the graceful, respectful Latin equivalent of “boss,” or, as the feminizing a at the end of the word declared, “boss lady.” Mrs. Potter couldn’t even imagine that brash phrase leaving Ricardo’s mouth. Lew Potter, her late husband, had been el patrón.

  In response to her question, Ricardo declared himself well, and he inquired politely as to her health. Those amenities covered, he commenced to apologize for “bothering her.” It wasn’t their appointed time for his semiweekly ranch reports.

  “You’re not bothering me at all, Ricardo, quite the opposite. I’m delighted to hear from you. I’m just sitting here with a cup of tea, waiting for some soup to boil, and feeling useless. Now that you’ve called, I’ll be able to convince myself that we’ve conducted ranch business and that I’ve actually accomplished something worthwhile with my day. Fire away. What’s happening, Ricardo? How are Juanita and Linda, and Bandy and Ken?” And, she wanted to ask but managed to restrain herself from adding, everybody else in the valley?

  The “valley” was Wind Valley, a magnificent expanse of rolling prairie in the middle of several mountain ranges in the high Sonoran Desert north of Mexico. Her ranch, Las Palomas—which meant “the doves”—consisted of fifteen thousand beautiful (at least to her) acres hard against the mountains at the eastern border of the valley. Juanita was Ricardo’s wife of nearly forty years, mother of their five children, grandmother to their nine grandchildren. She was also Mrs. Potter’s dear old friend and helpmate with the cooking and cleaning at the ranch. Linda was Linda Scarritt, their eldest grandchild who was living with them and working at the ranch in the year between high school graduation and college. Ken was Ken Ryerson, who cowboyed part-time for Mrs. Potter and Ricardo. And Bandy Esposito was the old man of the valley, the one-time illegal alien who’d worked at Las Palomas since long before the Potters bought the ranch.

  “We have a situation down here that needs your attention.” Ricardo spoke with his customary ease and confidence. “I’ll explain later.” What that meant, she knew from long, frustrating experience, was that he couldn’t discuss it over the phone. The ranch was still on a party line, which seemed to Mrs. Potter’s city friends akin to saying she raised dinosaurs down there in Arizona. “I know this is an imposition on you, patrona, but could you come back sooner than you planned?”

  “I imagine so. When do you need me?”

  “Mañana.”

  “Tomorrow?” While her voice expressed disbelief, her mind raced over what it would take for her to accomplish the impossible. Good gracious, she’d have to call her guests, cancel tomorrow’s dinner, get her local couple over here to the cottage to clean and close it up for her, change her tickets, pack her bags, ask somebody to drive her to the airport in Bangor.…

  “Ricardo, do you know what you’re asking? Do you realize you could probably buy a new bull for what the airlines will charge me for this?”

  “Lo siento mucho, patrona.”

  “Well, you don’t sound very sorry.”

  He laughingly suggested, “You may dock my pay for it.”

  “As our grandchildren would say, right.”

  “No, I believe they’d say, yeah, right.”

  They snickered together over that, two doting grandparents, enamored of their grandkids. There was nothing, Mrs. Potter thought later, nothing in Ricardo’s words or manner to indicate real trouble or serious concern. There was only this highly remarkable request of his: for her to come home now. But he asked it so calmly that there was no hint, no hint at all … Later, she would remind herself that one of the secrets of Ricardo’s magic was that he always appeared to be equal to any occasion. If he ever felt insecure, it never showed; always he displayed a patriarchal self-confidence that was balanced by his modesty and good nature. There was no way, she would try to comfort herself later, no possible way that she could have suspected …

  Of course, in the end she acquiesced and promised him she’d come, although she did attempt to worm information out of him first.

  “Juanita is all right, isn’t she?”

  “Of course, patrona. You know vinegar never spoils.”

  “I’ll tell your wife you said that, Ricardo. And Linda?”

  “Muy bien. Working hard.”

  “Ken? Bandy?”

  “They’re well. Not working as hard as Linda.”

  “They’re not your granddaughter, either.”

  He teased her a bit too. “The cattle are fine. The fences are well. The barns are in good health. Your house sends its regards. The valley misses you. And one more thing,” he said, tossing it off casually, “I have taken the liberty of calling a meeting, at your house, for tomorrow night, patrona. There will be the McHenrys and the Amorys, Charlie Watt, Che Thomas, the Steinbachs. Eleven or twelve of us in all.”

  Mrs. Potter could hardly believe what she was hearing. “Ricardo, I’m speechless, although obviously not entirely so. You got the Amorys and the Steinbachs to agree to meet at the same place at the same time? How ever did you manage that?”

  “I had a talk with Gallway Steinbach. Played Dutch uncle, you might say. Or Mexican uncle, I guess.” He chuckled. “Told him the whole valley knows he’s fooling around with Kathy Amory, and that she’s not only too young for him, she’s also too married, and that it’s a rotten way to behave toward Lorraine and Walt, and that he is making an old fool of himself, and he’d better put a stop to it. Shook him up so badly, he agreed to come to any meeting I asked him to.”

  “Well, don’t mince words, Ricardo.”

  Mrs. Potter shook her head in wonder over her ranch manager’s ability to tell difficult people—like Gallway Steinbach—difficult things. She knew perfectly well that he’d phrased it much more tactfully and sensitively than he’d just implied to her. Lew Potter had used to joke that if FDR had only had Ricardo Ortega in his cabinet, the world might have avoided the war. (When Mrs. Potter and her contemporaries spoke of “the war,” they meant World War II.) But there were times when Mrs. Potter wondered if Ricardo took his role as valley patriarch a bit too seriously. “Sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong,” was how his wife, Juanita, often put it. “It’s going to get that man in trou
ble one day!”

  The people he had asked to the meeting were her neighbors and, for the most part, her friends. Most them were part-time ranchers like herself, having purchased their land for investment or “hobby” reasons. Their land abutted hers at various angles.

  At the northeast corner of Las Palomas and closest to Tucson were Kathy and Walt Amory, the attractive young couple who owned Saguaro Ranch, which was named for its rare fan-shaped saguaro cacti, known as “crested” saguaro. Walt and Kathy owned a computer software company in southern California. It was Kathy who was, for reasons nobody in the valley could fathom, flirting with scandal by flirting with another neighbor of Mrs. Potter’s, Gallway Steinbach. And that wasn’t the only problem Walt Amory had, as Mrs. Potter happened to know from a very good source: Ricardo. Ricardo was chairman of the board of a small bank in Nogales where Walt Amory had recently applied for a refinancing loan for his ranch. “He won’t get it,” was how Ricardo had put it, “at least, not if my opinion counts for anything. I feel real sorry for Walt and Kathy, but they got in over their young heads when they bought that ranch and they can’t expect our little bank to bail them out. We’re probably their last resort. They should have stuck to computers.” Ricardo and Mrs. Potter had shared a rueful smile when he said that, for although Ricardo ran Las Palomas in the black, they both knew what a struggle it was in some years, even for the best of ranchers, which he was. It was nearly impossible, they knew, for naive youngsters like the Amorys to make a go of it. “Still,” Ricardo had said sympathetically, “it’s sure a hard way for them to learn one of life’s little lessons.”

  Over the fence to the north of Las Palomas, and just east of the Amorys, were Marjorie and Reynolds McHenry. They were a reclusive elderly British couple who owned Highlands Ranch, the biggest spread in the valley. Marj and Rey were rumored to be descended from minor British royalty, and it was said that they’d moved to the U.S. to avoid regressive taxes in England. They were known for bankrolling right-wing politicians, and not only in the United States, it was suspected by people in the valley. Nobody really knew what went on behind the electrified fences and the guarded gates at Highlands Ranch. For Ricardo to get them to agree to come out from behind their elaborate security system was something of a coup in itself—especially as he often said publicly that he would oppose any politician the McHenrys backed for any elected office, anywhere in “his” valley, county, or state. And in that part of Arizona, Ricardo Ortega’s word carried substantial weight. If he said to vote yes or no, there were people who’d pull the lever without even looking at the issue or the candidate, but merely on Ricardo’s say-so.

  There was Bureau of Land Management acreage directly to the east of Las Palomas, beyond the Rimstone Mountains. And then, moving on to the southeast, was Charlie Watt’s place. Its name, Section Ranch, was as plain and practical as the man who owned it, and a total contrast to the fancy dude ranch that adjoined it to the south, toward Mexico. That was the C Lazy U, which was owned and operated by Mrs. Potter’s good friend, seventy-year-old Che Thomas. Che was such a savvy businesswoman, at least according to Ricardo, that she had no trouble getting loans whenever she wanted them. “What I’d like to know, though,” he often said, “is where Che gets the money to go gallivanting around the globe like she does.” Che, who’d grown up in the valley a few years ahead of Charlie Watt and Ricardo, was quite the glamorous world traveler now.

  On around to the west were the Steinbachs, sweet, self-effacing little Lorraine, and Gallway (whom Lew Potter used to refer to as “Gallstones,” because Lew always said he “had a lot of gall”—like chasing another man’s wife, as rumor had it), who owned the Lost Dutchman Ranch, named for a legendary gold mine. Gallway was the retired comptroller of a major petroleum company; Lorraine had raised their five children, none of whom ever seemed to make it out to Arizona to visit their parents very often.

  That made eight people, with Ricardo and Mrs. Potter making it ten. She wondered, briefly, who the eleventh person was? Or did he say twelve? But she was more immediately concerned with the amazing and unprecedented fact that her ranch manager, whom she trusted possibly above all other people on the face of the earth, had set up a meeting of her neighbors, in her home, without even her by-your-leave. Mrs. Potter thought: if anybody else had done it, Ricardo himself would call it wildly presumptuous!

  “What in the world’s gotten into you, Ricardo?”

  “You read Agatha Christie, don’t you, patrona?”

  “What? I read what?”

  “Mysteries. Aren’t you a great mystery reader?”

  “Yes, but what does that have to do with—”

  “Usual flight time?”

  “Probably.” She answered his question since he didn’t seem at all inclined to answer any of hers. He seemed, in spite of what he had hinted was some sort of serious situation, almost amused, even a little tickled by his own cleverness, if that’s what it was, and by her surprise. “I’ll call if it changes.”

  “Hasta mañana.”

  Until tomorrow.

  “I guess so,” she replied with a touch of asperity. “But I’ll tell you this, Ricardo—there is not enough time until tomorrow.” Constrained by his secrecy and by the blasted party line, she couldn’t think of anything else to say except adios, but she made sure she slipped that in. She never let anybody leave her without a farewell, not anymore, not after all the people to whom she hadn’t had a chance to say good-bye. “Con cuidado,” she added impulsively. Take care.

  “Y tú,” Ricardo replied.

  And you.

  Mrs. Potter hung up the telephone, and then stood for a moment staring out her kitchen window. Finally, she shrugged and smiled. She trusted Ricardo Ortega’s word implicitly. He was such a fine man, so highly regarded in the valley. She considered it a point in her favor that he clearly felt an affection for his employer that was equal to hers for him and Juanita. If all else failed, she sometimes joked to her children, when the Potter family faced St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, they could all claim, “Yes, but Ricardo liked me!”

  If he asked her to return home, she would do it.

  If he felt the need to call a meeting in her home, she would willingly open her door to her neighbors.

  And the truth was, he didn’t even need a good excuse.

  She smiled again, this time at the rain outside.

  Bad news might be awaiting her at the Nogales airport tomorrow, but for now she felt as if she had been given wonderfully good news, which was that she had an excuse to go … home.

  It was then that she looked over at the soup, and thought of the salsa and corn chips she had planned to serve tomorrow night. She finally realized what was especially odd about her menu: it belonged in Arizona, just as she did. Cilantro and cumin were definitely not the seasonings for a proper pot of Boston baked beans or clam chowder!

  “Gracias, Ricardo.” Mrs. Potter moved briskly into action to clean up her kitchen. Her shoulder felt much better now, and miraculously, the ache seemed to have left her finger. “Muchas, muchas gracias, mi amigo.”

  When Mrs. Potter migrated every year from her childhood home in Iowa, then down to the ranch, and then up to Northcutt’s Harbor, she liked to cook and serve the local fare. That might mean corn on the cob, fried chicken (dipped in milk and battered either in biscuit mix or in flour with a pretty heavy sprinkling of paprika), and tall icy glasses of lemonade (with sprigs of fresh mint plucked from her herb garden) in Iowa. It called for blueberry pancakes, oyster stew, and boiled lobsters in Maine (not all at the same meal, of course). And it certainly dictated guacamole and chips and salty margaritas and chili con carne in Arizona. Yet here she was, one month into her wanderings from daughter to daughter to son, from one old friend to another, and she had been fixing the best soup in Arizona … but in Maine.

  “Go home, old dear,” she advised herself as she swept the vegetable leavings from her cutting board into the sink and washed them down the disposal. “And just as Ricardo
suggested, the sooner, the better.”

  Whatever had possessed her, she wondered now, to break her own habits and to turn herself into a nomad at this time of the year? This was a time when she was usually happily ensconced at the ranch, watching the winter slip away from the high desert while spring, in all its lovely, delicate hues and fragrances, tiptoed slowly, quietly into the landscape, gliding ever farther north from Mexico as the days lengthened into summer.

  Mrs. Potter suspected that she knew what had driven her out of her beloved ranch house: an unaccustomed restlessness, and a strange desire to snap—as if it were a thin twig—the long-established routines of the seasons of her life. Clearly, that twig was proving tough to break; it refused to snap clear through, as presently proved by her overwhelming desire to go home.

  “That’s what’s been wrong with me,” she diagnosed.

  No wonder she’d been moping about the rain. It was Arizona sunshine she craved. And was it any surprise she felt sluggish and slow? She missed her crisp mountain air. Now she understood her own melancholy. She was homesick, just like a kid.

  Mrs. Potter gazed lovingly around her cottage.

  Yes. But Sindhu was gone. And this wasn’t home.

  Without spilling a drop, she poured the soup into a tureen to cool. She’d refrigerate it tonight, then give it away before she left in the morning.

  “Perhaps I’ll make another batch when I get home.”

  She broke into song, substituting a word for “California”: “Arizona, here I come!”

  CHAPTER 3

  4:50 A.M., Sunday, May 4

  Las Palomas Ranch, Arizona

  Linda loosened her grip on Taco’s reins, allowing her beloved horse to pick his own way over the sharp pebbles, between the boulders and dark mounds of thorny ocotillo shrubs. She winced at the noise of their passage through the bottom of the canyon at the base of the steep mountains that rose on either side. It seemed to her that Taco’s hoofs beat like drumsticks against the skin of the earth.