by Holly Plum
“So, Mari,” Chrissy said changing the subject, “what were you doing in the judge’s tent just before Brandy keeled over anyway?”
“Who told you I was in the judge’s tent?” Mari asked, her heart racing.
“It’s all over town,” Chrissy responded. “I heard it from at least three customers that you were seen in the tent right before Brandy died, and that you had spoon-fed her a bite of salsa.”
“Okay, almost none of that is true,” Mari protested.
“I didn’t think it was.” Chrissy shrugged. “But you were there, weren’t you?”
Not seeing any way out of the question, Mari said, “I wasn’t actually in the tent when it happened. I went in for a few minutes to drop something off, and then I left. This was about half an hour before I found out Brandy had died.”
“What did you drop off?” Chrissy raised her eyebrows, but she already knew the answer.
Mari hadn’t wanted anyone to know that she had entered the Best Bite in Town competition. David leaned in to listen closer. Mari threw him a reproachful look.
“Do y’all promise you won’t tell anyone?” Mari glared at everyone in the room, including Mateo who was being uncomfortably silent.
“I promise,” David agreed.
“Me too,” Chrissy replied.
Mateo nodded in agreement.
“Fine." Mari took a deep breath. "I entered our secret family salsa recipe into the Best Bite in Town competition. I didn’t tell anyone because Dad would make me drop out.”
“I think Dad would change his tune pretty quickly if you won the thousand dollars,” David commented.
“I would hope so.” Mari sighed. “But it doesn’t matter now because the contest has been canceled.”
“It’s a matter of time before your day finds out anyway,” Chrissy said. “The word is all over town that you poisoned Brandy with the family salsa.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have entered that competition,” Mari muttered with a sick feeling in her stomach. “I had a feeling it would come back to bite me. I would never have guessed how much.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Mari didn’t hear much from her dad over the next few days. She took his silence to mean that he knew she had entered the contest without his knowledge and had heard the rumors that were spreading about the family and the restaurant. Mr. José Ramirez had a short temper and often avoided situations that made him more irritated. Perhaps he was giving himself time to cool off before confronting Mari?
Mari's brother David had kept his promise not to tell their father what she had done. But that didn’t stop David from telling Alex, who brought it up a couple of days later when they were working the lunch shift together.
“I know you probably didn’t kill Brandy,” Alex commented, “but it sure as heck is suspicious.”
“You don't have to tell me that,” Mari responded. “At this point, I’m surprised we still have customers. And I may never get a date in this town again.”
“Just don’t offer to make dinner for them,” Alex suggested.
Meanwhile, in the sunlit dining room, three policemen were just sitting down for lunch. As with most of Lito Bueno’s customers for the past three days, they discussed the death of Brandy Davos and the possible cancellation of the town's annual Chile Fest.
“The coroner’s report finally came back last night,” said Detective Price, who was eating a plate of chimichangas and Spanish rice. Mari busied herself at the front of the restaurant, trying not to look like she was eavesdropping. “Miss Davos was definitely poisoned. Extremely high concentrations of arsenic turned up in her body, enough to have killed her instantly.”
Mari froze where she stood. Arsenic in her salsa. Who would have done such a thing? Someone had purposefully poisoned Brandy Davos. And they had used Mari's food to do it.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Officer Penny, the detective's assistant, replied. She ate chicken burritos smothered in green chili sauce. “It seemed clear from the moment Brandy collapsed that foul play was involved. Heat stroke was certainly possible, but Brandy was stationed in a cool place, and had kept herself well-hydrated.”
“And nine times out of ten,” another officer added, “when a person drops dead after taking a bite of food, the food is to blame.”
Detective Price nodded soberly. “Once word gets out, this is going to have a devastating effect on the town. Chile Fest has already been postponed until next week, and there’s talk of ending it completely. And given that, a lot of crime in this town seem to involve local restaurants—”
“One in particular,” the officer interrupted.
"Yes," Detective Price agreed. "It’s only a matter of time until this place stops attracting tourists altogether.”
***
After the lunch rush, Mari brought a plate of Chile Rellenos with rice and beans into her dad’s office.
“Thank you,” Mr. Ramirez said, peeling back the warm tin foil with a white plastic fork. “I suppose you’ve heard the bad news?”
“There’s been so much bad news lately,” Mari answered, “you could be referring to any number of things.”
“The police believe Brandy Davos was murdered,” her father said. “She seems to have been eating some of our food just before she died.” Mari froze briefly, trying not to look as apprehensive as she felt. “I’m not going to chastise you for entering that competition without my knowledge. What’s done is done. But now we have to face the consequences.”
“I know.” Mari bowed her head, not knowing what else to say. Her father's unexpected kindness made her want to apologize, but she knew it was unnecessary.
“Besides, I know you’re not entirely to blame for every terrible thing that goes on around here,” he went on. “For example, I just learned from Mateo that the Lucky Noodle has been spreading nasty rumors. As you know, this is not the first time this has happened. Most likely Brandy’s death just gave them an excuse to do what they wanted to do in the first place.”
“What is the rumor?” Mari asked.
“Some made up a story about our chicken,” Mr. Ramirez said wearily. “Mr. Chun says our meats are so full of chemicals that Brandy Davos wasn't poisoned at all. She had a bad reaction to the chemicals in our mutant foods. He's been telling people we buy five-legged chickens and other weird crap.”
“That’s hilarious,” Mari responded. She cleared her throat. “But terrible. When is Mr. Chun going to give us a break? I mean, five-legged chickens? Surely, our customers don't believe that.”
Her dad nodded. “That’s not the best of it. Mr. Chun says we don’t use real beef in any of our dishes. He says Jia Chun personally witnessed you buying horse meat.”
“I don’t know what she is talking about," Mari responded. She told her dad about her visit to the Chile Fest a few nights ago, and how she had stumbled on Bubba Jones forking over money to the driver of a nondescript white van. Not wanting to accuse him of murder without solid evidence, Mari had kept her theories to herself.
"Oh yeah," José said, rolling his eyes. "I've seen that van before."
“So, at least I’m not crazy,” Mari responded. “Other people have seen this van too.”
“Other people see what they want to see.” Mr. Ramirez turned back to his accounts. “You see Bubba Jones trying to hush up a murder you think he committed. Until you figure out who did it, the world can’t go back to normal. Mr. Chun sees us buying illegal horse meat and selling it to our customers, all the while pretending it’s beef. If he succeeds in making people believe that then that would put us out of business.”
Mari didn’t like the implication that she and Mr. Chun were both bending reality to match their own agendas. At the same time, Mari had to admit that she really couldn’t make sense of the conversation she had overheard.
"Mr. Chun and I are nothing alike in this scenario," Mari clarified.
"I’m not saying that,” Mr. Ramirez went on. “Mr. Chun is horrible. He’s been trying to sabotage this r
estaurant from day one. He sent little boys here with squirrels hidden in their backpacks, which they set loose in the dining room. He let rats loose in our restaurant and then phoned the health inspector."
“Do you think he may have been the one who poisoned the salsa?” Mari threw the thought out there curious as to what her father would respond.
José shook his head. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Mr. Chun by competing with him for over twenty years, it’s that he doesn’t like to get his hands dirty. He gets others to do his bidding. But that doesn't mean he was responsible for the death of Brandy Davos.”
“True," Mari agreed. "He was with me most of the time."
“There you go. He might've had one of his minions poison Brandy for him, but that's not likely. That's too much of a risky move for the Lucky Noodle. Murder would end him. He loves his restaurant too much."
“There's still no excuse for the things he’s said about us in the last couple of days," Mari insisted. "He’s knowingly lying about us, and the coroner’s report is only going to confirm some of those lies in the minds of the public. Expect to see a significant drop in the number of customers by the end of this week.”
“It’s already starting,” Mr. Ramirez said. “Right now we have half the number of people in the dining room that we had at this hour three days ago.”
"Yeah, and most of them are cops," Mari pointed out.
“I asked them to come in.” Mr. Ramirez grinned for once. “I figured if people saw the police eating here, they would think our food must still be safe.”
“I just wish there was something we could do to make Mr. Chun shut his mouth.” Mari sighed. She kneaded her hands in agitation.
“The simple truth is, if we want to stop him we’ll have to stoop to his level,” José replied with a cold look in his eye. “We'll have to spread rumors about them too. Maybe even set animals loose in their restaurant. I’m sure we could find some. I’m sure there’d be people willing to help us.”
“Dad, you know we can’t play that game,” Mari reminded him. “For one, Mr. Chun will drag us into the mud with him if he ever finds out. And also, Ramirez's are better than that. We'll survive.”
CHAPTER SIX
Back in her apartment, Mari stared up at the rustic light fixtures and pondered all she had learned in the last few days. Despite what her dad had said, she wouldn’t have put it past Mr. Chun to find some way of killing a woman and pinning the blame on their family. Maybe he hadn’t done it himself, but he could have gotten someone else to do it. Someone could easily have slipped onto the grounds, maybe through the back flap of the tent, poisoned the salsa, and escaped before anyone noticed. Mari would have to keep interviewing fellow contestants, beginning with Katerina, to see if they had noticed anything unusual in regards to Mr. Chun.
If Mari's conversation with her dad had accomplished anything, it had forced her to admit that she didn’t know what had been going on between Bubba Jones and the man in the white van. She had been so desperate for an explanation that she had tried to force one in where it didn’t fit. Both men could have been talking about anything. Mari was determined to find out what Bubba was buying, but she was less sure than ever that solving that mystery would lead her to the killer of Brandy Davos.
The next morning when Mari pulled into Lito Bueno’s Mexican Restaurant to prepare for lunch, two surprises awaited her. The first was a red flyer on the front doors - a petition calling for the permanent cancellation of the town's annual Chile Fest. The second was a visit from Opal Tims, still in her all-white suit but now wearing bug-eyed sunglasses and a white wide-brimmed hat. Opal seemed to be going from store to store tearing down the petitions.
"Opal," Mari greeted her. "What brings you here?" But Mari had already guessed what was bugging Opal.
“I can't believe this,” Opal replied, as she sat in the cool dining room sipping lemon water through a straw. “They think they can just shut us down with a few measly flyers. Well, I'll show them that it won't be that easy. This town loves Chile Fest.”
“Who is trying to cancel it?” Mari asked, slipping into a chair on the opposite end of the table.
“A group of locals, I think,” Opal responded in a not-so-friendly voice. “There can’t be more than a few, and I guarantee the number of those who want the festival to continue is much larger.”
“I'm sorry to hear that,” said Mari did her best to sympathize, even though a murder was clearly more pertinent than a festival. “You bent over backward to postpone the festival after Brandy’s death. And now they want you to cancel it for the rest of the good?”
Opal shook her head. “It's horrible. Why punish the whole town?"
“I suppose people are afraid of something like this happening again,” Opal commented. “And the easiest way to do that is to make sure that my festival never happens again. Wouldn’t it be great if the world worked that way? If you could solve all your problems by petitioning to cancel whatever threatened you? It would make everything so much simpler.”
“It does seem like a step too far,” Mari agreed.
Opal lazily stirred the ice in her glass with a straw. “The world isn’t simple. I’m all for making concessions and taking extra precautions to make sure no one is ever poisoned again. Ramp up the security. Post guards in every tent. But I’m not going to cave under pressure, and I’m not going to back down from running something I care about. Not without a fight anyway.”
“I mean, I understand why people are upset,” Mari said. “Maybe all of this will change when the police find out who murdered Brandy?”
“I guess,” Opal grudgingly responded. “But the fact is that this town doesn’t have any traditions of its own. You go to the pioneer museum down the road and look around. Those people had hard lives, but they had a community. They had traditions that bound them together. We don’t have that, and I think the idea of having communal rituals in this day and age scares people. I think that’s what’s really driving this beyond someone being poisoned in a cook-off.”
Mari didn’t know how else to tell Opal that she thought people were perfectly right to be afraid that they might be poisoned. Opal didn’t seem to realize that sometimes fear is a legitimate response. If it had been up to her, the festival would’ve continued on schedule, and the cook-off would never have been canceled.
“I just think it’s a good idea to be sensitive to people’s feelings,” Mari explained.
“Whose side are you on?” Opal questioned her, with even more disdain.
"I prefer to remain neutral." Mari hoped that her answer was enough to satisfy her.
“I know some of the people behind this petition." Opal went on, ignoring Mari's answer but not shunning from her table either. "I know for a fact that Katerina Georgiou doesn’t care about Chile Fest. She hates me too. She always has.”
“Why does she hate you?” Mari asked.
Opal shrugged, keeping her mouth shut.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“What do you have against Opal Tims?” Mari asked Katerina Georgiou as they sat in the dining room of Athena Burger the following morning. Tabasco sat patiently at Mari's feet.
Katerina shrugged and lightly sloshed the glass of brandy she was drinking. It was only 10 AM. She reached into her shirt pocket to pull out a cigarette but then seemed to remember that she wasn’t allowed to smoke indoors. Not even in her own restaurant. She grudgingly putting the cigarette back. Rain fell lightly on the arched windows behind them and beat a subtle tune.
“How much do you want to know?” Katerina said in a brisk voice. “Look, I don’t like her all that much as a person, but that's not why I'm petitioning to end Chile Fest for good.”
Mari stared at her, as though encouraging her to go on. "Do you mind explaining?"
“Opal is rude,” Katerina went on. “Let’s just get that out of the way now. She’s boastful, narcissistic, and mentally unstable.”
“That’s news to me,” Mari responded. During the hour the
y had talked yesterday, Opal had come across as articulate and thoughtful.
“Opal is good at getting people to think she’s normal,” Katerina argued with an air of disgust. “Narcissists are like that. I have a cousin just like that too. That’s what they’re best at. Either that or Opal is a politician at heart.”
“Okay, let me ask you something.” Mari paused for a moment to collect her thoughts. “What did Opal do to you?”
“It’s not what she’s done to me. It’s what she's done to this whole community. You should have seen how she bullied her way into organizing the Chile Fest in the first place. City Council didn’t want a summer festival. They were adamant about it.”
“So she’s pushy,” said Mari agreed. “But some women are just pushy.”
“It wasn’t just that, honey.” Katerina shook her head, as though marveling at Mari’s naïveté. “Three members of the council later changed their minds out of nowhere. That means Opal got to them. I don't know how but she did. I tell you one thing. She didn't do it with her charm.”
“Ae you suggesting she blackmailed them or something?” Mari asked.
“I'm not saying she didn't.” Katerina touched her cigarette again. “Opal can be very persuasive. She has a small army of followers, most of them youngins' just out of high school. It is sad to watch.”
“So where are all of these followers of hers?” Mari questioned. “Why haven’t I seen them?”
“You have,” Katerina replied. “Who do you think set up tables at the festival? How else could it have been set up and taken down in a single day?”
Mari had to concede that the amount of work that had gone into setting up the festival, and then tearing it all down again on the same day, had been impressive.
“I don't want a dictator like her mixed up in community affairs,” Katerina continued, tapping her long purple fingernails against her shot glass which was now empty. “Chile Fest should be passed on to a new committee, or it should go away altogether.”
