The Great Chili Kill-Off

by Livia J. Washburn

  They reached the big tent, which was open on the sides. Nothing was going on in there tonight, so it was empty, but enough light penetrated into it from town and from the generator-powered lamps burning in the encampment for Phyllis to make out a number of tables set up at one end. At the other end was a raised stage where the musical acts would perform. Right in front of the stage was an open area, no doubt for dancing, and then rows of folding chairs where people could sit and watch and listen to the performances.

  A smaller tent to one side had its side walls lowered. A sign over the door read OFFICE. McKayla Carson stood in front of it, talking to an older man who was tall, burly, and mostly bald. He didn’t look happy and kept shaking his head. Hiram Boudreau had mentioned McKayla’s father, and Phyllis wondered if that was who the man was. Then she and her companions had moved on past the office tent without either McKayla or the man she was talking to seeming to notice them.

  A similar tent had a sign on it that read SECURITY. A tall, brown-haired young man in brown uniform pants and tan uniform shirt stood there listening to a voice crackling over a walkie-talkie. After a moment the voice stopped and the officer keyed the microphone to say, “All right, Ken, if it starts to look like you can’t handle it, let me know and I’ll be right there.”

  “Trouble, Deputy?” Josh asked, evidently on the look-out for a possible story.

  “It’s Constable,” the uniformed man replied as he lowered the walkie-talkie. Phyllis noted that he had a Taser clipped to his belt but wasn’t carrying a gun as far as she could see. He went on, “And no offense, sir, but that’s not really any of your business.”

  “I’m not a civilian,” Josh said. “I’m a member of the press. Josh Green, associate producer of Inside Beat.”

  The constable didn’t appear to be impressed. “Just move along, folks,” he said. “Enjoy your stay in Cactus Bluff. There’s nothing to be concerned about.”

  The walkie-talkie crackled again, and this time Phyllis could make out the words as the man on the other end said in an excited voice, “Chuck, you better get over here! Looks like there’s gonna be a fight, and it could turn into a real brawl!”

  The constable made a face and lifted the walkie-talkie to his mouth. “On my way, Ken,” he snapped. Then he hurried over to the Jeep Phyllis had noticed earlier, which was now parked beside the Security tent, and got in. Gravel rasped and flew under the tires as the constable backed up, turned, and headed for Cactus Bluff’s small downtown area.

  “I wonder what that was about,” Josh said as he looked after the vehicle.

  “There’s already a bunch of folks here, even though there’ll be more comin’ in tomorrow,” Sam said. “Put a crowd together, throw in enough high spirits and booze, and there’s bound to be a few scrapes. I suspect that’s all that’s goin’ on.”

  “I ought to check it out anyway. It’s my duty as a newsman. I just wish I knew where Nick got off to. Felicity gave him the evening off, since we weren’t expecting to do any interviews until tomorrow.”

  “He has a cell phone, doesn’t he?” Carolyn said. “Why don’t you just call him?”

  Josh looked dubious and said, “Nick doesn’t like to be disturbed when he’s not supposed to be working. I mean, sure, I’d call him if it was an emergency. I am the producer, after all. Well, associate producer. But technically, I am his boss . . .”

  “We’re headin’ toward town anyway,” Sam said as he clapped a hand on Josh’s shoulder. “If we see something that looks like a big story, you can call him then. If it doesn’t amount to anything, then you won’t have disturbed him for no reason.”

  “Yeah, that’ll work,” Josh said. The eagerness with which he accepted the suggestion told Phyllis he was grateful to Sam for helping him save face. The five of them started on toward town, following the same gravel road the constable had taken in his Jeep.

  As night had fallen, a number of booths selling food and souvenirs had opened up along the side of the paved road at the edge of town. It reminded Phyllis of a carnival as she saw people hawking popcorn, cotton candy, nachos, and hot dogs. At one booth the owner was spinning up funnel cakes. Eve pointed to it and said, “I’ll bet those aren’t nearly as good as the ones you used to make, Phyllis.”

  “Probably not,” Carolyn agreed, “but I suspect Phyllis doesn’t have very good memories of those funnel cakes she made for the State Fair a few years ago.”

  The incident Carolyn referred to was yet another instance when murder had reared its ugly head in an unlikely place. Phyllis didn’t try to block the affair from her mind or anything like that, but she didn’t like to dwell on it, either.

  To lighten the mood, she said, “It’s been a while since I made any funnel cakes. Maybe I’ll do that when we get home.”

  “Funnel cakes sound good,” Josh said. “I might stop and get some of those on the way back. Right now I want to find out why that guy had to call in the constable. Who do you think he was? Do they have deputy constables?”

  “We’ll find out,” Sam said. He pointed along the street toward an old-fashioned rock building with a red slate roof. The constable’s Jeep was parked beside it, along with quite a few other cars, pickups, and SUVs. “Looks like a beer joint.”

  They walked past the other booths. Phyllis saw cheap Indian jewelry for sale, along with rugs, paintings on velvet, and what were probably bootleg DVDs and computer games.

  As they approached their destination, the tavern’s front door flew open and several men spilled through it, tangled up in a fistfight. Punches flew back and forth, most of them missing. Some of the men began wrestling and wound up on the ground, rolling around. Phyllis and the others stopped in their tracks to watch the brawl. She didn’t see the constable anywhere and wondered where he was.

  Then another figure rushed out the door, this one wearing high heels, tight jeans, and a silk blouse. She jumped on the back of one of the combatants, locked an arm around the man’s neck, and started punching at him with her other hand.

  “Holy cow!” Josh yelled. “That’s Felicity!”

  Chapter 5

  Josh ran toward the fighters. Sam would have started after him, but Phyllis caught hold of his arm and said, “Sam, you’re too old to get mixed up in a bar brawl.”

  Sam looked torn. Phyllis believed he knew she was right, but at the same time he wanted to pitch in and help Josh. He confirmed that by saying, “I don’t want that kid to get hurt.”

  “He won’t be,” Phyllis said. “Here comes the law.”

  The constable charged out of the tavern, followed by another uniformed officer. The constable was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, but that didn’t seem to slow him down any as he grabbed a couple of the fighters and shoved them apart. The other officer, a heavyset older man with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, did likewise, wading into the brawl and breaking it up as best he could.

  The man whose back Felicity had jumped onto was spinning around, trying to dislodge her. He succeeded just as Josh reached them. Felicity let out a cry of alarm as she lost her grip and flew backward. Josh was there to catch her, but the collision knocked him backward and made him lose his balance. He fell over, landing on his back with Felicity sprawled on top of him. His arms were around her, and he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to let her go.

  “Break it up, break it up!” the constable shouted. “I’m going to arrest all of you if you don’t stop it!”

  Eve tugged on Phyllis’s sleeve and said, “There’s that man Hammersmith.”

  It was true. Joe D. Hammersmith was lying on the ground, looking slightly dazed. Phyllis realized that the man Felicity had attacked was the one who knocked Hammersmith down a second before the TV personality jumped on his back. Hammersmith must have made a good impression on Felicity for her to come to his defense like that.

  The lawmen were succeeding in stopping the fight. They were aided by other patrons of the bar who had come out to grab their friends and hold them back. The constable raised his
hands and said, “Everybody just settle down, blast it!”

  Hiram Boudreau appeared, no doubt drawn by the commotion, and asked the constable, “What happened here, Chuck?”

  “I haven’t had a chance to get all the details yet,” Chuck replied, “but you know how these things get started, Mayor. Somebody takes offense at something—it doesn’t really matter what—and then throws a punch, and drinks get spilled, and before you know it everybody’s trying to beat up everybody else.”

  “Well, you’ll see to it that order’s restored, right?”

  “It just about is.” Chuck looked around with a grim expression on his blood-streaked face. “I just have to figure out who’s going to jail.”

  Boudreau’s hands fluttered as he made little patting motions. “Oh, now, we don’t have to throw anybody in jail, do we? You know things get a mite high-spirited durin’ the cook-off, but I’m sure none o’ these fellas meant any real harm.”

  Phyllis understood Boudreau’s reaction. A bunch of arrests would be bad for the cook-off’s reputation. Bad for business. Chuck frowned, though, and looked like he wasn’t disposed toward letting the troublemakers off the hook.

  Felicity distracted everyone from that confrontation by yelping, “Damn it, Josh, let me up!”

  Josh was still lying on his back where he had fallen, like an overturned turtle. Only it was Felicity’s arms and legs that waved in the air, not his. He let go of her and she rolled off of him, then struggled to her feet and furiously brushed off her jeans. Her expression said that she was trying to maintain at least a shred of dignity, but it wasn’t easy.

  Joe D. Hammersmith had made it to hands and knees. Felicity stepped over and took his arm to help him up. He had a bruise forming on his jaw where he’d been punched, but that didn’t stop him from grinning as he said, “You leaped into the fray like a valkyrie, my dear!”

  Felicity still looked disgusted. “Yeah, well, if the defending champion can’t cook because he’s in the hospital, the story’s not as good. Why did that guy come over and attack you like that, anyway? That started the whole thing!”

  The constable said, “I’d like to hear the answer to that, too.”

  The man Felicity had jumped on pointed a finger at Hammersmith and said in a loud, angry voice, “I’ll tell you why I went after this skunk! He’s a no-good card cheat! He took eight hundred dollars off me in a crooked poker game at last year’s cook-off. I told him earlier that he’d better pay up, and if he didn’t, the next time I saw him we were goin’ to Fist City! He didn’t pay, so I figured I’d take it out of his hide.”

  “That’s a lie,” Hammersmith said as he scowled at the man. “A damnable lie. You’re just a sore loser, Porter, and that’s all it amounts to.”

  Porter clenched his fists and started to take a step toward Hammersmith, but the constable moved between them.

  “So this fight started over a gambling debt?” Chuck said.

  “No debt,” Hammersmith said with a sneer. “I beat him fair and square. Just like my Hammersmith Deluxe beats his watery, pathetic excuse for chili year after year.”

  This time the other officer had to grab Porter from behind to hold him back. Evidently insulting a man’s chili was worse than winning hundreds of dollars from him in a poker game, Phyllis thought.

  “So Porter went after you, and the fight spread from there?” Chuck said to Hammersmith.

  “That’s right. Lock him up, Constable. I want him charged with assault!”

  “Hold on, hold on,” Boudreau said quickly. “If Porter’s behind bars, he can’t take part in the cook-off. We need a full field o’ chili cooks, Chuck.” He turned to Hammersmith. “Surely you understand that better’n anybody else, Joe D.”

  “He’s afraid of me,” Porter ranted before Hammersmith could say anything. “He’s scared I’ll beat him this year! That’s why he wants me locked up!”

  Hammersmith’s jaw jutted out defiantly. “Afraid of you and that swill you call chili? Ha!” He flapped a hand. “Forget it. I’m not pressing charges. And I’m not giving back that eight hundred dollars I won fair and square.”

  Chuck said, “I could arrest all of you for disturbing the peace whether anybody presses charges or not.” He pointed to the cut on his forehead. “That’s all the evidence I need, right there.”

  “No need to be hasty—” Boudreau began.

  Chuck blew out a disgusted breath. “All right, all right. We’ll forget the whole thing . . . this time. You should get the word around, though, Mayor, that everything had better stay peaceful for the rest of the weekend. I don’t want any more of these ruckuses!”

  “You betcha,” Boudreau answered without hesitation. He looked at the other officer. “We’ll see to it, won’t we, Ken?”

  “Sure, boss,” the man said. Phyllis could see now that the uniform he wore was that of a hired security company, not the sheriff’s department or the state troopers. He turned to the crowd, waved his arms, and went on, “Break it up, break it up! Fun’s over! Everybody go on about your business!”

  Chuck turned to Hammersmith and asked, “Is anybody else nursing a grudge against you?”

  “Certainly not. As the perennial champion, I’m a beloved figure at these get-togethers. Of course, I can’t rule out jealousy on the part of the losers who go down to defeat every year.”

  Chuck just snorted at that and turned away.

  Sam put a hand on Josh’s shoulder and asked, “You all right, son?”

  “Yeah, I . . . I’m fine. It’s Felicity I’m worried about.”

  “Don’t worry about me,” she snapped. “I’m not hurt.” Grudgingly, she added, “Thanks for being there to break my fall, I guess.”

  Josh’s face lit up like the sun. “Oh, gee, I . . . I’m just glad I could help—”

  “But don’t think I didn’t notice that you were trying to cop a feel while you were at it.”

  His eyes widened and his face turned red. “What? I never—”

  Felicity turned away dismissively and asked Hammersmith, “So, do you get in fights like this all the time?”

  Sam drawled, “Second one tonight.”

  Hammersmith glared at him for a second, then said, “Both misunderstandings, I assure you.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t buy that about you being a beloved figure,” Felicity said. “Nobody likes someone who wins all the time.”

  “I just do my best,” Hammersmith said with what struck Phyllis as false modesty. “It’s the judges who decide who wins.”

  “I suppose. I’ll still want to get an on-camera interview with you.”

  Hammersmith nodded toward the tavern. “We can go back in and discuss it over some more drinks. There won’t be any more trouble.”

  “No, that’s all right. I’ll find you in the morning and we’ll set something up. It’s been a long day.”

  “You’re sure?” Hammersmith was nothing if not persistent.

  Josh spoke up. “The lady said no.”

  “I don’t need you to act chivalrous,” Felicity said. “Let’s go.”

  She started off toward the encampment. Josh hurried after her.

  Carolyn scowled after them and said, “She treats that young man shamefully.”

  “And yet he still looks at her as if she were the sun, the moon, and the stars all wrapped up in one package,” Eve said. “There’s no fathoming the mystery of the human heart.”

  Carolyn snorted. “Spoken like an English teacher. He’s not thinking with his heart.”

  Phyllis said, “You might be surprised.”

  She looked around and saw something that took her slightly by surprise. McKayla Carson had come up and was using a handkerchief to try to wipe some of the blood off Constable Chuck’s face. She was standing pretty close to him while she did that, and the young lawman looked a little uncomfortable. He probably knew that she was underage, as Boudreau had mentioned earlier. But he didn’t take the handkerchief and put some distance between them, Phyllis noticed. She loo
ked around and saw no sign of the balding older man who had been talking to McKayla earlier.

  Now that the fight was over, they moved on up the street, along with the hundreds of other people who were in Cactus Bluff tonight. Now that she had a better chance to look around, Phyllis saw that in addition to Boudreau’s Market and the Boudreau Hotel, the town’s businesses also included Boudreau’s Café, Boudreau’s Farm and Ranch Supply, Boudreau’s Propane and Propane Accessories, Boudreau’s Garage, and the Cactus Bluff Star, Hiram Boudreau, Publisher.

  “He really does own the whole town, doesn’t he?” she said.

  “Appears he does,” Sam said.

  “Where did he get his money?”

  “Couldn’t tell you. I never looked the fella up, except for the little bit they’ve got about him on the website where you sign up for the chili cook-off.” Sam pointed to Boudreau’s Café. “Why don’t we go in there and see if they’ve got any pie left?”

  “We already ate supper,” Carolyn pointed out.

  “Yeah, but that was hours ago. A piece of pie in the evening doesn’t really count, anyway.”

  Phyllis smiled and said, “How do you figure that?”

  “Well, if it’s fruit pie, then it’s healthy, right?”

  “We’ve had this discussion before. You’re not going to win it.”

  “I don’t care about winnin’, as long as I get pie.”

  Carolyn said, “Well, I’m not going to eat anything this late, because I won’t sleep well if I do. And I’m sure they don’t have anything gluten-free. But don’t let that stop you.”

  They went into the café, which was busy even though the supper rush was over by now. The tables had old-fashioned red-and-white-checked tablecloths on them, and they were all occupied except for a couple. Sam pointed to one of the empty tables and led the way across the crowded room, past the counter where more customers sat on stools with red naugahyde seats. Phyllis thought the place would have looked pretty much the same if they had walked in here in 1957. The intervening sixty years hadn’t caught up to Cactus Bluff in some ways.